Chapter 100 - I Shall Take Care Of This (1/2)

Impossible to kill? That made absolutely no sense. Every man was mortal.

”What do you mean, Mother?” Sigmund asked.

She sighed heavily and told him the truth. Alpheus was actually the son of the leader of the extinct Kanta clan. The king tried to kill him as a baby and it did not work. Multiple times he tried to slash him with a sword and the blows always glanced right off of him.

Perplexed, he ended up taking the infant back to the palace with him to look into why this had happened further. A book about the foundation of the Kanta clan mentioned a legend that was so old it had been forgotten even by the Kanta themselves. The clan leader had the protection of the mountain spirits; until a successor was born, he could not die.

The king felt there was no other choice than to raise the boy to be utterly useless, never knowing of his heritage. The clan would not be able to revitalize and he would go through life without being any the wiser about his power.

The child she had given birth to was stillborn so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to keep him under their noses and prevent him from amounting to anything. The queen finished her explanation with a weary sigh but Sigmund was stunned.

Stunned and skeptical. His mother had always been a no-nonsense kind of woman so he didn't believe she would believe something like that without proof.

There was no magic in this world; it was merely legend. Stories told to children. Besides, if the Kanta had some sort of divine protection how could they have been wiped out so easily?

”Mother…did you see this for yourself?” he asked.

”Of course I did! I would not take such a ridiculous story at face value,” she said vehemently. ”I tried a variety of tests. Not feeding him for days at a time as an infant. Poisoning him as a toddler. I never wanted that abomination in my house and I was forced to pretend he was a replacement for the precious son I lost!”

”When he was four years old he fell twenty feet out of a tree and landed on his neck. He was covered in scratches but otherwise perfectly fine. It was then that I was sure I was dealing with a monster. Did you truly never wonder why we treated him the way that we did?”

No, he had not. He hadn't cared. All of his siblings were threats to his glorious future as king so he didn't like a single one of them as a child.

But in hindsight it did make sense. The queen was a fairly loving mother considering she was royalty and had little time to spare for her children. She had always doted on Sigmund.

Alpheus had been an outcast since he was old enough to walk and attempt to play with his siblings. After being rejected a certain number of times he gave up and retreated into his own little world that no one else could enter. Until Katie came along.

Sigmund frowned. His mother appeared to be perfectly serious. If he couldn't execute Alpheus for treason what was he supposed to do? He couldn't exactly wait around for Katie to give birth; that could take years.