As we walk toward the private elevator, I broach the subject carefully. “The Board’s recent review of educational funding has raised concerns. With our newly streamlined initiatives emphasizing practical application over abstract theory—”
“Alexander.” Edmund’s voice sharpens with conviction. “You can’t seriously mean to cut academic access. Silva has always stood for comprehensive education, not state-sanctioned apprenticeship. These children deserve—”
“To survive,” I counter, concern coiled perfectly into my voice. “How many families in the Lower Rings can afford to send their offsprings to learn theory when they need labor or food?”
He falters, the historian in him warring with the realist. “But the Silva family . . . our legacy is the preservation of knowledge, of truth.”
“Exactly.” I smile, pressing my advantage. “Just as your family helped shape how history remembers the Blood War, the Collapse, and all those uncomfortable truths that needed careful interpretation. You understand better than anyone that information must be curated.”
His eyes gleam at that. Yes, he remembers how the Silva Archives selectively preserved certain versions of events. How they helped construct the narratives that kept power where it belonged.
“What we’re doing here, Edmund—these advances, these transformations—this is the dawn of a new era. Someone must chronicle it, and ensure future generations understand the purpose behind the sacrifice.”
The truth they all refuse to see: The God failed. He cursed us with blood magic, and shackled our potential, but I will not become him. I will become what he should have been.
Man, perfected. Civilization, unleashed. Legacy, immortal.
Let them call me monster and whisper tyrant. When I break Astrafel, when I unchain magic from blood, they will understand, and kneel not in fear, but in reverence. The city is already mine, the regions will follow. History will call it destiny.
“You want me to record this?” Edmund’s voice carries barely contained excitement.
“Who better?” I pause just long enough. “Your name etched beside the greatest minds in Veldrith’s history.”
“The education restructuring—”
“Is progress. Why invest in obsolete models when you could stand at the threshold of revolution?”
I watch my words feed his deepest desire to be remembered, to matter, to have his name etched in the annals of the history he so lovingly maintains.
He straightens, voice steadier now. “I believe there’s room to modernize our approach.”
“Excellent.” I smile, warm and final. “Then who better to document our rise, than the man who helped make it all possible?”
The Darkmoor labs pulsewith power, but it’s Luna who commands my attention. Not her work. That’s merely a means to an end. It’s the way she carries herself now. Confidence wrapped in gratitude, and ambition tempered by devotion. She mirrors what Vivienne once embodied, before she forgot who shaped her.
I remember her in the days after her parents’ deaths—overlooked, desperate for recognition, so perfectly primed for molding. While Aria collapsed into suspicion and grief, Luna emerged hungry for purpose, for validation, for someone to finally see her potential.
Just like Vivienne, in the beginning.
She too once looked at me with that exquisite blend of wonder and dependency. Before she grew bitter, and started questioning instead of admiring. Before she became too entrenched in Founding Family politics to quietly dispose of.
Her little spectacle in the conservatory today only confirmed the timing. Where others might have crumbled under her venom, Luna alchemized that sting into something infinitely more useful: a raw, gnawing need to prove herself worthy.
I saw it in her eyes when I arrived, that delicious fusion of uncertainty and determination. Even as Vivienne’s words burrowedunder her skin, Luna’s primary terror wasn’t that I’d used her. No, her deepest fear was that she wasn’t extraordinary or singular enough to matter. Exactly the kind of vulnerability I look for. The one that turns doubt into dependency.
The contract was a test, and her response was everything I had anticipated. The tremble in the car, the reverent awe in her gaze as she touched the Darkmoor seal. Each moment unfolded exactly as I’d calculated. When I cupped her face and wiped away those flawless tears, I understood the truth. Luna isn’t another Caroline, or some simpering Rebecca. She’s the rare kind, who will choose to believe in me even while knowing exactly what I am. Because being mine is the first thing that’s ever made her real.
The other Founding Families will demand her removal soon enough. Eric already tried. To them, she’s a liability now that she’s glimpsed what we’re building. But they fail to recognize what she represents. She is loyalty personified. She looks at me and sees wisdom, power, and divinity. She fills the void Rowe carved with his rejection, and smooths over the jagged fault lines Vivienne left behind. She is the answer I’ve been searching for.
The marriage contract is not a matter of protection, but of ownership. I offered her life when others deemed her expendable. I gave her purpose where her parents imposed silence. I revealed greatness where her sister only cast shadows. Without me, she would’ve vanished. With me, she is forged into meaning. She is mine because I made her significant.
When Vivienne meets her tragic end during an unfortunately expedited Apex trial, Luna will stand beside me not out of fear, but alignment. She’ll help ensure Eric takes the fall, because she understands what my wife never could: progress demands sacrifice.
She is the evolution I’ve long awaited. The one who kneels without prompting, who yearns to be rewritten, who views my control not as domination, but as deliverance. I could almost love her, if I were capable of such things. But this is more sacred. This is not affection. This is worship, legacy, and permanence.
“Alex.” Luna straightens at my approach, her voice soft but eager. The assistants around her glance up at the intimacy of the address, eyes flickering with unease, but their opinions are inconsequential.
Let them murmur about the age gap and speculate about my intentions. They fail to understand that this isn’t about lust but inevitability. I am remaking the world, and Luna will be at my side—not as an equal, never that—but as the most prized of my possessions.
