Chapter 199: Lara The Empress

Artemio continued, his tone now stripped of mockery, replaced by something far more dangerous—certainty.

“The day you were born, your destiny was cast in stone.”

A flicker of confusion crossed her face. “Destiny? What is my destiny?”

“The vendetta, Lara…the blood feud.” he cut in, his voice like steel, “as the eldest, you have to carry it out.”

Silence.

The world around them—the distant voices, the sound of tools against stone, the rustling wind—seemed to fade.

Lara felt it then.

Not just fear but something colder.

“…Blood feud with whom? Is it your enemy?” she asked, her voice quieter now, but no less steady.

Artemio studied her for a long moment, as if measuring how much she could take.

Then he said—

“Not just my enemy, Lara,” he said quietly. “It’s yours too.”

The answer landed flat.

And they both knew it.

Lara leaned forward, fingers curling against the edge of the table, her composure slipping just enough to show the crack beneath. “Can you stop hiding behind riddles?” she pressed. “Say it. Directly.”

For the first time since that afternoon began, Artemio changed.

Barely.

A flicker in his eyes. A subtle tightening at the corner of his mouth.

“You really don’t remember.”

It was not a question.

Then he laughed—low, jagged, and wrong. The sound crawled under Lara’s skin, raising goosebumps along her arms.

“So you’re not pretending,” he murmured. “I thought Yannis had already finished his work on you.”

Something in the way he said it made her chest tighten.

Made everything feel worse.

Her thoughts snagged, looping back, clinging to his earlier words like a splinter she couldn’t pull free.

You were not meant to live as Lara Fuegerro…

Artemio’s words did not simply linger—they struck

, reverberating through her mind like a shout hurled into a cavern’s depths.

…not meant to live as Lara Fuegerro…

Each echo grew sharper, more insistent, as though clawing past the surface of her thoughts—demanding that she remember.

Not hear but remember.

The words stopped richocheting.

It burrowed into her skull like a relentless drill, tearing through carefully constructed memories.

Then, they infected.

They spread through her mind like a fracture splintering across glass—silent at first, then violently expanding, splinter by splinter, until something beneath began to surface.

Not memories.

Something older. Something buried.

“You were not meant to live as Lara Fuegerro.”

The voice twisted, deepened, multiplied—no longer Artemio’s alone, but a chorus of something vast and merciless pressing against the walls of her mind.

It did not ask her to remember.

It forced her to recall…

The child who was forced to steady trembling hands around the cold grip of a gun… the gun, too large for her small hands.

The command: Pull the trigger. The recoil that bruised her shoulder. A scream—cut short. The cold floors and the splatter of blood that wasn’t hers.

Orders she followed before she understood what obedience meant.

The girl who learned that hesitation meant death.

The teenager thrown into missions designed for soldiers twice her age—missions she survived when others did not.

All of it— peeled away.

No.

That was a life carved into her.

The her in the past.

A different name rose from the depths of her being, ancient and unyielding.

Lara Norse.

Daughter of Odin Norse—the War God whose name alone bent nations.

Sister to the empire’s undefeated generals.

Then another name…Lara Norse-Kromwel

Empress beside the founding sovereign of Azuverda. Mother to a lineage that ruled not by chance, but by right.

Blood of conquerors. Bone of rulers. A lineage that rose and dominated.

Power did not come to her.

It returned.

…

Her spine straightened, not with effort, but inevitability. Her body remembered the posture it always meant to hold.

Her gaze lifted—and when it met Artemio’s, something in the air shifted.

It was not the gaze of someone looking at her father. It was the gaze of someone assessing something… lesser.

Artemio felt it before he understood it.

An invisible pressure crushing him.

Artemio stilled.

For a fleeting moment, his breath caught—not from surprise, but from something far more unsettling.

Discomfort.

No… not discomfort but unease.

It felt as though the ground beneath him had tilted—subtly, but undeniably. As though the person standing before him was no longer beneath his command…

…but far, far above it.

Her presence pressed against him—heavy, suffocating—like standing before someone who had ruled long before he was born.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Artemio demanded.

His voice was firm. But not steady. The tremor, slight as it was, did not escape her.

“You are right… Father.”

Lara’s voice was calm. Too calm.

Not the calm of obedience, but the calm of certainty.

“I was never meant to live as a Fuegerro.”

For the first time in years, Artemio felt the instinct to look away.

What the hell…?

Am I… afraid of her?

The thought alone angered him.

He inhaled sharply, forcing control back into his chest. This was absurd. He had raised her—broken her, shaped her, trained her to obey without question.

She feared him.

She always had.

“Father?” he repeated, the word now laced with contempt, as though rejecting it before it could settle. “What kind of address is that?”

His eyes narrowed.

His lips curled with disdain.

“I’ll overlook it—for now. Your memory clearly hasn’t recovered fully.” His tone hardened. “But the next time we speak in private, you will address me properly.”

A pause.

Then—

“Understood… General.”

Lara’s voice carried no hesitation. No resistance. No emotion.

The indifference in her voice struck harder than defiance ever could.

Artemio’s jaw tightened.

This damned woman…

Didn’t she used to cling to him? Call him Dad—Daddy—like she always wanted to gain his approval?

Now—

There was nothing.

“…Never mind,” he muttered, exhaling sharply as if to dispel the tension coiling in his chest.

But the unease remained. Clinging…persistent.

“Come here often,” he continued, regaining his composure. “I heard you’ve been assisting the historians.”

“I’ll try my best. Most of the time, I will be in the northern and northeastern sector.” Lara replied.

She finally relaxed. She had broken through her body’s instincts.

Her gaze lingered on him a moment longer.

It wasn’t curious but assessing.

As if she was deciding whether he was worth remembering at all.

And for the first time—

Artemio Fuegerro understood something with quiet, creeping horror.

The girl he had raised… was she gone?

And whatever stood in her place…

had never belonged to him.

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