The meeting (7 days until the wedding…)
Aurora frowned. 'If Grand Empress Kheaweth knew about the contract loophole, maybe she took Velox on purpose.'
"Okay, so assuming the Grand Empress thinks you're brainwashed and assuming you are actually in control of your body," Aurora said, then paused. "Why you?"
Aurora narrowed her eyes. "Why would the Grand Empress pick you?"
'Because I'm your son,' Ryan wanted to say but held himself back.
"Because I'm Ravier's best enhancer," Ryan said with pride. "That's what allowed me to win over all of these ladies," Ryan said, gesturing to everyone sitting on his side of the table.
"For my Master, of course," Ryan added to keep his story straight.
He had told Aurora that his Master was the one that saved him from the brainwashing and that he was the one who hated the Kheaweth Empire with a burning passion.
Aurora's lips tugged up in a slight smile. "You captured all these ladies?"
Ryan nodded.
Expecting her to ridicule him, Ryan was surprised when she only nodded respect, a smile of appreciation appearing under her veil that Ryan could not see.
"Are we ready to move on to the proposed plan?" Ryan asked, taking this moment of shared appreciation to move things along.
Seeing Aurora nod, Ryan looked at the Zol'Gan Empress and Becca to keep up appearances.
This was all according to plan.
Directing everyone's attention to the hologram again, Ryan said, "The preliminary plan we've come up with is slightly bold, but I think you'll appreciate its uniqueness."
A slew of images popped up. They were pictures of different nobles, some of which Ryan had already met.
Among the images were Mila, Abby, and Mara, who would all appear at the wedding.
Ryan's hunch was about Mila and Abby, a big reason why he wanted to return to the Kheaweth Empire straight away from the Holy Phoenix Empire.
Mila was the leader of the largest faction in the academy, something even Mara, the Frost General's daughter, wasn't.
This begged the question of who she was exactly.
The strange part was that even after asking Ester and Sienna, Ryan couldn't learn her identity.
Mila's arrogant attitude was of someone above and beyond others, something nobles were known for.
But that's not where the strangeness stopped.
Abby, Mila's sister, was not only not related by blood, but her roots also traced back to a lowly Baron.
The conspiracy got even more bizarre when Ryan asked Becca to look into the day of his arrival in the academy.
The day Mila sent out an order to have him blocked from all factions.
But what Becca found out shocked Ryan to his very core.
Mila's order was initially blocked by the Kheaweth Military, as Ryan was subject one and was to be prioritized and allowed to grow uninhibited.
But almost immediately after the block, Becca found an overruled message sent out from none other than the direct leader of the operation. The Grand Empress.
This led Ryan to believe there was only one logical conclusion about who Mila was.
"This girl here," Ryan said, indicating to Mila. "Is the Grand Prince of the Kheaweth Empire."
"…" Aurora and the Zol'Gan Empress looked at each other.
"Uhh… there's just one problem," Becca said, going along with the plan, "I think I would know if I gave birth to a daughter and not a boy."
"That's a valid point." Ryan nodded. "I captured one of my torturers and asked them a few questions, although sadly, I couldn't keep her and return the favor. Nevertheless, she did have something good to say."
"That's a shame," the Zol'Gan Empress muttered. "I do love a good torture."
"And that is?" Becca asked, ignoring the Zol'Gan Empress.
"The Grand Empress is known for her hatred of men, isn't that right?" Ryan asked.
Becca nodded. "Yes, but not to my Timmy."
Ester and Sienna, doing their part, looked at each other and muttered, "So that's his name. I always wondered what it was."
Aurora and the Zol'Gan Empress started to frown.
"You've never seen this Timmy before?" the Zol'Gan Empress asked Ester.
Ester shook her head.
"I've never seen him either," Sienna said, shaking her head.
"Well, mother always said to keep him close, lest bad people get too close and hurt him," Becca said, sounding unsure of herself.
Aurora frowned and asked, "Becca, can I perform a memory scan on you? But, of course, it won't hurt since you're a cultivator."
Aurora glanced at Ryan and muttered, "I wish he had some cultivation base so I could use it on him.
Becca, playing her part beautifully, looked horrified at the very thought. "What a rude request."
Ester had already performed a scan on Becca's memory and found it had been heavily tampered with, resulting in the theory that Mila was the Grand Prince to be plausible.
For all they knew, Mila herself might not even be aware.
Aurora sighed. "I'm sorry to make this request of you."
But instead of offering something in exchange to let her test it, as Ryan had anticipated, Ryan's jaw almost dropped when he saw Aurora lean forward and tuck a string of loose hair around Ester's ear.
"It must have been hard to keep Timmy hidden all these years," Aurora whispered, pressing her lips against Becca's ear.
Aurora's hot breath made Becca's face heat up and her mind blanken.
"You want to discover why your mother wanted to hide Timmy, right? I can help. Just allow me inside your mind," Aurora said, and under the shocked gazes of everyone, she exerted her energy into Becca's open mind.
Ryan trembled as he watched Aurora manipulate Becca like a Master. 'Fuck, it seems like Aliza wasn't the only woman who knows the mastery of manipulation.'
Aurora worked for a few minutes before she withdrew her energy from Becca's brain.
"Well, there's no doubt that her mind has been tampered with. As for what the contents of the tampering are, I can't be sure," Aurora shook her head. "But the one thing I can be sure of is… the Grand Prince is not named Timmy."
Ryan raised his eyebrows. "Are you sure?"
When Ester had scanned Becca's brain for the tampering of memory, all she could figure out was that it had been tampered with.
Ryan had felt that was enough information to go on, but now Aurora was saying that the Grand Prince wasn't fake.
"Yes," Aurora slowly nodded, coming out of the trance-like state she had been in. "I could feel the memories around Timmy had been altered, although I'm sure she has a child," Aurora said, looking at Becca.
Hearing the unexpected news confirmed, Becca fell to the ground and started crying.
As mother's themselves, Aurora and the Zol'Gan Empress felt her pain but didn't comfort her.
She was, after all, the Empress of a rivaled Empire, and until recently, they had been on opposite sides.
"My baby's not real?" Becca wailed. She had been hoping that Ryan was wrong and Timmy was honest, but she had been living a lie this whole time.
After a few minutes of sobbing, Becca slowly rose from the ground, a flame of hatred in her eyes.
"Please continue," Becca said, nodding to Ryan and sitting back in her chair.
Ryan nodded. 'If there was one thing Aliza said to watch out for, it was a mother's fury.'
He did not want to be the Grand Empress right now.
Ryan cleared his throat. "To know the plan, you first must know what the Kheaweth Empire instilled in me to do at the wedding."
Ryan looked at the three women opposite him, holding their gazes for a second each. "They programmed me to beat the prince at the wedding tournament. The whole thing is a show, and the 'wedding' is just a puppet play where the Grand Empress is the puppet master controlling everything from behind the scenes."
Aurora was stoic, showing no emotion, which caused Ryan to arch his eyebrow. 'Had she always been that controlled with her emotion?'
However, the Zol'Gan Empress wasn't so controlled. "They did what?"
Rubbing her forehead, the Zol'Gan Empress muttered, "But why? Why would they do that?"
The actual reason was that when Ryan unleashed his cultivation, it would stun the audience and cause Aurora to realize that Ryan was her son.
Ryan surmised that when he beat the Grand Prince in the duel, the Grand Empress would threaten him, and then Aurora would have to give up something that the Grand Empress wanted in exchange, most likely the invasion pass in her possession.
But at the wedding, Ryan was supposed to remember the first five years of his life, and supposedly he was in love with Mila.
If Ryan were just recovering his memories, he would also remember Aurora was his mother and ask her to save Mila, but he expected that to be a trap. The Grand Empress would use that opportunity to start the war vs. the Dawn Pavilion.
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