Chapter 217: Delilah’s Confession
The room gradually fell silent. Outside, the wind howled louder than before as the first snowstorm of the winter finally swept across Cinder Dusk, rattling the basement’s narrow ventilation shaft and making the hanging light bulb sway ever so slightly.
No one spoke for several long seconds, all of them still trying to process Delilah’s theory.
Freya was the first to break the silence. She slowly stepped forward, staring at her mother with disbelief written all over her face as confusion, anger and fear mixed together until even she no longer knew which emotion was stronger.
"What do you mean, Mom?" Her voice came out almost as a whisper before it gradually rose. "Dad died years ago... are you saying he created something like that before he died?"
Gideon quietly looked at the two of them without interrupting.
He understood Freya’s reaction. To her and Summer, Leon Miller had not always been the ideal father. But maybe after his disappearance, they choose to remember him as a kind researcher who loved his family more than anything else.
People naturally protected the memories of those they loved, especially when they were no longer around to defend themselves.
Delilah slowly closed her eyes. She remained silent for several seconds before taking a long, exhausted breath, as though the words she was about to say had been trapped inside her heart for years.
"Your father..." She paused, her fingers tightening around the book until the edges of the cover bent beneath her grip.
"Your father committed something that can never be forgiven, sweetheart. What he did didn’t just destroy his own life. It dragged Freebound, Greenwarden and even the Order of the West into a disaster none of us have managed to clean up until today."
She slowly walked toward her daughter, stopping only when they were standing barely an arm’s length apart.
"I’m sorry, darling..." Her voice became noticeably softer. "But I don’t think your father is dead."
Freya’s pupils immediately shrank. "What?"
She stared blankly at her mother before shaking her head in disbelief.
"No... that’s impossible." Her breathing gradually became uneven.
"If you really believed he was alive... Why didn’t you look for him? Why didn’t you tell us? Why did you let us think he was dead all these years?"
Delilah lowered her head. "I know what kind of mother—wife and maybe human being—that makes me."
She slowly shook her head, forcing herself to continue even though every word felt like dragging a blade across her own heart.
"A part of me was relieved he disappeared because I was terrified of what would happen if he ever came back. But another part of me... couldn’t bear the thought of him spending the rest of his life as the most wanted man on the continent, hunted by every faction until the day he died."
Her fingers tightened around Leon’s book. "That’s why I lied to all of you and chose to hide the truth behind his death. I’m sorry."
The apology was so soft that it almost disappeared beneath the sound of the snowstorm raging outside.
Freya instinctively took several steps backward until her back touched the cold stone wall. Her mind had already become a mess, and every answer her mother gave only created even more questions.
She remained silent for a long time before finally looking back at Delilah, her voice trembling between anger and disbelief.
"What... Did Dad actually do?"
Delilah closed her eyes again. "He released something that should’ve remained sealed forever. One of the Chaos Children."
Her gaze slowly shifted toward Gideon. "The ruined government spent years hiding its existence and keeping it sealed. After it escaped, they never managed to capture it again."
"I think... that’s the real reason they’ve been kidnapping the Children of Eden all this time. Those children are the natural antithesis of the Chaos Children, and I believe the ruined government has been trying to build an army capable of destroying them before it’s too late."
The room became quiet once more.
"But..." Delilah lowered her head. "That’s only my theory. I don’t have any proof."
Freya shook her head repeatedly as though refusing to accept what she had just heard.
"Oh my God..." Her brows knitted tightly together. "I know Dad wasn’t a good husband... but he wasn’t evil. Why would he do something like that?"
Jade, who had remained silent until now, suddenly sat forward before slamming her fist onto the table hard enough to shake everything on top of it.
"Freya, you’re being naive."
Her voice was frighteningly calm.
"You only know the father who smiled at you at home. We knew the man behind that smile. Your father is a monster."
"What I can’t understand is you, Delilah. How could you hide something this important from all of us?! If he is indeed the one who engineered that parasite, your hands are also drenched in blood for whatever he did in the past and will in the future!"
Elaine slowly crossed her arms. "And if your theory is correct, then Leon isn’t just alive. He’s either working with the Scions of the Lord... or leading them from the shadows."
"The Scions already existed before Leon disappeared, but they were nothing like they are today."
Gideon, who had remained silent throughout the argument, suddenly spoke.
"When did this Prophet first appear?"
"About three years ago." Jade answered without hesitation. "Right around the time Leon supposedly died."
The answer made the room even quieter than before.
Delilah’s hands began trembling uncontrollably around the book she had been holding since entering the basement. Freya no longer spoke. She simply stared at the floor, trying to reconcile the father she remembered with the man everyone else was describing.
Finally, Delilah broke the silence herself.
"I’ll take responsibility. We need to inform the Order of the North and every major faction. If they decide to hold someone accountable... Then let that person be me."
Neither Jade nor Elaine looked convinced. The anger in their eyes hadn’t disappeared in the slightest.
Before either of them could speak again, Gideon quietly stepped between them and Delilah, naturally blocking their line of sight without making it look deliberate.
"Come on. Everything we’ve discussed is still built on assumptions. We have a theory, not evidence."
He turned toward Delilah. "I understand why you reached that conclusion. Leon’s knowledge of parasites, aberrant ecology and Senduro Highland is enough to make anyone suspicious. But knowing something and creating it are two completely different things."
His eyes slowly swept across everyone in the room. "We still don’t know whether the parasite was engineered or if it’s simply an undiscovered species Greenwarden has never encountered. Until we find proof, treat this theory as a warning, not as the truth."
Nobody argued.
The tension eased slightly, but only slightly. The suspicion directed at Delilah remained, lingering silently inside the room even after Jade looked away.
Without another word, she turned toward the exit while Elaine followed beside her, dragging the unconscious Astrid along by one arm.
The basement gradually fell silent again, leaving only Gideon, Delilah and Freya standing beneath the swaying light bulb while the storm outside continued to grow stronger and the temperature dropped below freezing.
Freya suddenly stood up and looked at her mother, her eyes already glistening with tears. "How could you, Mom? You should’ve told us from the beginning! Summer and I aren’t children anymore!"
Before Delilah could answer, Freya turned around and ran out of the basement as fast as she could, trying to hide the tears streaming down her face.
"Freya..."
Delilah instinctively reached out to stop her, but her hand never managed to catch her daughter’s.
It remained suspended in the air for a brief moment before slowly falling back to her side, and soon her entire body began trembling as the weight of the lie she had carried for so many years finally came crashing down on her.
Gideon quietly watched her from behind before walking over and gently placing a hand on her shoulder.
"You... you should go after her." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Freya is hurting right now."
"So are you."
Gideon gently turned her around until she was facing him. Even then, Delilah didn’t cry. She simply lowered her head, stubbornly holding herself together as though refusing to let a tear fall.
"Freya is only in denial right now. She’ll get through this, so will Summer. They aren’t children anymore, Delilah, just like she said."
She slowly nodded and wrapped her arms around him without another word.
"You should hate me..." she murmured after a long silence. "At least a little. If my theory is right, then so many people died because of me."
Gideon raised an eyebrow before gently pulling back so he could look her in the eyes.
"Don’t twist it into something it isn’t." He shook his head. "If Leon really did all of this, then those sins belong to him, not to you."
A faint smile finally appeared on his face. "More importantly, you’ll take responsibility for whatever the truth turns out to be. We will find him and destroy those zealots. Isn’t that kind of romantic?"
Delilah lowered her head before giving him a small nod and chuckled because of his dry humor.
Come on." Gideon gently patted her shoulder. "Let’s have some tea. The Greenwardens should arrive today anyway. No point waiting down here in the cold."
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