Cassian stands a few paces from the Queen, but the space between them feels like a canyon; jagged, bitter and broken.
He stares at her as though seeing her for the very first time.
"What do I call you now?" he says, voice low and shaking. "Mother… or Your Majesty?"
Queen Morgana flinches, her eyes glistening, but she says nothing.
"How could you?" Cassian steps closer, fists clenched. "How could you rob me of my real identity and bring me here, raise me in falsehood? How could you order your own child," he points at me, hand trembling, "to be discarded… while you kept another as your own?"
The Queen exhales shakily, her mouth parting as if to speak but no words come. Only tears gather.
"You lied to the King," Cassian hisses. "You gave him another man's son… and made him believe I was his heir."
He chokes on the weight of his next words.
"Did he know?" Cassian's voice cracks. "Did he know I wasn't his blood? Is that why he was so hard on me? Is that why he…despised me?"
I see the Queen's face crumble, she's no longer the iron matriarch of the realm, but a woman unraveling.
"You are my son, Cassian," she cries, her voice rising, desperate. "Even if I didn't birth you, you are my son in every way that matters. The King didn't know, he never knew! To him, you were his blood, his only son, his pride. He didn't despise you…"
"Stop lying!" Cassian snaps. His voice echoes off the marble like a slap.
"That was your sick fantasy! You built an empire of lies. You made me a puppet in a crown I never asked for. I'm not a Lucien… I never was."
He drags both hands through his hair, wild and wrecked.
"Everything you forced me to become; the title, the duties and the endless expectations, they were all based on a lie! You stole me. You ruined me."
His voice is raw now, nearly unrecognizable.
"You destroyed everything I was meant to be… before I could even become it."
No one speaks. Not me. Not Shea. Not even the Queen, who only weeps now, broken in her chair.
Then, Cassian does the one thing I never thought I'd see him do.
He turns and runs.
Not walks.
Runs.
Out of the Grand Hall like a man escaping a burning house.
Only this time, the fire was lit from within.
The doors slam behind him, and silence floods in like a tide.
The Queen covers her face with her hands and sobs, guttural, shaking cries that echo in the cavernous space.
Shea sits still as stone, her lips trembling.
I close my eyes, the pain in my chest blooming anew.
This family, our family, is a shattered myth crumbling in real time.
And I'm not sure what's left to hold onto anymore.
I sit frozen.
Still tethered to the IV, still weak from the transfusion, but numb to the body I sit in. I can't feel the sting in my arm or the pounding in my head.
I can only feel the collapse.
Everything; my identity, my marriage, my place in this kingdom has cracked open like a fault line.
I try to think, to breathe, to put meaning to what just unfolded.
But my mind is a riot.
Queen Morgana of Matica, my supposed mother-in-law, the woman who's spent every waking moment despising me, reducing me, degrading me, is now… my biological mother?
How does one even begin to process that?
She married me off like a pawn. For debts my father owed. She thought she was binding me to her son. But now, I am the Lucien. And Cassian…?
Cassian is the imposter.
My thoughts spiral. Have I been married to a stranger? A man stolen from another world, from a family who never knew what became of him?
Or worse; have I been sleeping beside my brother?
No. No, the Queen said otherwise. But her lips are woven with lies, soaked in manipulation.
I stare at her.
I don't see the woman who raised a prince. I see a cold, power-hungry puppet master.
"I just want to know one thing," I say, quietly, clearly. No title. No reverence.
She lifts her tear-swollen eyes to me.
"Am I truly King Lucien's child?" My voice trembles but I don't waver. "Or… did you cheat on him, like you did with Shea's father? Am I another secret… from another man?"
The Queen exhales slowly, a sob caught in her throat.
"You are Lucien's child," she whispers. "Take my word for it."
A bitter taste rises in my throat. Your word? That's worth dust.
But even as the thought rises, something inside me quiets. The Judge King's words echo in my bones, in the hollow place where certainty used to live.
"You are my daughter." He had said this to me in my dream.
I am a Lucien.
Even if the world crumbles. Even if the Queen never meant for it to be so.
Before I can say another word, the door opens behind us. Soft footsteps tap across the marble.
Esther.
She doesn't spare the Queen or Shea a single glance. She walks to me with her gentle but firm grace, checks the IV bag, and unclips it silently. Then she leans forward and whispers:
"It's time to go, Your Highness."
I nod, too tired to argue. My legs are trembling as I stand, but Esther steadies me with practiced ease.
We begin to walk, away from the wreckage, the shame, the deceit.
Behind us, the Queen breaks again.
"Celeste…" she calls out, voice ragged. "I'm sorry."
But I don't stop. I don't turn around.
I just keep walking with Esther, forward.
Where the truth leads, I'll follow.
Even if I have to follow it alone.