Your True Potential

As morning came, Astoria felt a strange taste lingering in her mouth. Opening her eyes, she was stunned to find herself still sucking on Wolf's cock. Jolting away, she flipped to the other side of the bed. Embarrassed with a deep blush, she heard Wolf's body turning away in his sleep as well. Blushing red as a beet, she covered her face and pondered.

'WHAT AM I DOING?! DID I JUST?!' The night was over, and the weight of all that she'd done was finally weighing in on her. She couldn't believe that her new husband–Wolf had claimed her body and she hadn't just given into his teasing voluntarily, but also bounced on his cock out of pure desire for the body.

Even now, her heart burned with suppressed desires, but holding them to her mind much better now that her head was clear, Astoria slowly turned to face Wolf's body. Her eyes first noticed the many cuts he'd garnered in his adventuring days, and after a quick peek at his lower back and a gulp, she glanced up at his shoulder blades. 

'That's the curse, isn't it?' Reaching out to touch the brand from that Wolf's witch mother left on him, she expected to sense something malicious, but to her touch, a faint film of illusion on the brand shattered temporarily into dust. 

"What?" Astoria heaved, her eyes glued to the new brand revealed underneath.

Running her finger along the words, she read through the obscure language of the cults. A gasp left her lips as she finished reading it in its entirety. A curse meant to stunt Wolf's growth towards his full potential? No, it was something far, far worse. 

Covering her mouth, Astoria turned away from him again. To think a mother would do such a thing to her own child was far beyond the realms of what the queen could understand herself. 

However, exploring the deranged woman's actions, she was brought to the verdict of her own son. 

'William, I still need to decide his punishment.' Hoping she could get him out by pushing something lighter on his shoulders, the queen raced through her thoughts, but without meeting him first, nothing concrete could be made of the situation. 'Maybe now would be a good time to do so when I have nothing else to do and nobody's gonna notice me going down into the dungeon.'

Slipping out of bed, the queen quickly put her clothes back on. Giving Wolf one last look with a strained expression, she took a deep breath to ready herself for what was to come. The brand of the witch still burned on his back, and two more on both of his arms, concerned her quite a bit, but for now, there was nothing that could be done. 

"See you soon." Instead of trying to solve something she knew she could not, the queen headed out the door to fix something that she actually could.

The verdict of William De' Didact, she wanted to conclude it behind closed doors and eventually bring her son back into regular society. He may have tried to kill Wolf, but with a sealing contract between the two, it was possible to restrict any future attempts on the king's life by him. Re-education was a must as well; he would be subjected to rigorous personality corrective practices, but all of that relied on him actually wanting that help and a life beyond that cage.

'Don't be an idiot and just accept the deal, okay?' Astoria thought to herself, hoping–no, praying that her stubborn son would listen to her for once and do as she says. 'It's never that simple though, is it?'

Having learned from experience, however, Astoria knew quite well that things rarely went as planned, especially with the involvement of characters like William. Perhaps his stubbornness was her own fault. She was no different as a teen and a young adult, fighting her fate until there was no way for her to escape it. Married to an old man who was obviously too old for her, she was made to settle against her wishes. In that way, she understood how William felt, but even then, his actions were inexcusable at best and mortally punishable at worst.

Walking down the halls with such thoughts bouncing across her head, Astoria avoided the more crowded parts of the castle, and when a guard or two did spot her, she gestured for them to get back to their duties. Being a bit condescending helped in pushing people off, something she'd learned from the queen before her. 

Upon reaching the dungeon's door, she was met with a pair of shaken soldiers. Both of them stood frozen like idols before the wooden door, obviously hiding something they didn't want her to know. And yet, instantly, Astoria knew that things had gone wrong down those mossy steps. Thus, rushing with no care to keep up her dignified demeanor, she brushed past the many soldiers who were meant to keep an eye on the prisoners. 

"William! Are you okay?!" She screamed, grabbing the bar of the last cell the moment she got there. 

To her surprise, it wasn't William who'd gotten hurt but his cellmate, Robert. Left in a bloody gore, Robert's body had been torn to shreds. Standing right above him was William, his eyes devoid of emotions and his body covered in his blood. 

"What did you do…" Astoria whispered, her mind failing to comprehend what had transpired between the two.

They hated each other's guts for sure, but for William to outright murder Robert, she never thought that things would come to this, ever. Any hopes of sparing her son were now but a distant dream. To attempt to kill the king and, even in captivity, kill the one person that he could, William had sealed his own fate and not in a way that the queen would've preferred. 

"WHY?! WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DO THIS?!" Screaming at the top of her lungs, she stared at her son's back with her eyes tearing up.

Yet distant of mind as he was of body, the mage who'd lost everything simply continued to watch his victim's corpse bleeding into its own body. An excess of mana–that's what he had used to kill his master. And now, as he stood, lifeless as a doll, William couldn't hear a thing and the only thing in his mind…

"I'm gonna kill everyone that trapped me here." As the reality of his imprisonment that was meant to last forever set in, it did not take long for the weak-willed prince to go completely insane. 

"What am I gonna do with you…WILLIAM!" No matter how much she shouted, not a word landed on her son's ears. Astoria may not have given up while coming here, but that hope didn't last long after witnessing the state of her son.

Falling down to her knees, the queen cried out for her son's name, but what stood before her was no longer him, but a broken part of him that was beyond repair. 

"SHUT UP!" With his scream, even the queen realized that she was far too late to save her son.

That very day, two funerals were held, one for Robert and the other for Astoria's son, even though he still lived.