Chapter 240 --240
She covered Caius last.
She watched his face as she said it.
He went very still.
Not the stillness of someone who didn’t understand. The specific stillness of someone who was understanding too much too quickly and was managing the rate at which they let it land.
She finished.
The room was quiet.
Caius looked at his hands. Then at the desk. Then at some point in the middle distance that wasn’t anything in the room.
"Say it plainly," he said. His voice was level. Barely.
"You are the son of the emperor two dynasties prior," Elara said. "Documented, sealed, verified by a bloodline disc that is still active in the restricted archive. Your bloodline signature is the strongest recorded in this dynasty in four generations." She paused. "House Valen is not your family. The history you have is constructed. Everything before you were placed with them does not exist in any record except the one in that room." She paused again. "That is what I found. That is what it says."
Caius was quiet for a long moment.
"And the people who sent me here," he said.
"Knew," Elara said. "Have known for some time. The operation they ran through you — the consortium, the debt, the assignment — was designed either to use your bloodline claim as a weapon at the right moment or to eliminate you cleanly and have House Valen take the blame." She paused. "The coated blade. Your name on the manifest trail. All of it pointed at you as a convenient ending."