Chapter 500: The Secret Bloodline

Inside Gillian’s private quarters at the palace, the air was still and heavy.

The thick velvet curtains had been pulled shut tight against the biting night air, blocking out the dim streetlamps of the capital.

The room had been carefully inspected beforehand to ensure that no listening devices, hidden objects, or lingering magic had been planted anywhere within. Only once they were satisfied that nothing had been left behind did they settle down to speak.

Iryna sat casually on the edge of the desk, swinging her legs back and forth as she rested her chin in her hand. She had shrugged off her dark cloak and tossed it over a nearby armchair, looking much more relaxed after their long day.

"The kids at the orphanage were cute today," Iryna remarked softly, a rare softness warming her sharp eyes. "It’s surprisingly quiet down there compared to the noise in the palace."

Gillian stood by the stone fireplace, using a long iron poker to stir the dying embers until fresh orange sparks danced up the chimney. "They were," he agreed quietly, hanging the iron back on its brass rack before turning around to face her. "It’s a good distraction from everything going on."

Iryna’s gentle expression slowly faded, replaced by her usual sharp, analytical focus. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees as her eyes locked onto Gillian.

"Are you sure that he’s in Auzelian?" Iryna asked, her voice dropping into a hushed murmur. "Our cousin?"

Gillian let out a slow, measured breath, walking over to the desk and leaning his hip against the polished wooden edge beside her. "That was the last reliable report we received. I deployed a few of our personal scouts back to Solaric, fearing that the information we had was no longer of use, or that every trace of him had already vanished. Yet they had searched every corner, and so far, they had found nothing. If he isn’t there, Auzelian is the only place left where he could be hiding."

Silence settled over the room as the heavy weight of their family’s darkest, most guarded secret hung between them.

Decades ago, before the borders had been redrawn in blood, Elara Sylvaris had been raised as the epitome of grace and beauty, a beloved, elegant princess of the Solaric whose laughter once echoed through the grand marble halls of their ancestral court. But her life took a devastating turn when she fell into that ruinous, inevitable circle of misery called love. She had fallen deeply, hopelessly in love with a man from their nation’s sworn enemy at the time: a man from Auzelian.

When Elara fell pregnant with his child, the scandal sent shockwaves through the Solaric royal court. Gillian and Iryna’s grandfather was consumed by a blind, unforgiving rage. He viewed the unborn child as an unforgivable stain on their royal bloodline and issued a cold, absolute decree: the baby was to be disposed of the moment it took its first breath.

For the remainder of her short, miserable life, Princess Elara lived in quiet agony. Robbed of the man she loved and forced to believe her newborn infant had been destroyed, her heart shattered beyond repair. Grief withered her health week by week, until she fell severely ill and died in total isolation, leaving behind only quiet, tragic rumors.

Even Gillian hadn’t known the full truth at first. It was his father who had eventually confessed the secret, a man who bore a crushing, lifelong guilt for failing to protect his sister when she needed him most.

Gillian’s father hadn’t allowed his father’s brutal decree to stand. On the night of the child’s birth, he secretly interfered, risking his own life to intercept his father’s executioners. He saved the infant and entrusted the boy to his most loyal maids and trusted personal guards. For years, those servants moved from one remote village to another, constantly changing names, trade routes, and locations to cover their tracks and hide the boy from their grandfather’s shadow scouts.

Yet misfortune seemed to follow Elara’s line like a shadow. A sudden and violent skirmish broke out along the border, throwing everything into confusion. Amid the fighting and the chaos that followed, they lost all trace of the baby, and by the time the conflict had settled, there was no longer any way to tell where he had been taken.

"Finding one person across two massive empires is nearly impossible," Iryna muttered, rubbing her temple with a frustrated sigh. "Especially when we don’t even know what face he wears now."

"He has a mark," Gillian said quietly.

Gillian reached up to his stiff collar, unbuttoning the top two brass fasteners of his coat. He pulled the thick fabric aside, exposing the smooth skin just beneath his left collarbone.

There, etched naturally into his skin, was a distinct, deep birthmark shaped like a sharp, six-pointed solar star. It wasn’t a scar, or a spell mark, it was an immutable, magical mark born only to those who carried pure Solaric royal blood. It could not be removed, altered, or healed away by any magic.

"He must have one of these somewhere on his body," Gillian murmured, rebuttoning his collar with calm, practiced fingers. "It is in his blood."

Iryna let out a short, dry laugh, shaking her head. "Too bad we can’t exactly go around ordering every young man in Auzelian and the capital to strip naked so we can do a full-body check."

Gillian didn’t smile. He looked past her toward the velvet curtains over the window, his eyes filled with heavy, solemn contemplation.

"There is always the possibility that he is no longer in this world," he said quietly. "We have searched for him for so long without finding a single trace. At some point, we have to consider that possibility."

He fell silent for a moment, his fingers tightening against the armrest.

"But..." His voice softened. "Can you imagine if he is still alive?"

Iryna’s expression slowly faded.

Gillian finally turned his gaze toward her, something almost painfully hopeful flickering beneath his usual composure.

"If he is alive, Iryna... and if he has survived all these years..." Gillian whispered into the silent room, his voice dropping into a low, chilling murmur. "...just imagine how terrifyingly powerful someone would be if they inherited both Solaric royal magic and Auzelian blood."