Chapter 7: The Bloodline Gambit
The silence in the Blue Room became a vacuum, swallowing the distant sounds of the city's traffic and the muffled arguments of the Council. Lulan felt the familiar, cold calculation of her mind grinding against a raw, human panic she hadn't felt since the night of her exile.
"You're overstepping, Captain," Lulan said, her voice regaining its surgical edge. "The children are Lascourines. Their lineage is protected by the General's own hand."
Silas took a step closer, the floorboards barely creaking under his boots. "The General's hand was excellent at forging history, Lulan. But I was there. I remember the weeks before the 'scandal.' I remember the nights in the garden. Leonard was a shield you used to hide what we had, and when he found out, he didn't just exile you—he tried to erase the evidence of his own cuckoldry."
He tapped the file in his hand. "The General didn't just hide me; he hid the DNA records from the Zurich clinic. He knew that if the world thought they were Leonard's bastards, you'd have a claim to the throne. If the world knew they were the children of a 'traitor' Captain, you'd just be a woman with four mouths to feed in a gutter."
The Breach
"Mother!" Kael's voice erupted in her ear, no longer calm. "The signal—it's not just recording. It's a broadcast. Someone is bypass-pinging the palace's jammers. I can't kill the feed without crashing the entire city's grid!"
Lulan looked at Silas's scarred face. "Is this your play? You come back from the dead just to hand my children over to the Cordovan Intelligence? They'll use them as bargaining chips."
"I'm not the one broadcasting, Lulan," Silas said, his brow furrowing. He looked genuinely confused, his hand moving instinctively to the hilt of his sidearm. "I came here to warn you. If I wanted to destroy you, I would have done it from the shadows."
Suddenly, the large monitor on the wall, usually reserved for displaying the Belgravian flag, flickered to life. It wasn't Silas's face that appeared. It was Leonard.
He was sitting in the high-security broadcast suite beneath the palace, a glass of dark amber liquid in his hand. He looked triumphant.
"Director Lascourine," Leonard's voice boomed through the room. "Or should I call you 'The Great Deceiver'? You thought you could walk into my house and take my father's crown with a few forged documents and a sharp tongue?"
The Public Unmasking
"Leonard, stop this," Lulan said, turning toward the screen. "You're committing political suicide."
"No, I'm performing an exorcism," Leonard sneered. "The public is currently watching a live stream of your little reunion with the 'late' Captain Vane. The bio-metrics Kael so graciously helped us monitor? They just confirmed a 99.9% paternal match between the Captain and your eldest, Lucian."
The screen split. On one side, a grainy image of Lucian in the security hub; on the other, a high-resolution scan of Silas Vane's military records.
"You aren't the mother of future Kings," Leonard laughed. "You're the mother of a traitor's brood. The 'Lascourine Accord' is null and void. A contract signed under fraudulent pretenses is no contract at all. Guards!"
The doors to the Blue Room burst open. A squad of Royal Sentinels, their rifles raised, flooded the room.
The Mother's Wrath
Lulan didn't flinch. She didn't look at the guns. She looked at Silas.
"Did you know he was downstairs?" she asked.
"No," Silas whispered, drawing his weapon and stepping in front of her. "But I know how to get us out."
"Stay down, Silas," Lulan commanded. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, sleek remote—the same one she used to control the hospital's advanced robotic surgical suites.
"Leonard," she said, looking directly into the camera. "You spent five years thinking I was studying how to save lives. You forgot that to be a great surgeon, you have to know exactly where the heart is... and how to stop it."
She pressed a button.
In the broadcast suite, Leonard's smile vanished. He clutched his chest, his glass shattering on the floor. At the same time, every light in the palace turned a violent, pulsing red.
"Lucian, Protocol Nightingale," Lulan snapped into her comms.
"Already on it," the boy replied. "The nanites in the King's recovery drip have been activated. He's not dying, but his vitals are now tied to your heart rate monitor, Mother. If your heart stops, his stops. If the guards fire, he dies."
The Sentinels froze. Their earpieces were screaming with the King's medical alerts.
The Narrow Escape
Lulan walked toward the lead guard, the barrel of his rifle inches from her chest. She pushed it aside with one finger.
"I am the only thing keeping your King's heart beating," she said to the room. "And I am the only thing keeping this city's economy from collapsing into the sea. Leonard is a child playing with matches. I am the fire."
She turned to Silas, her eyes burning with a mixture of old love and new, cold fury. "You want to be the Head of the Guard? Prove it. Get my children to the extraction point."
Silas nodded, a grim smile returning to his face. "Yes, Director."
As they fought their way toward the balcony, the city outside began to roar. The broadcast had reached the streets. The people of Belgravia were no longer sure who to follow: the Prince who had lied to them, or the "Ghost" who held their King's life in her hands