Chapter 226: Judgement

"Let me be her judge, Lucien," Aveline said.

For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Then Aveline turned away.

She needed to leave. She needed to find that woman. She wanted to look into the eyes of the person she now suspected had shattered her life and ask one simple question.

Why?

What darkness could have taken root in a heart to make someone hunt a little girl? To hunt a mother... and the man who loved her?

She had spent years believing her parents had died for something meaningful.

A conspiracy. A secret... Maybe some grand political scheme.

Not... Not because of jealousy. Not because one woman could not bear the shadow of another.

The thought sickened her.

She had barely taken two steps when a heavy thud echoed through the laboratory. She stopped.

Behind her, Lucien had fallen to his knees.

"Please..." His voice shook so violently it scarcely sounded like his own. "...she’s not to blame."

Aveline slowly turned back. Her fingers curled into fists.

"You’re asking me..." she whispered, "...to spare the woman I believe took my parents from me?"

The question came out louder than she intended, breaking apart beneath a ragged breath.

She had trusted him. She had cared for him. Perhaps even loved him, in the quiet way one grows to love an old teacher.

Now every one of those feelings felt like a knife turned against her.

"She told me it wasn’t her," Lucien said.

"And that was enough?" Aveline stared at him in disbelief. "That’s enough for you to believe her?"

Lucien closed his eyes. "It is enough..." His voice cracked. "...for me not to condemn her."

Something inside Aveline snapped. She pressed her thumb against the medallion resting upon her chest. Light exploded from beneath her hand.

Not ordinary fire, this time.

White flames unfurled around her fingers, so bright they bordered on silver. Within them danced threads of lightning that twisted through the fire without consuming it, weaving together into a blinding radiance that hummed with terrifying power.

The laboratory itself seemed to recoil.

Lucien’s eyes widened. His lips parted in reverence. "...The God-Flame."

Aveline scarcely heard him. Her anger drowned out everything else.

"Now I understand." She laughed once. It was a broken sound. "Everyone says you loved Leveret." Her eyes burned into his. "But you didn’t."

"You love your own comfort. You love the life you built. You love the woman beside you. You speak of Leveret as though she was the brightest soul to ever walk this earth..."

Her voice trembled.

"...yet when the time comes to choose between her memory and your wife...You choose your wife."

The words landed like blows.

"You call Leveret the light of your life...and yet you would rather protect the soul that may have extinguished hers."

Lucien lowered himself until his forehead touched the cold stone floor. His shoulders shook. He wept.

Not because he had an answer. But because... He didn’t.

Aveline’s breathing slowly steadied. The sight before her should have satisfied her.

Instead... It hurt.

This strange old man... The one who had opened his laboratory to her, the one who had patiently answered every impossible question, who had expected nothing in return... Now knelt before her, broken.

She had never been able to ignore another person’s pain. Not even when they had wounded her.

And that frightened her.

Another thought slipped quietly into her heart, one she hated the moment it appeared.

What if... What if he was telling the truth? What if Leone truly had not ordered her parents’ deaths?

She closed her eyes.

No.

Not yet.

She would not condemn anyone. Not until she knew the whole truth.

The wall of white fire surrounding her slowly subsided, its brilliant glow fading until only wisps of heat lingered in the air between them.

Lucien finally lifted his head.

"Whatever happened to your parents... whatever suffering you endured..." His voice shook with every word. "Let it all rest upon me. Ask anything of me, child. If it is within my power, I will do it."

A bitter laugh escaped Aveline.

"Anything?"

She looked straight into his eyes.

"Can you bring back my parents?"

Silence.

Tears rolled down her cheeks despite how fiercely she tried to hold them back. She hated crying. Hated that her voice trembled. Hated that after all these years, she was still that little girl standing beside two lifeless bodies.

Lucien lowered his head until his forehead nearly touched the floor. "I’m sorry..." His voice was barely a whisper. "I cannot return your family to you."

He swallowed painfully before forcing the next words out.

"But... if you’ll allow it... I will become your family. Whatever responsibility was left unfinished, let me bear it now. Let me—"

"You?"

Aveline almost laughed.

Who would willingly choose a family such as this?

She wanted to reject him.

She truly did.

Yet the words refused to leave her mouth.

Because beneath all the anger... beneath the betrayal... she was still an orphan.

A child who had spent years wishing someone—anyone—would simply tell her she belonged somewhere.

It hurt.

Far more than she wanted to admit.

She stood there... watching that old man trembling and watching that old man trembling, utterly powerless to choose between the woman he loved and the truth he feared. And... she couldn’t condemn him either.

What could she gain by punishing him? What could she gain by revenge?

And this truth... was it even the truth? Did her parents die in vain?

There were too many variables around her, and this was what took out her parents?

She refused to believe that.

Another thought quietly crept into her mind.

Theron.

If she truly wished to stand beside him one day, if she wished to become his wife despite being nothing more than an orphan from a neighboring kingdom, then someone like Lucien Caelvaris might become an ally she could not afford to lose.

Besides...

Truth always surfaced in the end.

If the evidence one day proved beyond all doubt that Archduchess Leone had orchestrated her parents’ deaths...

Then Aveline would judge her herself.

She turned toward the staircase. Behind her, Lucien remained kneeling on the cold stone floor. The sight made her chest tighten.

He looked so small... So terribly old. For all his brilliance... For all the power his name carried... He looked like nothing more than a broken old man.

With a quiet sigh, she walked back, took his trembling hand, and helped him to his feet.

"You really are a hypocrite, Lucien."

She wiped away the tears clinging stubbornly to her lashes.

"You watched Leveret’s light be extinguished. You saw what happened to a woman no one protected. You carried that grief for forty years..."

Her eyes hardened.

"...and yet you learned nothing."

Lucien stared at her.

She took one slow step back. "Girls disappear inside the Arcanum. They’re cornered. Threatened. Used by men who know no one powerful will ever listen to them. You stand at the top of this institution, calling yourself its guardian...yet the same darkness that swallowed Leveret is still happening beneath your own roof."

Her voice softened, but somehow became even sharper.

"You don’t really care, Lucien. If you did... it wouldn’t still be happening."

She turned and walked away. This time, she did not stop.

Only after the sound of her footsteps disappeared did Lucien find his voice.

"What..." His whisper echoed through the empty laboratory. "...do you mean?"

He stood frozen.

He had rewritten regulations. Punished offenders. Strengthened discipline. He had believed—truly believed—that no woman under his authority would ever suffer what Leveret had suffered.

His fingers slowly tightened into trembling fists.

Had he... been wrong all this time?

The laboratory fell silent once more.

Only the dying warmth of the God-Flame remained, lingering in the air like a judgment he could no longer escape.