The Omega Who Wasn't Supposed to Exist-Chapter 61: The Taste of Secrets & the Price of Silence

[Imperial Palace – East Garden / Thirty Minutes and Seven Pastries Later]

Lucien had just devoured his second lemon tart. Seraphina was slowly dismantling a biscuit like it had personally insulted her lineage.

And Empress Elise?

She was sipping her tea with the calm grace of a woman who knew her schemes were genius and her hair immaculate.

Birds chirped.

Butterflies fluttered.

The silverware sparkled ominously.

And the air—the air thickened with the weight of suspense. It was the kind of atmosphere that warned, Something scandalous this way comes.

And then—Footsteps.

Soft.

Swift.

Purposeful.

A young knight stepped into the garden, armor gleaming like a diplomatic mirror ball, eyes wide with the kind of nervousness only royalty, pregnancy, and dangerous gossip could inspire.

He bowed low, nearly dropping his scroll. "G-Greetings, Empress."

"Sir Conall," Elise greeted, setting her teacup down with perfect posture. "Do you have it?"

The knight’s eyes darted to Lucien.

He hesitated.

Wavered.

Visibly swallowed the panic bubbling up in his throat. Lucien, blissfully unaware of the oncoming storm, tilted his head in curiosity, a bit of whipped cream still clinging to his lip.

Seraphina noticed the hesitation first. Her voice turned cold, sharp like glass. "We don’t have all day, Sir Conall. Spit it out. Is that basta—ahem—Grand Duke really cheating on my brother?"

Sir Conall panicked.

His head shook rapidly. "N-No, my lady! Absolutely not! Grand Duke Silas—he... he loves Lord Lucien too much. Everyone in the palace knows that. The entire empire knows that."

Lucien blinked. "Oh. I know that too."

Elise tilted her head. "Then why do you look like someone forced you to steal from a dragon’s nest? What are you not telling us, Sir Conall?"

He opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Looked at Lucien again.

His throat bobbed.

"I—I wasn’t sure if I should say it," he whispered. "Because once it’s said... it cannot be unsaid."

Lucien’s fingers tightened around his teacup. He looked at Conall, calm but trembling beneath the surface. He can sense...trouble. "Sir Conall, it’s about me... and my family... So please, I insist you tell me whatever you heard there. I am ready to bear it."

The knight sighed heavily—then slowly, with all the solemnity of a prophecy unfurling, said, "They were talking about... High Priest Caldric."

The name landed like a thunderclap.

Seraphina furrowed her brow. "The High Priest? Why would that robed relic be talking about my brother?"

Sir Conall hesitated again.

And then he said it.

He said the words that shattered the calm like a porcelain plate thrown at a cheating ex.

"I heard Emperor Adrien and Grand Duke Silas speaking in hushed tones. The High Priest has declared that... the child Lord Lucien is carrying... is part of a divine prophecy. That it’s a holy child—chosen by the gods."

Lucien’s spine went stiff. "W...what..."

His fingers twitched over his belly. His breathing paused.

Sir Conall continued, his voice barely above a whisper now. "The temple believes the child is sacred. That it belongs to them. That once the baby is born... the Temple will come to take it away."

Silence.

A deep, all-consuming, pin-drop silence.

Then—

"WHAT?!!" Seraphina SLAMMED her teacup down, the porcelain cracking like thunder beneath her wrath. "HOW DARE THEY! WHO GAVE THEM THE RIGHT?!"

Even Elise, usually composed, let her fan fall to the table. "I knew the temple was acting suspicious lately... but this?"

She looked toward Lucien.

He hadn’t moved.

Not really.

His eyes were wide.

Too wide.

He looked like someone had pulled the floor out from beneath him and left him floating, and then he slowly—painfully—set down his spoon.

And then he stood.

With a wobble.

A hand at his belly.

"I... I have to... I have to go..."

"Lucien," Seraphina rushed to his side, steadying him, "Go where?! What are you talking about?"

Lucien turned toward the palace—toward the gilded hallway leading to Emperor Adrien’s meeting room.

His voice trembled. "I... I need to see him."

Seraphina frowned. "Who?"

Lucien’s eyes burned now.

Not with tears.

But with fire.

"Silas," he said. "He has to tell me the truth. All of it."

He pulled away from Seraphina gently and began walking—slowly, deliberately, powerfully—toward the room where secrets lived.

Every step felt like a declaration of war. Every breath was shaking with betrayal and disbelief. The garden stayed silent behind him.

Even the birds didn’t dare sing.

***

[Imperial Palace—The Emperor’s Private Council Room / Shadows and Strategy]

The chamber was dimly lit—an elegant room of polished mahogany, golden sconces, and towering shelves lined with treaties, scrolls, and a few very judgmental busts of past emperors.

A fireplace crackled low in the corner. Curtains were drawn. Guards were dismissed. This was not a room of politics today.

This was a room of secrets.

Silas stood by the window, staring out at the sky with the weight of empires on his shoulders.

His coat was unbuttoned. His cravat was loosened. He looked less like a grand duke and more like a man battling shadows. Behind him, Emperor Adrien sat at the long obsidian table—crownless but no less imperial. His fingers were steepled, gaze sharp beneath his brow.

"So," Adrien said quietly, "what have you decided to do?"

Silas didn’t turn around.

He exhaled.

A long, tired, haunted sigh.

"I don’t know yet," he murmured, eyes still fixed on the horizon. "But I’m digging. Watching. Listening. Every move the temple makes, I follow it."

He turned slightly, jaw clenched.

"I’m trying to find something. Anything. Something corrupt. Something I can twist into a blade. Something to finally justify killing that man."

Silas’s voice dropped like steel.

"High Priest Caldric’s death may be the only way to keep my family safe."

Adrien leaned back in his chair, expression unreadable.

"You know, don’t you," he said slowly, "that the Temple holds more power than the throne itself in these lands? More power than you. More power than me."

He looked at Silas now. Dead-on.

"People believe more in a god they’ve never seen... than a ruler who fights for them every day."

Silas let out a bitter laugh. Quiet. Hollow.

"I know," he said. "Believe me, I know."

He moved from the window, crossing the room in slow, tense strides.

"That’s why I haven’t done it yet. That’s why I haven’t carved out his throat and left his holy blood on the altar. Because I can’t afford to make him a martyr."

He stopped by the table, his voice suddenly tight—furious and exhausted in the same breath.

"But if he so much as breathes wrong near Lucien again—if he dares to lay those sanctimonious, rotting eyes on him—I won’t care about power, or war, or public opinion. I will end him."

Adrien stared at him for a long moment.

Then, quieter now, he asked, "And... Lucien? Does he know?"

The silence that followed was deafening. Silas’s lips parted, but no words came out.

He looked away.

And then finally said, voice low, "No."

Adrien raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"Because..." Silas swallowed hard, fingers flexing on the table’s edge. "I don’t think it’s the right time yet."

His voice cracked—just barely—but it was enough.

"I don’t want to scare him. He’s already... going through enough. The pregnancy, the court, the whispers, the press. And if I tell him that there are people—powerful people—planning to take our child from him..."

Silas’s hands curled into fists.

"He’ll break."

Adrien’s expression softened—just a little. "He’s stronger than you think."

Silas nodded. "I know."

Pause.

"But I’m not ready to see that look on his face. That fear. That heartbreak. Not yet. I want to protect him a little longer... even if it’s a lie."

And for a moment, neither of them spoke.

And then—

SLAM!!

The doors burst open like a declaration of war.

"SILAS RYNTHALL!!!"

The booming voice could’ve shattered windows.

Silas turned—His soul nearly left his body.

There stood Lucien Rynthall, in the doorway of imperial power, belly forward like a battle shield, eyes blazing like divine judgment wrapped in pregnancy glow.

To his left—Lady Seraphina, fury in heels, arms crossed like a general about to declare war.

To his right—Empress Elise, holding her own belly.

The Trio of Terror had arrived.

Silas took an instinctive step forward. "Lucien?! What—what are you doing here? You shouldn’t be—"

Lucien pointed a trembling, glitter-painted finger at him. "DON’T YOU DARE CALL ME ’MY LOVE’, SILAS RYNTHALL—OR I SWEAR I WILL END YOU RIGHT HERE, IN FRONT OF YOUR EMPEROR, YOUR GOD, AND YOUR STUPID FIREPLACE."

Silas physically flinched.

Adrien, sensing death in the air, rose from his seat to intervene—only for Elise to give him a single withering Empress Glare.

He promptly sat back down.

Silas tried again, voice gentler, carefully stepping forward. "Lucien, please—what’s wrong? You look upset. Did something happen?"

Lucien’s eyes shimmered—shimmered with unshed tears and unholy rage. The kind of tears that destroyed empires and rearranged furniture.

"Let me ask you just one thing, Silas," he said, voice shaking. "Just one thing."

Silas nodded, tension crawling up his spine. "Of course. Anything. But maybe sit—just for a moment. You’re pregnant, and your heartbeat is fast—"

SLAP.

Lucien smacked his hand away, his golden rings clinking like tiny cymbals of betrayal.

"DON’T. TOUCH. ME."

Silas’s brows pulled into a deeper frown now. "Lucien—what is this about?"

Lucien took a breath, and then—like a dam breaking—

"Did you—did you marry me just because I was pregnant with your child?"

The question hit like thunder.

Silas’s mouth parted. "No! Gods, no. Lucien—I love you. I married you because I love you—"

Lucien cut him off with a trembling shout.

"THEN WHY—" His voice cracked. "Then why didn’t you tell me... about the holy bastard who wants to take our child away from me?!"

Silas froze.

Adrien froze.

Silas blinked. "How... how do you—"

"You think you can hide something like this from the mother who’s carrying the child?!" Seraphina snapped, stepping forward with righteous fury. "You think secrets survive under the combined scrutiny of hormonal rage and female intuition?!"

Elise sighed, arms folded. "We found out everything, Grand Duke."

Lucien’s lower lip trembled.

He looked more heartbroken than furious now.

"You knew," he whispered. "You knew they wanted to take our wobbelbean away. You knew there were people—powerful people—watching us like we’re some holy experiment. You knew the temple sees my child as a prophecy, a relic, a gift to be stolen—AND YOU SAID NOTHING."

Silas was speechless.

He took a shaky step forward. "Lucien, please. I was going to tell you. I was—"

"When?!" Lucien cried out, voice rising. "After they took my baby? After I woke up to an empty crib and a letter signed by the Gods?!"

He clutched his belly with both hands, as if shielding it from the room, the truth, and everything in between.

"I’m carrying this child, Silas. I feel the presence. Every flutter. I talk to them. I sing lullabies. And you—"

His eyes welled up again.

"—you decided I wasn’t strong enough to know the truth."

Silas stepped forward again, arms half-lifted, desperate. "Lucien, I swear—I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want to scare you. I was trying to protect you."

Lucien met his eyes, voice soft but shattering. "Then you should’ve done that with truth, Silas... We could’ve protected our wobblebean together."

Silas took another step, reaching again. "Lucien—"

But Lucien stepped back. That one step felt like a chasm opening between them.

"I feel like..." He swallowed hard, blinking fast against the tears. "I feel like I’m just a person carrying your child, Silas. Not your love. Not your husband. Not your partner with whom you share everything and fight every battle together..."

The silence afterward was sharp.

Cold.

Final.

Lucien turned, his hand instinctively cradling his belly—protective, trembling, alone.

And Silas was left standing there, hand half-raised, the sound of Lucien’s retreat echoing louder than any battle cry... as his heart cracked where no one could see

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