"House Ashwynd fell fourteen years ago, a year after Lorraine’s mother’s death," Leroy said, his voice cutting through the silence like steel. "Their head died, and the family disintegrated, buried in debt."
The mory ca unbidden. A boom of wealth that was short-lived, rising right around the ti her mother died. And then, ruin. Sudden, deliberate.
Leroy’s eyes widened as realization slamd into him. His voice dropped, low and sharp.
"Did Hadrian buy the silence of your house?"
Pieces aligned in his head with ruthless clarity. Hadrian killed Emline, Lorraine’s mother. House Ashwynd had money, power, and reach enough to raise suspicion. To dig into her death. But they hadn’t. They had folded. Looked away. Worse, they hadn’t even cared enough to question or bring the daughter of Emline, who was being abused in that house.
And then everything fell apart for them. Leroy knew it was Hadrian. He destroyed everyone who knew his secret.
Leroy’s fists curled against the desk. His breath burned through his teeth.
"Where were you," he ground out, "when Lorraine was rotting in that house?" His knuckles whitened as fury vibrated in his voice. "You trained for the warrior gas while she, my wife, was being broken. Beaten. Humiliated. What the hell were you doing then?"
Leroy leaned forward, gaze like a blade, the veins on his hands raised with the force of his restraint.
This man, this man who moved like a shadow, who dared claim Lorraine as his niece, scurried through tunnels like a rat, reverent in words but absent when she bled. He could protect her now, could parade his secrets, but where had he been when she needed him? When she cried for help, no one ca to give?
Aldric bowed his head, sha dragging at his shoulders. His silence was an admission. A wound still open.
"I left my house when I was eighteen," Aldric said at last, voice stripped bare. "When I was entrusted with the truth of what my family ant, I wanted to fulfill it. I even opposed my sister marrying Hadrian Arvand, knowing what kind of man he was. But our family needed him then. My words carried no weight. I was dismissed as young and foolish. I was hurt. Bitter. And when it ca down to choosing between a legacy I didn’t believe in or love, I chose love. And I left the family."
His jaw tightened, the words catching at the edges of mory. His eyes grew distant.
"I thought I’d found it. A commoner girl. She was my escape, my answer. My family gave their ultimatum. My grandfather begged to choose the Ashwynd legacy. But I couldn’t, not after watching them send my sister off like a pawn."
Aldric’s fists trembled against his knees, the cords in his arms pulled tight. "I thought... if that was what they could do to the woman from whom the prophecy of the Swan Oracle would be fulfilled, then what was the legacy worth? If coins and power were all it demanded, sacrificing daughters, silencing blood, then it was rotten. Not worth keeping." His voice thickened, bitter with mory. "So I walked away. With her."
For a mont, silence pressed against the study walls, broken only by Aldric’s breath, ragged yet asured.
The shadow of grief fell across his face, dimming the steel in his eyes. "Thirteen years ago," he continued, his voice lowering, "she and our children died in the plague."
The words were simple, but they landed heavy, as if carved out of his chest. He swallowed hard, steady, but not unshaken.
"And I ca to the capital," he said after a long pause, his tone carrying the weight of years spent wandering without purpose. His gaze lowered, shadowed, hollowed by regret. "Looking for my sister." His throat tightened, but he forced the words out. "And she too... was gone."
Sylvia’s throat constricted. Her gaze lingered on him, stunned. She had never imagined this weight behind the man she served. A noble house abandoned for love. Children lost to death. A man hardened not only by duty but by grief.
Her heart ached. She saw the tremor in his clenched fists, the strain in the bulging cords of his arms. She wanted to reach out, to hold those hands, to tell him she understood. She too had lost children. She too carried that hollow ache.
But she held herself back. Her jaw locked tight, her hands clasped before her. They were in the prince’s study. Emotions had no place here.
Aldric’s eyes sharpened as though he had peeled away the grief that had threatened to drown him. His tone grew steadier, harder, almost as if gripping onto the truth was the only thing holding him upright.
"I almost gave up," he admitted, voice flat with exhaustion. "It was then I learned my sister left behind a daughter, along with a son. No one ntioned her, oddly convenient silence, don’t you think? I wanted to et her, talk to her. But all I heard was that she had gone mute and deaf in the accident that took my sister’s life..."
He exhaled slowly, the sound carrying years of regret.
Leroy’s gaze stayed fixed on him, cold, weighing each word like a blade against his chest.
"For the first ti in years," Aldric continued, "I rembered the lore my family entrusted to . The prophecies said that the one born with the sa attributes as the Swan Oracle would lose her voice before she regained it. And once she did... whatever she spoke would co to pass. But unlike the Oracle of old, she would not be known for kindness. She would rise with vengeance burning in her veins, and burn the ones who brought down the Great Dragon’s line~"
"Is that why you let her suffer?" Leroy’s voice cut through the air, sharp and furious. His fists curled on the desk, jaw clenching hard enough to ache. He leaned forward, his glare searing. "Because you thought her pain was part of your prophecy? Part of so grand design?"
The words hissed like venom, but beneath them was fear. He hated himself for even asking, for even imagining that Lorraine’s suffering could be chalked up to so divine plan. He didn’t want to hear about prophecies, or vengeance, or fate. He wanted her safe. He wanted her human.
Aldric’s mouth pressed into a thin line. He wet his lips, and for a mont his silence was answer enough.
Leroy’s heart thudded in his chest. The more he heard, the colder the dread curled in his gut. If Lorraine truly was bound to prophecy, then what was her purpose? Did he even have a place by her side... or was he just another shadow in a story already written?
"And that night," Aldric said finally, his voice low, as if speaking it aloud gave it weight, "the sa night you t her... Lorraine..." His eyes lifted, blue and unflinching. "I t her too. For the first ti, I t the Oracle."
The study’s silence deepened, thick, suffocating. Even Sylvia’s breath caught as though the air itself had shifted.
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