Adam sat alone in the meeting room, staring at the report of Mark's death. The last words were written in front of him like a curse engraved on paper. Anyone else would have collapsed upon hearing of the death of a friend or comrade-in-arms... but he felt nothing. It was like the moment of his mother's death: inner silence, complete emptiness, as if the world had lost nothing.
But this time, something different woke him up.
Mark... he was not alone. He had a twin sister, Sarah.
At this point Adam began to dig into the past, looking for the missing leads. And the more he penetrated, the secrets he did not expect were revealed to him.
Sarah and Mark were born in the fourth degree, the lowest ranks of society after the fifth.
But the roots of the tale go back to an earlier generation…
The maternal grandmother was nothing but a prostitute who lived her life on the fringes of the lower cities. She had no name to mention except her scandals, and all she aspired to was to become the concubine of a nobleman, but her attempts were unsuccessful. And with each failure, she held her little daughter – mark's mother – to blame for her fall. When the girl turned ten, the contaminated mother tried to kill her, thinking that her death would erase her shame and give her a new chance.
As for the grandfather on the maternal side, his story was more ambiguous. There are no official records proving his identity or origin, as if his name was deliberately erased from history. In the first timeline Adam did not find enough to tie the threads, but the scattered evidence that appeared later pointed to a terrifying fact: perhaps he was not just a commoner of the lower grades, but one of the commanders of the World Union Army, a man of power and influence who preferred to bury his secret far away.
Thus, mark's mother was born from the womb of shame and mystery, and a mutilated legacy is inscribed on her blood... a legacy she bequeathed to her twins, Mark and Sarah.
Their father was Khan Jervin, the greatest genius in the history of the family and its heir who changed the balance of the world.
He was nicknamed The Raven heir after his father, the most powerful living man of that era.
He woke up to Mana at the age of five, four years ahead of the children of his generation.
By the age of ten, he had surpassed all those who were closer to him in strength and talent.
Khan was also the elder brother of Adam's mother.
And the story of the meeting of Mark's mother and father began.
When Mark's grandmother tried to kill her daughter at the age of ten, she doused her with water saturated with poisonous mana to collapse and slowly die. But coincidence changed everything. That day, ten – year – old Khan ran away from the family mansion to explore the world. There, he met her on the verge of death. He saved her from the end, fell in love with her.
From that moment on, he became her captive. He was engaged to the daughter of an ancient elite family, the amantis family, but his heart remained at that simple girl of the fourth degree. He was meeting her in secret, until she became his first obsession.
But his father, when he found out about this relationship, was very angry. He decided to kill the girl, and if not for Khan's intervention her life would have ended.
Khan stood in front of him, and his father stipulated two conditions:
The first is for Khan to take over as head of the Jerven family early.
And the second, to move away from the girl forever.
Khan did not hesitate, agreed to everything, just to protect her life.
Despite this, he continued to meet his beloved in secret, defying the restrictions and the covenant imposed on him.
But the end came sooner than he expected.
The whole world was shaken when Jan Gervin was killed. His murder was a tragedy not only because he was one of the greatest geniuses in modern history, but also because the killer was none other than his younger brother, Elias Gerfen, who usurped the family position by blood.
Little did many know that the mother of Khan Jervin, the mother of Jan and Ilyas, was aware of the fact of the relationship that connected her son with a commoner woman. She was silent then, not out of love at this engagement, but because she saw in it a fleeting whim that would end sooner or later. But what she didn't realize was that she was turning a blind eye to the beginning of a thread that would leave behind an indelible mark in family history.
This is how Jan's story ended, leaving behind a commoner woman carrying his twin children... Mark and Sarah.
Since then, her life has turned into a real hell.
The poison that crept into her body was not just Mana poisoning, but a curse that slowly ate every thread of her soul.
Her soul weakened, her essence cracked, and every breath she felt with him that she was walking a step towards the abyss.
She was between two options that bore no mercy:
Either she succumbs to death and leaves her two children orphaned in an unforgiving world, or she drags her feet to the Griffen family, the very family that tried to kill her... and who killed the only man she loved.
The choice was like a nightmare.
To return means to surrender her sons to the Wolves who shed their father's blood.
But death means that mark and Sarah have to face this cruel world alone.
And between two fires... she refused to knock on the door of hell.
She refused to sell her children's blood to that family.
I endured.
Two whole years she spent on the verge of collapse, struggling with a trembling hand to feed her hungry children.
She begs for any business opportunity, looking for any treatment, even cheap, and whenever she hears the name of a drug that promises relief, she is struck by reality: its price is beyond the ability of kings, so how can a woman from the common people?;
In that period he appeared.
A man of the common people, with ordinary features that carry neither glamor nor authority. But he was different from everyone else in one thing... persistence.
He knocked on her door every day, asked how she was, carried a little bread with her, and returned the same request:
- "Marry me."
She always responded with a coldness that resembled death:
— "My heart is no longer mine... after my husband died."
But he did not stop.
He didn't even back down when he saw her rejection overwhelming him day after day.
Then came that black day.
The disease cruelly gripped her, swept her into a long coma that lasted a whole week.
Mark, he was only a four-year-old child, when he saw his mother lying motionless. He ran tearfully, tears washing his little face, to the only man who did not stop visiting them.
He begged him, pulled him by the hand, shouted:
- "Mom... mom is going to die... help her!"
The man did not hesitate. He carried it with his hands, ran with it as if he was carrying the whole world.
He brought doctors, paid everything he had, and stayed with the two children Day and night.
He is the one who fed them, he is the one who wiped their tears, he is the one who filled the void left by the whole world.
When she woke up, her shock was too great to describe.
She did not believe that she was still alive, she did not believe that her two children did not die of hunger or fear.
I confronted him with a trembling voice:
- "Why?" Why didn't you leave me Why are you putting up with all this"
He meditated on her for a long time, and then said in a steady voice that carried no hesitation:
— "I am not looking for an empty heart to fill... and I have no illusion that I will forget what I have lost. But your children have no guilt in this world. If no one stands next to them, he will crush them. I'm not asking to get married for myself, but in order to have a bond with them, to have you back even if you break down."
His words were not a blind impulse, nor a hollow promise as I had heard from others before.
At that moment, she felt that the cracked earth under her feet had finally found something to support her.
For the first time since Khan's departure, it was not fear that filled her heart... but a heavy, silent, but real reassurance.
The security I felt was strange and scary, but real.
And over time, security turned into warmth... and warmth into love.
A year later, she married him.
One year passed after she married him, a year that was not easy but different. For the first time she was not alone. There were those who shared the weight of life with her, who reached out when she fell, who patted her shoulder as she muffled the coughing up of blood that had become her constant companion.
The children, Mark and Sarah, no longer sleep hungry, no longer wake up terrified from nightmares of being left alone.
That man, although not of their blood, became more of a father in their eyes than he should have been.
But the world did not leave them a chance to be at peace.
One day, the news came that shook the Earth: the fall of the Gerfen family.
The reports spread like fire, the noble families declared it a major scandal: "the family that betrayed the noble oath, was completely destroyed."
Only two individuals of the Gerfen dynasty have survived.
When she heard the news,her whole body froze.
The blood shrank in her veins, the air was heavy in her lungs.
It was not just news about the fall of a clan, but her nightmare, which she is trying to forget, was knocking on the door again.
She trembled as she whispered:
— "If they knew about Mark and Sarah... they would come to wipe them out of existence."
Her husband looked at her, stunned by the horror that flooded her face, and sternly asked her:
- "What do you mean?" What are you hiding from me"
She hesitated for a moment, and then released the truth that she had buried for years:
- "Mark and Sarah... are not just the children of a commoner woman. They are the Sons of Khan Gurfan. Descendants of the family that fell."
Silence fell in the room, heavier than anything that passed between them.
His face was pale, but he quickly clenched his fist and said in a low voice, steady despite the shock:
— "So... we have to hide this secret until death. No one in this world should know."
Months passed, and the secret became a heavy burden on her shoulders.
She slept at night only on nightmares that the doors of the House would be broken, and a noble hand would snatch her children from her arms.
But nevertheless, there was a glimmer of hope. I got pregnant again.
The house was filled with a warmth she had not known for a long time, and Mark and Sarah were laughing as they touched her swollen belly. They were waiting for a new brother... as well as the little family that defied the world.
However, fate did not give her time.
Her illness, which had been lurking in her since her mana poisoning, finally exploded.
One night, she fell screaming, black blood oozing from her mouth.
Hours of torment passed, and then silence came.
She and her fetus left together.
Her husband did not take the blow.
He knew that she was weak, he knew that the end was coming, but the shock broke his heart. A few days later, he found his body lifeless, as if he had caught up with her from the severity of loss.
The house, which was filled with warmth a few weeks ago, has become cold, silent.
There are only two small children left: Mark and Sarah, seven years old, alone face a world that knows no mercy.