POV: Seraphina
Seraphina met Eleanor's gaze without flinching.
The question stayed unanswered between them. She had been building toward this moment through hours of evidence presentation, and now the critical choice sat in front of Eleanor, sharp and unavoidable.
"Before I answer that question directly, Your Majesty, I need to understand something."
POV: Eleanor
Eleanor had expected deflection. Maybe denial. Possibly careful redirection to buy time.
What she had not expected was Seraphina turning the interrogation around. The move was bold and potentially offensive.
She recognized strategic brilliance when she saw it. The young woman wasn't avoiding the question... she was controlling the conditions under which she would answer it.
Eleanor had suspected the truth since reading the petition. The careful phrasing that avoided direct claims while implying everything. The personal investment in research compiled by "my mother" rather than hired investigators. The way Duchess D'Lorien spoke about Celestine suppression with intimate knowledge that no outside researcher would possess.
Suspecting and hearing confirmation were different things entirely.
Confirmation meant making decisions that could not be unmade. Taking positions that would define her reign's legacy. Choosing sides in a conflict that could destabilize the empire she had spent thirty years building.
Eleanor gestured once, the movement combining permission with challenge.
"Ask."
"What you have heard today amounts to four women drugged, three definitely dead under suspicious circumstances, one surviving only through intervention. Seventeen other families eliminated through convenient accidents. Financial trails pointing toward imperial advisors. Demon escalation correlating with failed awakenings."
Seraphina's voice stayed steady through the recitation.
"Does any of that change if the fifth generation is standing before you now? Does evidence become less credible if I claim Flamebearer heritage? Does systematic murder become justifiable if the victims carried bloodline you were taught to fear?"
The question eliminated every political calculation Eleanor had been making.
She had options. Dismiss Seraphina's claims as manipulation. Argue that Flamebearer testimony was untrustworthy. Use archival prejudice to avoid uncomfortable truth.
The alternative was evaluating evidence on its merits. The authentication seals were genuine, verified, impossible to forge. The financial records were meticulously documented. The demon correlation matched her military reports with disturbing precision.
She thought about Lady Adrianne D'Lorien.
Decades ago at an imperial court function, a woman suddenly ill, rumors spreading like poison. Duke Lucien intervening before the situation became irreversible, escorting Lady Adrianne away from a lord whose intentions remained ambiguous.
Eleanor had dismissed it as court drama at the time. She had barely remembered the incident until Seraphina presented her mother's diary entry describing waking disoriented in a corridor with no memory of how she got there.
If it was attempted drugging, if someone had used her court and her authority and her functions as hunting ground for systematic elimination, then the implications were staggering.
The maternal rage that thought triggered was visceral. Immediate. Four mothers dead before age twenty-five. Children orphaned. For one hundred twenty-five years someone had been murdering women who had committed no crime except being born with heritage someone else feared.
Whether they were Flamebearers or not, that was unconscionable.
Eleanor turned to look at Duke Vorenthal. The Warden had remained silent during most of the presentation, speaking only to corroborate evidence with military intelligence when directly questioned.
His reputation was built on absolute integrity. Fifteen years of loyal service. Never compromised by bribes, threats, or ideology.
If anyone could recognize coordinated deception, it was Caelan Vorenthal.
He was backing Seraphina completely.
"Duke Vorenthal," Eleanor said quietly. "You have reviewed this evidence independently?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"And your assessment?"
"The pattern is real. The financial connections are traceable through multiple independent sources. The demon correlation matches my own military observations over fifteen years of border command." He paused, and Eleanor recognized the weight behind that pause. "And Duchess D'Lorien accessed blood-locked Celestine sanctums that respond only to genuine heritage. I witnessed it personally. The wards recognized her bloodline."
The statement was simple and direct and unequivocal.
Eleanor looked back at Seraphina.
The young woman sat with rigid composure, document case empty now, all evidence spread across the desk in careful organization. Her hands were folded in her lap in perfect court etiquette. Eleanor could see the tension in her shoulders despite that careful control.
She was the same age Eleanor had been when she first held Thalion. When she understood that every decision she made would shape what kind of world he inherited.
What would Eleanor have done if someone had drugged her at a court function? If she had woken disoriented in a stranger's chambers with no memory of consent? If scandal had forced marriage to someone who would destroy everything she was?
The thought made her stomach turn with visceral horror.
What would she have done if someone had killed her before she could raise her son? If Thalion had grown up motherless because she carried inconvenient bloodline that threatened someone's political agenda?
The maternal rage returned stronger this time. Four women. Four mothers. Four children who grew up knowing their mothers died suspiciously young.
The fifth generation now sat before her asking for protection to complete what her ancestors could not.
Eleanor made her decision.
The choice was not political. Not strategic. It was human.
"I do not care what bloodline you carry," she said, her voice breaking the silence in the room. "Four women were drugged. At least one of those incidents happened at an imperial function under my authority. That alone demands investigation regardless of heritage or magical claims."
She gestured to the compiled evidence.
"Whether you are Flamebearer or not, systematic elimination of noble families with succession claims is treason. Financial manipulation through proxy companies is fraud. Altering imperial archives is corruption at the highest level."
Her voice hardened with absolute conviction.
"And if the demon correlation is accurate, if preventing awakenings causes realm-wide collapse, then suppression is not just murder. It is engineering apocalypse. Condemning thousands to death for political convenience."
She met Seraphina's gaze directly.
"So I will ask again. Is this your family? Are you the fifth generation they are trying to eliminate?"
POV: Seraphina
This was it.
The moment she had been building toward since discovering Mother's research hidden in blood-locked sanctums. Since understanding that going public was the only path to survival. Since realizing that hiding would just make her the fifth convenient death in a pattern that had lasted over a century.
She stood because this revelation needed to be delivered on her feet rather than sitting in supplication.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The words came out steady and clear despite the way her heart hammered against her ribs.
"Lady Adrianne D'Lorien was my mother. Duke Lucien D'Lorien was my father. The infant Crown Princess who escaped over a century ago, raised by Sir Aldric Thorne and Lady Maren Ashwood, became my great-great-grandmother."
She gestured to the genealogical documents spread across Eleanor's desk.
"This is my authenticated bloodline. House D'Lorien through my father." Her voice stayed controlled through years of practice at hiding emotion. "House Celestine through my mother."
The ancestral sigils on the parchments began to glow faintly in response to her proximity. Blood calling to blood through ancient magic. The kind of signature that could not be faked or forged, only inherited through direct descent.
"I am fifth generation from that escaped newborn. I am the last surviving member of House Celestine. I am the Flamebearer they have been trying to suppress."
Eleanor's expression did not change in obvious ways. Something shifted in her posture though, a subtle settling that spoke of suspicion confirmed rather than revelation delivered.
Thalion had gone very still behind his mother's shoulder, hands clenched behind his back hard enough that his knuckles showed white.
Seraphina continued because the full context needed to be clear.
"The petition was not theoretical. I am the one being targeted. My mother was drugged at an imperial function decades ago, survived only because my father intervened before the trap could close. She died eight years ago anyway, from casting ancient magic that required her life as payment. Duke Lucien never knew what she'd done until after she was gone."
She pulled out the final documents. Recent evidence. Current threats.
"The petition was not academic speculation. I am currently trapped in the marriage they engineered. My father was assassinated eight years ago through similar methods. The pattern my mother documented continues with my generation." Her voice stayed level through the recitation. "They are escalating because I am approaching awakening age. Because if I complete trials, over a century of suppression ends."
"And the cosmic consequences?" Eleanor's voice was quiet now.
"The demon attacks at your eastern borders are not random escalation. They are consequence of four generations of failed awakenings." Seraphina met her gaze directly. "If I die before completing trials, the accumulated cosmic debt does not reset. It compounds. Demons attacking weekly now will attack daily. Then hourly. Then constantly. Until barriers collapse completely and the realm falls."
She gestured to the military reports Caelan had provided.
"Your border troops are already stretched managing weekly incursions with current force deployment. How long can they hold if attacks become constant?"
Eleanor did not answer. She did not need to. The implication was clear to everyone in the room.
Seraphina pulled herself to full height. Four generations of suppressed Celestine women stood behind her in this moment, their deaths demanding acknowledgment and justice.
"I petition for imperial protection during awakening trials. I need to complete the sacred flames at sanctuaries across the realm without interference. I need time to fulfill the cosmic responsibility my bloodline carries."
She paused to let that sink in.
"And I petition for imperial investigation into the families who orchestrated over a century of systematic elimination. My mother died trying to identify them. You have resources she did not. You can investigate advisory families holding multi-generational positions. Cross-reference financial records with elimination patterns. Finish what she started."
Four women who died fighting. Four children who grew up carrying evidence and truth forward. All leading to this moment of revelation and choice.
Eleanor stood motionless for what felt like eternity. The silence stretched until Seraphina could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.
Then Eleanor turned to Thalion.
"Crown Prince, your assessment of Duchess Celestine's claims?"
The deliberate use of Celestine rather than D'Lorien or Vessant acknowledged the revealed heritage publicly.
Thalion's voice was tight when he answered, the words clearly difficult. "The genealogical authentication is genuine. The financial evidence is documented through multiple independent sources. The demon correlation matches our military intelligence. Duke Vorenthal's independent corroboration validates the investigation."
He paused, and Seraphina watched his jaw work as he forced out the next words.
"Everything I was taught about Flamebearers appears to be inverted. Either the archives are wrong through honest error, or they were deliberately altered to justify suppression."
"And if the cosmic correlation is accurate?"
"Then preventing her awakening threatens realm survival." His assessment was military and direct, the kind that did not allow for political maneuvering or convenient denial. "We cannot sustain escalating demon attacks at current force levels."
Eleanor turned to Caelan.
"Duke Vorenthal, you endorse providing imperial protection for Flamebearer awakening trials?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. Both as military necessity, because we cannot sustain escalating demon attacks, and as moral imperative. Systematic elimination of noble bloodlines is treason regardless of which family is targeted."
Eleanor was quiet for another long moment. Seraphina watched her face for any sign of the decision forming behind those calculating eyes.
Then Eleanor spoke, and her voice carried absolute authority.
"I will grant imperial protection for your awakening trials. You may complete the sacred flames at sanctuaries across the realm without interference."
Relief started to flood through Seraphina...
"Furthermore," Eleanor continued, her voice hardening, "I authorize full investigation into the conspiracy you've documented. The systematic elimination of noble bloodlines. The financial manipulation. The archive corruption."
She turned to Thalion.
"Crown Prince, you will oversee this investigation personally. Discretely. Cross-reference financial records with documented eliminations. Trace proxy company payments. Identify families holding multi-generational advisory positions."
Eleanor's gaze was steel.
"Trust no one with long-standing court access until we determine who's compromised. Report directly to me. If evidence leads to my own inner circle, to advisors who've served for generations, so be it."
Thalion nodded once, understanding the weight.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Your mother spent years investigating this conspiracy and died before completing it," Eleanor said quietly, looking back at Seraphina. "We will finish what she started. But we will do it properly. Methodically. Without exposing you to the people who killed your family."
The maternal protectiveness in those words made Seraphina's throat tight.
Eleanor gestured to the compiled evidence.
"You've given us enough to begin. Now let us gather the additional proof we need to destroy them completely."
She paused, and something shifted in her expression.
"However, your petition requests more than just protection and investigation. You've accused House Vessant of conspiracy, assassination, ward manipulation, and forced marriage under false pretenses."
Eleanor's voice dropped into a different tone entirely... personal rather than imperial.
"And now, about your divorce petition..."