Aviana prepared herself as best she could. It was folly to meet her mother in any other than mint condition. But she was surprisingly calm today. Her mother was to check up on her progress, on how her daughter was faring. What she might not expect however, was that she was welcome this time. Aviana had many things to discuss. Many questions to ask.

She sat in her room, pondering about the various pieces of information she collected throughout her time in the capital. She would have to ask her questions carefully, to not scare her mother, or reveal her intentions.

It all flowed through her mind, the two lord rampages occurring so close to one another, the enlisted enforcers, the trial itself. What she did not understand however, was Cormac's involvement with the whole ordeal.

He might have been the offspring of one of the sacred families, but why was she so hellbent on tarnishing his name? And if his thesis was right before, she would have been the one to put a bounty on his head.

Many questions indeed.

The door opened and her mother came inside. She was dressed…differently than normal. She still wore a long dress, long enough to drag the ends on the ground. But she seemed…bigger? Almost as if she put on way too much weight. Or maybe like…she was wearing something else underneath. Still her mother smiled as she entered the room.

"It is nice to see that my daughter is faring well."

"I am mother, thank you for visiting me."

"Oh, do not even mention it, my dear. Of course I would visit you." Trisna took her seat. "Darius has been singing nothing but praises about his promising student. I am rather glad you take your studies so seriously."

"Thank you mother, I-I…" Aviana's eye started twitching. The persona she tried to act as burnt her inside even more than normal, enough to make her already boil. "No, I will not pretend like this anymore. Mother. I have a few questions. And you will give me the true answer to them."

"Oh, how straight forward of you." her mother laughed and giggled. Her posture changed from being relaxed and carefree to intrigued and excited. "Finally."

"Are you behind the two recent mass-murders?"

"Ah, and I thought you'd be smarter about this." Trisna said with disappointment. "From some points of view, I might be. I am a monarch and so was supposed to monitor what has been happening closely, but I let the lord out of my grasp for just a moment and it ended up this way." her mother checked her bracelet, moving her fingers around the big green gem in the middle.

"Mother, can you answer honestly? If you lie to me, who do you tell the truth to?"

Trisna looked her daughter up and down, than she nodded.

"Yes. You are right. You have to love your family. I do think that you might be ready now. It is time I tell you of our glorious purpose." Her mother's eyes lit up, a new life poured into them. A certain delight, that Aviana never saw in her mother before. As If she has been bound for her entire life, only to finally stretch.

"I assume that Darius told you of the beginning of our great kingdom? He told you the official version my daughter, not the full truth. There was a king of all, named Hurrig, the strongest ruler that has ever breathed. There also was a demon army, the kin of an evil god, hellbent on devouring our land. Hurrig realized their strength and sacrificed himself virtuously. But for such a heroic sacrifice, our kingdom had to pay a higher price. It was left in disrepair, broken. Our family gathered its strength with great difficulty and we had kept the kingdom going for its whole existence afterwards."

"We do what must be done, what is required." A fire flamed in her mother's eyes, her passion turning to an obsession. Her words grew in volume and her tone was hard and absolute. "We make the sacrifices, the hard decisions. We keep the kingdom's forces in harmony. Prevent those that are against our rule from overturning the sacred blood."

"My daughter rejoice." Trisna said as she grabbed Aviana's hands. "There is so much you don't know, but you will come to understand. So much for you to inherit."

"But why did you kill all those villagers, what did they do? They could not have been a threat."

"A mistake, I had the lord injected with the hernek spores. Normally, the person in question enters a state of hypnosis, where they are susceptible to suggestions and orders. When we use the powers of a ruler, they become almost absolute, a part of the person themselves."

"You ordered him to murder them all?" Aviana asked, her eyes wide in shock.

"No. Unfortunately, my agent did not dose the spores properly. This is exactly what happens when the person in question is overdosed. They become awfully violent, their mind completely gone by that point. They are just a machine of killing by that point. Believe me, my dear. It was not my intention to cut off the forces at my disposal. Both of the tragedies were a mistake."

"But…that's-"

"Calm down, my dear, calm down. It is a lot to take in and I understand. You must stay still and breathe through it."

"The spores…I remember them from somewhere."

"Yes, I used to give them to you when you were quite young. You were a very, very needy baby you see. It helped me and my servants to calm you from now and then. They stopped working as intended after a while, so you needn't worry."

"You used them on me?"

"I did." Trisna answered nonchalantly. "But that is not important. The great work is ahead of you! Oh, how I remember when I-"

"How old was I?" Aviana interrupted. Her mother's wild gestures and enthusiasm froze.

"Three. But we stopped when you were around eight. It was not working that much anyway and I did not want to overdose you. But this is good." Her mother took Aviana's hands in hers. Aviana looked at the joined hands instinctively and noticed the gem on her mother's forearm was shining slightly. But she paid it no mind.

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"Now, you can fully become my daughter. Fully embrace the Veron name."

"Why Cormac?"

"Sorry?" Her mother asked, surprised.

"Don't act like you don’t know. Why did you kill Cormac?"

"That part is…complicated, my dear. I fear you are not quite ready for that yet."

"Tell me." Aviana told her mother, her face fierce. The nonchalant retelling of the tragedies, the pride in her mother's words. The revelation of her use of the same drug that killed two whole villages on her when she was small. Aviana's blood was boiling. Her mother was showing the other sides of her, the even worse ones.

"My seers have warned me about a number of people. People that, given enough time, will ruin all that we tried to uphold, all that we built. I had to protect the family. Your cousin is one of those people. Maybe the most dangerous one of them, given his heritage."

"But…cousin?"

"Yes, my dear. Cormac's mother is my sister. Aunt Melissa."

Aviana could not believe what she heard. Cormac? Her cousin? She knew that her aunt has married and had children, but she was never allowed to meet them. Always too focused on her studies and her mother.

But that only meant one thing.

"You made the order to kill your nephew…" Aviana said weakly. Whatever ideas of her mother she had, she always thought that family was important to Trisna. At least in her own wicked way.

"I had to my dear, he is dangerous. Who knows what he would do to us if he is not stopped."

"He was sixteen."

"But he would not stay sixteen forever, my dear."

"How can I know that you won't think that way about me someday?" Aviana asked.

Her mother looked at her gently, than caressed her cheek.

"My dear daughter, I would never do anything to hurt you. We must love and cherish each-other. All I wish for you is to remain healthy, strong. I want you to surpass what I am. Become a monarch that would bring a new golden age to our kingdom. Cormac is the opposite of that. I have been warned about his actions, about what he is and he could become."

"Why are you talking about Cormac like that? Like he isn't dead."

Before her mother had the chance to reply, she noticed the light coming off of the gem on her bracelet. She quickly stood up and turned to leave, but Aviana quickly grabbed her arm.

"Because he isn't." Trisna shook off her daughter's hand. "But he will be, soon." She said. Then she abruptly left. Aviana could hear the door locking behind her.

Cormac was not dead? But…

Aviana saw the house cave in. She saw the look on Gavin's face. She…she knew that Cormac died. She was so sure. She felt it…somehow. Her heart beat faster and faster. She left him there then. She was rotting away in her chambers, while Cormac had to survive god knows what outside. She persuaded him to take responsibility, persuaded him to do something about his circumstance…and she placed him against the whole kingdom while doing that.

The enforcers would look for him. Men like Darius would want to kill him on sight. Aviana could not fathom the hardship he must have been going through, partially because of her.

But if he was still alive, that meant he managed to escape everything up until now. If her mother wanted him dead still, that meant that he was really growing in power.

But if she wanted him dead still, that meant that she would only increase the trickery with which she would try to catch him.

The gem must have been a signal. Something…

He will be, soon. Sounded through her mind again.

Her mother was on her way, on her way to Cormac.

A gentle noise of the lock opening up could be heard and she turned to it. The doors slowly opened, revealing a small man, smaller than he ever seemed before. He looked weak and sad, his face was bony and his body thin. But he still wore his little crown.

"Aviana, can we talk?" asked the king.

"You knew all this and you never did anything about it?" Aviana asked angrily. Her father just continued looking at the ground.

"Some of it I knew. I never would have allowed her to give you the mushroom spores had I known that. I was preoccupied with my rule at the moment, before the illness came."

"But you knew about some of it! How can you let her go on with this! How could you transfer the rule to someone so heartless!"

"She was not heartless, not at the start. I-I was feeling myself weaken with each day. It was and still is scary. I was a strong king then, I was renowned. When I was fresh enough to think, I kept on going. Even when my knees and my body started failing me. But when my mind started slipping too." Her father looked at her with worry in his eyes. "I did not want to become a mad king. To cause people to suffer."

"So you let mom do it for you."

"I didn't know Aviana. I think your mother has been sick for some time too, differently than I. She…changed. But I noticed after I was too weak to do anything about it. All my subjects are loyal only to her. I…you are all that I have and that is why I have come."

Aviana stopped her pacing around the room and focused on her father. He did not avert his eyes this time, but it seemed to take a lot of effort out of him.

"Do not become like her, Aviana. Do not rule with the iron fist that she camouflages as rationality and need. Your mother is in a different position than she tries to present herself as. I…I am sorry. This will be dangerous for you to know. I must emphasize that. Are you sure, you are ready to know all this?"

She glared at him in response and her father started.

"She is not only the queen, but she is a leader in something much more sinister. She established a certain society. New Order Society, she calls it. They…they hunt down strong descendants. Some that come from the lineages of old, much stronger rulers than what we are capable of. She fears that someone would take her throne. From the time I gave it to her, she fears it. She would do absolutely everything to keep it for herself, even if it is wicked."

"The murders? Inglueves and now the Keron. The lords there, they had…scriptures. Old accounts of what happened decades ago. Your mother needs them. She thirsts for them. They did not want to give in, lose their precious scrolls. They disobeyed and that much was enough for your mother. It is not the first time she had done this either. Although I learned of those only because of the light of these new events."

"Aviana…" her father said after a short pause. His mouth was quivering and beads of sweat ran down his face. "you need to stop her. Stop her from what she is doing. I suspect that this is just a start. Start of something awful."

"But how do I do that dad? She has leagues of enforcers now. She has her powers that I have not matured into yet. I cannot even win in a conversation with her! How am I supposed to win?"

"Maybe she fears these descendants for good reason. I…It's all I can think of. But you need to run. Run out of here. And you can't get yourself caught again. Alright? I fear…I fear the worst Aviana. I fear she has plans for you too."