Chapter 412: Chapter 412 - Chess Table Flipped, But One Black-Suited Queen Is Now Missing
"I agreed to present as male and what that would entail in order to marry Elua. And I agreed to work my hardest to be the heir of this cycle. I did not once agree to target the Goltbreds in the way that has been done by you recently."
"No. You didn’t."
The admission came out without argument as Anper looked around the table at his fellow conspirators. Men who had been already been distancing themselves from him as the investigation closed in. Some had actually ’aided’ in the investigation itself, though he hadn’t figured out which ones.
"Your fiancee saw through your falsehood immediately, according to what she told me at the wedding. Choose to support the deception along with you instead of exposing it to her parents."
A sneer formed on his face when he turned back to her. Thinking of all the times he felt helpless without anyone believing him. About them finally getting clues firsthand but still not being in tune about the level of her threat to the goal.
"We could not possibly explain anything more... because everything we planned for depended on the Goltbred heiress being a normal, manipulable child instead of whatever she actually is. Not that I care that you knew nothing."
"Anper, stop-"
"Don’t try to salvage this now. All of you were warned what we were dealing with from the moment I told you what happened with the body double. But no additional plans were made until things were too late. And now you want me to take the complete fall?"
Whirling with venom in his voice when he was interrupted by one of the other faction members, multiplied all the more by the fact that he had never been able to find that once-duplicate again. But it also didn’t matter to him at this point... considering the best that the loose end could do was verify what he was already admitting to right here.
Qatrand could sense undercurrents to it all she didn’t understand, but the core of betrayal among their supposedly ’full of family honor’ bunch was clear enough. As was that they had intended to use Elua in some way, for what they were going to do.
"You think I would have agreed to any of it if she was what you consider normal or not? You think I’m the type of person that would have harmed another family’s reputation or holdings for whatever short-sighted reasons you may have held?"
"Does it matter now? Everything we trained you for from childhood was finally made manifest. Recognition, respect, and even a heroic reputation. You got what you wanted, didn’t you?"
"...What I wanted?"
A low voice seemed to make the faction members all buckle from the force of Gravity pulsing against the spiritual tendrils locked around them. She’d had to relearn to control things so carefully after her breakthrough, but a new lack of restraint began to leak around the edges.
"I wanted a family that valued me for who I was, not only what use I could be shaped into. I wanted a *single* parent who loved me as a person rather than loathed me as the political tool he selfishly agreed to make me. I wanted-"
"What you wanted was to be coddled and treated like a daughter instead of prepared for real responsibility like the man you pretended to be."
Even now, facing the consequences of his failed schemes, he couldn’t help but reveal the core prejudice that had driven everything he’d ever done in his interactions with her. The interruption carried decades of Anper’s fundamental beliefs about gender and capability. Every frown and every lack of respect for her accomplishments tinged by misogyny.
"You still can’t understand, can you?"
Unable to take it any longer, the Skydancer took flight to the rafters. At the same time, Qat took a step forward with her eyes a bit unfocused. Trying to picture her El in her mind to hopefully calm down, but only being reminded of a detail that she couldn’t shake.
"Even after everything that’s happened, you still think the problem was that I am female rather than your inability to see past it. You always told me that results matter more than sentiment. Then judge me by my results and not your failures to view them."
The normally low voice had gone almost deathly quiet while performing its modest plea to decency. Some knew it as the kind of voice that preceded decisive action after all other avenues had failed. But the words that came back were like a curse.
"Results achieved while lying about what you are to everyone who matters."
"What am I?"
"A girl playing dress-up as a warrior. A deception we created and maintained so successfully that even you started believing it. But I never will."
The spiritual pressure anchored throughout the room receded back in an instant. Qatrand’s *careful* loss of control finally focused down into the swordswoman’s decision. She turned toward the chamber doors, her hand resting casually on her sword hilt while still prepared for one of them to object more physically.
"The Guild Council offered me an opportunity I was going to decline because I thought that my goal was noble. That I could fix this family from within it. I truly thought I could be the heir you once seemed to hope for me to become, past all of your impossible expectation... while also being the person I always was."
"Qatrand er Yecine. You have not been dismissed from this council meeting."
Hair already blonde, pigeon blues looked toward the old man who had not spoken a single rebuke or voiced any of his outrage over the words that had been spoken that entire time. A leader who did not see enough wrong with her treatment just now to intervene and was only concerned with rigid, defined codes of conduct.
"The result of my coming here today is that I no longer consider myself bound by family loyalty. I intend to formally revoke my Yecine name. Unless you intend to stop me from doing so by force, then your permission means nothing to me anymore, Patriarch."
"Qatrand-"
"But I warn you that I will not make it easy... and that my messenger has already left the estate. Consider this my formal resignation as your heir. All there is to be found today for this family by interacting with me is further risk."
Many had been so distracted by the parent-child squabble that they had not noticed the Skydancer slipping out of the chambers. After all, it was hardly a worry that a bird was leaving a private Yecine meeting of otherwise *trusted* individuals... in usual times. Anper stepped forward and leveled his steel-gray eyes over her way.
"You can’t just walk away from your responsibilities and duties."
"...You did."
’We can call it a family trait this final time. Because I will not be repeating the failing towards those I should care for. Towards my own children with El.’
"Sometimes you did say good things, father. If I ever expected anything from you, you can be assured... that I want nothing from you now."
The finality in her voice as she turned pigeon blues away for the last time from these chambers made it clear that this wasn’t intended to be a threat or a bargaining position to be negotiated. Latching her tendrils onto the door, it slammed closed with a shuddering application of Gravity. Leaving many grown men in silence.
At least until the too satisfied laughter of a single man wrecked their contemplations.
"Now it’s truly over. I do hope that all of you are as happy with this result as I am?"
Steel grays panned around the room with hatred, focusing on his former faction members the most. Men who had taken and wasted so many years of his life on plots, on lies, and on schemes. Social maneuverings that he’d never cared about in his youth and positions he was growing to loath with his age.
So with a final act of revenge, he’d taken all hope of redemption from them all. By shooing away that troublesome, validation seeking daughter of his. He’d never once thought she belonged where she was...
As ’heir’. As a ’son’. As a ’warrior’ who would be on the frontlines. All he could ever see was the image of her mother - and the weakness that had claimed that first wife’s life after childbirth. Now, that woman’s daughter had the option to be freed of the duties she couldn’t and shouldn’t have to maintain for a whole family who would never appreciate it - including himself.
"You did this... intentionally? What have you done?"
When the eldest of the faction spoke, Anper sneered visibly once again. These men speaking of ’drastic’ things done intentionally to *him* of all people struck his raw anger like flint on steel. Sparking more of the truth out into the open - more of the dim reality that was the corrupt side of their family.
"Did all of you think... that I wouldn’t reason out *why* three people went missing? That I would have no way to track down exactly where that witch, the biggest obstacle to our goals had gone?"
The Knight of the plan knew. That he was meant to take the opponent’s King and Queen. But he was never meant to make it back.