Chapter 375: The Mark

Chapter 375: Chapter 109: The Mark

Destiny could hear her own heartbeat, a frantic, rhythmic drum against her ribs.

She stood tucked behind Dane, one hand pressed flat against her chest, staring at Vance as he fumbled for words. The small, crescent-shaped birthmark on her neck felt raw and strangely exposed now that every eye in the chamber had seen it. Reflexively, her fingers crept up to cover the skin.

“What does it mean?” Her voice barely carried over the silence.

Vance’s gaze dropped to her hidden neck. For several agonizing seconds, he said nothing.

The silence stretched long enough for Destiny to become acutely aware of everything around her: the faint hiss of the temple lamps, the uneven breathing coming from Aurora’s cot, and the pressure of Dane’s body beside hers. No one seemed willing to move first.

Then, a sharp cry shattered the quiet from across the room.

Everyone snapped toward the cot.

Aurora’s body jerked violently beneath the linen sheets. Over her chest, the silver-white light radiating from the Heart Stone had dimmed, but it hadn’t extinguished. It pulsed faintly, keeping time with her shallow, ragged breaths.

The priestess lunged forward, leaning low over the princess. “Wait.” She pressed two fingers firmly against Aurora’s throat, her brow furrowing deeply.

Destiny watched the priestess’s face transform from panic to utter bewilderment.

“What is it?” Dane demanded, stepping forward.

The priestess didn’t look up, her eyes glued to the dark, ink-like veins spreading across Aurora’s neck. “They’re receding.”

Destiny drew closer, drawn in by the impossible sight. The thick black lines that had marred Aurora’s cheeks were softening, fading into faint, gray traces. Beneath her closed eyelids, the sickly yellow glow had withered.

Shifting her hand to Aurora’s forehead, the priestess let out a sharp breath. “Her fever is dropping.”

Vance crossed the distance to the cot in two long strides. “Is she cured?”

“No.” The priestess’s denial was immediate and sharp. “Not yet.”

Vance froze mid-step.

The priestess kept her eyes glued to the rise and fall of Aurora’s chest. “But something has shifted. The curse was forcing the transformation before. It’s… stopped.”

Destiny’s gaze drifted to the Heart Stone resting on Aurora’s sternum. The relic still thrummed with a low, residual warmth. Her own blood had sparked it to life—and somehow, that sacrifice was tethering Aurora to the mortal realm.

Aurora’s fingers twitched against the bedsheets, and her harsh wheezing smoothed out into a steady, rhythmic breathing.

Destiny exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized was trapped in her lungs.

“She survived it,” Marcus murmured, stepping up beside her.

“For now,” the priestess corrected softly.

The words should have brought a wave of relief, but a heavy dread lingered in the air. Destiny had watched the curse devour Aurora in a matter of hours, blackening her skin and threatening to rip her apart. Seeing it pull back was a miracle, but no one in the room could say how long this fragile truce would last.

Vance remained planted beside the cot, but slowly, his head turned toward Destiny. That same stunned, uncomprehending expression washed over his features once more.

Beside her, Destiny felt Dane’s posture harden. He stepped smoothly into Vance’s line of sight. “Whatever thoughts are running through your head,” Dane warned, his voice low and dangerous, “say them without laying a finger on my wife.”

Vance didn’t take the bait. He met Dane’s glare with dead eyes. “I know what that mark is.”

Marcus folded his arms across his chest, his posture imposing. “Then perhaps you should share it with the rest of us.”

Vance’s jaw set into a hard line. “It is a mark carried solely by the women of my bloodline.”

Destiny’s breath hitched, her fingers tightening around the collar of her dress. “The women?”

“Queens and princesses,” Vance said smoothly, though a tremor betrayed his composure. “Women born into the direct royal line.”

A suffocating silence descended on the chamber.

Destiny stared at the king, her mind spinning wildly out of control. She thought of the faint crescent she had glimpsed in mirrors her entire life—a tiny, insignificant mark she had never given a second thought to. She had spent years assuming it was just a strange birthmark.

“You’re telling me it’s a royal mark?”

Vance nodded slowly, the weight of his words hanging heavy. “In my family, yes.”

Marcus took a step forward, his eyes narrowing. “Then why doesn’t Aurora have one?”

Vance’s face hardened. For the first time since walking into the sacred temple, the king looked utterly cornered, stripped of an immediate answer.

“I believed… I thought it had simply failed to manifest,” Vance stammered subtly.

Marcus raised an eyebrow. “You thought?”

“It does not appear on every member of the family with equal clarity,” Vance countered, his tone turning defensive. “There are historical records of queens whose marks were faint, or appeared much later in life. I assumed Aurora had inherited the lineage without the physical signifier.”

Marcus didn’t budge. “And that never raised questions for you?”

Vance’s eyes flared with sudden heat. “She was raised as my daughter! I had no reason to doubt her birthright!”

Destiny turned her head toward the cot. Aurora lay still, her chest rising and falling in a tranquil, unconscious rhythm, her face far more peaceful than it had been all night.

Something about Vance’s quick defensive answer felt off, like a puzzle piece forced into the wrong slot. It didn’t prove anything—not truly. A birthmark could be a clue, but a clue was not absolute proof.

Yet the facts were stacking up with terrifying speed: the Heart Stone had flared to life at the touch of her blood, it had stabilized Aurora, and now a king was claiming the crescent on her skin belonged to his ancestors. Three separate threads all pulling in the exact same direction.

Even so, Destiny had spent every day of her life believing she was Marcus and Kalessie’s daughter. She couldn’t simply rewrite her entire identity because a desperate king recognized a shape on her neck.

She glanced at Marcus, remembering all the ordinary years that had come before this night. His rough hands, Kalessie’s voice calling her home, the familiar life they had built around her. None of those memories had suddenly become false simply because a mark had acquired a different meaning.

“What about the Heart Stone?” she asked, breaking the tension.

Vance looked down at the relic. “It belonged to Silvercrest long before I took the throne.”

“That still doesn’t explain why it answered to me.”

“No,” Vance conceded, his voice dropping an octave. “It doesn’t. The ancient texts say the stone was bound to the royal bloodline. It wasn’t just a crown jewel; it responded to specific members of the royal family.”

Destiny glanced down at her palm. The shallow cut she had made earlier was already clotting, leaving a faint red line. “So it should have reacted to Aurora, too.”

Vance’s eyes darted back to the bed, a flicker of doubt crossing his face. “That was what I always believed.”

“The stone reacted to Destiny’s blood in a way I have never witnessed,” the priestess interjected from the edge of the cot. Carefully, she reached down and lifted the Heart Stone from Aurora’s chest.

The instant the artifact lost contact with her skin, Aurora gasped, her breathing turning shallow and erratic once more.