The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss-Chapter 93: Henry

"...Are you seeing this, Henry?" she said aloud, voice low and sharp.

A shape stepped from her shadow, as if time had bent to allow him passage.

’Not’ the old man.

Not the frail body coughing through council chambers.

Not the specter of a dying throne.

But ’him’.

Henry Von Roxweld. The real Henry Von Roxweld.

Not physically younger—no, the years still kissed the corners of his sharp eyes. But his spine was straight. His shoulders squared. His beard fuller. His presence—undeniable. Like a mountain rising from mist. The same Henry from the war chronicles. From the unrecorded victories and the whispered poisonings that rebuilt Berkimhum from rot into glory.

A king not seated.

But hunting.

"Is this sadness did I sense in you ,my daughter."

Lara spun, sword half-raised, though her arm trembled to hold it.

From the shadows behind the dais, he stepped out.

Not hunched.

Not coughing.

Not dying.

King Henry Von Roxweld. Straight-backed. Cloaked in midnight velvet. Hair brushed, dark in the moonlight. The same stern brow. The same intense golden eyes. But where sickness once ruled, now stood commanding presence.

Lara’s blade dropped to the floor with a metallic clang.

"...what?," she whispered.

He stopped just a few feet from her, his steps as measured as ever, boots echoing like war drums on broken stone.

"In my heart I knew you still cared ," he said. freёwebnoѵel.com

That was all he gave her at first.

"No one never knows for sure," he continued. "How deep a bond between family really Is."

"You ...." she rasped, chest tight with blood and betrayal. "You... you were dead. You let me believe——"

"I had to," he said calmly.

"No you didn’t!" she snapped, voice cracking into a scream. "You let me weep over your corpse! You let me mourn a lie!"

"And in that mourning," he said, "you remembered what it meant to fear. What it meant to love."

She stepped toward him, her blade forgotten, her fury raw.

"You let me hate you," she said. "You let me scream your name with every blow I landed on her face—and you just watched?"

His gaze didn’t waver.

"Because your rage," he said softly, "was the truest proof that you still loved me."

She flinched. Just slightly.

"What?"

He stepped closer now. Slowly. Like a father to a feral child, a lion cub baring its teeth after being wounded by the world.

"Your grief poured through every swing of your sword," he said. "That pain? That fury? That was for me. Your love for a father who failed you. Your love for a kingdom that crumbled under lies. I needed to see if it survived... if you survived."

"I see it," Henry said, gaze calm and calculating as it fell upon the chaos below. "They’ve come to take my kingdom after all. My blood. My legacy. My house."

His voice was no longer hoarse. No longer plagued by sickness.

It was iron laced in velvet.

Aurora clicked her tongue. "Come to take?... Or lured?"

Henry didn’t respond.

She turned her head slightly, just enough to catch his silhouette with the edge of her vision.

"They’re not as conniving as you, though," she added, smirking. "Not yet, at least."

He raised an eyebrow.

"How long do you plan on hiding in shadows and body double ?" Aurora asked. "Hell of a way to summon me....."

Henry’s gaze flicked toward the Empire’s Knight —with his single gaze, she froze then and there, unable to move, unable to speak. Like the thunder of god’s reined upon her.

A muscle in his jaw twitched.

His hand tightened—just once.

Then he exhaled.

"You were taking your sweet time...so" he said simply.

Aurora narrowed her eyes. "Well, I was waiting after they bury your effigy? Or after the capital burns?"

Henry said nothing, ignoring her completely.

He just stepped closer to his daughter, "...You’re stronger than I imagined," he admitted, softly. "So much like me..."

"...And your son?" Aurora intervened.

Henry’s face didn’t change—but something in the air did.

"The boy conquered the dark continent," Aurora continued. "Tamed a serpent god. Is being followed by titans and shadows. Your son didn’t just survive—he became something other. Something old. Something terrifying."

Henry still said nothing.

Aurora sighed and folded her arms.

"Don’t give me your silent act. You left me behind to watch them, didn’t you? Left me here playing court guardian while you fake your sickness and crawl back into your secret schemes."

"I don’t crawl," Henry murmured. ".....I prepare."

"Semantics."

He finally looked at her. The gleam in his eye wasn’t cruel—it was something worse: inevitable.

"You know how the empire plays," he said. "How the world plays. Kings don’t survive by being loved. They survive by being needed."

Aurora smirked. "That why you played sick?"

"No," he said. "The Empire needed a bait to bite upon, I became the bait."

He stepped towards her daughter as Aurora frowned.

A silence passed.

Moonlight filtered through the broken ceiling, casting them in pale silver.

"You needed me to become this... just to survive your death?" she whispered.

"No," he said, eyes softening for the first time in years. "I needed you to become this... to survive what comes next."

She looked away, furious tears blurring her vision.

He stepped beside her—not reaching to touch, not daring. Just close.

"When you cursed me with your blade tonight," he said, "when you hurled your grief like fire at our enemies... I saw the truth."

"What truth?" she asked bitterly.

"That no matter how much you rage, no matter how much you hate me..."

He paused.

"You still need your father."

She turned to him, lips parted in disbelief.

"You think this was about needing you?" she hissed. "I needed the truth. I needed the man who could’ve helped this kingdom instead of hiding behind smoke and masks!"

"I never stopped helping it," he said.

"And what about helping me and helping Atlas?!" she shouted.

That broke the silence.

Even Aurora, perched high above, said nothing.

Henry’s eyes closed for a moment. Then reopened, and for once, he looked not like a king, but a man. A man burdened with the weight of legacy and the terror of love.

"You wouldn’t have become this strong if I held your hand, along with your brother, whom you love so dearly."

Her shoulders dropped.

The fire in her chest... flared, then flickered.

"You’ll never stop playing god, will you?" she said.

"No," Henry said. "But gods die too. And I would rather die once more, truly this time, than see either of my children fall before me."

That did something.

Something small.

She looked at him, not with forgiveness—but with the aching, brittle need to understand.

"...Then don’t vanish again," she said. "If you leave now, I won’t mourn you next time. I’ll hunt you."

Henry smiled, as he patted her head, tugging in her for a hug. For a reunion. For the future battles to come.

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