44. HEIR
alistair
The moment I step into the main living area—long after Delilah’s remains had been wiped clean off the Earth—I notice Ariella cleaned it all.
The metallic smell of blood has faded beneath sharp cleaning chemicals.
The marble floor still reflects faint smeared streaks where synthetic fluid had been dragged across it before being scrubbed away.
One of the leather chairs sits slightly crooked near the couch, pushed back into place with careless haste.
Beside the couch, a damp cleaning rag remains abandoned half beneath the furniture where she must’ve accidentally kicked it during cleanup.
And underneath the lingering scent of chemicals is the smell of her. Sweet. Expensive. Human.
It clings stubbornly to the air, threading through the rot and smoke Delilah left behind.
This should irritate me—how naturally her presence has begun embedding itself into my world.
Someone entered my home, discovered the containment chamber, witnessed Dominion technology, and assisted in disposing of a Synthète corpse. And instead of eliminating the threat immediately, I kissed her.
And now I stand on my floors she cleaned of blood.
The silence presses differently now—less controlled.
There are no guards. No butlers or maids. Only automation allows me to pretend to live a simple yet sophisticated lifestyle.
Now, with Delilah gone, it’s just me and the machinery.
Subconsciously, I check my Dominion wrist watch. It stopped bugging me a while ago.
With a heavy sigh, I start preparing myself for the confrontation.
The biometric elevator descends in complete silence, lowering me deep beneath layers of reinforced steel and concrete.
Black stone walls rise around me, carved with the repeated symbol of Triarch Dominion. Thin silver circuitry pulses beneath ancient markings like veins carrying electricity through a corpse. Massive pillars stretch upward into darkness while low mechanical humming vibrates beneath the floor itself.
At the center of the chamber stands the circular, elevated transmission altar. It’s surrounded by shallow water, dark enough beneath the sporadic spotlights.
Usually, all three heads appear during such a summons.
Tonight, only one waits for me—the Crown.
He sits motionless upon the elevated throne beyond the water, face concealed beneath polished obsidian carved into a featureless expression.
Long black robes spill down the sides of the seat like liquid shadow, hiding every shape of his body.
No other Triarchs. No council member either.
Just him alone, waiting for me.
Something about that feels significantly worse. Still, I step onto the platform because I can’t ignore it.
The moment my feet cross the inner circle, the chamber seals shut behind me with a deafening metallic groan.
“You’re unusually late today,” he sounds strangely human with no distortion.
This is strange. For the first time, I’m hearing his voice.
“Delilah destabilized,” I reply evenly. “Assessment required more time than anticipated.”
“You could’ve brought her here.”
“I saw no value in disrupting an active developmental phase of a new Synthètes with a defective one.”
“You’ve become remarkably proficient at justifying deviations, Hertley.”
The words land harder than they should for being true. Yet my pulse remains steady anyway.
The Crown slowly turns around in the chair.
For the first time, I’m seeing the mask he’s wearing clearly.
A thin inverted triangle of silver detailing runs over the obsidian eye sockets down to where the mouth should be, dividing the mask with surgical symmetry.
“You appear… unusually disordered tonight.”
“I was already running late.”
The silence that follows grates on my nerves.
“Did you destabilize her too, Alistair Hertley?”
“No. She fell in love with me.”
A chuckle. Now that’s interesting.
The Crown descends the steps toward the water surrounding the platform. His reflection fractures darkly beneath the rippling surface.
“Ariella should already be dead.”
My mind immediately calculates a thousand different ways this conversation could end.
“Why isn’t she?”
“I was more interested to see how you would spare her.”
I say nothing.
He stops directly across from me. Close enough that I can see faint silver detailing etched along the edges of the obsidian mask.
“I thought you inherited your mother’s emotional detachment. Turns out my assumption had a flaw.”
A muscle in my jaw involuntarily flexes.
“I knew you locked yourself away for seventy-eight hours with your dead mother and her killer before you finally emerged,” he says calmly. “Do you know why I chose that specific day to approach you? Instead of collecting you when you were almost fading away?”
“No,” I grit out, raw anger threatening to break free.
“You were being cultivated for succession, Alistair.”
The wording feels intentional.
“You’re the most successful neurological outcome this organization has ever produced. Yet emotional contamination continues to threaten your judgment.”
He must see the touch of confusion flickering across my features just for a split second.
“You’re entirely human, if that’s the conclusion attempting to form in your mind,” a faint touch of amusement hits the words.
“And now I need you to produce a perfected heir,” he goes straight to the point.
My eyes threaten to blink as I clamp my lips shut. Don’t tell me it’s what I think—
“With a Synthète.”
Out of infinite possibilities, this is the only one I didn’t see coming.
“What the actual fuck?”
It takes me a second to realize I reacted out loud. So out of my character.
“You’ve become increasingly vulnerable to emotional disruption… something you spent years perfecting in Synthètes,” he sniggers.
“My apologies,” irritation nearly flickers in my tone before I suppress it completely.
For one brief moment, Ariella contaminates my thought process.
“And if I refuse the Synthète?” the question escapes before I fully decide to ask it.
He sniggers. “Are you considering Miss Keinston?”
Instead of answering negatively, I simply glare at him, which unfortunately solidifies his doubts.
The Crown understands how Ariella is affecting me. Which also means he’s already lived through this once himself.
“We’ll not replicate the flaw that resulted in your creation.”
Everything inside me stops. My mind reconstructs the sentence instantly.
Suddenly, dozens of fractured memories rearrange themselves into something hideous.
The clinical scrutiny throughout my childhood—especially after I was taken by the Triarch Dominion, after my mother was murdered.
The genetic testing.
The emotional conditioning.
The way the Crown always watched me was different from the others. Not like an asset but like ownership.
Impossible. And yet not impossible at all.
My pulse finally betrays me with one uneven beat.
“You’ll not make the same error, one that I did,” he rephrases.
In this moment, I genuinely understand something terrifying—why I was never allowed to be a Synthète.
I was being engineered, conditioned for the succession of the Triarch Dominion long before I understood what I was being prepared for—the biological human with the qualities of a Synthète, except regeneration.
Every achievement.
Every psychological evaluation.
Every carefully controlled environment.
It was all cultivation. Not upbringing.
And standing before me is likely not just the founder of the Triarch Dominion but my biological father.
I say nothing. I only hold his unblinking obsidian gaze staring back at me with challenge. Challenge to defy him in this ultimate test of loyalty.
He studies me for several long seconds before finally turning away. “Prepare yourself, Alastor.”
Through it all, I smile. Like I always did. But he doesn’t see the grin stretching ear to ear, lighting up my face.
I think I know what to do, Dad.