He arrived at the castle by dusk. His men had to shake him awake.

Yeren made his way to his bed chamber and fell asleep the second he touched the bed.

When he awoke in the middle of the night, he headed straight for his wine decanter.

As he reached the table, he spotted a folded piece of parchment on the table.

Hadn’t he cleared away all his parchments?

Curious to find out if he had left anything important behind, he picked up the parchment and opened it.

It was an unaddressed letter.

’I have let you sit there and pretend that you rule a Kingdom that rightfully belongs to me. But no more.

I am giving you a fortnight to disappear or else, expect the worst from the only person who knows you better than you know yourself’.

A threat?

From who? The person that knew him better than he knew himself? But who could that be?

Andon?

Andon would never threaten his position as King. It had to be someone else.

Could it be the person who Olenna had claimed looked like him?

If that were the case, he would have to do some findings of his own.

And there was only one place he could get answers from.

Dawn saw him on his way to Glenwood.

No one knew his real reason for travelling away on such notice without informing his council.

After all, he planned to return the very same day if everything went as planned. People would barely notice he was gone that way.

When he arrived at the house just before noon, he slid into the house like a thief.

Olenna came out to receive him but he was in no mood to stay for a meal or to converse.

He gave her a curt nod and slid out the side entrance of the house. The servants stopped whatever they were doing and gawked at him with their mouths hanging down to the ground.

Was it so out of the ordinary for him to use the servant’s entrance at the side of the manor?

Three horses were waiting there just as he had instructed.

No one needed to know where he was going... or what he planned to do.

Maurius and Benet were to accompany him while the others stayed behind.

They mounted their horses and rode down the rocky beach path until they reached the road that led to the Glenwood village.

That’s when Yeren realized that he actually didn’t know where he was going... where did she live?

She must be old by now, he mused. But he would never forget the face of the woman who had nursed him as a child. His mother had barely been available, so his nurse would always step in and try to play her role.

What if she was dead?

Apart from his two parents, she was the only one who could possibly explain why there was a man rumoured to look exactly like him.

When he glanced behind him, Maurius and Benet were following trustingly behind him.

Just then, a man in a hoody ran past them like a gush of wind.

But not before he caught a glimpse of the man’s eyes.

They were so familiar that a shiver ran down his spine.

Then he was gone.

His men, as if sensing something was wrong with the runaway stranger, both slid down from their horses and ran in the direction the man had come from. Yeren followed them at an unhurried pace and saw that they stopped at a house.

For some reason, his legs began to feet as heavy as lead as he drew near to the house.

When he got there, he finally saw her after so many years.

She was lying in a pool of her own blood, coughing and sputtering vainly.

Benet crouched at her side and observed her.

As soon as she saw him, she tried reaching out her hand to him, but it fell back to the ground at her side.

Taking the cue, he went to her.

He refused to look at her injury. She was aged and frail, it was obvious that no healer would work magic for her.

Slowly, he knelt by her side.

She seized his hand with a strength that surprised even him. Her graying blonde hair formed a halo around her head, accentuating her pale skin and blueish lips.

"You have a... twin brother." She licked her dry lips before continuing.

His eyes were fixed on her mouth. Yeren couldn’t believe his ears.

Twin brother.

Where had he been all the years? Or was it all a joke?

"Two sons were a bad omen... you were both meant to inherit... but the law only permitted one heir. So..." Another violent cough racked through her.

"Your futures were read... and that of your twin brother’s was very bad. He was supposed to be killed... and the matter was left to your mother to handle."

Killed?

Because of something a sage saw? What if the vision had been a fabrication?

He listened quietly, not daring to utter a word.

His men faded into the background as he stared into the face that had been the only source of warmth in his childhood.

"She let him... live." She coughed again.

Her hold on his hand tightened. A lump lodged somewhere in his throat at his constant effort to swallow the pain he felt.

"She couldn’t bear to harm a hair on his head - she would have... rather died."

He couldn’t blame her.

"Your father never knew. The boy was given away to a poor merchant family in the South to keep him out of your way... and your mother was never the same since."

What did she mean by that? Was that why his mother had been so withdrawn in the days before she died?

"Now look at what he has become. You have to fix the mistake your mother... made." Her head turned to the side and her eyes went blank.

He touched her warm skin but she remained unmoving.

Was she dead?