Chapter 67: This Stage Was Never Yours

"Rhaiven?"

The name came out before Cecilia could finish reaching for it herself, spoken instead by Lucian, the syllables slipping past his lips before he’d even fully registered pulling them out of his own memory.

Cecilia’s hands came together in a sharp, delighted clap. That was exactly the name she’d been fishing for.

"That’s him! How do you already know his name? Didn’t you just say a moment ago you had no idea who was standing next to Commander Gareth?"

"Uhm, about that, I really don’t know anything about someone named Rhaiven. I think I might have overheard the name somewhere before, just in passing, secondhand."

Cecilia’s eyes narrowed slightly, studying his face with open suspicion.

Lucian forced a small smile, working to still the faint tremor still clinging to his own mouth, though it had nothing to do with searching for an answer to her question. What actually unsettled him ran far deeper than that, a grim realization settling into place with sickening certainty.

He’d said the name hoping, praying almost, that he’d be wrong. Instead, the opposite had happened. The name he’d dreaded turned out to be exactly right.

Every detail from the Chronos Domain still sat sharp and clear in his memory, every word, every fragment tied to Miyu’s story, and Rhaiven’s name had threaded through all of it, indirectly but unmistakably connected to everything Lucian had already witnessed.

Sonata had gone still now. Lucian’s own body picked up the tremor instead, a fine shiver running through him as the full weight of what he now understood settled in.

Because if what he remembered from that Domain held true, Rhaiven was a Necromancer, standing here tonight, inside this very hall.

A Necromancer’s danger wasn’t theoretical.

Lucian had seen it firsthand within the Chronos memory, the range of what a Necromancer could command, evil spirits like Murks bent to their will, creatures brutally difficult to fight under ordinary circumstances.

Worse, Rhaiven specifically had once succeeded in trapping an evil spirit inside an Adenium flower through some method Lucian still didn’t fully understand.

Which meant there was no guarantee he hadn’t already hidden a cluster of those same spirits somewhere within tonight’s event.

Lucian’s eyes swept the hall again, searching for any sign of an Adenium flower or a vase resembling the one Isabella had recovered and used to explain away the domain’s appearance to House Sarnel. Nothing matched.

But the memory of that vase dragged something else back into focus, a detail from Adrian, back when they’d first examined it: the vase and flower had been Princess Helia’s gift to House Sarnel, given seven years ago, during the same visit when Lucian himself had been twelve years old.

If that’s true, does that mean Helia and Rhaiven have known each other for years?

The thought wasn’t as far-fetched as it should have been.

Because when Helia had drafted that annulment letter days ago, two other figures besides Gareth had already been present in that room.

At the time, still unaccustomed to the reach of his newly restored {GOD-EYE}, Lucian had only caught the faintest outline of two people trying to keep themselves hidden.

Those two people had been Rhaiven and Helia.

He hadn’t understood the true scope of his own ability back then.

Now, standing here with that same dangerous figure directly in front of him, the implications hit all at once, a fresh, sharper question rising underneath the first: if Rhaiven and Helia had known each other this long, why had Cecilia just described him as someone who’d only recently joined Helia’s personal guard?

"Lady Cecilia, do you happen to know what qualifications the Princess’s new guard actually holds? Is he a Swordmaster, the same as Commander Gareth?"

The question made sense on its face.

Serving as a princess’s personal escort typically demanded credentials at the very top, Swordmaster rank, or at minimum a commander’s standing, the kind of pedigree that earned someone the privilege of standing that close to royalty.

Which meant Rhaiven almost certainly carried a fabricated identity now, something built to bury the truth. He could hardly admit to being a Necromancer outright, not without inviting the Order of Lumielle to hunt him down the moment word got out.

"He’s a Forgemaster."

A Forgemaster?

Cecilia answered without hesitation, clearly confident in what she’d heard, recalling the rumor in full now that she’d placed the name.

Forgemasters ranked among the rarest professions in the world, and even a junior Forgemaster could produce lower-tier Relics valuable enough to earn genuine respect in society.

Given that Rhaiven had apparently crafted the very vase capable of containing an Adenium’s dark mana, the cover story made a disturbing kind of sense.

If he really did possess genuine skill as a Forgemaster, that talent alone would let him pass scrutiny from even a trained expert, the proof sitting right there in his own craftsmanship.

Which meant no one in this entire hall had any reason to suspect him.

No one except Lucian, who now knew exactly who, and what, he actually was.

While Lucian remained fixed on Rhaiven, a sudden motion at the head of the hall pulled every eye upward.

Varka raised his hand high, summoning one of his soldiers forward, who carried a metal box between both palms, its surface etched with intricate golden patterns that drew a collective gasp from the crowd the instant it came into view.

Every guest in the room turned toward it. Whatever sat inside remained a mystery, and yet the box alone seemed enough to satisfy their curiosity for now, a quiet, expectant hush settling over the hall.

The aura bleeding faintly off its surface left no doubt. Whatever lay inside was a Relic, and a significant one.

"This is the reason I’ve allowed Helia to stand as a contender alongside Retave," the Emperor announced.

Retave accepted the ornate box from the soldier, studying it with visible intensity.

"Inside this box sits an extraordinarily valuable Relic known as the Pocket Orb, the very device that earned Helia her place at Orvis Academy through its special admission path.

You should already understand exactly how rare and precious a Relic has to be for the Academy to grant that kind of recognition."

"So as your Emperor, how could I possibly overlook talent this exceptional within my own bloodline? Wouldn’t it make me a fool to withhold recognition from someone this gifted? That is why I’ve decided, here and now, that she will stand among the contenders for succession."

The announcement landed like a thunderclap. Not a single soul in the hall had known Helia, Varka’s second daughter, had earned her own place at Orvis Academy, following in the footsteps of First Princess Andromeda, who’d also secured her admission there.

The hall erupted all over again.

Applause rolled through the crowd in waves, voices rising to celebrate Helia’s success, an achievement through that special, brutally selective path that almost no one in the empire’s history had ever managed to clear.

Even several of the Seven Pillar families looked visibly stunned, clearly having had no idea of Helia’s circumstances until this exact moment.

A handful of houses that had remained politically neutral until now seemed to be quietly reconsidering, weighing whether Helia’s newfound recognition made her worth backing after all.

Without meaning to, Retave had accomplished the exact opposite of what he’d walked in here intending. Rather than cornering Helia, he’d handed her an enormous stage, one she hadn’t even needed to ask for.

Worse still for him, Retave himself was the one sibling among the three who had never managed to gain admission to Orvis Academy at all, a fact that left his own standing looking considerably weaker next to both of his sisters now.

The memory of that failure settled visibly over him. He bit down hard on his lip, falling into a heavy, brooding silence at his father’s words, the sting of hearing his younger half-sister succeed where he himself had failed despite everything he’d invested trying to get in.

Lucian turned slowly, taking in the entire hall now swept up in admiration for Helia and the Relic that had supposedly earned her this moment, the very Relic he himself had built with his own hands.

A bitter thought settled quietly in his chest.

If I told any of them the truth right now, that I was the one who actually made that Relic, not a single person here would believe me.