CHAPTER 242: SHOULD SHE SURRENDER?

Leroy did everything she asked of him. He always had.

And five years ago, when she commanded him to return to the battlefields, he obeyed without question. She had promised him protection for his wife... that mute, deaf wastrel no one else cared for.

She understood better than anyone how precious that woman had become to him, and how utterly his soul would fracture if anything happened to her. It was a promise made not out of kindness, but out of strategy.

But...

Doubts began to creep in.

The mansion Lorraine built, a woman everyone had dismissed as a useless daughter, a blemish on the Arvand family’s pristine legacy, was not the home of some helpless noblewoman content with embroidery and quiet. It was organized. Discreetly fortified. Her household ran like a finely tuned instrument. And for a girl who had been ignored all her life, Lorraine had managed to gather capable, fiercely loyal attendants.

That woman was definitely not incapable. And yet, whenever she came out and about, she acted innocent, getting berated and mocked. Yet, she didn’t move a muscle.

It unsettled her.

She tried asking Aldric, the man she had placed at Leroy’s side years ago to keep a close watch on him. She never trusted Aldric, not fully, but he was useful, a hound that always came back with information. Or so she thought. But lately, even he was acting strangely. Evasive. Guarded. As if there were things he was deliberately keeping from her.

She tried to eliminate Lorraine a few times, quietly, carefully. Accidents. Poison. Traps. All failed. Perhaps once, she could have written it off as coincidence. Twice, as misfortune. But the third time? The fourth? No. Something was amiss.

And then... Lazira appeared.

A serpent rising from the shadows of the capital’s underbelly, weaving schemes that even she, she, who had once brought kingdoms to their knees through whispers, couldn’t fully unravel. Lazira’s moves were precise, unpredictable, and her influence spread like oil over water: quietly, unstoppably.

Then came the woman who called herself "The Swan Divina."

That was when something inside her clicked.

She began to observe. Closely. Patiently. She followed the ripples Lazira left behind, tracing every scheme, every subtle shift in power, every carefully placed ally. And the answer became glaringly obvious.

The one who benefited most from Lazira’s maneuvers...

Was none other than Leroy.

That name, "Swan Divina", troubled her deeply. It scratched at something buried long ago: an ancient prophecy whispered among the Six Families, about the rise of one as powerful as the Swan Oracle of old. A woman who would be mute, and when she regained her voice, every word she uttered would shape reality.

Her suspicions grew too loud to ignore.

She demanded an audience with the Swan Divina. That slimy woman refused her outright. So, she resorted to something she hadn’t done in decades: she played the role of the frail, pitiable dowager, stripped of power and clinging to scraps of influence. She donned that mask with ease, and eventually, they met.

The girl she saw was nothing like she expected.

She was brilliant. Calculating. She had discovered her own identity barely a year ago, and yet, in that time, she had survived four assassination attempts against herself and five against Leroy. She had constructed a network so intricate that others called her a spider, spinning webs across the capital. But that was wrong. Spiders waited in silence.

This girl commanded.

She moved like a queen bee, the center of a living hive. Everyone around her had a role, a purpose, and they moved with startling coordination, as if bound by an invisible will. Their sole aim: to protect the queen.

And when the realization finally struck, when she understood that this silent, underestimated girl was Lorraine, the same mute daughter she had once dismissed...

She was overcome with fear.

Not the shallow fear of losing political advantage. A deep, bone-deep terror

.

Because she remembered the prophecy.

The one passed down secretly among the Six Families.

"She comes in silence, veiled by years,

The mute who speaks through blood and tears.

Her lips once bound, her voice concealed,

Shall rise, and every word revealed.

Grace shall veil her, wrath shall flame,

And vengeance tremble at her name."

For years, that prophecy had been little more than a distant myth to her, a curious relic of their shared ancestry. She never imagined she’d live to see it. After a long time, she remembered the painting she had found in the palace, hidden by the Dravenholts.

And now, all the signs were there.

Leroy’s mysterious rise. Lazira’s maneuvers. The Swan Divina. The inexplicable failures of every attempt to kill Lorraine. The silent mansion that thrummed with hidden activity.

Lorraine was not the pawn she had once believed her to be.

She was the queen.

Hadrian had confirmed her suspicions. Lorraine’s mother hailed from one of the Six Families—an ancient lineage steeped in power and prophecy. Lorraine could very well be the Oracle foretold. And yet, for all his cleverness, Hadrian had failed to see the truth hiding beneath his own roof: his daughter was the puppeteer behind the city’s shadowed dealings. She had even tried to warn him. He hadn’t listened.

So she had left him to his fate.

For the first time in decades, the Dowager felt the board shift beneath her feet. The tidy patterns she had arranged so carefully were breaking apart.

Leroy was not merely the heir to Vaeloria’s throne. He was the heir to the Dragon Throne.

For a woman who had built her life upon strategy, certainty, and iron will, confusion was a foreign and unwelcome guest. The vengeance she had nursed for years warred with the legacy of her bloodline. Which would she choose to uphold? The fire of retribution, or the weight of history?

Hadrian’s untimely visit had only complicated matters. He now regretted not binding his eldest daughter to Leroy through marriage, wishing to see the Kaltharion throne bend to his will. But she knew better. Separating Leroy from Lorraine would be near impossible.

And the prophecies... the prophecies said no blade could claim Lorraine’s life until she placed the heir into Leroy’s arms. That was the riddle of destiny.

She had waited to see if Hadrian could prove it false.

But Hadrian was dead.

Lorraine was not.

The Dowager drew a slow breath, realization settling like cold steel in her chest. She could not win this war, not through manipulation, not through brute force.

There was only one path left.

To kneel.

To submit to Aralyn’s son.

But could she?

Should she?