Learning that Blair Inkor had finally opened her eyes, Burn had, quite frankly, no imdiate plans to visit. Between juggling a great empire and the usual mountain of idiocy masquerading as paperwork, a hospital visit was firmly placed under “eventually.”
Still, he'd told Yvain the night before: The girl’s awake? Good. Drag her to the assembly.
So when he did make the ti the next morning, it was purely out of obligation—and perhaps a sliver of curiosity. That curiosity was quickly replaced by sothing far less pleasant the mont he reached the door and heard that word.
“Liar!” Blair’s voice cracked through the air, halfway between a sob and an accusation. “I-I still haven’t forgiven you for hiding your identity from us, Little rlin! And now you even—you even—”
“What ‘Little rlin’?”
The voice that cut through her tirade was deep, cold, and unmistakably imperial. It arrived before the man himself, casting a shadow that silenced the room. The atmosphere snapped taut as four teenagers froze in place like figures in a cautionary tale.
“Who,” Burn growled, stepping in with the presence of a tidal wave, “dared call my son by that traitor’s na?”
Blair, still recovering, seed to fold in on herself—fragile as a dandelion in a thunderstorm. Two of the boys straightened reflexively, heads bowed like condemned squires. And Yvain, ever the golden heir with a knack for smoothing disasters, stood from the bed’s edge and bowed deeply.
“Your Majesty,” he said, voice stripped of its usual charm.
Burn’s eyes narrowed, his gaze drilling into the boy with parental venom. “Brat, you still let people call you that God forsaken nickna? You do rember which bastard nearly killed your mother, don’t you? Or has the glitter of court life rotted your mory?”
“Papa, please,” Yvain answered, visibly remorseful. “They don’t know. The Mythical Assembly hasn’t announced his cri to the world. It’s not their fault... please understand.”
Burn was not in the mood for diplomacy. Not after hearing that na tossed around like a beloved bedti story. He said nothing, rely reached out and dug his hand into Yvain’s hair with a roughness that bordered on affectionate assault, ruffling the carefully combed strands into chaos.
“You know, though,” Burn said, voice still simring. “And you’re not disgusted yet? Not spitting out the na like bile? Don’t let hear that na tied to you ever again. That piece of shit doesn’t deserve to be rembered—certainly not through you.”
“Yes, Papa,” Yvain murmured, enduring the hair-ruffling with the patience of one who’s seen worse.
Burn grunted. “Good. From now on, call yourself Little Caliburn.”
A twitch tugged at Yvain’s lips—just short of a smile—but he kept it in check. His ears, however, were not so discreet, flushing a soft red with sothing dangerously close to pride.
But the girl behind him…
Ah, so this was how the universe chose to humble her.
Not with corrupted curse from the abyss. Not with divine judgnt. But with a boy.
Blair Inkor stood behind Yvain, her knees trembling only slightly from lingering weakness and mostly from the sheer absurdity of what had just unfolded.
Little rlin, she’d called him. Not out of mockery—no, far from it. The nickna had once been whispered in magical academia with equal parts reverence and disbelief.
A child who awakened Vision at four? Who outperford seasoned seers by seven? She had admired him. Loathed him. Idolized him from afar and wished he’d trip on his overly perfect boots.
So naturally, when she’d t Morgante di Sator’s peculiar son—soft-spoken, mysteriously well-read, and too charming to be useful—she hadn’t connected the dots. The Little rlin of myth was supposed to glow, or levitate, or speak in tongues. Not sneak into her life under an alias and let her believe she was the only prodigy in the room.
And now, of course, it turned out the harmless rchant heir was none other than Caliburn Pendragon’s adoptive son—yes, that Caliburn. The Absolute Emperor himself, the terrifying, crown-wearing god of war who had just appeared like a stormfront in human form, shouting obscenities and crushing souls with his voice alone.
She had almost scread.
Instead, she swallowed every instinct to flee, stood up from bed (against every physician’s advice), and hid behind the boy she had just accused of lying.
Because he had lied.
She’d called him a liar not because of his title, but because of his betrayal. Not of country, or bloodline—but of friendship.
“You can’t et him,” Yvain had said gently, trying, but failing to brush it off like she’d asked to borrow his coat instead of to see Prince Locan Inkor, her own brother.
“He doesn’t want to see you.”
The sentence had crashed into her skull harder than any magical backlash ever had.
Her brother didn’t want to see her? After everything? After the fall of the kingdom, the death sentence of their father, the literal Demon Lord’s unraveling?
It was ridiculous. Unforgivable. And so she did what anyone else might do in her place—she exploded. Called Yvain a liar, accused him of deception.
And the universe, in turn, sent Burn.
Now, cowering in the shadow of that imperial stormcloud, Blair realized that the man she’d thought of as a politely indifferent rchant was actually the father of the most powerful young king alive—and not the biological kind, either. The chosen kind. The adopted kind.
Yeah, the Edensor conquer aside.
She, anwhile, was an illegitimate princess exiled by a palace coup, a cursed masterpiece and kept alive more by rcy than design.
She glanced at Burn’s back as he exited, having thoroughly scolded his son and declared—unironically—that Yvain should now be called Little Caliburn. The smug warmth radiating from Yvain’s cheeks as he whispered “Yes, Papa” made her want to actually cry.
Because of course her childhood hero was beloved by all. Of course he was flawless—golden in talent, glittering in destiny, and, naturally, impossible.
Of course he had been lying the entire ti, while she sat in blissful ignorance, thinking they were equals, thinking they were friends.
Thinking… maybe they could be sothing more.
Not to ntion the added insult: he had saved her. Him, and the rest of his mythically perfect, world-saving family. They’d swept in like the golden cavalry and pulled her out of a nightmare—right out of her malicious, cursed family—and all she'd managed to offer in return was tears, suspicion, and a crush on a fake na.
Because it wasn’t Evan di Sator she had liked. It was King Yvain Edensworn. Little rlin.
No—Little Caliburn, now. Because apparently, the world wasn’t done ridiculing her.
And who was she?
She was nobody.
Ha.
“Brat, co drag your girlfriend out. The assembly’s about to start,” ca the voice of doom, otherwise known as Emperor Caliburn, striding out of the room with the click-clack of imperial disapproval in tal-heeled boots.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Yvain replied with the ease of soone who’d been raised to command armies and still rembered to use a napkin. He took Blair’s hand in his—gently, annoyingly gently—and tugged her along.
He gave the other two boys a wave. “We’ll be going, guys. See you later, okay?”
“Fine, fine,” Alan scoffed.
Matthew grinned like a devil with a halo. “Oop, is this daddy’s approval?”
Blair flushed crimson. Not pink. Not cute. Full tactical embarrassnt red. Naturally, this gave the boys even more ammunition to tease her with.
But once outside, behind Burn’s imperious gait, Yvain slowed his steps and glanced at her with that sa calm, infuriating sincerity. “His Highness Locan is still having his own issues,” he said softly. “He’s… not well, Blair. So, don’t misunderstand. I’m just worried—”
“Oh, that’s what you were whispering about?” Burn called over his shoulder with undisguised annoyance. “Why not spill the entire royal archive while you're at it?”
“Papa,” Yvain groaned. “I’m not as shaless as you were when courting Mama.”
The Emperor halted, very slowly. Turned even more slowly. His gaze narrowed with the weight of an empire behind it. “You shut up, Ain Edensworn.”
Yvain recoiled only slightly. “Why are you dragging Blair around today anyway? Are you trying to give her a trauma souvenir?”
But Burn didn’t rise to the bait. He stopped walking altogether. Looked at them—really looked—and for once, the sarcasm faded.
“So you know what actually ruined your lives,” he said quietly.
He lifted his hands and placed one atop each of their heads—not with crushing force, as one might expect from the fad Absolute Emperor—but with a kind of quiet finality. Not command. Not punishnt.
Sothing like… reverence.
His voice dropped, soft and heavy: “His experint on you, Blair Inkor. And your parents’ deaths, Yvain.”
That was it. Two sentences. The kind that cracked the ground beneath your feet.
Emperor Caliburn’s eyes dimd—not with rage or vengeance, but with sothing far more dangerous in a man like him: sorrow. Deep and honest. It didn’t suit the man the world painted as a tyrant. But maybe that was the point.
Looking at them, two children who had weathered enough loss to fill a royal chronicle, he frowned—like soone quietly asking the gods what else they expected them to endure.
“Later if I tell you two to step out, I an it,” he said. “Don’t force yourselves to learn the truth right from the source. Not yet. But… I do want you to have your closure.”
And then he lifted his hands away.
Blair and Yvain looked up—not at a throne or a crown or a na.
But at a man. One who looked tired and kind.
For the first ti, Blair thought maybe—just maybe—the stories had gotten him wrong too.
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