Merlik spoke only after the torches dimmed.
"Before you decide who to fight," he said, "you need to understand who you were born between."
He spread the map wider.
Two crowns were drawn at opposite ends of the parchment.
One etched in iron.
The other inked in green wax.
"People believe the kingdoms hate each other," Merlik continued.
"Steel versus silk. War versus diplomacy."
He tapped the iron crown.
The Ashen Crown.
Your kingdom.
"Forged in conquest," he said. "An army-state. Knights raised like weapons. Honor spoken loudly so no one hears the screams beneath it."
Lucian added quietly, "They rule openly. With banners. With blood."
Merlik's finger slid to the second mark.
The Verdant Veil.
"They rule in whispers," he said. "Through lineage, contracts, marriages, disappearances. No academies. No heroes. Only heirs… and secrets."
I frowned. "If they're so different, why hasn't one destroyed the other?"
Merlik looked up at me.
"Because they already did," he said.
"To the truth."
Silence fell.
"They fought a war once," he continued. "Long before you were born. A war neither side admits happened."
Lucian's jaw tightened.
"That war ended," Merlik said, "the moment a child was born with blood from both crowns."
My chest tightened.
"You're saying—"
"I'm saying your mother wasn't just from another kingdom," Merlik cut in.
"She was royalty."
The word echoed.
Princess.
Lucian didn't look at me. He already knew.
"She was hidden," Merlik said. "Raised away from the court. The Verdant Veil feared her bloodline—it could unite both thrones without a single sword drawn."
"So they erased her," I whispered.
Merlik shook his head slowly.
"No. The minister erased her."
He leaned heavily on his spear.
"High Minister Caelum Vireth wasn't loyal to either crown. He was loyal to power."
Lucian spoke again. "The king trusted him. Listened to him. Obeyed him."
"He poisoned the truth," Merlik said. "Whispered betrayal into the king's ear. Turned love into treason. Made a princess into a liability."
My hands clenched.
"And my father?"
"A pawn," Merlik answered. "A convenient silence."
The room felt smaller.
"I was captured after the ambush," Merlik continued. "Not by soldiers. By men with no insignia."
He lifted his hood higher.
"They didn't ask questions. They already knew the answers. They wanted names. Bloodlines. Proof."
Lucian's voice was cold. "They wanted him broken."
Merlik smiled without humor.
"They failed."
I swallowed. "Why keep you alive?"
"Because the Veil doesn't kill what it can study," he said. "They wanted to know if the blood had survived."
A chill crawled up my spine.
Lucian finally looked at me.
"That's why the Crown hunts you," he said.
"And why the Veil watches you."
I stepped back.
"So what am I to them?" I asked.
Merlik met my eyes.
"A mistake," he said.
"A threat," Lucian added.
"A claim," Merlik finished.
I shook my head. "I don't want a throne."
Lucian nodded once. "Good."
Merlik folded the map.
"Because this isn't about ruling," he said.
"It's about ending the lie that keeps both crowns alive."
I looked at the iron crown.
Then the green seal.
Two kingdoms.
One truth buried in blood.
"And the minister?" I asked quietly.
Lucian's eyes darkened.
"He built his empire on silence," he said.
"So we take it from him."
Merlik tightened his grip on the spear.
"Not with war," he said.
"Not yet."
I lifted my sword from the table.
"Then we expose him," I said.
"Piece by piece."
Lucian smiled faintly.
"That," he said, "is exactly why you survived."
Above us, two crowns still ruled the world.
Below them—
Three men prepared to tear the lie apart.
And somewhere far away,
a king slept peacefully…
Unaware that the blood he tried to erase
was walking toward his throne.