Chapter 202| Telling the Rest

Susan arrived at the guild within hours of Allen’s message, her own composed exterior carrying visible, uncharacteristic urgency as she crossed the threshold without her usual, measured formality.

"Tell me everything," she said, settling into the meeting room with none of her customary reserve. "Every detail. I don’t want the careful, filtered version."

Allen obliged, walking her through the raid’s considerable revelation with the same honest, deliberate care he’d extended his wives during their own difficult conversation at the mountain rest stop, and watched his mother’s expression shift through shock, fear, and finally something considerably more focused as she absorbed the full weight of what they’d uncovered.

"Anchor Candidate," she repeated slowly. "Founder lineage. Allen, do you understand what you’re actually describing?"

"Not entirely," Allen admitted. "That’s part of why I wanted you here. I thought you might know something about our family’s own history that could help make sense of it."

Susan was quiet a long moment, something old and troubled crossing her usually composed features. "There are stories," she said finally. "Old family accounts, mostly dismissed as embellished legend by the time they reached my own generation. Something about a considerable, ancient connection tracing back through the Veton bloodline, predating even the family’s own documented noble status."

"You never mentioned this," Allen said, genuine surprise coloring his voice.

"Because I never believed it," Susan said. "Family legends like that circulate through every noble house. Most of them are simply embellishment, invented to make an ordinary lineage feel considerably more significant than it actually is. I had no reason to think ours was any different."

"Until now," Myria said quietly.

"Until now," Susan agreed, something unsettled and considering in her expression. "I’ll have the old family archives properly searched. If there’s genuine substance behind those stories, I want to understand exactly what we’re actually dealing with, before it costs this family anything further."

"Would you be willing to share whatever you find with Priya’s team as well?" Myria asked. "Even fragmentary legend might help contextualize whatever the facility’s own research was actually building toward."

"Of course," Susan said immediately. "I should have offered that before you asked."

---

Edward received the news with considerably more raw, immediate emotion, his own protective instincts flaring sharp and fierce the moment Allen finished explaining.

"They’ve been watching you your entire life," he said, something fierce and furious entering his voice. "Before either of us even understood what that meant. That’s—" He stopped, visibly working through his own mounting anger. "That’s genuinely monstrous, Allen."

"I know," Allen said. "I’m still working through what it actually means, myself."

"What can I do?" Edward asked. "Whatever you need. I mean that completely."

Allen studied his brother, recognizing genuine, considerable devotion behind the offer, and felt something warm settle alongside the day’s difficult, mounting weight. "Just keep doing what you’re already doing," he said. "Keep building something good here. That matters more than you probably realize, especially now."

Edward nodded slowly, though something protective and unresolved still lingered behind his expression. "I mean it, though," he said. "If this ever becomes something I can actually fight against directly, I want to be there."

"I’ll hold you to that," Allen said, managing a tired, genuine smile.

The evening settled gradually into quiet, considered reflection, Susan departing with a promise to investigate the family’s own buried history, Edward lingering a while longer before finally returning to his own modest quarters, and Allen found himself, alone with his wives once more, grateful for exactly how much genuine, considerable support this fractured, healing family had learned to offer each other, even amid revelations this devastating.

"We’re not facing this alone," Vivian said quietly, watching Edward’s departing transport pull away.

"No," Allen agreed. "We never really have been, this whole time. I think that’s the part I keep forgetting, whenever something this considerable threatens to knock us off balance."

"Then let’s not forget it again," Myria said gently, drawing him close, and the family settled into the evening’s quiet, hard-won peace, one more difficult truth properly shared, and, in the sharing, made considerably easier to carry.

Later that night, once the household had finally settled toward rest, Allen found himself reviewing the day’s accumulated conversations, turning Susan’s mention of old family legend over with quiet, considered attention. He’d grown up in a house that rarely spoke of anything beyond immediate, practical concerns — power, rank, business, the endless calculus of maintaining the family’s own considerable standing. The idea that some buried, half-forgotten story might have been quietly true this entire time settled strangely in his chest, equal parts unsettling and, oddly, clarifying.

Myria found him there, still turning the thought over long after the rest of the household had gone quiet. "You should be resting," she said gently.

"I know," Allen admitted. "I keep thinking about how much of my own life might trace back further than I ever understood. Not just Reginald’s thirty-one years. Considerably longer than that."

"Does that frighten you?" Myria asked.

"A little," Allen admitted. "Mostly it makes me want to understand it properly, rather than simply fear it. I’ve spent this whole year learning that the truth, however difficult, is always better than not knowing."

"Then we’ll find it," Myria said simply, drawing him finally toward rest. "Together, the same as everything else."

Allen let the reassurance settle, grateful, as always, for her steady, unwavering certainty, and allowed the day’s considerable weight to finally, gradually ease into something he could properly rest beneath, if not yet fully resolve.

He woke the next morning to Myria already awake beside him, her own considerable focus already turning toward the day’s practical work, and found himself grateful, watching her steady, familiar routine resume, for exactly how reliably his family managed to carry devastating news forward without ever losing sight of the ordinary, hopeful life still waiting on the other side of it.

"Susan’s already messaged," Myria said, glancing up from her tablet. "She’s assembled a small team to continue searching the archive properly. She wants to know if we’d like updates as they come, or only once she has something concrete."

"As they come," Allen said. "I don’t want to be shielded from this, even the uncertain pieces."

"I told her you’d say that," Myria said, something fond in her tone. "I already replied accordingly."

Allen managed a tired, grateful smile, drawing her close for a moment before the day’s considerable work properly began, and let himself, for that brief, quiet moment, simply appreciate a partnership that understood him well enough to answer for him and still be right.