The rustle of silks and the measured tread of footsteps drew every gaze toward the garden's arched entrance.
Lareth stepped through first, his expression unreadable. Then, with the poise of a storm held in delicate restraint, she entered.
Queen Elendra.
The former Empress—their long-lost mother.
Clad in flowing robes of twilight blue, her presence seemed ethereal yet grounded, regal yet heartbreakingly human. Her hair, still dark though streaked faintly with silver, was swept back from a proud brow. Her eyes, sharp and knowing, swept over the garden and landed first on the emperor… and then on each of her children, one by one. No emotion crossed her face until she reached Astrid—then the faintest flicker of a smile trembled at the corners of her mouth.
No one breathed.
The emperor stood, but barely. His voice cracked, more hoarse than commanding.
"Elendra. What are you doing here?"
Astrid broke the silence next, wide-eyed and trembling. "I thought… I thought you were dead…"
Queen Elendra exhaled, the sound half a sigh, half a breath stolen from too many years of silence.
"I was," she said softly. "To you, I suppose I was. That's what he wanted."
Her eyes flickered toward the emperor again, not in hatred… but something far colder: understanding laced with pity.
"I have been gone long," she continued, "but I was never far. I watched you all—my children. I watched as the empire buried the truth. As your father let you believe I was the one who abandoned you."
Her gaze shifted toward Maelus, to Vaela, to Kael… and then rested, for a long, heavy moment, on Rythe.
She took a single step forward, toward the table. "But I could remain silent no longer."
The emperor clenched his jaw, his hand curling into a fist on the table. "You chose to leave."
"I chose not to die, Valien," she replied, her voice low and sharp, like the strike of a blade. "You forced my hand. You would have seen me torn apart for my blood, for my nature. And when I begged to stay with my children, you cast me out."
Silence fell again, but now it trembled with a thousand unsaid truths.
Astrid's voice broke through once more, tears forming. "Why didn't you come back?"
Elendra's eyes softened. "Because I was being hunted. And because if I returned too soon, the same powers that punished omega's… would have torn me limb from limb. I left to live. And to wait. Until my children were no longer children… and the empire was ready to hear me speak."
She finally turned back to the emperor. "And now I'm here. Not to reclaim anything. Not to beg forgiveness. But to see my children with my own eyes. All of them. Grown. Alive."
Her eyes found Rythe again, then lingered on Kael.
"…And to ensure they never become you."
The garden fell silent after Elendra's declaration.
The siblings sat frozen, eyes darting between their father and the woman who had just torn apart the foundation of everything they thought they knew.
The emperor, straightened slowly, his voice gruff—more from age and pride than pain.
"You… don't understand," he said, a flicker of his old fire in his eyes. "I did what I had to. I was protecting—"
"Protecting what, Valien?" Elendra's voice cut through the garden like a lash.
He blinked, the words faltering in his mouth.
"Your name? Your pride? Your image as the perfect crown prince? Your claim to power? My only crime," she said, stepping closer, her voice gaining strength, "was loving you—and being born an omega."
Valien clenched his jaw, but did not interrupt.
"I was loyal to you, Valien," she said, eyes locked onto his. "I bore you eight children. I gave you everything. And you turned on me."
Rhalia's voice broke the silence this time, barely above a whisper. "I don't....understand."
"When your father and I were young, we were in love. Recklessly, foolishly in love. We thought love could conquer anything—even an empire."
"But the late emperor found out. He despised me. Not because I was cruel. Not because I was wicked. But because I was an omega."
Her hands clenched at her sides. "He tried to separate us by introducing Valien to a young beta noblewoman. And when Valien refused, when he chose me anyway, they began their campaign."
"Little whispers in his ear. Rumors. Scenarios staged to humiliate me. To make me look unfaithful. And slowly… it worked."
She turned toward her children now, one by one, her voice growing heavier.
"He stopped speaking to me. He stopped sharing meals. Then the room. Then the house."
"I would hear him laugh with her—the beta—in the gardens where we used to walk together. I would watch from the shadows as my husband publicly paraded her before the court, while I became nothing but a ghost at his side."
Elendra's voice trembled, though her face remained composed. "And still, I stayed—for you. Until the threats began."
Gasps filled the garden.
"My carriage was ambushed three times. Twice I was nearly killed in my sleep. I went to Valien—I begged him to see the truth. But his heart had turned cold. And when I refused to leave you, he…"
She stopped, as if the memory itself caught in her throat.
"Your grandfather came to me with cold eyes and ordered me to go. 'Leave,' he said, 'or die.'"
Now she looked not just at her children, but at the man who had once been her world.
"Your grandfather gave the command. Set the hounds on me like a fugitive. Put a bounty on my head. Plastered my face across the empire's gates. Kill her, the order said, and be rewarded. All while he sat on his throne… and watched as did your father."
A stunned silence.
The siblings looked at the emperor, wide-eyed and horrified. Even Kael was pale, eyes lowered, mouth slightly agape.
Astrid covered her mouth with her hand. Dain stood slowly, visibly shaken. Maleus was trembling, hands clenched into fists at his side.
Rythe—Rythe said nothing. He just stared at his father.
The emperor said nothing at all.
Because what words could possibly justify the kind of betrayal Elendra had just laid bare?
Her voice, soft again now, broke the silence once more.
"I did not come back to reclaim power. I did not come for revenge."
"I came because my children deserve the truth."