Chương 301: 65. Uninherited Legacy, Noose on Neck, and Blood of Brothers 2

Chains dragging across stone never sounded good. Especially when the people wearing them were ones you'd once called brother. Once called sister. Chris was brought in first. Yesterday he'd still been able to hold the shape of the eldest son around him. By this morning, that shape had crumbled. His hair was disheveled, his eyes bloodshot, his color the gray-white of paper left out overnight.

Boris came next, visibly thinner than he'd been the night before, his gaze darting around the room—the look of a rat that had already seen the blade and was still scanning the walls for a hole to crawl into. Last came Rosalind. She was the quietest. And the hardest to look at. Not in terms of appearance—but in that particular, painful way of someone whose composure has nearly shattered, yet who keeps pressing the pieces back against her face by sheer force of habit.

Once a person reaches that point, it's more pitiable than weeping. Weeping, at least, is honest. Too bad I had no time for pity today. The three were marched to the front of the hall. At first they were fairly cooperative—last night's session had apparently taught them there was nothing to gain from bristling. Chris spoke first, his voice hoarse.

"Cedric… this can still be discussed. We're brothers. If you want to take Thornhold, I'll acknowledge it—I'll even step aside—""Step aside?" I repeated it lightly.

"Do you still have anything left to step aside from?" He froze. Boris immediately jumped in, his expression stretching into the desperate, cracking smile of a man trying to ingratiate himself with his own executioner.

"R-right, we're all family! Yesterday we were foolish—we said the wrong things, did the wrong things. If you want us to admit fault, we'll admit it! If you want us to fix the ledgers, we'll fix them! As long as—""As long as you don't die. Isn't that it." I finished it for him. His throat bobbed. He still nodded. Rosalind turned slowly toward Fina, her voice dropping into something soft and deliberate—soft the way it had always been when she was about to say something calculated to sound reasonable.

"Fina, you understand, don't you? If this goes any further—if we're actually killed—the Rosa name is finished. If you're truly going to be head of household, you should be thinking about what's best for the family—" Beautifully said. Almost applause-worthy. Unfortunately for her, Fina wasn't sitting here alone today. And they had clearly underestimated one thing: when a person is truly afraid, their face can't hold that mask for long. I hadn't said a word yet when Chris caught sight of Fina in the forward seat.

His expression froze—then, as though some final, load-bearing thread inside him had snapped, something came unraveled.

"... You're sitting there?" He stared at her, his voice going taut.

"What right do you have to sit there?" Fina's whole body contracted. My gaze went cold, but I didn't stop him. Because some truths, unless witnessed with your own eyes, never quite sink in. Chris's words came faster, something igniting behind his eyes.

"You're nothing but a useless cripple we kept alive in a tower! Who fed you all these years? Who let you keep breathing? And now you drag some stray-dog of a brother back, and you think you get to sit above us—""Chris." I said his name, quietly. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. He didn't seem to hear. He lunged toward her and shouted:"Ungrateful wretch!" The hall went dead silent. Fina's face went bone white. Not the ordinary pale of shock.

The white of someone watching the last small belief—maybe they at least thought of me as a sister—being torn out by the roots, in front of everyone. And then, in what could only be described as a masterclass in timing: The instant Boris saw Chris losing control, he switched tactics. One second he'd been pleading with me; the next, it must have occurred to him that the one person who might actually save him wasn't me at all—it was Fina.

He lunged forward, knees cracking against the stone, and scrambled toward her wheelchair. Me: "…" Alvira: "…" Jessi let out a strangled sound, half gasp, half suppressed laughter, apparently having decided this scene had just sprinted clean past the outer boundary of human shame. Boris crawled all the way to Fina's feet, his expression twisted into something that was trying very hard to be pitiable.

"Fina! Little sister! Second Brother was wrong—Second Brother never took care of you, Second Brother was blind! Say something for me, beg Cedric for mercy—you've always been the soft-hearted one, haven't you, the sensible one—you can't just stand by and watch your own brother be—" He even reached out to grab the hem of her skirt. Fina screamed. It wasn't loud. But it was short and sharp, the instinctive sound someone makes when a snake brushes their ankle without warning. Something behind my eye twitched.

In the next heartbeat, my boot came down on Boris's outstretched wrist.

"AAAAHHHH—!" The bone didn't break. But I guarantee he'll remember this for the rest of his life. Assuming he has much of one left.

"Who gave you permission to touch her?" I looked down at him, my voice flat as ice.

"If you're going to beg, then beg with some dignity. I haven't finished my breakfast yet, and I'd rather not lose it now." Jessi finally gave up entirely, turning her face away, shoulders shaking with the effort of holding it in. Rosalind, at last, came apart. She looked from Boris writhing on the floor to Fina trembling in her chair, and whatever thin veneer of composure she'd been holding together finally shattered completely.

"Enough!" Her voice went shrill.

"This is both your faults! One of you spent everything propping up an image, the other spent everything trying to survive! If it weren't for the two of you, I would never have had to take this family this far!"

"Don't play innocent!" Chris rounded on her instantly.

"You made the false ledgers! You moved the supplies!"

"I did it to patch the holes the two of you left!" Rosalind's eyes had gone red, every trace of composed elegance gone.

"If I hadn't, this fortress would have been hollowed out completely by now!"

"What good does saying that do now?!" Boris, clutching his wrist in agony, still somehow found the breath to wail at Fina.

"Little sister! Say something! We grew up together—we're family—" Family. How convenient. For years, she'd been a burden. A shadow. Someone best treated as if she didn't exist. And now that the blade had reached their own necks, they suddenly remembered exactly how many strokes it took to write the word. I turned to look at Fina. She was crying. Not sobbing. Not making a sound.

Just tears, falling quietly, while her eyes stayed cold—the look of someone finally forced to see something too ugly to unsee, her warmth extinguished all at once, like a lamp going out. I watched her, then spoke slowly.

"Do you see it clearly now?" She flinched. I kept my voice low, but the whole hall could hear it.

"Do you see, clearly, what your brothers and sister really are?" Fina bit her lip. The tears fell harder. She didn't answer right away. But her silence was already the answer. Not reluctance. And not lingering hope. Disillusionment. The complete kind—the kind that burns away even the last small comfort of thinking, maybe they treated me badly, but at least they still thought of me as a person. I watched her for two quiet breaths. Then I nodded.

"Good." I clapped my hands twice. Crack. Crack. Not loud. But it felt like a curtain dropping on the last act of a very ugly play.

"Take the brothers out," I said. Chris's head snapped up. Boris panicked instantly.

"T-take us where?!" I didn't look at either of them. I asked, mildly:"The nearest town would be—" A Yinglong Guard stepped forward at once.

"Iron Fir Town, my lord." Iron Fir Town. Those three words hit me, and for a moment I just stood there. Then I almost laughed. Of course. Iron Fir Town. Years ago, when I was thrown out of this house like something past its use—half a life, a stomach full of anger, and every ounce of a kicked dog's dignity trailing behind me—the first place my feet carried me after truly crossing this fortress's threshold was that town. The snow there had been hard as stone, the wind sharp as a blade.

Beneath the old iron fir tree at the town's edge, a pile of dirty gray-black snow sat, never cleared. That was where I first understood that "thrown out of the family" wasn't just a figure of speech. It meant you really would stand at that crossroads, and find that even looking back felt like more effort than it was worth. I never imagined that after this long a circle, the place where I'd finally see them off would be the very same one. The place where I started. The place where they'd finish....

Almost too fitting. I slowly raised my eyes to the two of them.

"Take them to Iron Fir Town," I said.

"Public execution." Chris's face contorted.

"Cedric—you wouldn't dare—""I would." I said it as easily as remarking on the weather. Boris's legs gave out entirely.

"N-no! Not in the town! Not on display! I'm a Rosa! I'm—""Which is exactly why it has to be there." I looked at him and smiled.

"Let everyone see exactly what happens to a Rosa who spends garrison soldiers' lives and the townsfolk's blood buying his own comfort." Rosalind's head snapped up.

"And me?" I finally looked at her.

"You stay." Something complicated crossed her eyes—relief, humiliation, and then something even paler than either. Because she would understand soon enough: staying might not be much better than dying today. I had no intention of explaining that to her just yet. I turned toward the doors.

"Saddle the horses," I said.

"And bring me my rope."