The old minister’s words hit the room like a hammer.
Lady Roseline’s knuckles went bone-white on the table.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Duke Aster’s head snapped up.
His crimson eyes flashed with a dangerous fire.
“Do not,” he growled, the sound low and rumbling like thunder under the floor.
But the old minister was already speaking.
He was not afraid.
He looked almost happy.
Like he had been waiting years to say this.
“You call Lord Jade a bastard,” the old man said, his dry voice scratching the silence.
“You call him a whore’s son.
You shout about who does not belong.” He leaned forward, his pale eyes fixed on Ace.
“Do you know who the real bastard is?”
Ace stood frozen.
His heart was pounding in his ears.
“What… what are you talking about?”
The old man’s thin lips curled into a smile.
It was not a nice smile.
“The real bastard,” he said slowly, “isn’t Lord Jade.” He pointed his bony finger straight at Ace’s chest.
“It is you.”
For a second, Ace’s brain refused to understand the words.
They were just sounds.
They made no sense.
“What do you mean?” Ace’s voice was too loud.
It cracked.
“What the *fuck* do you mean I don’t belong?”
All around the table, the ministers looked shocked.
Their mouths hung open.
Their eyes darted from the old man to the Duke to Ace.
Even Jade.
His head snapped up from his ledger.
His silver reading glasses slid down his nose a little.
His crimson eyes were wide with pure, total surprise.
His calm lawyer mask was completely gone.
He stared at the old minister.
He stared at Ace.
He looked just as confused as everyone else.
He hadn’t known.
He hadn’t expected this.
The old minister chuckled.
It was an ugly, dry sound.
“You are adopted.”
Silence.
It was the deepest, heaviest silence Ace had ever heard.
It felt like the air had been sucked out of the room.
No one breathed.
No one moved.
Ace just stared.
Then, a laugh burst out of him.
It was a sharp, wild, scared sound.
“Adopted?
Minister, you are out of your mind!” He threw his hands out.
“Look at me!
Do I look adopted to you?
I have the family hair!
The crimson eyes!” He turned, pleading, to his parents.
“See?
They are inventing crazy stories!
Conspiracy theories!
They’ll say anything to put that woman’s child on the throne!” He pointed a shaking finger at Jade, who was still staring, pale and shocked.
“And you!
You are letting them!
They are just using you because you are quiet and they think they can control the new heir!
They don’t like us because they can’t control us!
But you are weak!
They will run you like a puppet!”
The other ministers were not yelling anymore.
They were looking at the old man.
They were looking at the Duke.
A few of them started to chuckle.
It was a low, mean, ugly sound.
The old minister’s smile grew wider.
It was a nasty, victorious smile.
“Ah,” he said softly.
“So your parents really didn’t tell you.
Did they, boy?”
Ace felt a cold trickle of fear down his spine.
He frowned.
“Tell me what?”
The Duke stood up.
His chair scraped back with a loud screech.
In two huge strides, he was across the room.
He grabbed the front of the old minister’s robes and yanked him up out of his chair.
The Duke was a giant.
The old man looked like a rag doll in his fist.
“Shut your damned mouth,” the Duke snarled.
His face was inches from the old man’s.
His pheromones filled the room—ancient cedar and black pine and pure, hot rage.
But the old minister did not flinch.
He just kept smiling that terrible smile.
He pulled himself back in the Duke’s grip.
“You really didn’t tell him?” he whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“All these years?”
The Duke’s growl was the sound of a wolf about to kill.
The old man looked past the Duke’s shoulder.
He looked right at Ace.
His smile was wide and cruel.
“Then let me tell the boy.
Since his loving father will not.”
“Aster, no!” Lady Roseline cried out, jumping to her feet.
Her face was streaked with tears.
But it was too late.
“Twenty-one years ago,” the old man said, his voice clear and strong in the quiet room.
“During the worst winter campaign anyone can remember.
The Black Wolf led a patrol deep into the frozen mountains.
To a place no one goes.
They were chasing raiders.”
Ace couldn’t move.
He was stuck to the floor.
He could only listen.
“They found the raiders’ camp.
They fought.
They won.
But after the fight, your father… he heard a sound.
A crying sound.
From a cave in the cliffside.
A cave hidden by ice and snow.”
The old man’s eyes were far away, seeing the memory.
“He went in.
Alone.
The cave was deep.
And in the back, in the dark, he found her.
A woman.
More dead than alive.
She was beautiful.
She had hair black as a starless night.
And eyes… crimson red, like fresh blood.
Just like yours, boy.”
Ace shook his head.
“No…”
“She was from a tribe,” the old man continued, ignoring him.
“A tribe everyone thought was gone.
Wiped out a hundred years before.
Hunted to extinction because they were too beautiful.
Too rare.
Their blood was special.
It is said their eyes could see in the dark.
Their scent could calm a storm.” He looked at Ace.
“They were the original tribe.
The tribe the Valebane line came from, long, long ago.
The very first wolves.”
The Duke’s grip on the man’s robes tightened.
But he didn’t stop him.
He just stood there, his head bowed, as if the words were stones hitting his back.
“The woman was the last of her kind.
She was pregnant.
Very pregnant.
Your father brought her back to the keep.
He and Lady Roseline took her in.
They hid her.
They cared for her.
She gave birth to a son.
A strong, loud baby with black hair and red, red eyes.”
The old man looked right at Ace.
“She named you.
Then she died.
The cold and the hard journey had been too much for her.”
He paused.
The only sound was Roseline’s soft crying.
“My father was on that patrol,” the old minister said.
“He was there.
He saw it all.
After they returned, your father made every man on that patrol swear a blood oath.
A magic oath.
To never, ever speak of the woman in the cave.
To never tell anyone where the baby came from.
They were to say the baby was Lady Roseline’s.
That he was their second son.
My father swore.
He kept the secret until the day he died.”
The old man’s smile came back, cruel and cold.
“But I am not my father.
After he died, I found his diary.
I read all about it.
The cave.
The woman.
The blood oath.
I have known for ten years.”
He leaned as far forward as the Duke’s grip would allow.
His voice dropped to a nasty whisper.
“So you see, boy.
The crimson eyes and the black hair… they do not come from the Valebane family.
Not directly.
They come from a dead tribe.
A ghost tribe.
The Duke is not your father.
Lady Roseline is not your mother.
They found you.
They saved you.
They raised you.
But you are not their blood.”
He let the words hang in the air.
“You,” he said, “are adopted.”
Ace felt the world break.
It cracked under his feet.
The stone floor, the high windows, the faces of the ministers—all of it shattered into a million pieces.
“No,” he whispered.
The word was tiny.
A child’s word.
He looked at the Duke.
His father.
The man who had taught him to ride, to fight, who had scolded him and been proud of him.
The Duke would not look at him.
He stared at the floor, his jaw clenched so tight Ace could see the muscle jumping.
He looked at Lady Roseline.
His mother.
The woman who had sung him to sleep, who had kissed his hurts, who had loved him with her whole heart.
She was crying silently, her hands over her face.
She did not say he was wrong.
She did not say it was a lie.
That was the worst part.
Her silence.
“No,” Ace said again, louder.
His voice shook.
“I am… I am his son.
I am your son!” He was yelling now, at both of them.
“Tell them!
Tell them he’s lying!”
The Duke finally looked up.
His crimson eyes met Ace’s.
And in them, Ace did not see anger.
He did not see denial.
He saw pain.
A deep, old, terrible pain.
And guilt.
It was the truth.
Ace took a step back.
He bumped into the council table.
The air would not go into his lungs.
It felt like he was drowning.
He looked around the room.
The ministers were all staring at him.
Their faces were a mix of shock, pity, and ugly delight.
He saw Kalgen smiling.
He saw Rykar looking almost sorry.
His eyes found Alex.
His brother.
His big brother.
The person he had looked up to his whole life.
The person he had fought for, yelled for, just minutes ago.
Alex was staring at him too.
His face was white as snow.
His eyes were huge.
He looked… lost.
He looked like his world had broken too.
But worst of all, Ace looked at Jade.
Jade was still sitting.
He had taken his glasses off.
He was just staring at Ace.
His beautiful face was blank with shock.
His crimson eyes—eyes that were just like Ace’s—were wide.
In them, Ace saw no victory.
No smugness.
He saw a reflection of his own horror.
Two bastards in a room.
One who had always known he didn’t belong.
And one who had just found out.
The old minister smoothed his robes as the Duke finally let him go.
The Duke’s big hands fell to his sides, empty.
“So you see,” the old man said to the whole room, his voice calm now.
“The true bloodline is clear.
Lord Jade is the Duke’s firstborn by blood.
Prince Alex is his second born by blood.” He turned his pale eyes to Ace.
“And you… are just a orphan pup they found in the snow.
A charity case.
You have no claim.
No blood right.
No place in this succession.”
He smiled that cruel, final smile.
“You do not belong here.”
Ace stood in the middle of the broken pieces of his life.
He looked at the father who was not his father.
The mother who was not his mother.
The brother who was now a stranger.
The warmth of his family, the ground under his feet, the truth of his own name—it was all gone.
Blown away like smoke.
He was not Ace Valebane.
He was nobody.
And everyone was watching him know it.