Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 48

Chapter 48: Chapter 48

Kaelen’s POV

“My parents were murdered too.”

The words hung in the sterile air of the medical wing. I hadn’t planned to say them. Not like this. Not sitting on the edge of a cot with Elara’s tear-streaked face inches from mine and the ghost of her grief still echoing off the stone walls.

But her story had torn the door off its hinges. And now the thing behind it was clawing its way out whether I wanted it to or not.

Elara didn’t speak. She just looked at me with those ice-blue eyes—Frostfang eyes, I knew that now—and waited. The same way I’d waited for her.

I exhaled. Slow. Measured.

“I haven’t told anyone the full truth of that night,” I said. “Not even Cassian. He knows the official account. Everyone does. The Emperor and Empress, assassinated in the imperial study. A rogue infiltration. Case unsolved.” I looked down at my hands. They were steady. They shouldn’t have been. “But the official account is a lie. Or at best, a fraction.”

“Tell me.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. No demand in it. Just presence.

I leaned forward. Elbows on my knees. The position made my wrinkled uniform pull tight across my shoulders, and I was suddenly, absurdly aware of the tension coiled in my muscles. My back ached. My neck was stiff. None of it mattered.

“My parents had a good marriage,” I started. “Or I thought they did. My father was... stern. Disciplined. A soldier before he was an emperor. My mother was warmer. She laughed easily. She used to sing while she brushed her hair at night—old northern folk songs that she said her grandmother taught her.” I paused. The memory was razor-edged. “I worshipped her.”

Elara’s hand found mine. I didn’t pull away.

“When I was thirteen, things changed. My father became distant. Gone for long stretches. My mother stopped singing.” I swallowed. “He took a mistress. A woman named Patricia, one of my mother’s personal attendants. A servant in our household.” The words came out flat. Toneless. The way I’d trained myself to say them over the years so they wouldn’t cut.

Elara’s fingers tightened around mine. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

“I didn’t find out the truth of their affair until much later,” I continued, staring at the blue glow cycling through the healing crystals in the wall. Steady pulse. Steady pulse. “By then, the damage was irreversible. And there was Gareth. The child Patricia had with my father.”

“Gareth.” Elara repeated the name carefully.

“My half-brother. The prince who was once your betrothed.” I looked at her. Made sure she understood. “His mother was the woman who destroyed mine.”

Something shifted behind Elara’s eyes. Recognition. Connection. The threads of two separate histories weaving together.

“When the truth came out, it was catastrophic,” I continued. “My mother was devastated. Humiliated. The divorce was brutal—my father had the power of the throne behind him, and Patricia had his ear. My mother was given limited custody. Custodial visits every other weekend and Wednesday evenings.” I heard my own voice go hollow. “She went from being Empress to a visitor in her own children’s lives.”

“That’s cruel.”

“It was systematic.” The old anger stirred. I held it down. “Patricia moved into the palace. Gareth was legitimized as a prince. My mother was erased from court as though she’d never existed. And I—”

I stopped. This was the part. The part I never said out loud.

“You were caught in the middle,” Elara said softly.

“I was furious,” I corrected. “Not caught. Furious. At my father for his betrayal. At Patricia for her ambition. At the entire court for bowing and scraping to a woman who’d torn my family apart.” I ran a hand through my hair. It was tangled. I didn’t care. “And I punished my mother for it.”

Elara frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I was eighteen,” I said, the guilt hitting like it always did. A fist to the center of my chest. “She had a scheduled visit. One of her designated evenings. I was supposed to go to her quarters in the outer palace. Spend the night. Have dinner.” My jaw locked. Released. “I didn’t go. I was angry—not at her. At everything. At the situation. At feeling like a pawn being passed between two households. So I went to a friend’s home instead. Stayed the night there. Told myself I’d see her the next visit.”

The crystal hum filled the silence.

“There was no next visit.”

Elara’s breath caught.

“I came home the following morning,” I said. The words were coming out mechanically now. Detached. The only way I could get through them. “The palace was in chaos. Guards everywhere. Blood on the floor of the main corridor. I pushed through to my father’s private study.”

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