I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a second.
My older brothers frequently repeated a specific mantra during times like this—so often that it was burned into my memory. Sometimes they used it as a boast, but other times, it genuinely served as a spark of courage.
I am an Eisenhart. My blood is power.
A phantom shiver crawled down my spine.
It worked! A fleeting smile graced my lips.
"Luthian," Szilard called out.
I jolted, my eyes snapping open. The courage evaporated instantly.
The moment my name was called, a highly unnatural silence fell over the room. I tried to command my legs, but for a few harrowing seconds, I was paralyzed. The buzzing of the nobility in the galleries flared up, escalating into the frenzy of a disturbed wasp nest. Every single eye in the hall was boring into me.
I sucked in a breath, broke from the line, and approached the altar. The thick incense smoke stung my throat, churning my stomach.
The biting frost of the stone floor seeped straight through the thin leather soles of my shoes.
Szilard stared down at me for what felt like an eternity. Trying to act as naturally as possible, I lifted my gaze toward the throne. Toward my father, locking onto his pitch-black irises.
I bowed my head, certain I was executing the formal greeting flawlessly. But the moment I leaned forward, my body betrayed me. The motion was stiff and jerky, and for a split second, I nearly lost my footing.
"I-I am Luthian Stahl Eisenhart." I exhaled.
The aristocratic murmurs pitched higher, heavily laced with blatant mockery. I was painfully aware that I had just made a pathetic spectacle of myself, completely unworthy of a scion bearing the blood of the kingdom's apex house.
Scrambling to regain my composure, I cast one last glance at my father. He was a statue of absolute ice.
"Grasp it."
Szilard's command sliced through the air, silencing every whisper in the room. I placed my palm on the Veil.
The instructions he had drilled into my head during my tutelage resurfaced.
"You must envision a core of heat inside your chest. Channel it down your arm, pushing it forcefully out through your palm."
I squeezed my eyes shut, desperately digging deep to find that internal flame. Seconds bled by. Nothing. I felt absolutely nothing except the agonizing knot in my throat and a stomach cramp suffocating my lungs.
Why can't I feel anything!?
The others only had to brush their fingers against it for the artifact to trigger.
I hurriedly attempted a second time. I inhaled deeply, forcing the air down into my core with everything I had. But once again, not a single drop of energy flowed beneath my palm.
Beads of cold sweat began to trickle down my forehead. The Veil remained cold and lifeless. A sensation of total, absolute absence—a void—crept up my wrist, sending a violently cold shudder through my veins.
I gripped the silk.
I waited.
Absolutely nothing happened.
"Why?" The word slipped past my lips in a shattered whisper.
Panic began to physically claw at the lining of my stomach.
I just need to push harder.
I clamped my fingers onto the silky fabric until my knuckles turned bone-white, until I could feel the tendons in my forearm screaming from the exertion.
Zero reaction from the Veil.
The entirety of the Lunar Hall plunged into a silence so profound that I could hear the tiny crackles of the floating embers above me. White was not on the spectrum of acceptable results.
Then, I heard them.
It sounded like the diseased buzzing of blowflies swarming a carcass.
"White...?"
"Impossible... it didn't react at all."
"The Veil is… But he is Lord Vorgath's legitimate-born son..."
I shot a look of pure desperation at my uncle, silently begging for some logical explanation. He simply closed his eyes and turned his head away, deliberately severing eye contact.
No...
Hot, stinging tears began to prick my eyes as I looked around, swallowed by unadulterated panic.
Dozens of faces glared down at me from the high galleries, every single one wearing the exact same mask of pure, unfiltered disgust.
That was when a laugh pierced the air—light and faint, originating from somewhere among the aristocrats. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a pudgy nobleman attempting to mask his cruel smirk behind his jeweled fingers.
"W-why..." I whimpered.
Then, my father's voice cleaved the atmosphere. It was a grave, absolute sound.
"Tsk... You."
My heart seemed to stop.
Father...
My head snapped up, the breath knocked out of me. But Vorgath's gaze wasn't locked on the table, nor was it directed at me.
His eyes were dead-set on the lateral galleries. The color completely drained from a nearby guard's face in a fraction of a second. He took a staggering step forward, trembling violently beneath his plate armor.
"M-My liege... Lord Vorgath... I didn't mean to—"
Vorgath did not rise from his throne. He didn't shout or order anyone to be silent. He simply raised his left hand.
The air in the room instantly collapsed in on itself.
My tears evaporated on the spot as a monstrous, physical gravity crashed down upon my shoulders, forcing me to buckle to my knees.
Ghk... What is happening?
"It is entirely that guard's fault!" the pudgy nobleman blurted out, his face flushed red, the remnants of a smirk still glued to his lips. He fought against the crushing pressure to speak, frantically pointing a finger at the kneeling man beside him. "He dared to laugh in the presence of the Duke!"
The guard barely managed to lift his chin. "I... I did not laugh..."
"Silence!" the noble barked. "Such brazen insolence cannot be tolerated!"
The guardsman attempted to defend himself again, but the sheer aura flattened him face-first against the floor. Vorgath did not utter a single syllable. He remained slouched on his throne, observing the insect in silence, while the oppressive force bearing down on the hall exponentially multiplied.
Then, the guard broke.
"L-Lord, I swear I didn't... I beg of you... Nngh! M-mercy!" the man wheezed.
My eyes darted to the nobleman who had just condemned the guard. It was the exact same man I had seen laughing, the one hiding his mouth behind his gold-ringed fingers. A sadistic, microscopic smile curled the edges of his lips.
Suddenly, the horrific reality snapped into sharp focus.
"Nngh... I have a fami—... AAAAAH!"
The guard's voice ruptured into an agonizing, blood-curdling shriek. Vorgath slowly closed his fist. It wasn't a clean snap; it was a wet, thoroughly obscene crunch. The heavy plate armor crumpled inward like cheap parchment, and the man's body was compacted against the marble, mangled into a physically impossible geometry.
My eyes blew wide open, utterly incapable of looking away. Bile aggressively rose in my throat. With bloodshot eyes, I looked up at the galleries.
Several nobles had begun to politely applaud, thoroughly entertained by the host's display of absolute, tyrannical strength.
The lump of flesh on the ground twitched, gurgling on its own blood. The wet, ragged sound of his failing lungs was infinitely worse than the screaming. A thick, pitch-black puddle began to slowly expand across the checkered marble.
A few of the children lined up behind me burst into hysterical, terrified sobs.
But what completely shattered my soul in that moment was the chilling apathy of the adults. To my eyes, their mildly amused and bored expressions morphed into the faces of demons straight out of grim fairytales.
"A necessary lesson to maintain order," a portly man muttered, bowing deeply in reverence toward the throne.
I knelt there paralyzed, my face as deathly pale as the Aether Veil my hands were still frantically strangling.
These couldn't possibly be the same affable, smiling aristocrats I had caught glimpses of during banquets and galas, always eager to exchange pleasantries and lavish gifts.
I stared out at the hall, no longer recognizing a single stone of it.
But... then what does all of this mean?
Up until this exact second, I believed I knew the world I had been born into. Now, for the first time, I realized I hadn't understood a single fraction of it.
I somehow scraped together the courage to look back at Vorgath. His gaze drifted down to me, but it phased straight through my body as if I were made of translucent glass. To him, I was no longer a living entity occupying this room. Perhaps, I realized with a shudder, I never had been.
He slowly stood up from the throne.
His silhouette eclipsed the stained glass windows—imposing, towering, and fundamentally inhuman.
"Blood and absolute power are the only currencies that grant you the right to breathe under the name Stahl Eisenhart."
Szilard took a half-step forward, closing the distance to my father. He dropped his voice to a hushed whisper, just loud enough for my ears to catch the edge of his words.
"Brother, I believe the Veil might—"
"You bore me."
A highly intricate, crimson magic formation instantly ignited beneath Vorgath's boots.
His gaze locked directly onto me for the very first time since I had stepped foot in the hall.
"From this exact moment, Luthian Stahl Eisenhart is stripped of every right, rank, and privilege associated with House Stahl. Henceforth, he shall no longer be recognized as my blood."
I sat there, utterly petrified.
Ah... so this was his endgame from the very beginning.
It wasn't a total surprise. Not really.
I knew my father had never viewed me in the same light as my siblings. I had subconsciously known it for years, even if I couldn't pinpoint the exact day the realization set in. Every single time I was summoned before him, I was never greeted with a word, a nod, or even a fleeting glance.
Yet, hearing the verdict declared aloud was an entirely different type of agony.
He shall no longer be recognized as my blood...
The words branded themselves into my mind, refusing to fade.
A heavy silence dominated the hall.
Then, the Chancellor stepped forward and methodically broke the seal on a royal parchment.
"In accordance with the Edicts of the Kingdom of Turhan, promulgated in the three-hundred-and-forty-ninth year of the Empire by Korthon the First..."
His tone became funereal.
"Luthian Stahl Eisenhart is hereby officially stripped of the rights, rank, and privileges belonging to House Stahl. From this moment forth, he shall be recognized solely as Luthian Eisenhart."
No... Father. Wait...
"Father! I..."
His eyes, for the first and final time that day, locked onto me.
"I... I can fix this! Father!"
His tyrannical gaze bore into my soul with an unbearable gravity, heavier than any physical force I had endured thus far.
"Father!"
I collapsed fully onto my knees, my voice completely dying in my throat. The gravity pinned my head down. Tears relentlessly flooded my eyes, and I was powerless to stop them.
"Please don't throw me away..."
I fought with every ounce of my willpower to lift my head, desperately reaching one hand out to grasp for his attention.
Then, the faint glow beneath his boots flared. I watched the mana expand across the marble, weaving the complex geometric lines of a spatial array.
I froze.
Before I could even process what was happening, his physical form dissolved into the light and vanished.
Szilard slammed his open palm against the wooden altar to shatter the trance.
"The ceremony is concluded. Please exit the premises in an orderly fashion; the hall will be locked down for cleansing protocols," he commanded, immediately pivoting toward a guardsman stationed near the gore.
"Summon the maids. Eradicate this mess immediately."
"Yes, my lord!"
The hall rapidly began to empty.
Nobles, dignitaries, and guards filed out, meticulously averting their eyes from me, treating my mana deficiency like a highly infectious plague.
I clenched my fists at my sides, convulsing from head to toe.
I frantically searched for my uncle. I desperately needed to ask him what I was supposed to do, to beg for a logical explanation, to glean even a single shred of support from the master who had personally tutored me for months.
But he was already marching toward the lateral exit, his grand cloak billowing behind him, never once sparing me a backward glance.
I was left entirely alone, kneeling in the dead center of the massive hall. The slick, coppery stench of fresh blood completely saturated the air, masking the burning incense. The pure white Veil continued to freeze my fingertips—a final, excessively cruel mockery.
I strangled the fabric out of blind, pathetic stubbornness. It remained relentlessly, hopelessly white.
Impossible... why? Why me, of all people? What sin did I commit to deserve this?
And it was right then, in the absolute silence of my total ruin, that I heard a distant whisper. A low, guttural chuckle.
It sounded profoundly satisfied. Almost euphoric. Something lurking deep within the shadows of that hall found my absolute downfall highly amusing. I was no longer the third-born scion. I had been brutally stripped of my name, my bloodline, and my destiny.