The Art of Blood and Power (Book 2 in The Gifted Trilogy)

28- The Painter and the Princess

"I was a non-Gifted who lived in a village near the Shadow Court palace. When I turned eighteen I had decided to head to the city around the Shadow palace in the hopes of finding work as an artist. It was my passion but unfortunately there wasn't a high demand amongst the non-Gifted for paintings and portraits. The Gifted nobles of the Shadow Court on the other hand, there was never a short supply of grown men and women eager to get their portrait painted by me.

"Eventually I had made enough of a name for myself that word about me had gotten to the royal family. They invited me to the palace to paint a portrait of each family member. It was the biggest opportunity of my life and paid enough to keep me and my family fed and safe for decades. I would have been a fool not to take it. I accepted the offer and the moment I laid eyes on Celesta, I knew that I would never see anything the same again."

My father glanced at me, wondering if he should continue. At my silence, he thought it safe to describe her. "There's no other way to describe her except as intoxicating. She seemed to be more of a force than an actual person, and she drew me in towards her as she did everyone else. As she did him." Caster shot a look behind him towards Cicero, who sat further behind us. At Cicero's sudden interest in the sand around his feet, I knew he could hear Caster's voice.

"I knew it wasn't right, her and I," he continued. "I was a poor non-Gifted and she was the heir of the Shadow Court with a fiance who was the General of the Shadow Army. I knew there was no possible happy ending for us but I didn't care. I fell in love with everything about her. She was the wittiest woman I had ever met and was somehow funny and kind without ever being cruel or making snide remarks about those beneath her class. She was the complete opposite of what I expected a royal Gifted to be. And by some miracle, through our sessions alone together where I would paint her, I somehow managed to make her fall in love with me too. I took as long as I could on her painting but I knew our time together would be fleeting.

"Towards the end, we started sneaking around to meet each other in private outside of our painting sessions. She taught me about the different secret passageways of the castle and would sneak out of parties and balls to see me. Every moment with her filled me with pure happiness and I refused to think of the possibility of any future where I wasn't holding her in my arms."

My father swallowed hard as he lowered his head. "During our last painting session, she told me that she was pregnant and that the child was mine. I was so terrified, but not for myself. I was terrified for the woman I loved and my unborn child, because I knew that this world was one that would rip you away from us the second it learned of your existence.

"Your mother was an intelligent woman and had already created a plan. She had forged papers that served as a threat against her life to reach the king. After that, it was easy to convince her family that she should be moved here secretly and remain here until the court was deemed safe for her to return. She wanted me to join her there and, having nothing holding me back and wanting nothing more, I agreed, meeting her here a few days after she arrived under the watch of a few personal guards who knew about her pregnancy. I had to be kept a secret from them, though, because the guards believed the child to be Cicero's.

"Those six months we spent together here were the happiest months of my entire life" he continued, tears forming in his eyes. "And then, towards the end of her pregnancy, we decided to have a secret wedding ceremony, which was ordained by a priest we had sworn to secrecy. A few days after we were married, I was found out by one of her guards. He must have put two and two together and discovered that Celesta was about to give birth to a child who would threaten the throne's legitimacy and alter the line of succession.

"Word eventually got to someone who decided that Celesta had to be murdered, along with her child. A few nights after Celesta gave birth to you, there was a break in here. Celesta heard the breaking of glass and the fighting below us. She begged me to take you and flee from the secret passageway in her room. She was terrified that if I didn't take you then, you would be caught and killed. She said that she would hold the intruders off long enough for us to safely get away and then promised to meet in our designated spot later that night. I waited for her there, with you sound asleep in my arms, but when the sun finally began to rise, I knew what must have happened."