บท 91: Shattered and Bare

Elian sat frozen, staring at the door long after the emperor left. His whole body felt numb, his thoughts racing in a blur that he couldn't grasp. What had just happened? He was no longer sure.

The words the emperor had said, the revelations about Ireen, his supposedly mother, and the massacre of her family, it was too much.

His world had been upended in a way he never thought possible. Families annihilated. Lives erased. And now, after hearing the truth, the hatred he held for Izan didn't burn quite as fiercely anymore. But there was no peace in that, only a cold, hollow void.

The emperor's voice still echoed in his ears. Ireen, his supposedly mother, had been framed, her family slaughtered for a crime they didn't commit.

And now, as if his life wasn't complicated enough, he was told he would be reinstated as a Montclair. The emperor spoke of it as if he were some sort of lost heir.