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Watch full-length drama films featuring powerful business leaders, hidden identities, family secrets, impossible love stories, revenge, and inspiring personal journeys. Every movie delivers engaging storytelling and memorable characters.
Enjoy high-quality drama entertainment with English subtitles and discover new trending stories uploaded on a regular basis.
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00:00They forgot my name.
00:02My six older brothers, my mother, and my father, all of them forgot.
00:06So tonight, 11 minutes before midnight, I'm going to take my motorcycle and disappear for good.
00:13Happy birthday to me.
00:14My name is Aurora Kane.
00:16They used to call me Rory.
00:17Our family controlled the most elite private security empire on this side of the Atlantic.
00:22Then I turned 17.
00:23My family threw me a party and gave me this motorcycle.
00:27That night, I went to bed.
00:29Feeling like the luckiest girl in the world.
00:31The next morning, I woke up invisible.
00:34I shut off the engine and pushed the motorcycle slowly down the gravel drive.
00:38I passed the still-lit west wing and avoided the security cameras.
00:42I stopped at the edge of the trees and looked back.
00:44Just this once, I allowed myself that.
00:47Goodbye.
00:48I know none of you will miss me.
00:50Then I flipped the ignition and my Harley roared to life.
00:53I knew exactly where every guard was posted that night.
00:55I knew which shift was understaffed on Thursdays and which gate's camera had been broken since April.
01:01After all, I was the only person in the entire Kane family who bothered to learn these things.
01:06I hit the north road at 60 miles an hour and drove out of my father's property without triggering a
01:11single alarm.
01:12In less than nine minutes, I would turn 18.
01:15No one in Blackwater Mantra knew.
01:17What could a 17-year-old girl have done to make her mother refuse to look at her?
01:21Her father stopped speaking to her.
01:23And even the six older brothers who used to fight over, who got to teach me how to ride a
01:27motorcycle, treat me like a ghost?
01:30I'd spent 365 days trying to find the answer.
01:33And I had nothing.
01:35Six weeks ago, I went to the family archives where every Kane is recorded from birth to burial.
01:39I found my own file.
01:41Fourteen pages chronicled my childhood.
01:43Report cards, vaccine records, every entry in my father's handwriting.
01:47The last line of the file was written on my 17th birthday.
01:50Aurora K. Kane, 17.
01:52No further record.
01:54The moment I read that sentence, I stopped hoping.
01:57I twisted the throttle harder.
01:59The highway opened up in front of me, black and gold.
02:03A strange feeling rose in my chest, like the hand that had been around my tech had finally let go.
02:08At 11.58, my watch vibrated.
02:10Two minutes until legal adulthood.
02:12Then the whole world exploded.
02:15Not the road collapsing.
02:17Sound.
02:17Crickets in the ditch.
02:18The heartbeat of a deer three acres away.
02:20The off-keck voice of a truck driver two miles away.
02:23Singing country radio.
02:26Thousands of sounds crashed into my mind all at once.
02:29So loud, I almost lost control of the bike.
02:31I swerved to the side of the roads, took off my helmet, and clamped my hands over my ears.
02:36The sounds faded slowly, like someone turning down the volume on the whole world.
02:41Beneath all that noise, from somewhere far behind me, I heard my father's voice.
02:47Clear as if he were standing right over my shoulder.
02:50No matter what happens tomorrow, she must never find out the truth.
02:54If Rory learns the truth before then, she won't live to see Sunday.
03:00I sat there on the motorcycle seat for twenty full minutes, waiting to hear the voice again.
03:06But nothing came.
03:08Only crickets chipping, and my own heartbeat.
03:11I told myself it was a hallucination.
03:14Lack of sleep.
03:15Too much adrenaline.
03:16A girl running away in the middle of the night, shouldn't trust voices in her head.
03:20So I climbed back onto the bike, and let my thoughts drift back over this entire year.
03:25Every single humiliating moment.
03:27Every second of it.
03:28It had all started the morning after my seventeenth birthday.
03:31I woke up smiling.
03:33I showered, braided my hair, put on mascara, the night before people had said I looked pretty.
03:39I was seventeen, naive and happy back then.
03:42Then I walked out to the family floor, and it was empty.
03:46My father's suite, my mother's study, the six bedrooms down the East Hall, all empty.
03:51I made breakfast all by myself, and sat alone at the nine-person island table to eat.
03:56I told myself they were letting me sleep in.
03:59Downstairs, the staff who'd watched me grow up glanced at me strangely and quickly looked away.
04:04My father's office door was shut.
04:06A door that had never been closed to me before.
04:12At lunch, the rest of the family filed in and sat all around me, but no one spoke.
04:17Everyone kept their phones under the table, staring down at their plates.
04:21Ten people at one table, having a whole conversation I was completely locked out of.
04:27Mom, when is our Wednesday date?
04:29She didn't even lift her eyelids.
04:31Halfway through the meal, she got up and left the room with the operations director.
04:36I told myself, she's just having a bad day.
04:39I clung to that thought for three whole months.
04:42Dad, do you need me in the office today?
04:45Not available.
04:46Ashton, do you want me to work through the Hollis file for you?
04:49I'm busy, Roy.
04:51Later on, even that reply stopped.
04:54Nothing but silence.
04:55By week nine, I stopped saying good morning.
04:58My combat instructor never showed up for lessons again.
05:01No explanation.
05:03My mother's assistant deleted our long-standing Wednesday date from the shared calendar.
05:07I scrolled three months ahead.
05:09It was blank.
05:10Eleven years of tradition, just gone.
05:12Little by little, I ceased to matter, until I was heir.
05:18Four months into it, I found the old gardener's cottage at the north edge of the estate.
05:23Two rooms, a wood-burning stove, and a view out over the river.
05:26I packed clothes, my laptop, my book, and moved out of my parents' big house one bag at a time.
05:31Nobody noticed.
05:32I lived there 111 nights.
05:35No more dinner, no more breakfast.
05:37I would sneak back to my old bathroom in the family wing to shower, wipe away all traces, then slip
05:42back to the cottage.
05:43No one ever came looking for me.
05:44Many nights, I lay wide awake, counting the days.
05:48Still, my mother never knocked on my bedroom door.
05:51Sometimes along the way, I stopped crying.
05:54My heart went cold and quiet, and I started making plans.
05:58After all, I'd picked up a lot of secrets growing up around my father's office.
06:02At seven months, I submitted an application.
06:04I applied to Sovereign Academy, the inclusive training program for the Royal Guards of Alaville, selective institution in the whole
06:11world.
06:111,500 people applied every year.
06:1482 got in.
06:15Nothing left to lose.
06:17I took all the examines from a public library three towns over, on a laptop with a throwaway email address,
06:23and I didn't use my real name.
06:24Six days ago, the acceptance email arrived.
06:27Late at night, in that cabbage no one knew I lived in, I read the email 11 times.
06:32Congratulations.
06:33Your composite score is the highest in program history.
06:36Please report to the Academy Gates on your 18th birthday.
06:39Welcome, Cadet R. Voss.
06:46It took my family 19 hours to figure out I was gone.
06:50I knew exactly how long.
06:52At 6.47 the next evening, 41 missed calls.
06:56My six older brothers, both my parents, plus three unknown numbers.
07:00Voicemail piled up.
07:02I sat by the road holding a bottle of water, and only listened to the message from my oldest brother.
07:07He was the one who taught me to ride, to fight, to read contracts.
07:13Rory, your room.
07:14It's empty.
07:16The closets are empty.
07:18How long?
07:19Baby, how long have you been gone?
07:21He didn't finish.
07:22There were sounds on the other end of the line.
07:24A woman screaming my name.
07:26Then a huge crash, and the message cut off.
07:29I deleted the remaining 103 messages without listening to them.
07:34Then I did the only thing I knew how to do.
07:36Put my head down and keep going.
07:38Two hours later, driving through Pine Forest Country, that strange auditory thing hit me again.
07:45I was going 70 miles an hour down an empty interstate when I heard someone crying.
07:50It wasn't close.
07:52There was nothing but woods as far as the eye could see.
07:56Still, I pulled over.
07:59I could hear her sopping, every catch in her breath crystal clear.
08:03I turned on my phone flashlight and headed into the trees, following the sound, until the beam landed on crumpled,
08:10twisted metal.
08:14A car had gone over the edge into a ravine.
08:17A girl about my age hung suspended by her seatbelt, scalp bleeding, one arm twisted out of shape.
08:24She'd been trapped there since early that morning.
08:27You couldn't see the wreck from the highway, and no one passing could hear her screaming for help.
08:32And I had heard her from a mile away.
08:35I got her out.
08:36I rigged a splint for her arm with a crape hole and the sleeve of my own jacket.
08:41Halfway back, I carried her on my back.
08:43Standing there in the dark while I called for help, my hands wouldn't stop shaking.
08:48This isn't real. I'm dead.
08:50When thoughts that weren't mine flooded into my head.
08:52This is all a hallucination.
08:54The girl's lips didn't move at all.
08:56I looked down at her, and she looked back up at me.
08:59Don't leave me here.
09:01I'm not going to leave you.
09:03Her peoples blew wide.
09:05When the girl's father showed up at the hospital, he insisted on paying me.
09:10I turned it down.
09:12Then he tried offering me a job.
09:14I turned both down.
09:16He seemed decent, and this thing was tearing me apart, so I told him the truth.
09:20I don't know what's happening to me.
09:22I heard her from a mile away.
09:23I read thoughts in her head.
09:25I've had this for exactly 26 hours.
09:28He didn't laugh.
09:29I remembered that.
09:30His expression turned grave.
09:32He stared at me for a long time, and only asked one question.
09:36How old are you, kid?
09:3818.
09:39Turned 18 yesterday.
09:40Something flickered across his eyes.
09:42Maybe fear.
09:44He walked me back to my motorcycle before I left and warned me.
09:47Whatever this thing you have is, never tell anyone.
09:51Especially not people who would try to use it.
09:54I nodded.
10:03Sovereign Academy sat nested in a valley, ringed by a 300-year-old wall.
10:07Forty cadets in the yard, all turned to stare.
10:10Every single one of them was male, over six feet tall.
10:14And I was five and a half feet tall, covered in road dust.
10:17I took off my helmet.
10:19Somebody snirkered out in the crowd.
10:20The gate guard read my acceptance letter over and over, ears bright red, stepping backward
10:26like I might attack him.
10:28Cadet R. Voss?
10:30Ma'am, these scores, they can't be possible.
10:32Wait right here.
10:33Don't move.
10:34Instead of calling for drill instructors, he dialed the main building.
10:38Four minutes later, a black sedan with a gold crest painted on the doors came rolling up
10:43the drive.
10:43Every single cadet in the yard dropped to one knee on the gravel, all at once, like they'd
10:48been struck down.
10:50Only I stayed standing.
10:52I didn't understand the protocol back then.
10:54The back car door opened.
10:57The gate guard went pale.
10:59Miss Voss, his majesty wishes to see you.
11:04The king of Alivane stared at me for eleven full seconds before he spoke.
11:09Aurora Cain.
11:10I didn't flinch.
11:11My paperwork says Voss, your majesty.
11:13Your paperwork contains a great many deliberate falsehoods.
11:17You have your grandmother's jawline and your father's always coiled stance.
11:21I have known Damon Cain for twenty-six years.
11:23He does not know you are here.
11:25No, he does not.
11:26If you notify him, I will climb over these walls before you finish the sentence.
11:31Eighty-two cadets knelt on the gravel and heard every word I said to the king.
11:36Silence fell over the yard.
11:38Then the king laughed.
11:39All of you, rise.
11:41The king's gaze never left me.
11:43She may keep using the name Voss.
11:46Inside these academy walls, anyone who insists on correcting her name leaves immediately.
11:52Do I make myself clear?
11:54Yes, your majesty.
11:56That concluded the conversation.
11:58He offered no explanation for why he had come down in person to meet an eighteen-year-old girl on
12:03a Harley.
12:04I was proud.
12:05I didn't ask.
12:06I wouldn't learn the full truth for four more months.
12:09By then, it would almost be too late.
12:16The academy inside was like a small, walled city.
12:19Six barracks buildings, a training center the size of an airport, a library with a spiral staircase carved from a
12:26single, enormous tree.
12:27I was assigned to barracks three.
12:29I had only forty minutes to make it to new cadet orientation.
12:32Silver-haired instructor Larson stood there with my file in his hands, his tone flat, zero warmth.
12:38You are skipping the first two weeks of basic instruction.
12:41Instructor?
12:41Your entrance scores are the highest this academy has ever seen.
12:45Repeating basic firearms trills and similar material would be a waste for both of us.
12:50Attend the new cadet assembly this morning.
12:52After that, you report to Instructor Emmett for individual competency evaluation.
12:57Every head turned in the great hall.
12:59Forty-one hostile stairs, all pointed straight at me.
13:02Two names I would learn very quickly.
13:04They made sure I would.
13:06Deacon Price, second son of the powerful McKetsey house, hard, sharp jawline.
13:11He talked a big game about ladies first.
13:13What he really meant was step aside.
13:15Then slain Adel, pretty as a magazine model, who liked to brag about her exam scores while waiting in chow
13:22lines.
13:22First day of orientation, Deacon stepped into my path in the hallway and clapped a hand on my shoulder.
13:27Nice bike. Whose is it?
13:29Mine.
13:30He leaned in close.
13:31Listen, this isn't some little girl's playhouse.
13:34Save yourself the humiliation and quit before you wash out on Friday.
13:38Right then, his private thoughts flooded straight into my head.
13:41God, she smells good. Probably gonna be crying to go home by Friday.
13:44I smiled at him.
13:46Friday? I'll remember that.
13:51The two weeks' training under Instructor Emmett were the best I'd had in a whole year.
13:55He drilled me on command structures, treaty law, threat assessment, hostage negotiation protocols.
14:00On the ninth day, he gave me a mock crisis scenario with nine shifting variables.
14:04I resolved it in 11 minutes.
14:06He set down his pen and stared at me.
14:09Who taught you all this?
14:10In my father's office.
14:11I sat in the corner. Nobody thought I was paying attention.
14:14How old were you?
14:16Four.
14:16Cadet boss?
14:17A lot of men twice your age couldn't pull off what you just did.
14:20Something I understood very well.
14:22Being ignored for all those months at Blackwater Manor had felt like dying.
14:26But here, being overlooked, it was my greatest advantage.
14:30Two weeks of training done.
14:32Elimination assessment day arrived.
14:33All cadets gathered in the Great Hall.
14:36Larson climbed up onto the high platform.
14:38Behind him, people gasped.
14:40The king had arrived.
14:41And a younger man with dark eyes, unmistakably the crown prince.
14:44Everyone here.
14:4535 will stay.
14:4747 leave tonight.
14:48Permanent disqualification.
14:49I will read the team captains first, then the eliminated names.
14:52And last, the highest rank a cadet can earn here.
14:55Supreme Commander.
14:56He read off seven captain names.
14:58He read off seven captain names.
14:58Mine came last.
14:59Then Larson read the elimination list.
15:01Adele Price.
15:03Sloan Adele shot out of her seat, screaming.
15:05The king stepped past Larrison and walked to the front of the platform.
15:09The Great Hall went dead silent.
15:11I could hear 40 hearts hummering all at once.
15:14One final appointment remains.
15:16He said it, his gaze cutting across the room to lock onto me in the back row.
15:21Supreme Commander this year is...
15:27They handed me a tablet holding the files of 34 people.
15:30Full psych evaluations, combat scores, every detail.
15:34I was to assemble seven full squads before dawn.
15:37I stayed up all night, reading every file twice.
15:40By dawn, the squads were assembled, and I'd picked my core team.
15:44Chaya, could read a whole room's intentions in four seconds flat.
15:48Skylar, unshaken by even the loudest explosions.
15:51Danica, could dig up any piece of information from the databases.
15:55And Faith, 19, who had managed her father's household staff for three full years.
16:00Four women.
16:00It wasn't intentional.
16:02They were simply the best.
16:03At the oath-taking ceremony, we stood inside the 300-year dust-covered library.
16:07Instructor Emmett read the oath aloud.
16:08Thirty-four voices answered as one.
16:11Until we got to the final line of the oath.
16:13Do you swear not to pursue romantic or sexual relationships
16:16within this service or other guard units, except under special royal dispensation?
16:21Five people did not answer.
16:22Instructor Emmett called each of them by name, asking for their reasoning.
16:26Each said they had never been told that rule existed beforehand.
16:29He patiently explained how casualties caused by broken-up in-unit relationships
16:33outweighed harm from outside enemies.
16:35All five took the oath after that.
16:38Then that thought hit me again, not coming from any of my team members.
16:41A cold, distant thought flooding into my head from behind me,
16:45and I could not identify whose mind it came from.
16:48It's true.
16:49The cane girl is inside these walls.
16:52Send word about her presence to him.
16:54I spun around so fast I nearly twisted my ankle.
16:56The doorway was full of people.
16:58Eleven faces in total, but every single one of them was looking somewhere else.
17:03Commander?
17:04I'm fine.
17:05Only four people on this entire continent knew I was Aurora Cain, going by R. Voss.
17:09The King, Instructor Larson, the Gate Sentry, and myself.
17:14And someone inside this hall was sending information about me to an unknown third party.
17:21We occupied the East Wing of Barracks 3.
17:24The West Wing belonged to 1st Squad, the most capable unit in the Guard, commanded by Jaron Rourke.
17:32For those ten months, I had not spoken a single word to any of them.
17:38It was strategy, not cowardness.
17:41My team took meals in our private top-floor kitchen,
17:45trained at 5 o'clock each morning to avoid the crowded yard.
17:48To the rest of the Guard, we were nothing but rumor.
17:52And in those rumors, Commander Voss was a man.
17:56I heard them plain as day, even through two stone walls, talking about me.
18:01Has anyone actually seen Commander Voss?
18:04Reese caught a glimpse once at the oath-taking ceremony.
18:07Short, black hair, didn't catch the name.
18:10I bet Voss is just another spare, noble son.
18:13Always like that.
18:15Arrogant, stuck-up, watch your mouth.
18:17This guy aced every single evaluation.
18:20That was Jaron's voice.
18:22Deep, rough, with weary, dry amusement at his own men.
18:26I never corrected them.
18:28Being underestimated and profiting from it is a rare gift.
18:32For ten whole months, I let them build their imagined version of me inside their heads.
18:38Meanwhile, I sharpened my skills day after day, growing more capable.
18:43My enhanced senses grew both more terrifying and more useful at the same time.
18:48Sometimes out on the training grounds, I could hear what was going on down in the kitchens.
18:54Sometimes total strangers' thoughts would crash into my head so loud, I would stumble mid-step.
19:00I told my whole team about it.
19:02I gathered all 34 of us in one room and closed the doors.
19:06It was the biggest risk I had ever taken.
19:10And also the best decision I ever made.
19:16Dancia went digging through records first.
19:19Then Rain.
19:20Captain Rain, my steadiest officer, who had studied bloodline genetics before combat training,
19:26came to me holding printed papers, her face ashen.
19:29There are only two documented bloodlines gifted with heightened perception still alive.
19:33One died out in 1904.
19:37What about the other?
19:38The Caines.
19:39The room went dead silent.
19:42There's someone written about in the archives.
19:44Alice Caine, born 1890.
19:46Her powers awakened on her 18th birthday.
19:49She married at 19 to a man of great name, enormous family, vast fortune.
19:55Her parents trusted that man and told him the full truth of her gift.
20:02And then he used her for 11 full years.
20:07Brought her to every gathering to listen to other people's private thoughts.
20:13When she refused to keep doing it, there are medical records, Commander.
20:17She died at 30, carrying a baby daughter.
20:21It was listed as an accident.
20:23It was not.
20:25Chaya swore quietly.
20:27Skylar clapped a hand over her mouth.
20:30That family still exists to this day.
20:33On the night of my 18th birthday, fleeing the manor, my father's words came flooding back.
20:39She will not live to see Sunday no matter what happens.
20:42She must never learn the truth.
20:49I buried my face in my hands.
20:51The team gathered silently around me.
20:53No one told me everything would be fine, because nothing would.
20:57That night, all 34 of us swore on our commissions, never to reveal my real identity or my gift outside
21:05these barracks.
21:05We finished our training three weeks early.
21:08All seven squads passed with zero dismissals, something that had not happened in 40 years at this academy.
21:16We had four days of leave before active duty assignments.
21:19On the second day of leave, I asked Rain to cut my hair down to shoulder length.
21:25Braids were a vulnerability, and I was tired of having them grabbed.
21:29On the fourth day of leave, I heard Rain's footsteps on the stairs before she even set foot on the
21:34second floor.
21:35I knew something was wrong purely from the sound of her footsteps.
21:39She burst into the kitchen trembling, shoved a supply crate into Whelan's arms, and went straight over to Beck.
21:45Beck, her partner, who had loved her since week nine of training.
21:49Beck wrapped his arms around her as she sobbed, and she told them what had happened to her.
21:55She had gone to the main building kitchen alone, out of uniform.
21:58Commander Burns had blocked her at the doorway.
22:00He told her to show up to his quarters in one hour, naked, and get down on her knees for
22:04him.
22:04She refused.
22:05He laughed and threatened her.
22:07Deliver a report stating you are unfit for duty to the king on Monday.
22:12Who do you think?
22:13His Majesty will believe?
22:14A nine-year senior commander?
22:17Or an 18-year-old girl from an unknown squad?
22:20Beck's voice tore with rage.
22:22No.
22:23Everyone in the room turned to look at me.
22:25Nobody touches him.
22:27No one leaves the east wing of these barracks unnotified.
22:30Who else has been subjected to this kind of coercion from other commanders?
22:35Speak now.
22:36Nine female team members were in the room.
22:38None spoke.
22:39I grabbed my outer jacket.
22:41Burns.
22:43I will handle him.
22:48Everyone in the room surged to their feet.
22:50But no one was fast enough to stop me.
22:53I stood over him, my voice low and dangerous.
22:57If you ever threaten to file a false report,
23:00labeling a woman unfit for duty because she refuses your advances,
23:04then the king will be the least of your worries.
23:06I will find you, and you will regret ever being born.
23:11Do you understand me?
23:14Burns stopped struggling, made no attempt to get back up.
23:17Commander Vos.
23:19The king's hand rested lightly on my shoulder, his demeanor calm.
23:22Tell us the full story.
23:24I laid everything bare.
23:26Everything that had happened on Friday, what Reen had endured, the coercion at the doorway,
23:30the one-hour ultimatum, and the threat of the false fitness for duty report.
23:33Your majesty, I pressed the question, how many women over these nine years have been given an unfit for duty
23:42label solely for saying no?
23:44A long, heavy silence fell across the council chambers.
23:47Larsen?
23:48Guards?
23:49Take him away.
23:50Two royal guards stepped forward, seized Burns, and dragged him out of the room.
23:54I watched him go, and I felt nothing.
23:57After this council meeting concludes, I will speak with every commander one-on-one.
24:02If any of you have used this kind of coercive tactic, I will uncover every last instance.
24:08The penalty will not simply be dismissal.
24:10It will be imprisonment.
24:12The room felt completely quiet.
24:15We sat back down and moved on to official business.
24:18Two active case files lay on the table.
24:20One already resolved, in usual circumstances, handled by first squad.
24:25The second was a cold case stalled for two years, on the brink of open fighting over land.
24:29Two squads have been sent to mediate, both returned with nothing accomplished.
24:34If we delay further, people will bleed and die.
24:37Your majesty, what do the files state is the root cause of this land dispute?
24:41Silence fell across the room.
24:43The king flipped through the documents again and again.
24:46Then lifted his head, his expression one I would not soon forget.
24:51The files do not state the reason at all.
24:53For two full years, no one ever thought to ask.
24:56May I take this case?
25:00He did not ask a single further question.
25:02He passed the case file across the table to me.
25:06The rest of the commanders filed out one by one.
25:09I gathered my stack of documents, and was heading through the door when the king called my name quietly.
25:14Miss Kane.
25:19He petitioned the royal family for something no member of the Kane family had ever asked for in three hundred
25:25years.
25:26Whatever he asked for, I'm not interested.
25:29Aurora, sit down.
25:30I did not sit.
25:32I stood in the doorway, a stack of files tucked under my ribs, my hands gradually going numb.
25:40The king walked around to this side of the desk.
25:42Up close, he was no longer the lofty monarch, just a man in his fifties.
25:48He asked me to send royal witnesses, official observers, to record everything under seal, to attend a private closed-door
25:55family gathering on your 18th birthday.
25:57He petitioned to add a Kane child to the royal protected person's role, and he demanded the whole matter stay
26:03secret.
26:04If it'd become public, you won't live a month.
26:07He didn't speak a single word to me for a whole year.
26:12My tone had completely changed.
26:14Not one word.
26:16My mother cancelled Lauren's our 11-year-old Wednesday mother-daughter date.
26:19I lived in the cottage on the estate for four months, and nobody noticed.
26:24Do you understand what I'm saying?
26:26Nobody noticed.
26:27I understand.
26:30The king said.
26:31The don't tell me he was doing this to protect me.
26:34The way he handled this was cowardly.
26:36The king said.
26:37I told him as much in my written reply.
26:40But before you pass judgment, you deserve to know the full context of what came before.
26:46With all due respect, your majesty.
26:49I'd already made up my mind by the 90th day.
26:52He almost smiled.
26:54Your father said you were the most stubborn person this family had ever produced.
26:57He would say that to you, but never to me.
27:02I turned and walked out of the room.
27:09Back in the barracks, 30-14 members waited for me in the top floor common room.
27:15I told them most of the truth, holding back only that final part.
27:19Byron is in a cell now.
27:21The king is questioning all guard commanders.
27:24Rain buried her face in her hands, and Beck and Beck put his arms around her.
27:32She whispered.
27:33Don't thank me.
27:35This was my duty.
27:37I looked around the room at everyone.
27:40Every single one of you.
27:42If someone lays hands on you, threatens you, even just verbally humiliates you in the hallway,
27:48and makes you feel small, come to me at once.
27:52Don't wait until afterwards.
27:54Immediately.
27:56Then I handed out case files and got to work.
27:58Only work could hold me together.
28:02Two hours later, team assignments were finished, and all mission briefings were in place.
28:08The House of Aldridge and the House of Serrano locked in a two-year conflict over a disputed valley.
28:16We will summon both clan patriarchs to meet at the border, not on either family's estate, right there on the
28:23disputed land.
28:25Hear both sides out, and I will deliver a resolution.
28:29If they refuse, the crown will issue a mandatory ruling, and nobody wants that outcome.
28:35What if they refuse even the crown's ruling?
28:38Then they will learn exactly what the king's scarred exists for.
28:47We packed our supplies, preparing for a four-day deployment.
28:53As we headed for the door, I saw Flora slip a playing card into the crack of the stair hall
28:58door before locking it.
29:01What's that for?
29:03Some of us suspect our barracks have been broken into.
29:07Strange things started happening about a week ago.
29:10Doors left open would be found shut.
29:13Drawers shifted out of place.
29:18If the card is still wedged there when we get back, we were just imagining things.
29:23If the card is on the floor, it means someone has been inside.
29:29Good work.
29:29Come tell me the very next day something like this happens in the future.
29:34At noon, two off-road vehicles drove out of the valley.
29:38An hour out from Serrano lands, we stopped to eat at a small diner among the pine trees.
29:46Over dinner, I thought back to the old days.
29:49When I was three years old, the first time I answered my father off his phone, my voice still childish.
29:58Hello? Who is this calling?
30:01Wylan laughed so hard he nearly collapsed onto the table.
30:05For that one short hour, I felt a happiness I hadn't known in a long time.
30:12Then the phone on the table vibrated.
30:15Unknown number.
30:16Only one single message.
30:18Before I even opened it, cold dread washed over me.
30:22I recognized this writing style very well from childhood.
30:30Rory, it's Aston. Don't delete this message.
30:34We know where you are.
30:35We've tracked your movements for six days.
30:38It's not only us who have found you.
30:40Whatever you do, stay far away from the house of Aldrich.
30:43I set the phone face down on the table and finished my coffee.
30:47Commander?
30:48A message from home?
30:49Everyone, assemble. Move out.
30:52After a full year of being ignored, when they finally reached out, I could not bring myself to trust them.
30:58We arrived at the gates of the Serrano Estate first.
31:00I got out of the vehicle and walked toward two armed guards twice my size.
31:04Tell your patriarch to meet you at the northeast border of your lands in one hour.
31:09No refusals.
31:11Without waiting for their reply, I turned and walked away.
31:14I did exactly the same thing at the Aldrich State, then turned and left.
31:19When we drove out to that valley, 30 armed men stood on Serrano's side and 35 on Aldrich's.
31:25Things must not go wrong today.
31:27Not while I was here.
31:29I ordered my team to form a line right in the middle of the valley.
31:3334 sets of silver and black Royal Guard uniforms.
31:36I stood at the center of the formation, two case files tucked under my arm, waiting for the two patriarchs
31:42to walk towards me.
31:42Lord Serrano looked about 60, and it was plain he had not slept well in two years.
31:48Aldrich was younger, sharp-featured, with an air of grim determination.
31:52The Crown sends just you to resolve this?
31:55Just a little girl?
32:00The Crown sends just you to resolve this?
32:03Just a little girl?
32:05What stands before you is your commander.
32:09We will occupy one hour of your time.
32:10After that, if you insist on slaughtering one another, you may do as you please.
32:17I asked only one question.
32:18A question nobody had bothered to ask for two full years.
32:22Why are you fighting over this valley?
32:24Aldrich began talking of strategic terrain, water rights, honor, and grand principles.
32:29He was lying.
32:30Deep in his thoughts came,
32:31If they dig here, they will find her.
32:33I turned toward Lord Serrano.
32:35My lord, why do you want this valley?
32:37The old man's lips trembled.
32:39In front of 65 armed men, he completely broke down.
32:42My daughter is buried in this valley.
32:45Only wind echoed across the valley.
32:47Elena died at 19.
32:50At the north end of the valley sits a small old chapel, unmarked, long since fallen into ruin.
32:55She died in 1997.
32:58We buried her here, because this was neutral ground, accessible to both houses.
33:03And...
33:03His voice cracked with grief.
33:05It was his father behind the hit and run all those years ago!
33:12We drove back through the night.
33:14Ashton's message weighed heavy on my phone.
33:16It's not only us who have found you.
33:19Six days.
33:20My family had known where I was for six whole days, and never come for me.
33:24There were only two possibilities.
33:27Either they had completely given up on me, or someone had ordered them not to come.
33:31To show themselves would mean giving away my location to our enemies.
33:36I did not know which possibility Hurt were.
33:38We got back to the academy at 4 o'clock in the early morning.
33:41I opened the stairwell door, and shone my flashlight downward.
33:45Flora's playing card lay face up on the third step.
33:4834 people hurried upstairs, and searched every single room in the barracks.
33:53At last, on my desk in the top floor room, we found what the intruder had left behind.
33:58A single photograph.
33:59Six-year-old me in a blue dress, sitting on the floor of my father's office,
34:03holding a telephone receiver.
34:05Only one place in the whole world held this photograph.
34:07The locked archive vault deep under Blackwater Manor.
34:10On the back of the photograph, written in ballpoint pen, one single line.
34:14Her voice sounded so sweet when she answered the phone.
34:18The photograph was about to slip out of my hand, and Faith caught it.
34:23I did not even remember letting go of it.
34:29Someone on the inside.
34:30We ended up in the empty mess hall, two mugs of coffee between us.
34:36Vos.
34:37He turned the ceramic mug around in his hands.
34:39Or should I not call you Vos?
34:41I stared at him for a long time.
34:42His mind stayed shielded.
34:44Kane.
34:46Aurora Kane.
34:47He did not look terrified.
34:48He only went rigid, a reaction heavier than fear.
34:52Damon Kane's daughter.
34:53That is correct.
34:55The only girl born to the Kanes.
34:57In 115 years.
35:00I set my mug down.
35:02How do you know that?
35:04Jaron glanced toward the doorway, and finally told the secret he had kept for 10 months.
35:09I am not just another cadet.
35:11I am Crown House Service personnel.
35:13My father is Captain General of the Royal Guard.
35:16When Prince Casillas ascends, I will succeed him.
35:19There exists a sealed Crown House file on your family.
35:23I have read it.
35:25Three weeks before you rode up to the Academy gates, the king unsealed that archive.
35:30Say the name.
35:31The House of Colvin.
35:33Emury Colvin.
35:34Great grandson of the man who married Alice Kane, and destroyed her over 11 years back in 1909.
35:39Aurora.
35:40This whole family has waited a full century for another girl to be born into the Kanes.
35:48This whole family has waited a full century for another girl to be born into the Kanes.
35:53They had men watching your father's manner, long before you ever learned to walk.
35:57The mess hall fell dead silent.
35:59They know I am here.
36:01The sniper knew.
36:03There is someone inside these walls feeding them information.
36:06Then we will root the traitor out.
36:07Today.
36:10He stood up.
36:11Do your family know what danger is coming for you?
36:14At that exact moment, something deep inside me finally shattered.
36:17My father had begged the king for witnesses.
36:20He had said,
36:21She will not live to see Sunday.
36:24He had tried to build a wall to protect me.
36:26And he had forgotten to tell me I was locked inside a cage.
36:29Almost without my own control, I picked up my phone and dialed the number for home.
36:35The phone rang once.
36:37Before the second ring could finish, my mother answered.
36:42Rory!
36:43Rory!
36:44My God!
36:46A full year had passed, since I'd last heard her say my name.
36:49I could only sit down on the mess hall floor,
36:51my back braced against a table leg.
36:55Mother.
36:56Mother.
36:57A sob tore out of her throat.
37:00Don't hang up on me, please, baby.
37:01Don't hang up!
37:02I will not hang up.
37:05I need you to answer me one question.
37:07Does the name Emerick Coleran mean anything to you?
37:10The crying stopped short.
37:12I heard out of the mouthpiece with her hand
37:14and shout for my father across the huge manor house.
37:17Five hours later, they arrived at the academy gates.
37:20I made them wait 40 minutes outside the gates.
37:23Compared to a full year of suffering, 40 minutes was nothing.
37:25I only wanted them to taste a thousandth of what I went through.
37:28Then I walked downstairs in full dress uniform,
37:31two team captains following close behind me.
37:33For the first time in 12 months, my family saw who I had become.
37:38My mother clapped both hands over her mouth.
37:40My father, Damon Cain, the man of overwhelming presence,
37:44staggered one single step.
37:46Ashton caught him by the arm.
37:47I had cut my hair short,
37:48and eight subordinates stood behind me ready to take a bullet for me.
37:54We purchased a property in Allerville with no mention of your name anywhere on the deeds.
37:59We were going to throw you an unforgettable birthday
38:01out in the west side woodland clearing.
38:06Indigo and burgundy decorations.
38:08We were going to tell you everything that night.
38:14And we wanted to give you one and to give you one perfect night first.
38:18And the simple solution you chose to keep this secret from me
38:21was to never speak to me at all.
38:24Nobody said a word.
38:27All of you,
38:28I want you to understand what you have done.
38:32Declan was in tears.
38:33Hudson could not bring himself to look down from the gravel at his own feet.
38:37We thought it would only last a few weeks.
38:40Every morning we told ourselves,
38:41just get through this week.
38:43But day after day passed, Rory.
38:45You stopped asking questions,
38:47and it grew easier.
38:50And we let ourselves keep making that terrible mistake.
38:53I will never forget...
38:55I lived 111 nights in the gardener's cottage.
38:58My mother broke down into quiet sobbing.
39:01I packed my things and moved out of that house bit by bit,
39:04and nobody noticed.
39:07I pulled my own file out of the family archives.
39:13Do you know what the very last line said?
39:19Do you know what the very last line said?
39:21Rory!
39:22No further record.
39:23My father raised a hand and covered his own eyes.
39:26At that moment,
39:27my mother stepped forward and held out a black ringbender notebook.
39:30Her hands shook so hard she could barely hold onto it.
39:33I started writing in it the day you were born, Rory.
39:37I stared for a long time at that notebook.
39:40The bitter truth was,
39:41I wanted so badly to take it.
39:44You keep it.
39:45There is danger behind these academy walls.
39:48A dead sniper lies in the crown morgue.
39:50Upstairs I have,
39:5134 people who will always remember who I am.
39:55If you want me to come home,
39:56show me action.
39:58Send every single document you hold on the Colbin house.
40:03To me before the end of this night,
40:05I turned and walked away.
40:06It was the second time I had walked away from my family within a single year.
40:10As I walked away,
40:11a thought from my father drifted unabitted into my mind.
40:13Please don't let it be the little brother.
40:16Anyone but him.
40:18If she finds out it was Gideon who betrayed her,
40:20it will break her in half.
40:22I came to a complete stop in my steps.
40:24Gideon,
40:25old family friend,
40:26my godfather.
40:27The man on the other end of that phone call.
40:29I'd answered when I was three years old.
40:34I did not look back,
40:35forcing myself to keep walking forward.
40:38If I turned around,
40:39my father would read the shock right off my face.
40:41Back upstairs to the dormitory,
40:43I punched straight through the drywall plaster of the wall.
40:45Commander,
40:46speak it out.
40:47Gideon Voss.
40:48Skyler's brows drew together in a frown.
40:50Voss?
40:52Could it be he was my godfather,
40:54my father's oldest and closest friend?
40:56When I was nine years old,
40:58he gave me my first small knife.
40:59I used his last name as a pseudonym when I enrolled.
41:03He was the only fake identity I trusted.
41:05Danica was already sitting in front of the laptop.
41:08Commander,
41:09if he is the mole,
41:10then the moment you submitted your application under the surname Voss,
41:13you directly told him where to find you.
41:15That means he has had ten whole months.
41:17Drive staff,
41:18duplicate keys,
41:19sneak in and leave that photograph.
41:21I know.
41:22Danica's fingers hovered above the keyboard.
41:25Commander,
41:25he is in charge of site and archive maintenance.
41:28He passed vetting eleven months ago.
41:30He is inside the academy right now.
41:33In an instant,
41:34every sound from the entire building
41:35flooded into my senses.
41:37The heartbeat of people inside all six barracks,
41:41rain beating down on the east side roof,
41:43and one door on the ground floor of our barrack
41:45being pushed open.
41:47Beneath all the noise,
41:48a thought I knew all too well
41:49drifted in,
41:50faint and full of fear.
41:52Rory,
41:53don't go downstairs.
41:53He is...
41:57Rory,
41:58don't go downstairs.
41:59He is...
41:59It was Rayan.
42:01Rain is trapped in the stairwell.
42:02I yelled,
42:03then climbed straight out of the window,
42:05three stories high.
42:06I rolled on landing,
42:08scraping skin off my four arms,
42:09then got to my feet
42:10and sprinted toward the ground floor door.
42:12Down at the bottom of our own stairwell,
42:14he was holding Rain hostage.
42:15Gideon Voss,
42:16sixty-two years old,
42:17one arm locked around Rain's neck,
42:19a syringe pressed against the side of her neck.
42:21You finally came.
42:23Hello there,
42:24good child.
42:25Let her go.
42:26She ran right into me,
42:27poor girl.
42:28I only came looking for you.
42:29He looked toward me,
42:30that exact smile from long ago on his face.
42:33You cut your hair.
42:35Your mother will be very upset.
42:37Gideon,
42:38my voice held no inflection at all.
42:41How long has this been going on?
42:42Nineteen years.
42:43He spoke calmly.
42:45Ever since the week you were born,
42:46Aurora,
42:47do you know what price
42:48the House of Colbyn will pay
42:49for information about a Cain girl?
42:51Do you understand how valuable
42:53this gift is to a family
42:54that has waited an entire century?
42:57You were the one holding me at my baptism.
42:59That is true.
43:00A flicker of genuine emotion crossed his eyes.
43:02If I had not argued on your behalf,
43:05they would have taken you away when you were six.
43:07In a way, I bought you twelve extra years.
43:10Lord Emeril is at the East Gate.
43:13He wants to talk to you.
43:18He wants to talk to you.
43:20Come with me,
43:20or I will inject 400 milligrams of this drug
43:23straight into this girl's neck.
43:25You will watch her slowly die,
43:27right here,
43:28on our own stairwell.
43:30It is that simple.
43:31Commander, don't go.
43:32A year earlier,
43:33I would have gone with him obediently.
43:34But over these past ten months,
43:36I was no longer worthless.
43:38I was the commander of all these people.
43:40Gideon,
43:41what is behind you?
43:42He would not fall for it.
43:43Of course he would not.
43:44But everyone's body will react unconsciously
43:46when they hear a question like that.
43:48Beck came charging down the stairs,
43:49barefooted,
43:50consumed by rage.
43:51He grabbed Gideon's elbow,
43:53holding the syringe.
43:54I pulled Ray into safety.
43:55We restrained him flat on the floor,
43:57using zip ties.
43:58Ray knelt on the ground,
43:59one hand covering her neck.
44:00Good child.
44:02Colvin has fourteen men waiting at the East Gate.
44:04He also holds a royal archived marriage contract,
44:07dated 1909,
44:09written in black and white,
44:10stating that the firstborn girl,
44:11of the House of Cain,
44:13shall marry into his family.
44:15That document carries no legal force.
44:17Jalen said coldly.
44:18It is true,
44:19it is not legal statute,
44:20but it is bargaining leverage.
44:23And he has already breached
44:24the Academy's outer perimeter wall.
44:27Your family just drove out to me,
44:29all eight of them.
44:31Twenty minutes ago,
44:32I sent them the message using your phone.
44:37I would replay those nine minutes
44:39countless times in my head afterward,
44:40but the things I truly remember
44:42are only fragmented images.
44:43I remember that Jaren was the first one
44:45to burst out through that door.
44:46When he reached the top step,
44:47he looked back at me
44:48and said only one thing.
44:49Commander, give the order.
44:51I also remember how my voice sounded
44:52at that moment,
44:53unusually steady.
44:54Flora, seal off this side.
44:56Keep Gideon contained.
44:57No one speaks to him,
44:59and no one moves him away.
45:00Enzo, wake the guard barracks,
45:01contact the duty captain.
45:02Tell him to activate Black Alert
45:03at the East Gate.
45:05Maeve, notify the king directly.
45:06Go through no intermediaries.
45:08Orson Weiland,
45:09hold the outer perimeter.
45:10Do not engage of your own accord.
45:12Beck Rayan, go to the medical unit.
45:14Beck, this is an order.
45:15Do not argue with me.
45:18Chaya, Skylar, Denasa, Faith,
45:19come with me.
45:22Jaren, take your men
45:23and swing around from the north.
45:24We will close in from both sides.
45:29Heavy rain was falling that night.
45:31Searchlights shunned down onto the ground.
45:32The second I stepped outside,
45:34I saw three black sedans and 14 men,
45:37and my family.
45:38They were all lined up,
45:39hands held where everyone could see them.
45:41Standing at the front of them
45:42was a Merrick Colvin,
45:4350 years old,
45:44dressed in an expensive tailored suit.
45:46The kind of face
45:47that would still be described
45:48as dignified and refined
45:49even in an obituary.
45:53The kind of face
45:54that would still be described
45:55as dignified and refined
45:57even in an obituary.
45:58The second he laid eyes on me,
46:00he smiled.
46:01Rory, get back!
46:02Go back inside the walls!
46:03I cut him off directly.
46:05Shut up, father.
46:06I stopped roughly 10 feet away from Colvin.
46:09This is Crown Land.
46:10You have brought 14 armed men
46:12and breached the outer perimeter defenses
46:15of a royal military facility.
46:16Do you realize what you have done tonight?
46:18But Colvin could not care less.
46:22He said he had merely come
46:23to collect a 115-year-old debt.
46:26He said my great-grandmother
46:28had belonged to them.
46:30They even had documents to prove it,
46:32but I told him that was no debt at all.
46:34That was a girl named Alice.
46:36His great-grandfather had exploited her
46:38for 11 full years,
46:39using her as a tool.
46:41In the end,
46:42Alice had chosen to end her own life at 30,
46:44rather than hand over a daughter
46:45into their grasp.
46:46So she never owed the house of Colvin a single thing.
46:49The ones who truly owed a debt were them,
46:51because it was a human life,
46:52and they had never paid for it.
46:53Colvin's expression did not change.
46:55But in that exact instant,
46:56I heard his thoughts.
46:58She can hear.
46:59Watch her reaction.
47:01She hears every unspoken word inside my head.
47:03Damn it.
47:04She inherited the full power.
47:06She is worth far more than that manor house.
47:11She is worth far more than that manor house.
47:13When I heard those words,
47:14I finally understood everything.
47:16What my father had feared for all those years.
47:18And I finally understood
47:19why he had tried so hard to protect me.
47:22Only,
47:22the method he had chosen was utterly rotten.
47:24Colvin spoke my name again.
47:25Aurora.
47:26His tone turned unexpectedly gentle.
47:28He even held one hand out towards me.
47:31He said,
47:31if I would just come and talk to him,
47:33just talk,
47:33my family would get out of here unharmed tonight.
47:35As for me and him,
47:36before he could finish his sentence,
47:38Jaron's voice crackled in my earpiece.
47:40Commander,
47:41Northern team is in position.
47:42All 14 targets confirmed.
47:44Awaiting your order.
47:45I looked at the hand Colvin was holding out to me.
47:47Then,
47:48in front of every single person present,
47:49I told him clearly,
47:51my name is Aurora Kane,
47:52commander of the Royal King's Guard.
47:54You are all under arrest now.
47:56The whole fight lasted only 40 seconds.
47:58We had 14 men.
47:59We had two complete Royal Guard names.
48:0241 more Royal Guards
48:03were rushing down from the hills behind us.
48:05Driver in the left-hand car,
48:06reaching for his gun.
48:07Skylar!
48:07Right after that,
48:08I picked up another thought.
48:10Colvin's target was my father.
48:12I shouted at once.
48:14Ashton,
48:14get down!
48:18All you really needed to do was tell me the truth.
48:20Off to one side,
48:21Colvin was already pinned to the gravel ground by Jaron's knee.
48:24But Colvin still would not stop talking.
48:27Man like him never shut their mouths until the very last second.
48:30You cannot lock me away.
48:32You have no idea what you have stumbled into tonight.
48:35Then,
48:36he told me something else.
48:37Besides the house of Colvin,
48:39there were nine other families.
48:40They had been trading Kane family archives among each other's sit to my tree since 1912.
48:44And Colvin was only the one I had seen so far.
48:47Car headlights lit up from behind the hills.
48:49Right behind it came the Crown Prince's car.
48:52And near the end of this worst ever night of my life,
48:54I looked over at Jaron.
48:57He was soaked all over.
48:58Blood was trickling from the corner of his eyebrow.
49:00Then he said one of the most wildly inappropriate lines I had ever heard in my life.
49:04You were absolutely terrifying a moment ago.
49:06If you were not my superior,
49:08I would have kissed you right there at the East Gate.
49:14Three months later,
49:15I stood in a clearing near the western border of Blackwater Manisher,
49:19wearing an indigo blue dress.
49:21Before all of that,
49:23Emrear Colvin sat locked up in royal facility custody awaiting trial.
49:27He faced nine counts of charges,
49:30including the death of Alice Kane back in 1920.
49:34Legally speaking,
49:35this matter was complicated.
49:37Morally speaking,
49:38it could not be more straightforward.
49:41Gideon Voss entered a guilty plea
49:43and reached a plea deal agreement.
49:45He would spend the rest of his life
49:46trying to explain to himself
49:48exactly what he had done for those 19 years.
49:51Nine families.
49:53That was what Colvin had told us.
49:55And he had told the truth.
49:56Because if he had been lying,
49:58I would certainly have heard it in his thoughts.
50:01The king set up a permanent royal special investigation task force
50:05to hunt down the remaining eight families.
50:08Then he appointed a person to command this task force.
50:12That person was me.
50:13In that very same council chamber,
50:16the king looked at me and said,
50:19You are only 18 years old,
50:21and I am about to make you
50:22the youngest Black Alert commander
50:25in 300 years.
50:27Half my ministers will lose their minds over this.
50:31Then let them lose their minds, your majesty.
50:33I will hear every single thought
50:36going through their heads.
50:41Now Rain ran my intelligence division,
50:44and Beck was almost never far from her side.
50:48They were planning to get married the following spring.
50:51Faith handled my day-to-day administrative affairs.
50:54Dania had built a comprehensive database.
50:57I guarantee those centuries-old ancient families
50:59are going to hate it bitterly.
51:01As for Jaren Rusker,
51:02he resigned his military commission six weeks later.
51:05Around that same time,
51:07his father finally announced his retirement
51:10as Captain General of the Royal Guard.
51:13Before inviting me out for our first proper dinner,
51:15he had gone to see the king first.
51:19He petitioned the king for official exemption
51:21from Statute 9.
51:23Over that dinner,
51:24he showed me the sealed approval letter.
51:27I read it twice.
51:29You went to petition the king
51:30before you even asked if I wanted to go out with you?
51:35I go to the king for everything.
51:38Call it one of my character flaws.
51:40I kissed him right there inside the dining hall.
51:42After that,
51:43I sat through conversation after conversation.
51:48I took the phone calls they placed to me.
51:50I made my father tell me face-to-face,
51:53out in the open sunlight,
51:54exactly what he had done.
51:56He told me.
51:57He had made that decision all by himself
52:00at the very beginning.
52:02He had believed my safety mattered more than my heart.
52:05But he had been wrong.
52:07He knew he had been cowardly.
52:08And he had never mustered the courage to admit it.
52:12I made my mother spend every single Wednesday with me
52:15for 11 straight weeks.
52:17Only at the very end did I allow her to hold me in her arms.
52:24Two weeks after the Colbin incident,
52:27I also made Ashton stand out at the East Gate.
52:31It kept raining that day.
52:33He stood there for four whole hours,
52:37refusing to leave.
52:39Until I came down to meet him.
52:41Then, one Saturday in September,
52:44I finally allowed them to hold that birthday feast.
52:47They had spent an entire year preparing.
52:51My six older brothers,
52:53both my parents,
52:5534 royal guardsmen in formal dress uniforms.
52:59This later caused quite a bit of trouble
53:01for the local young women.
53:03200 lights were strung on the tree branches.
53:08And my father stood at the very front of the crowd.
53:10He held a wine cup in his hand,
53:13facing everyone we knew.
53:15When he spoke his very first sentence,
53:17his voice was already breaking with emotion.
53:20I have seven children.
53:22My youngest is the only child who ever frightened me.
53:25And also the one I underestimated above all others.
53:30And I ruined everything terribly.
53:33She left this house
53:34and became commander of the royal king's guard.
53:37And none of us even noticed
53:39when she had packed her bags and gone.
53:42When he finished speaking,
53:43he looked toward me.
53:46Rory,
53:47down in the archive's vault,
53:49there is a file bearing your name.
53:52The very last entry was written by my own hand.
53:55It was written on the day of your 17th birthday.
53:59It reads only two words.
54:05After everything.
54:07He set down his wine glass after finishing speaking.
54:10Then he pulled out a folded sheet of paper from inside his coat.
54:14I have already written the next entry.
54:16Eleven full pages.
54:18It begins after everything.
54:21People told me I had been crying.
54:23I refused to admit it.
54:25Late that same night,
54:26Jaron found me on the edge of the clearing.
54:29Right where the lantern light could not reach.
54:32We stood side by side.
54:34Two hundred feet away.
54:35My older brothers were still arguing over something trivial.
54:39Jaron suddenly asked me.
54:41What do you hear?
54:42He always asked me that.
54:45And that was one of the things I liked most about him.
54:48I closed my eyes.
54:50Nine hundred insects.
54:52The sound of the river flowing.
54:55The crackle and burn of two hundred candles.
54:59My mother was laughing.
55:01It sounded like Deacon had just said something funny.
55:04And sixty feet away,
55:05my father's heart beat.
55:08Sixty beats every single minute.
55:10For the very first time in an entire year,
55:13it was completely calm.
55:15And thirty-four other people.
55:17People who had never forgotten my name.
55:20Beneath all these sounds,
55:22there was one quiet, clear thought.
55:25And the silent thought in the man's mind,
55:27I want to marry her.
55:30I opened my eyes.
55:32I smiled out into the darkness.
55:34Then I answered,
55:36Everything.
55:38I said yes in that time.
55:39And I thought it was too late.
55:40I needed to do some anxiety.