Chapter 732: The Truth

He adjusted his hold on Vespera and glanced back at Alice, who was still clinging to his back with her legs dangling and her face buried in his hair. Neither of them showed any intention of letting go.

"So," he started, turning back to the camera. "In the Ashborn family, there’s an old tradition. Children aren’t revealed to the public until they come of age. The idea is that a normal upbringing, away from the spotlight and the politics, shapes better people." He shrugged. "Whether that’s true is debatable, but it’s the tradition."

"After the Mana Apocalypse, that tradition shifted a bit. The children started being revealed not at a set age but when they awakened and registered at the Association. Awakening became the milestone. You awaken, you register, you get introduced to the world as an Ashborn."

He paused.

"I never awakened."

The words were simple and he delivered them without weight, but the chat slowed. Emilia watched the messages thin as millions of people processed what that meant.

"Every member of my family awakened. My father, my mother, all four of my siblings. Despite the odds being what they are, every single one of them. Except me."

"They were horrible to him!" Alice hissed.

The manic energy was gone. She was still pressed against his back, but the joy had drained out of her, replaced by a flatness that sounded wrong.

"Our father treated him like he was defective, and Selena and the twins just went along with it because they’re terrible people!" Her arms tightened around Kaiden’s neck. "Kai was the kindest person in that house but they treated him like useless garbage!"

Vespera spoke.

"Turning a blind eye to that..."

Her eyes opened, and the blissful joy she’d displayed was nowhere to be seen as she decreed, "Is my greatest regret."

Kaiden glanced down at his mother. Then he faced the camera, and the softness left.

"Nobody is allowed to blame or judge my mother."

His eyes changed.

A flash of deep red that bled through his irises, Wrath surfacing for a heartbeat, and the temperature in the feed ticked upward.

"If I see anyone in this chat, on any forum, on any platform, blaming my mother for what happened to me," Kaiden growled, absolutely terrifying, "we’re going to have a problem. Is that understood?"

The chat exploded with a single emoji. Rows and rows of saluting faces, hundreds per second, a wall of 🫡 that scrolled so fast it blurred into a single repeating image.

— 44xStorm: 🫡

— BastetThrone: 🫡

— VesperaFearless: 🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡

— GigaAsh: 🫡 understood boss. Understood completely. Not a single word

— NyxWife4Life: 🫡 sir yes sir. Not breathing wrong in her direction

— SinnerDevotee: His eyes literally turned red. He activated an entire combat stance to defend his mom’s honor...

Emilia’s stomach fluttered. On the feed, Vespera’s expression had changed. The woman who had been resting against her son had gone still. Her gaze had dropped.

"So I left," Kaiden continued. His eyes were normal again, lighter. "Went to university to live a normal life, do normal things, figure out who I was without the Ashborn name and its suffocating expectations hanging over me."

He chuckled.

"And because I was a young man with no supervision and a lot of pent-up frustration, I made some... decisions." The grin was back. "Let’s just say I signed up for a certain kind of video shoot."

A beat.

"Under my real name."

— GigaAsh: BRO

— 44xStorm: LMAOOOOO

— NyxWife4Life: I am screaming.

"My mother was notified because she kept a whole surveillance agency on my tail without my knowledge, protecting me from the shadows all this while." Kaiden’s grin faded. "She knew what my father would do if an Ashborn child was caught dragging the family name through what he’d consider the mud. She knew he’d come for me, alongside my siblings."

"Big brother!!!!!!" Alice complained with a giant pout.

"Save for Alice, of course," Kaiden chuckled before adding, "So Mother disowned me. And yeah, I know what you’re thinking. She’s the Shadow Monarch. She could have just stood between me and my father and dared him to try something. Why not do that instead?"

He paused. Glanced down at Vespera.

"Because that would have just meant living the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. Still an Ashborn, connected to a family that despised me. Still waiting for the day my father decided my mother’s protection wasn’t enough of a deterrent. She knew I’d been unhappy for years, and she decided that shielding me wasn’t enough. I needed to be free of them completely."

Vespera’s voice came, quiet and clear, her gaze dropping to her feet.

"I wanted you to live, not just survive."

"And I’m grateful for it," Kaiden replied while hugging her even tighter. "She gave me the name Grey and cut me from the records, believing that if I was no longer an Ashborn, my father and three siblings had no reason to come after me. The family name and prestige was safe while I was free."

Alice scoffed. "And it still wasn’t enough."

She unburied her face from Kaiden’s shoulder and turned to the camera. The tears were gone, replaced by cold.

"Mom gave up her own son so they’d have no reason to touch him, and they still went after him anyway because apparently that wasn’t enough for them!" Her words were steady and sharp as she spat. "Magnus Morvane. Selena Morvane. Cassian Morvane. Calix Morvane."

"They all tried to kill my brother while the whole world was watching, and Selena got as far as cutting off Luna’s arm before Mom showed up and stopped them."

The room dimmed.

A flicker. The shadows at Vespera’s feet stirred for just a moment before settling, and the warmth in the room dipped by a single degree.

The chat stopped scrolling.

Leia’s voice came through the phone, stripped of humor.

"Wait." She was sitting up now. Emilia could hear it in the creak of the floor. "I’m just now connecting the dots! If Kaiden is an Ashborn, then... Magnus sent his children to kill their brother, his son!!!"

Sarah said nothing. She didn’t need to connect the dots, for she’d been staring at the finished picture for weeks.

"That’s no guild rivalry but a father ordering the execution of his son in cold blood!" Leia shouted.

"Yes," Sarah whispered. "That’s exactly what it is."

Emilia sat on her kitchen floor and felt it pressing down on her chest.

The chat was waking up.

Slowly at first, fragments of shock and disbelief, and then faster as millions of people began arriving at the same conclusion Leia had.

The fragments became sentences. The sentences became accusations. The disbelief curdled into outrage, and the outrage spread, and within seconds the chat was burning with a single unified sentiment: Magnus Morvane had tried to murder his own son.

And he must pay for it.

...

Magnus Morvane sat behind his desk with his hands flat on the surface and the broadcast feed playing in his interface.

His left hand was trembling.

Grace stood to his right. Her hands were folded behind her back. She looked at him with sheer disgust.

Someone knocked on his door. Then knocked again. Then a third time, frantic, knuckles hammering wood.

"Guild Leader!!"