Chapter 19: THE HIDDEN TRUTHS AND UNSPOKEN PASTS
1547 Words
“IF this phenomenon continues to harm my daughter, I would rather present her to the temple.”
“That would be a dangerous solution for the Duchess, Count.”
A warning of fate that shouldn’t be taken lightly woke Thalia up. The truth was, she was awake, but she chose to pretend to be sleeping as she listened to them. She was etching to open her eyes and confront her father the moment she heard him telling the story about the scepter and the promise he made with the Duke’s father.
“You are saying that because you are not the father.”
If only Thalia could do something about Hiax, then everyone around her wouldn’t have to worry about her circumstances.
“But if the Pontiff detected that the Duchess was the Hiraya, he would probably make a move to convince her to lend the awakening power of the Duchess.”
“What should we do then? And what is the Pontiff's motivation for my daughter’s Hiax? This is not the time to idle for my daughter’s safety. She has also been through lately.”
“Forgive me, Milord, but it’s not yet time to disclose the connection between the Pontiff and the Duchess.”
She was listening to them intently, knowing her father had good intentions for her. On the other hand, Kayne, who had been opposing the Count, couldn’t spill the truth about the Pontiff.
“I don’t trust you even though you are a close confidant of the Emperor.”
“I don’t make an impression, Count Psycheberg.”
Thalia couldn’t stand pretending anymore, so she surprised them as a way of breaking the tension between the great Mage and the Count.
“Thalia!” The once gloomy Count quickly changed into an enthusiastic father.
“Duchess! Finally, you regain your senses. Or have you been awake the whole time just to listen to us?”
She couldn’t deny what Kayne had said, but the truth is, she was also secretly observing Kayne to see if he really was an ally or not.
“By listening to both of you, the information I have heard was all connected to me.”
They both stayed quiet, which annoyed Thalia.
“I don’t know if I can still trust you, great Mage, because you are also keeping a secret you knew about my circumstances.”
Kayne met her eyes, implying that he wasn’t lying.
“I plan to reveal everything I know, but I am also considering the Emperor’s situation. Not yet.” He firmly said.
With a quizzical look on her face, she remembered what had happened earlier. Thalia only came here to train her mana, yet an unexpected event happened to reveal her identity.
“I remember the Emperor came here!” She sounded confident.
“Why would the Emperor visit this tower?”
Count Darvan interjected. If she wasn’t mistaken, something on the Emperor's body mark reacted to her Hiax. What happened earlier was not an illusion.
“Believe me or not, I saw him… I meant the mercenary named Kallix is the Emperor.”
“I think you are still exhausted from training, your grace.” Kayne turned a deaf ear to her words and shifted his gaze to the Count.
“Milord, you should bring the Duchess back to your manor. Her grace must have taken a break from training since she needed to rest.”
This was unacceptable for Thalia. No one would be trusted. She felt betrayed again, from the miserable marriage to searching for the rationale of her existence. She has got it now. No one could help her but herself. Everyone around her doesn’t want to be involved in her vulnerability.
“I get it now,” she laughed faintly. Everyone has a hidden intention, not a genuine purpose.
“Your Grace is misunderstanding my intention. I am not invalidating you as a Hiraya. I am also protecting the Emperor.”
Thalia gave a cold stare. “Hiraya! Emperor! Please spare me all of this absurdity. I have had enough, and I am so tired of understanding everything.”
There it was, she finally burst all her anxiety for the wrong people. Count Darvan, her father, embraced her in his arms, and they exited the tower of the mage.
****
As the carriage departed, Thalia kept her eyes outside the window. She felt numb inside. Her father didn’t say a word, but she was waiting for his explanation.
“I didn’t know you were sneaking to the tower of the mage to train.”
A guilt appeared on her face as she looked at her father. Looking at him, an obvious weight of burdens rested upon his shoulders, engraved lines of resolve and weariness onto the weathered canvas of his father’s face.
“Please forgive me, Father, for I lied to you. I only want to solve this problem of mine without disturbing any of you.”
“But you can lean on us. Your brother and I are willing to lend you strength for this.”
A tear trickled down her cheeks. “You also lied to me, Father. The fact about the Duke’s father and the scepter.”
“You heard us?”
“This doesn’t concern whether I heard it or not, but the truth behind your pledge to his father. I felt like you sold your daughter to Chauverthier. I felt emotionally betrayed, Father."
Count Darvan reached out his hands to her and burst into tears. “It’s my fault, but if I could go back in time with Quadir, I would not have continued the pact.”
Thalia couldn’t hide her investigative gaze; she was intrigued by what her father revealed.
“Quadir?”
Her father sighed, but without considering that he had slipped his tongue.
“This is a secret between us, Thalia.” He said, even the way he called her name, insinuating that he was serious. “He is the biological father of the Duke.”
She let out a surprising gasp-she could never have expected an old-time secret of her father.
“I know this is incomprehensible, but Senior Qurique was determined not to reveal this, especially to the Duke.”
“But why?” She asked.
“What happened in the past should stay in the past. However, I wanted you to know what happened between the three of us.”
Although Thalia was perplexed, knowing about the Duke’s history might help her understand everything. Through this, she could interconnect every incident that happened to them.
“After we made a pact in the temple, we returned to our daily life. As the heir of our clan, I was preparing for the succession while Qurique departed to study abroad, leaving Quadir on the Chauverthier estate.”
“That being said, Senior Qurique was not the real successor of Chauverthier?”
“Yes. At first, the elder Chauverthier chose Qurique to be the right successor, but his determination to study abroad prevailed over the elders to give the succession to Quadir.”
“But what happened to the Duke’s father? Why doesn't everyone in imperial society speak about him?”
The Count’s expression changed. As if he had remembered unspeakable memories of the past.
“Quadir ruled the Duchy for three years before his grace was born. It was a snowy evening when Quadir asked for my help because Noxton’s unknown mother left the innocent child in the Chauverthier manor.”
“Through this, the Duke’s mother was a commoner?” Thalia's curiosity about the Duke’s mother was intriguing to her.
“Who knows? We tried to investigate, but the outcome was in vain. Quadir accepted him as his successor on paper. It was late when he asked for a paternity trial, yet in the end, Duke Noxton turned out to be his son.”
"I didn't know that he existed. Where is he now? All this time, I have only known Senior Qurique was his father."
"It felt like yesterday when he vanished from that night," his voice broke, and he wiped his tears away with a thumb.
“However, Father, could you tell me how the former Duke vanished from the empire?”
This time, the Count’s visage filled with deep gloom.
“If only…. If only I had stayed with him that night, he might not have thought of running away.”
Thalia felt a sudden sadness learning that the Duke had grown up not knowing his parents.
“When Qurique learned about the incident, he returned right away. All the noble patriarchs lent their hands to investigate the disappearance of Quadir. Not until one day, we receive a message from the neighboring kingdom. They sent a piece of belongings owned by Quadir and confirmed that he had been murdered.”
What shocked Thalia after her father revealed the former Duke’s misfortune was how he became distant and unusual from himself.
“His life was truly a mystery. I wonder how the empire has forgotten him and erased his traces as the former Duke.”
Her father looked out the window as if he were contemplating. They were approaching the manor.
“The late Emperor ordered everyone not to speak about his existence."
- Writer
