Chapter 371 A Long-Hidden Secret
Zara immediately went after him.
"You two stay here with Lucian. Don't go outside," she called as she passed through the living room.
Wilson shot to his feet. "You just got back, and now you're leaving again? You're allowed to worry about us, but we're not allowed to worry about you?"
"Yeah, Zara," Peter chimed in. "I just saw something on the news about a woman with superpowers showing up in the city. Things are getting crazy out there, so be careful."
"Superpowers?" Wilson scoffed. "Quit spreading that superstitious nonsense."
Peter fell silent.
Wilson doesn't know shit.
Zara ignored them both and took the elevator downstairs.
Owen was moving quickly, but Zara was no slower. Guided by the faint sense of his presence, she caught up with him soon after leaving the complex.
Owen seemed to know he could not escape her notice, so he led her to a quiet alley nearby.
There were no surveillance cameras and hardly any people around. Only the streetlamps cast their warm glow across the pavement.
Several towering plane trees lined the road. Owen sat on a bench beneath one of them, the light stretching his shadow far across the ground and lending him an inexplicably lonely air.
The occasional pedestrian passed by on an evening stroll, and the neighborhood remained peaceful and serene.
The chaos in downtown Magior had not spread this far yet.
Zara walked over and asked curiously, "What are you doing in Magior? Did you come to see Ember?"
Owen was wearing a baseball cap that evening, clearly trying to keep a low profile.
After thinking for a moment, Zara suddenly asked, "Were you the man Lucian mentioned?"
Lucian had said someone had appeared out of nowhere and saved them.
Owen removed his cap and smiled at her. "I guess I couldn't hide it from you."
Zara sat down beside him, leaving a noticeable distance between them.
"Why did you suddenly come to Magior?" she asked.
Including their last encounter, this was only the second time they had met.
Owen rubbed his palms together awkwardly, as though he had no idea how to explain himself. After a long silence, he finally muttered, "I was just... passing through."
Zara smiled. "What perfect timing. You happened to pass through just when that woman showed up?"
There was a thoughtful edge to her voice.
Owen immediately grew nervous. "It wasn't like that. I'm not working with her."
He sounded almost afraid that Zara might misunderstand.
"I never said you were," Zara replied. "But when you act this secretive, it's easy for me to get the wrong idea."
The problem was that if Owen refused to explain, Zara had no way of knowing who he really was.
And his arrival had been far too perfectly timed.
Why had he come to Magior on this particular night?
Of course, traveling here would have taken time. He might have set out earlier and simply happened to arrive when everything went wrong.
Owen glanced at Zara cautiously. "I... just came to see you."
Zara fell silent.
That was far too easy to misinterpret.
She stared at him in surprise. "Did me taking Ember really leave that much of an impression on you? I assumed that if you came all the way to Magior, it would at least be to see him."
Why would he come to see her?
This was only their second meeting, and they had barely exchanged more than a few words the first time.
Had he really started thinking about her after that?
Zara suddenly felt a chill run down her spine.
"No, that's not what I meant," Owen said awkwardly. "It's just..."
He still could not bring himself to finish and let out a heavy sigh.
Zara sounded mildly exasperated. "Just tell me whatever it is. When you keep acting all secretive like this, my mind is bound to wander. Is there something all of you are keeping from me?"
Owen lowered his head, his voice tinged with loneliness. "There really isn't anything else. I just wanted to see you. This time, I sensed that something might happen..."
He had been worried, so he had come to check on her.
As it turned out, he had worried for nothing. Even without him, she probably could have handled the situation herself.
Zara and Owen looked at each other.
After a long silence, Owen finally met her gaze again, his voice strained. "I... I'm the one they call the Holy Sovereign."
He had finally said it.
If he did not tell her, there would be no easy way to explain his presence here. He had shown up in Magior out of nowhere, and Zara was unlikely to believe any excuse he made up now.
His only choice was to tell her the truth.
Zara fell silent.
Well...
This had suddenly become incredibly awkward.
She had considered several possibilities regarding Owen's identity, including this one. But hearing him admit it still felt unbelievable.
Then she remembered her own equally awkward situation.
If she really was the Holy Heir, did that make her his daughter?
In that case, his coming to see her made perfect sense.
Unfortunately, it also seemed to confirm that she really was that unfortunate Holy Heir everyone kept talking about.
Zara studied Owen in silence. "You don't look anything like me."
Owen did not exactly look like someone who could have fathered a daughter who looked like Zara.
Not that she was being vain. Maybe it was because they had grown up in completely different environments.
Owen looked embarrassed as well. "I can't use my real face. I've been living under this identity for more than ten years."
In other words, this was not his true appearance either.
It was the same situation as Winfred's.
Realization dawned on Zara, and she nodded.
Then she asked bluntly, "So I'm really your daughter?"
Was she actually Owen's daughter?
Why did she not feel much of anything?
Still, the strange sense of familiarity she had felt around him finally made sense. No wonder he had seemed so inexplicably close to her.
Faced with Zara's direct question, Owen could only nod.
Zara still did not understand. "Then why did you leave me to grow up alone in this world?"
Bitterness entered Owen's voice. "Something happened back then. We couldn't let your identity be exposed, or your uncle would never have spared you. Our only choice was to let you grow up in this world."
Zara stared at him. "You could've at least left me at an orphanage."
Her earliest memory was of being abandoned in the middle of nowhere.
If the old scavenger woman had not found her, there was no telling what would have happened to her.
Owen looked even more embarrassed. "They had already caught up with us. We had to leave in a hurry, so there were things I didn't have time to consider. I only knew that you should be able to survive."
"..."
Should?
What kind of answer was that?!
What kind of parenting was this?
Zara felt deeply conflicted.
For some reason, she had never spent much time imagining what it would be like to meet her parents. It was almost as though she had never believed she would have the chance.
Deep down, she did not seem particularly attached to the idea of familial love, but even she could not completely ignore the pull of blood ties.
Now that Owen had admitted everything, she could hardly refuse to acknowledge him.
Even so, the atmosphere remained painfully awkward, and neither of them seemed to know what to say next.
After thinking for a long moment, Zara finally asked the most important question.
"Where's Mom?!"