Her first, unfiltered, gut-level thought was not one of denial. It was a familiar, exasperated, and deeply ingrained reaction that had been honed over years of dealing with her older sibling.
‘Lloyd,’ she thought, a wave of profound weariness washing over her. ‘What in the world have you done now?’
What new, spectacular act of foolishness, what bizarre social blunder, what inexplicable public incident had her brother managed to perpetrate that could possibly lead the Princess of the entire kingdom to believe their parents were hiding a spare heir in the attic? The sheer, imaginative scope of the potential disaster was almost impressive. Had he tried to pay for groceries with a bar of soap? Had he challenged the King to a duel over a bad haircut? Had he accidentally set fire to the Royal Library while trying to read a book? With Lloyd, the possibilities were, as always, terrifyingly endless.
This internal, lightning-fast cascade of ‘What has Lloyd done?’ took only a second, but it was a second too long. In that brief, stunned silence, Isabella’s eyes sharpened further. She saw not confusion, but hesitation. A flicker of something she interpreted as guardedness, a sign that her wild, impossible question had, against all odds, hit a nerve.
Jothi finally recovered, the absurdity of the situation crashing back in on her. “A secret brother?” she repeated, her voice flat with disbelief. “Your Highness, I can assure you, there is no one. It is only Lloyd and myself. My parents are not in the habit of misplacing their children.”
Her denial was firm, absolute. But the damage was done. Her initial, split-second hesitation, born not of conspiracy but of pure, sibling-related exasperation, had been noted. It had been logged, analyzed, and filed away in the meticulous, and often tragically flawed, intelligence database that was Princess Isabella’s mind.
“I see,” Isabella said, her tone now cool and distant. She did not look convinced. She looked like a predator who had just seen a flicker of movement in the tall grass. “My apologies for the indelicate question. There have been… strange occurrences. Rumors. I was merely seeking to clarify the facts.”
She gave Jothi a stiff, formal nod. “Carry on with your studies, Lady Ferrum. And again, congratulations on your Ascension.”
With that, the Princess turned and swept away, Captain Eva falling into step behind her like a loyal, heavily armed shadow. Jothi was left standing by the pond, her mind reeling.
The encounter had been profoundly unsettling. Not because of the question itself, which was patently absurd, but because of the implication behind it. Something had happened. Something significant enough to plant the seed of this insane theory in the Princess’s mind. And Jothi knew, with the unshakeable certainty of a long-suffering sibling, that her infuriating, unpredictable, and suddenly god-like older brother was standing right at the center of it.
She sighed, a long, weary sound that seemed to disturb the swans on the pond. Her newfound peace was shattered. She had returned to the Academy seeking sanctuary, only to find that the chaos that orbited Lloyd Ferrum had a gravitational pull that even the hallowed walls of this institution could not escape. And now, she was caught in its orbit too.
Jothi watched Princess Isabella’s retreating form, a knot of deep unease tightening in her stomach. The Princess hadn't been asking a question; she had been conducting an interrogation, and Jothi felt, with a sinking certainty, that she had failed the test. Her momentary, stunned silence had been misinterpreted as concealment, her genuine confusion as a poorly crafted lie.
This was the core of the problem with Isabella. The Princess possessed a brilliant, analytical mind, but it was a mind that operated on flawed, emotionally driven assumptions. Once she seized upon a theory, she would bend every subsequent piece of evidence to fit it, ignoring all contradictory data. She was a master of confirmation bias, and Jothi knew, with a chilling dread, that she had just handed her a new, glittering piece of "proof" for whatever grand, paranoid conspiracy she was currently constructing.
A secret brother. The idea was so ludicrous it bordered on insulting. Did Isabella truly believe that her father, Arch Duke Roy Ferrum, a man whose entire being was a monument to tradition, honor, and the sanctity of the main bloodline, would engage in such a cheap, theatrical deception? Hiding an heir? It was the plot of a bad penny-dreadful novel, not a strategy befitting a Great House.
And yet… Jothi couldn't entirely dismiss the Princess’s concern. Isabella was impulsive and often wrong, but she was not a fool. For her to even formulate such a theory meant she had witnessed something that defied all rational explanation. And any event that defied rational explanation in the capital these days inevitably traced back to one person.
Her enigmatic, infuriating, and utterly transformed brother.
She thought back to the family Summit. She had watched him, this man who she had dismissed for years as a spineless disappointment, a "drab duckling," and had seen a stranger. He had moved with a quiet, unshakeable confidence. He had verbally dismantled their arrogant cousin Rayan before their duel even began. He had weathered Rayan’s Ascended-level assault, and then, when all seemed lost, he had unleashed a power so alien, so terrifying, that it had broken their cousin’s mind without leaving a physical scratch. The Black Ring Eyes of the Austin line, a power that was supposed to be a forgotten myth.
Then there were the rumors, the whispers that had followed her even to the brutal grounds of the Azure Shield Tournament. Tales of the "White Mask," a mysterious, god-like warrior who had intervened at the Academy, commanding a demon of fire and wielding a power that could erase beings from existence. The descriptions of the White Mask’s power—the controlled fire, the overwhelming force—didn't match any known Ferrum ability.
Could that be the source of Isabella’s suspicion? A new, unknown power user appears, and the Princess, in her frantic search for answers, concocts a theory about a secret Ferrum warrior? It was plausible. It fit Isabella’s tendency towards the dramatic.
But it still didn't feel right. The timing was too coincidental. The sudden, volcanic eruption of Lloyd’s own hidden powers, followed immediately by the appearance of another, equally mysterious warrior? It stretched credulity.
A new, deeply unsettling thought began to take root in Jothi’s mind, a thought far more disturbing than Isabella’s theory of a hidden sibling. What if there wasn't a secret brother? What if the White Mask and Lloyd were one and the same?
The idea was insane. Utterly, completely insane. Lloyd, her clumsy, bookish brother, a god of fire? The man who, until a month ago, she believed couldn't win a fight against a determined housecat, was now a walking cataclysm? It made no sense. His powers were the Steel Blood and the Black Ring Eyes. The White Mask used fire. They were fundamentally different.
And yet… the thought refused to be dismissed. She remembered the look in Lloyd’s eyes during the final moments of his duel with Rayan. It wasn't just the power of the Black Rings. It was something else. A cold, ancient confidence. The look of a seasoned warrior, a man who had seen a hundred battles and had won them all. It was the same look of absolute, terrifying command that the rumors attributed to the White Mask.
Could he possess a second spirit? A spirit, perhaps, that was so secret even their own family didn't know about it? The idea that her brother, the man she thought she knew so well, had depths so profound and secrets so vast that he could be living a triple life was a concept that made her head spin.
She shook her head, trying to clear the fog of conspiracy. She was starting to think like Isabella. The simplest explanation was usually the correct one. And the simplest explanation was that her brother was an endless source of trouble, and his recent antics had somehow led the Princess down a rabbit hole of her own making.
Still, the seed of doubt was planted. She looked at her own hands, at the faint, shimmering aura of her own newly Ascended power. She had worked her entire life for this strength, had bled for it, had dedicated every waking moment to upholding the honor of her house. And her brother… her brother seemed to have stumbled into a power that could eclipse her own, and the entire kingdom’s, as if by accident.
It was infuriating. It was humbling. And it was, she had to admit, just a little bit terrifying.