Chapter 134: What if Eiravelle is father’s daughter all along?

"What if Eiravelle is father’s daughter all along?" Arielle asked, and for the first time, Elara and Arthion didn’t even know what to say. The question hung in the air like a blade suspended above them, sharp and gleaming, ready to fall.

The fire in the hearth crackled, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney, and the wind rattled the windows, but no one heard any of it. They were frozen, trapped in the silence that followed Arielle’s words, their minds struggling to process the implications of what she had just suggested.

Arielle looked at them, at their pale faces and their wide eyes and their trembling hands, and she felt no pity. She had spent years watching Eiravelle suffer, years watching her sister be cast aside and humiliated and treated like she was less than nothing.

And now, finally, she understood why. Now, finally, she had the answer to the question that had haunted her for as long as she could remember.

"Eiravelle’s daughter... Qazaevelle," Arielle continued, her voice steady and deliberate. "She should be having a raven’s features. But no... Qazaevelle had feature traits like Arisia and Ariphale when they were born." She paused, letting the words sink in.

"It started with the nails. Next was the wolf ears or antlers and the elven ears. If the child showed elven ears, then it means the child was father’s granddaughter. Because there is no way the Sovereign will have elven ears when her species is hybrid dragon-phoenix."

Arthion was totally speechless for the first time in his whole life. He stood there, his arms still wrapped around Elara, his face pale as death, and his mind raced through the implications of what Arielle was saying. The Arthion bloodline was not just a matter of genetics.

It was a matter of magic, of destiny, of something that went deeper than blood. The Arthion family had been blessed by the gods, had been given gifts that set them apart from other alphas. The nails, the ears, and the antlers. These were not just physical traits. They were markers of the bloodline, signs that the gods had chosen them, that they were special. And if Qazaevelle had these traits, then she was an Arthion. And if she was an Arthion, then Eiravelle was an Arthion too.

"You mean... It could be..." He stopped, he didn’t know how to say it. The words caught in his throat, choking him, and he could not force them out. He could not admit what he was thinking. He could not admit that he might have made a terrible mistake.

"It could be that you made your daughter’s life miserable just because you thought she’s not yours," Arielle said, and her voice was cold, cutting, and devoid of any warmth. She looked at her father, at the man who had raised her, at the man who had cast Eiravelle aside, and she felt nothing but contempt.

"You threw her away, Father. You and Mother both. You treated her like she was nothing, like she was a stain on your precious family name, and all because you thought she was the daughter of a raven. But what if she wasn’t? What if she was yours all along? What then?"

Arthion was totally dumbfounded. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. He closed it again, his jaw tight, his hands trembling. He had no answer. He had no excuse. He had spent years convincing himself that he was right, that Eiravelle was not his daughter, that she was proof of his wife’s betrayal.

He had built walls around his heart, had hardened himself against her, had told himself that she deserved nothing from him. And now, standing in the wreckage of his own making, he realized that he might have been wrong. He might have been wrong about everything.

"How do we confirm this?" Arisia asked, her voice small and uncertain. She had been silent throughout the argument, her arms wrapped around her mother, her face pale with shock. But now she spoke, her voice trembling, her eyes fixed on Arielle. She needed to know. She needed to understand.

"Eiravelle’s daughter... If she showed any elven, wolf, or deer traits, aside from being a dragon-phoenix, then it proves Eiravelle is my sister by blood and that she is father’s daughter all along," Arielle said, and her voice was steady, deliberate. She had thought about this, had worked through the logic in her mind during the carriage ride home. It was the only explanation that made sense. It was the only explanation that fit all the facts.

Everyone couldn’t even process her words. The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating, filled with the weight of everything that had been said and everything that could not be taken back. Elara gasped, her hand flying to her mouth, and the tears that had been streaming down her cheeks dried as shock took over.

She had not expected this. She had not expected to hear that her daughter might be her husband’s child after all. She had spent years believing that Eiravelle was the product of a moment of weakness, a mistake that she had tried to forget.

But what if she had been wrong? What if the mistake had never happened? What if Eiravelle was not a raven’s daughter, but an Arthion?

"But if that happens... I will never forgive all of you for making her life miserable," Arielle uttered, and then she walked away with a heavy heart to carry. Her footsteps echoed through the corridor, growing fainter and fainter until they faded into silence, and then she was gone, leaving her family to grapple with the wreckage she had left behind.

Arthion was left to weigh her words, and he didn’t even know what he would do if Eiravelle was really his daughter. He stood there, his arms still wrapped around Elara, but his mind was far away. He was thinking about all the years he had spent ignoring Eiravelle, all the times he had looked at her with cold, dismissive eyes, all the moments he had chosen to believe the worst of her.

He was thinking about the way she had looked at him when he had cast her out, the pain in her eyes, the way she had not even fought back. She had simply accepted it, had simply walked away, as though she had expected nothing more from him. And now, standing in the ruins of his own pride, he realized that he had failed her. He had failed her in every way a father could fail a daughter.

Elara gasped, and her legs gave out beneath her, sending her collapsing onto the sofa. She did not know what to do either. She had spent years believing that Eiravelle was not Arthion’s child, had spent years trying to forget the night she had spent with the raven, had spent years trying to convince herself that she had not ruined her marriage.

Arisia and Ariphale stood frozen, their faces pale, their minds reeling. They had grown up believing that Eiravelle was their half-sister, the daughter of a stranger, the product of their mother’s infidelity.

They had treated her with the same distant courtesy that their father had shown, had never truly accepted her as one of their own. And now, they were being told that she might have been their full sister, their blood, and their family. It was too much to process. It was too much to understand.

The room was quiet, the only sounds the crackling of the fire and the soft sobs of Elara. Arthion stood in the center, his arms hanging at his sides, his face a mask of grief and guilt and a terrible, inescapable shame. He had made a mistake. He had made the worst mistake of his life. And now, there was nothing he could do to fix it.