Master Elena Voss was waiting for me when I returned from my meeting with Duke Kane, her expression unreadable as she sat in the chair by my fireplace. Somehow, she'd gotten past all the palace's security measures and into my private chambers without triggering any alarms.
"That was either very brave or spectacularly foolish," she said without preamble.
"You heard?"
"I felt the magical discharge from three floors away. Shadow magic of that intensity tends to leave traces." She gestured for me to sit across from her. "We need to talk, Alex. About who you really are and what you're planning to do about it."
I remained standing, suddenly wary. "What makes you think I'm planning anything?"
"Because you just revealed yourself to Duke Kane as the lost Blackwood heir, negotiated for the lives of three political prisoners, and bought yourself exactly three months to prepare for what will likely be the most important magical duel in the kingdom's history." Her gray eyes were sharp as steel. "That's not the action of someone who's content to remain hidden."
She knew. Somehow, Master Voss had figured out my identity and was now confronting me with it. The question was whether she represented another threat or a potential ally.
"How long have you known?" I asked.
"I suspected from the first day you demonstrated mind-reading abilities in my class. Those skills are hereditary, passed down through very specific bloodlines." She stood and walked to the window, gazing out at the palace gardens below. "When you made a dozen people vanish from a sealed room using shadow magic, suspicion became certainty."
"Are you going to turn me in?"
"That depends entirely on what you plan to do with your heritage." She turned back to face me, and I was surprised to see something that might have been hope in her expression. "Tell me, Alex—do you know why your parents were really killed?"
"Duke Kane says they were planning a coup."
"Duke Kane is a liar." The vehemence in her voice caught me off guard. "Your parents were killed because they discovered something that threatened the current power structure. Something that could have changed the kingdom's entire political system."
My pulse quickened. "What did they discover?"
"That Prince Ryan isn't King James's biological son."
The words hit me like a physical blow. I sank into the chair opposite her, mind reeling with the implications.
"That's impossible. The resemblance—"
"Is the result of a very sophisticated illusion spell, maintained constantly since birth." Master Voss sat down again, leaning forward intently. "Queen Victoria had an affair with her personal guard captain. When she realized she was pregnant, she used magic to alter the child's appearance and convinced the King that Ryan was his legitimate heir."
"How do you know this?"
"Because I was your mother's closest friend and confidante. Catherine Blackwood shared everything with me, including the evidence she'd gathered proving Ryan's true parentage." Her voice grew soft with old pain. "She and your father planned to present their findings to the King, believing he deserved to know the truth about his supposed heir."
"Instead, they were murdered to silence them."
"Along with everyone else who might have known the truth. Your parents, their household staff, even the midwife who delivered Ryan." She paused, studying my face. "Everyone except the infant heir who supposedly died in the fire."
I sat in stunned silence, trying to process this new revelation. If Prince Ryan wasn't the legitimate heir, then his entire claim to the throne was based on a lie that had cost dozens of lives to maintain.
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked finally.
"Because the kingdom is dying, Alex. Queen Victoria's policies have created artificial famines, started regional conflicts, and corrupted the noble houses through bribery and blackmail. The realm needs a legitimate ruler—someone with the magical power to hold it together and the moral authority to demand change."
"Someone like me."
"Someone exactly like you." She reached into her robes and withdrew a leather portfolio. "These are copies of the documents your parents gathered. Proof of Ryan's true parentage, evidence of the murders committed to hide it, and detailed records of the Queen's crimes over the past sixteen years."
I accepted the portfolio with trembling hands. The weight of it seemed disproportionate to its size, heavy with the destiny it represented.
"If I use this evidence, there's no going back," I said.
"There's already no going back. You revealed yourself to Duke Kane, which means Queen Victoria will know of your survival within hours." Master Voss's expression was grim. "She'll move against you soon, probably before your seventeenth birthday when your powers fully manifest."
"Then why wait? Why not present the evidence immediately and expose them all?"
"Because accusations of royal illegitimacy require more than documents—they require demonstration of superior magical authority." She gestured toward the portfolio. "The succession laws are clear: in disputes over royal bloodlines, the claimant with stronger magical abilities has the right to challenge for the throne."
"A magical duel to the death."
"Precisely. And while your shadow abilities are impressive, you're still untrained in combat magic. Queen Victoria has had decades to hone her skills, and she won't hesitate to kill you the moment she perceives you as a genuine threat."
I opened the portfolio and began reading through the documents within. Birth certificates, magical analysis reports, witness testimonies—everything needed to prove that Prince Ryan was a fraud and his mother a murderer.
"What do you suggest?" I asked.
"Intensive training. Three months to transform you from a talented novice into a combat mage capable of challenging the Queen's authority." Master Voss stood and began pacing. "It won't be pleasant. The techniques I'll teach you are dangerous, potentially lethal if performed incorrectly."
"What's the alternative?"
"Death. Probably within the week, once the Queen decides you're too dangerous to leave alive." She stopped pacing and met my gaze directly. "I won't lie to you, Alex. Even with the best training I can provide, your chances of surviving a direct confrontation with Queen Victoria are perhaps one in three."
"Those aren't encouraging odds."
"No, but they're better than the odds of surviving if you do nothing." Her smile was sharp as a blade. "Besides, you have advantages she doesn't expect. Your shadow magic is a lost art—there are techniques and abilities that died with your family line. If we can unlock even a fraction of that knowledge..."
"You think I can win."
"I think you can change everything." She moved toward the door, pausing with her hand on the handle. "Meet me in the old tower at midnight. We begin your real education tonight."
After she left, I spent the evening reading through the evidence my parents had died to gather. The documents painted a picture of systematic corruption that went far beyond simple royal illegitimacy. Queen Victoria had orchestrated assassinations, manipulated trade routes to create artificial shortages, and used magical coercion to control key members of the nobility.
But perhaps most damning was a letter in her own handwriting, addressed to Duke Kane and dated just three days after my family's murder:
The Blackwood problem has been resolved, though at greater cost than anticipated. The infant's body was never recovered from the fire, but our mages confirm no life signs in the ruins. The bloodline is extinct, and Ryan's succession is secure. We must now focus on eliminating any remaining documentation that might challenge his legitimacy.
The kingdom requires strong leadership, and we have ensured that strength will flow through the proper channels. History will vindicate our actions, even if the present finds them harsh.
Victoria
Reading those words—the casual dismissal of my family's murder as a "problem" to be "resolved"—ignited something cold and implacable in my chest. This wasn't just about survival anymore, or even justice for my parents' deaths.
This was about stopping a woman who saw murder as a tool of statecraft and had built her power on a foundation of lies and blood.
At midnight, I made my way to the old tower where our secret meeting had taken place weeks earlier. Master Voss was waiting with an assortment of books, scrolls, and what appeared to be several very dangerous-looking magical artifacts.
"Before we begin," she said, "I need to understand the full extent of your current abilities. Show me everything you can do."
For the next hour, I demonstrated every skill I'd developed since arriving at court. Shadow manipulation, mind reading, the ability to become nearly invisible in darkness, and several other techniques I'd discovered through experimentation.
Master Voss watched it all with the critical eye of someone evaluating a weapon's capabilities.
"Impressive," she said finally. "Your instinctive grasp of advanced techniques suggests the Blackwood bloodline memories are already awakening. That should accelerate your training considerably."
"Bloodline memories?"
"Magical knowledge passed down genetically through powerful families. Each generation builds on the accumulated wisdom of their ancestors." She picked up one of the ancient scrolls. "Your family specialized in shadow magic, illusion, and what the texts call 'dominion'—the ability to command absolute obedience through magical authority."
"That sounds..."
"Terrifying? Yes, it is. Which is why the other noble houses feared your family and why Queen Victoria saw you as such a threat." She unrolled the scroll, revealing diagrams of magical techniques that seemed to shift and move on the parchment. "But terrifying powers in the hands of someone with moral restraint can be a force for justice rather than tyranny."
We worked through the night, Master Voss guiding me through exercises designed to unlock the deeper layers of my magical heritage. By dawn, I could create shadow constructs solid enough to lift heavy objects, project my consciousness across great distances, and tap into what she called the "ancestral reservoir"—the collected knowledge of every Blackwood mage who had come before me.
"Three months," she repeated as the sun rose over the palace walls. "Three months to master techniques that traditionally took decades to learn."
"Can it be done?"
"We're about to find out." Her smile was fierce with determination. "But I should warn you, Alex—the person you are when this training ends will be very different from the person you are now. Power of this magnitude changes people, often in ways they don't expect."
I thought of Queen Victoria's letter, of her casual dismissal of mass murder as a political necessity. Then I thought of Thomas Blake and the others, locked in dungeon cells for the crime of wanting a better kingdom.
"Good," I said. "The person I am now isn't strong enough to do what needs to be done."
As I returned to my chambers to rest before the day's court obligations, I couldn't shake Master Voss's warning about how power changes people. But I'd already seen what happened when power remained in the hands of those who used it for evil.
Whatever I became over the next three months, it had to be better than that.