Author's Note - This series is a continuation of 'The Prince's Potion,' and set around twenty years later. Though not necessary, I strongly recommend reading those stories prior to this one. I realize my stories are not for everyone. If you're not interested in exaggerated sex organs, incest, inbreeding, and medieval/fantasy settings, this may not be for you. I thank you all for the continued support and the feedback!
All characters in sexual situations are 18 or older.
Chapter 1 - TREVILAN
Nineteen-year-old Princess Cressia Velcin woke with a start.
A low and distant sound, something like an animal's howl, had roused her from a deep slumber. There it was again. Cressia blinked, adjusting her eyes to the night. She was alone in her room, an opulently decorated chamber that had formerly belonged to her father, Rodmond, when he was just a princeling.
Silently the young girl rose and wiped her eyes, pushed long locks of dark hair from her pretty face. A thin line of moonlight beamed onto the floor in front of her bed, but otherwise the room was pitch black. She languidly grasped for the wooden nightstand beside her giant bed and proceeded to slowly light a candle.
The princess was fully awake now, suddenly remembering the strange raven that had appeared at her window just before bed. The letter was unrolled on her nightstand. She would have to read it again. She shook her head and got up to wash her face at the other end of the room. Then, noticing the letter illumined by candlelight, she sat back on her bed and examined it.
She heard the howl again, coming from somewhere down within the castle. She guessed who it was and where it was coming from. The letter intrigued her more. It was from her older sister, Roslin, and addressed to Queen Marzanna. Cressia assumed she had ended up with it only because the raven brought it to her window accidently, not caring that this was no longer the king's chamber.
Whatever the reason, the contents of the letter had startled and excited Cressia.
The four Velcin children that still lived in the castle rarely got a glimpse of the full picture, what was going on, regarding things outside their kingdom of Trevilan. Of their parents' great plans for the continent itself. She was old enough to know a few things, but ultimate goals and grand designs were things kept among the adults and their closest advisors.
Cressia rolled her eyes thinking about it. The grand design, as her father always liked to phrase it, was not something she herself was privy to... yet... though she was always hearing this or that regarding some key player or some moment that they must soon grasp.
Now, with this letter, she was finally getting some insight, even a small glimpse, into what was going on out there in the rest of the world.
Not that she really wanted anything to do with all that. Cressia was a smart and spunky teenager, she liked to think she was wise beyond her years, but her emotions often got the better of her. She was happy here. She ruled the roost as oldest princess of those still here. Her good looks would usually save her from all the trouble she got in around the castle.
Being daddy's favourite definitely helped too.
She read over the letter once again. Tried to put it into context with what was going on across the continent. Some of her siblings had been strategically placed in each of the four other kingdoms, at different levels of government, positions of power, which Cressia herself didn't fully grasp.
But this letter, delivered to her by accident, had provided some very interesting information for the wilful teenager. In an obviously coded language, the letter detailed what Cressia assumed to be another phase of their plan in Sar Sanrosan, the kingdom just north of Trevilan. Princess Roslin was writing to her mother and saying that she was ready to begin the next part of whatever they had devised for her there.
Twenty-year-old Roslin had been married to Anson Sar, second in line to the throne of Sar Sanrosan, three months ago, in a grand ceremony that solidified a union between the two kingdoms, who were already on good terms with one another. It had been an excellent move for Trevilan, given where the kingdom had been less than two decades ago.
Sanrosan, affixed with the ruling Sar family's title once they conquered it a thousand years ago, was a vast northern kingdom, peppered with snow-covered mountains, deep valleys, and vast forests, often blanketed in harsh winters. It was also home to the Holy Seat of the Redeemer, the dominant religion of the continent, where Cressia's birth mother, Gilly, and her great aunt, Morrigan, were presently based.
She rolled the letter in her hands and absently chewed her full bottom lip. It was expertly written, her older sister being a master of subtlety, espionage, and deception. Roslin talked around things... never addressing anything directly.
This craft, luckily, was not lost on Cressia.
Princess Roslin, since her wedding night or perhaps longer, had been providing Anson Sar, some fifteen years her senior, with a potion that rendered him either impotent or unable to conceive. This was apparently the second phase of their plan. Roslin had only been married a few months and Anson was keen to breed the buxom princess. Cressia couldn't blame him for trying. Roslin was a stunningly beautiful young woman. Her birth mother was Maymon Velcin, the sorceress queen of Trevilan, and the first child born of Rodmond's brood from his union with his three wives.