Chapter 149

CLAUDIA. The memory continues to play out, but this time in a speed that doesn’t permit me to hear what is going on. I can only see flashes, fast pulses, as though the connection is slowly fading. I see young Tristan get taken out of the cell. He gets washed, fed, and clothed properly, like a true young heir. His grandmother has already passed and he is alone now, except for what seems like a group of cousins who were expecting to get crowned and are angry that they weren’t. His coronation plays out. His people seem to be confused but happy at the same time. He makes a speech that seems to have removed their doubts because after that, everyone just looks uniformly glad that he’s taken the spot. That makes me think that something is amiss. I don’t think everyone would just be happy to have a stranger take the highest spot in their system like that. Like I predicted, the men who I thought were his cousins did indeed pick something up. “We do not know who you are or where you came fr