Chapter 193: Echoes of a Broken Lineage

“Amelia… tell me something.” Lara’s voice dropped to a near whisper as she finally cornered herself away from the others. “Why are you here?”

Amelia hesitated, her fingers loosely clasped in front of her, as though weighing how much to reveal. “It’s my grandpa,” she said softly. “He took a job here.”

She gave a small, almost sheepish smile. “But that’s not the real reason. He believes… he might find something. About where we come from.”

Lara’s gaze sharpened instantly. “What do you mean?”

“He thinks our ancestry traces back to this place.” Amelia exhaled lightly, as if admitting something strange but deeply personal. “So I came with him.”

Lara turned sharply, her gaze locking onto Amelia. “Ancestry?” she repeated, her voice tighter than she meant, her pulse quickening.

Amelia nodded and pulled out her phone, scrolling. “Yeah. Grandpa’s been collecting old documents for years—scrolls, parchments… things that look like they belong in a museum.”

She stopped scrolling and turned the screen toward Lara. “He says they’ve been passed down in our family for generations.”

Lara stepped closer without realizing it, drawn in by something she couldn’t name. The air seemed to thicken around her as she leaned in.

Then her breath caught.

On the screen was a genealogy chart—aged, intricate, unmistakably deliberate. Names stretched across generations… fifteen of them.

Her stomach dropped.

At the very top—

Her.

And Alaric.

Her fingers twitched at her side. Her eyes darted down the list. Five sons. One daughter.

A cold, electric sensation ran through her chest, stealing her breath.

“Grandpa says,” Amelia continued, unaware of the storm unfolding beside her, “that we’re descended from the daughter of Althea. The one who left the palace… to follow her husband. He was a scholar, apparently. But that’s just too absurd.”

Lara’s mind reeled. Fragments of memory—faces, laughter, loss—threatened to surface all at once.

She swallowed hard. “Does your grandfather… still have the original?” The question came out sharper than she intended, edged with something dangerously close to urgency.

Amelia blinked, caught off guard. “Uh—no, not with me. But I do have a copy. It’s back at the bunkhouse.”

Her brows knitted together slightly as she studied Lara. “Why?”

Lara didn’t answer immediately. She was still staring at the screen, as if afraid it might disappear.

Finally, she forced herself to speak. “So… your grandfather believes he’s a descendant of Alaric Kromwel?”

Amelia nodded slowly. “Yeah.” A faint, uncertain smile tugged at her lips. “I know it sounds kind of ridiculous.”

Lara went very still.

For a moment, she said nothing.

Then she shook her head, once—twice—her expression shifting into something unreadable.

“No,” she said quietly.

Her eyes lifted to meet Amelia’s, something fierce and almost awed burning within them.

“I think it’s incredible.”

Amelia studied her, a strange sense of unease and wonder settling in her chest.

“…Yeah,” she murmured.

For reasons she couldn’t explain—

She agreed.

…

“Then… you must be Themis?” Lara asked, her voice calm—but her eyes were anything but calm.

Amelia froze.

The name hit her like a sudden drop in temperature. For a split second, instinct screamed at her to deny it—to laugh it off, to pretend she had no idea what Lara was talking about.

But when she looked up…

The lie fell apart before it could even form.

Something in Lara’s gaze—steady, knowing, and strangely gentle—made deception feel pointless.

Amelia exhaled slowly.

“How did you guess?” she asked instead, her voice quieter now, stripped of its usual caution.

She didn’t know why she was giving in so easily.

Maybe it was because of that moment, during General Leonard’s birthday, in the restroom—when Lara had stood beside her without judgment, without that familiar trace of condescension she’d grown used to from others.

Lara had treated her like she mattered and with respect.

And somehow… that was enough.

Lara hesitated, just for a fraction of a second.

She couldn’t exactly say, I tracked your digital footprint and broke into your files.

So she shrugged lightly, masking the truth with something far simpler.

“You mentioned your grandfather’s collection,” she said. “All those ancient scrolls and parchments. It’s not a stretch to think you drew inspiration from them.”

Amelia blinked, then stared at her with growing admiration.

She figured that out… just from that?

“You’re… really sharp,” Amelia murmured, almost to herself.

She shifted her weight, her earlier hesitation fading into something more open. “There were parts of the texts I couldn’t understand, though. A lot of them, actually.”

Her brows furrowed as she recalled the frustration. “I spent months researching—cross-referencing symbols, comparing languages. I managed to transcribe some sections…”

She let out a small, self-conscious laugh. “But most of it still doesn’t make sense to me.”

Lara’s gaze drifted slightly, her thoughts slipping somewhere deeper, older.

“Some words don’t really disappear,” she said absently. “They evolve. Change shape. But the roots… they stay almost the same.”

Amelia went completely still.

Her eyes widened, locking onto Lara as if she’d just heard something impossible.

“…What did you just say?” she asked, her voice trembling—not with fear, but with fragile, rising hope.

She took a small step closer. “Are you saying… you understand them?”

Lara stilled.

Damn it.

She felt the misstep the moment the words left her mouth.

She’d said too much—again.

But there was no taking it back now.

“…Yeah,” Lara admitted, more carefully this time. “I’ve always been into ancient history. Languages, too. So I studied them.”

A faint, almost self-deprecating smile touched her lips. “Did a lot of research. Just like you.”

It sounded believable.

It wasn’t the truth.

But for now—

It would have to be enough.

…

Amelia stared at Lara as if the world had suddenly narrowed to just the two of them.

There was a light in her eyes now—bright, unwavering—the kind an ardent believer reserved for something they had long searched for and finally found.

Hope.

“Then…” Amelia began, her voice steadier than before, though a quiet excitement trembled beneath it, “maybe we could work together.”

She straightened slightly as she spoke, as if stepping into a role she had only just realized she was meant to fill.

“I’m one of the scribes,” she continued, a hint of pride threading through her tone. “It’s my responsibility to document everything uncovered at this excavation site—every inscription, every fragment, every detail that might otherwise be lost.”

Her gaze didn’t waver from Lara’s.

“And if you can understand the language…” she added softly, “then we might finally uncover what all of this really means.”

Lara didn’t respond right away.

Instead, she studied Amelia—really looked at her.

This was not the same girl she had seen before—the one who moved carefully, spoke cautiously, and seemed to shrink under the weight of other people’s opinions.

That version of Amelia felt distant now.

In her place stood someone else. Someone composed, certain and alive with purpose.

It wasn’t just confidence—it was transformation.

And for reasons Lara couldn’t quite explain, a quiet warmth settled in her chest as she watched it unfold.

Good, she thought.

Because the path ahead…

Was not meant for the timid.

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