"Trion took his own life months ago, yet we learned it only recently because after disowning us, he had no family. In his farewell letter, he wrote that he regretted not being brave enough to admit his mistakes and ask our forgiveness.
"Trion was my baby, yet he spent his life alone because he thought that we didn't love him enough to give him a second chance. He preferred to die rather than being rejected again by his family." Elina burst into tears.
'He lived as he died. As an annoying pain in the a.s.s.' Lith remained unfazed by the news.
Yet he kept those thoughts to himself. Raaz's eyes were watery and Rena seemed to have lots of regrets as well. Spitting his venom on their feelings would have been both pointless and cruel.
"If Trion disowned us, how did you learn about his death?" Lith asked.
'The army would have informed me first and so would have done Jirni if she had been called to investigate the case.
'My family has no contacts with either the Mage Association or the military and they would rather keep it a secret to curry my favor than get on my bad side by hurting my mother for nothing.' He actually thought.
"Trion never stopped keeping in touch with Orpal, using him as an emergency contact in case something happened. It took the army a while to find Orpal and notify him of Trion's death. Then-"
"Orpal is back?" Tista jumped on her feet, yelling at the top of her lungs. Her reaction had been so fast that she had cut Elina short and beat Lith to the punch.
She immediately activated Life Vision, scouting the vicinity of the house for her long-lost yet never missed sibling.
"Calm down, he's not here anymore." Raaz said. "He left right after sharing Trion's fate with us and asking our forgiveness."
"Are you insane?" Lith's voice was calm and low, yet it held the fury of a storm.
He stood up slowly to not flip the table in his wrath and kept his eyes closed to not unleash upon his family the killing intent that now flooded his body.
"Orpal, or Meln, as he should call himself right now after losing his name, comes back here and instead of releasing the magical beasts you let him inside my house?"
"Our house and he is still my baby." Elina held Raaz's hand while her brain and her bleeding mother's heart battled fiercely. "I have already lost a son, how can you ask me to give up on another? He's turned over a new leaf. The old Orpal would've never apologized."
"It doesn't answer my question." Lith's voice turned coarse in anger. "Don't you find it oddly convenient that Trion left such a note and that Meln came here during my absence?
"I'm officially unemployed, very few people know about my apprenticeship and almost no one about my trip to Jiera."
"You are just paranoid. Orpal-" Elina attempted to say.
"Meln. His name is Meln and he is not a Verhen. I'd rather give up on my family name than share it with him." Lith released a violet pulse that shone through his closed eyes, filling the house with dread.
Rena's triplets started to cry, while Aran and Leria looked at their uncle as if they saw him for the first time. To their childish eyes, he looked terrible but cool, like a character from the fairy tales he told them.
'There's only so much mana I can keep down.' Solus said. 'Is it Meln worth scaring your family?'
'Solus, I'm not paranoid. Not this time. I arranged things for this contingency years ago with Lark, remember? Orpal can't have such a fine timing and the necessary luck to escape the Count's network of informants.'
'By my Mom, you're right. You put an APB on him before leaving for the academy. Now that you're an Archmage, no guard would turn a blind eye to it, not when they can make you such a favor.'
The shock allowed her to shrug off the lingering sadness from losing her humanity that still clouded her mind.
"I know that your grudge runs deep." Raaz said.
"That's why we didn't give him any reply and waited for your return. This is a matter that requires a unanimous decision from the family. I can understand your anger, especially after all you've gone through. That's why we didn't mention it to you."
He looked at Kamila, giving her a nod as a silent thank you. She had done what he couldn't due to his conflicting responsibilities as Lith's father and Elina's husband.
"Orpal, I mean, Meln seems to have truly changed, Lith." Rena said, trying to hold back her tears.
"I'll never forget all the bad things that he did and said, but maybe it's time to forgive him. He's still my twin brother and I can't bear the thought of him ending up dead in an alley like Trion."
"I'm sorry, but I don't care." Lith cursed his brain for its lack of tact, before realizing that it was Tista speaking. "Trion abandoned us long before he had the gall to disown this family because having magically talented siblings hurt his ego.
"He never bothered keeping in touch with any of us, not even with Mom who worried for him every day and yet he dared to put whatshisname as his emergency contact? Do I need to remind you that whatshisname didn't get disowned for stealing bread but because he tried to kill Lith in cold blood?"
Those words opened old wounds that not even the passing of a decade had healed. Elina clenched her c.h.e.s.t, knowing they were true and yet wishing they were just a lie.
"Trion did everything on his own, without caring for us once in his whole life. If he did, he wouldn't have committed suicide, let alone leaving a note that was bound to make you feel guilty.
"I'm sorry, but I stopped considering him my brother when he missed Rena's wedding, when he didn't come for my graduation, when he didn't bother replying to a single letter of the many that Mom wrote him.
"As for whatshisname…" Tista was too angry to remember the new name and refused to use the old one.
"…coming back like that proves that he hasn't changed one bit. He's still an opportunistic jerk that uses his own brother's death to crawl his way back into a now rich family and get the share of money that he surely thinks he's entitled to."
Tista's face was red while her hands were white from clenching them hard. Her whole body trembled in outrage as her mana almost went wild, releasing cyan pulses with every breath she took.
"What she said." Lith said while pointing at Tista.
By taking most of his words out of his mind, she had allowed him to calm down enough to finally manage to open his eyes without destroying the house.
"Trion's death upsets me only because it hurts you guys. Death doesn't change the past nor does it make him into a better person. My only question is if Meln has planned or not his return with the help of Kamila's parents."
