NOVEL NEXT Chapter 572: Eleven Needles at Whitmore Hall
A voice, thin and unexpectedly calm, drifted down from the rafters of the Whitmore family's main hall and the whole room snapped into silence. Conversation died at once. Three figures moved without hesitation: Uncle Jed, Blackie, and Julian, each a presence that made people step back. Matriarch Whitmore rose from her chair, a cold light in her eyes. No one could say when the newcomer had slipped in; one moment the rafters were empty, the next a shadow had announced itself.
Julian's fingertips trembled with barely concealed power, the kind that promised a lethal end if the man overhead was an enemy. Tension held the hall like a held breath, every head tilted up, every muscle ready. Then Aunt Melinda, a beat slower than most but steady, broke the hush. "Don't move, it's Brother Starfall," she said. The name eased the air immediately. They felt no hostility in the voice from above. Someone dropped down with the ease of habit, landing lightly as if he had done it all his life.
Matriarch Whitmore could not help the sharp, amused rebuke that followed. "Starfall, still hanging out on rafters. Didn't you get your fill of that as a child? Is your backside restless again?" she asked as she sat back, half scolding, half fond. The man who had just stepped off the beams smiled and rubbed the bridge of his nose in a way that made Lyla catch her breath. There was a trace of Ethan in him; enough to make her pause. Starfall had once looked fractured and terrifying in the Silverwood family's territory, almost like a revenant wrapped in arrogance. Now he seemed ordinary, steady, even a little like Julian in his calm about him.
Before Starfall could get a sentence out, the air filled with a strange metallic whisper. Whistles and tiny chimes, close and sharp, made everyone snap their heads. Starfall made a small questioning sound. A cluster of crisp metallic clicks came from his lapel and all eyes went to it. Eleven slender needles gleamed there, set into the fabric like so many tiny warnings.
"Grandfather." The word was half a gasp.
"Dr. Aldric." Murmurs named him as all attention turned toward the origin of the attack. Dr. Aldric stood as if he had just finished launching something, hatred carved into his face. "You killed my daughter and son-in-law," he said, voice raw. "I want your life."
Starfall did not answer with anger. He only observed, almost kindly. "After all these years you still rely on eleven needles. Compared to Sister Eva, your talent is still lacking." Nothing in his tone tried to wound; he stated the fact as if reminding an old man of a failed habit.
The words hit Dr. Aldric like a prod. He snarled and then, with the speed of a practiced hand, produced a scalpel that gleamed black and silver between his fingers. It sang through the air toward Starfall's throat. There was a horrible, screeching sound, metal against something harder, and everyone flinched.
Blackie moved as if pulled by a wire. He lunged forward to stand in front of Starfall, a coiled, dangerous thing. At the same instant, the scalpel's edge found only a barely visible white mark on Starfall's skin. The blade came away blunted, and a small blue sphere of crackling light appeared in Starfall's palm, humming with electric tension and curving straight toward Dr. Aldric. It was clear to everyone that the orb carried Blackie's signature force, as though Blackie had sent the energy and Starfall had shaped it, or had seized it and redirected it himself.
Micah stepped in, alarm ringing in his voice, "What is going on? This is getting out of hand. Blackie, come back now. Why are you getting involved?" He reached out as if to restrain him. Blackie ignored the hand and fixed his stare on Dr. Aldric like a man who could remember a thousand hurts. The situation suddenly felt older and more private than the Whitmore family had any right to witness.
Then Evelyn moved with a quiet command, intercepting the space between Blackie and the old doctor. "Try touching my grandfather," she said, placing herself where a blow would have to pass through her. Her voice was small but it carried, and it kept Blackie from pressing forward.
Blackie's back was to them; he heard a name said softly behind him and it landed on him like a shiver. "Rhys?" Starfall said, an incredulous warmth threading the name. Blackie stiffened, then slowly turned. Something in the way Starfall said it, in the look he wore, peeled back time for Blackie.
His eyes filled with tears he had not expected to shed. "It's... it's me," he managed, voice breaking. Everyone fell silent. The Whitmores and their guests had known Blackie as the mysterious being Ethan had brought from another world. They had called him the Black Qilin in whispers. They had not expected him to answer to a human name, let alone Rhys. The name now, suggested a history that had been deliberately left out of the public lineages.
Starfall grabbed him by the shoulders with an almost boyish relief. "It really is you. How—how did you end up here? Did Father bring you? Where is my father now?" he asked, rushing the questions like someone pouring out years of missing pages.
Blackie's face tightened at how often the word father tumbled from Starfall's mouth, because the man who had brought him here was not the same as the father Starfall seemed to mean. He told his brief account haltingly, the explanation a puzzle whose pieces only certain people in the room could read.
"After you left, I stayed with Master Overlord for three years and then he disappeared. I returned to my clan," he said. The name Master Overlord, spoken aloud, made a few people go very still. Overlord Caelum had been a force in a world of family powers, the kind of man who had once governed the Eight Noble Houses and stood as something outside them at the same time. The Caelum line had its own rules, its own secrecy. Hearing those names in Whitmore Hall made the air taste like distant storms and old oaths.
Starfall blinked. "How did you make it here then?" he asked.
Blackie looked around, glancing at the faces assembled as though checking for a shared memory, and then said, "If I am right, your son brought us here." The words landed like a stone in quiet water.
Matriarch Whitmore and Aunt Melody exchanged looks that carried more meaning than either of them said aloud. The thought that Ethan might be connected to the Caelum line was a dangerous one. Matriarch Whitmore finally spoke, cautious and precise. "You may be mistaken. I once sparred with Ethan and there was no trace of Caelum bloodline power in him."
Starfall either did not hear or paid no attention. "Ethan?" he said, as if that name rekindled a dozen memories. He looked at Blackie with renewed interest. Blackie nodded and then, as if he had been waiting for permission to say this out loud, added a small, sharp memory. "His name… I remember the naming because when Sister June was pregnant, Master Overlord named him.
You and Sister June didn't quite like it and wanted to change it. But Master said, his name is Overlord, which sounds dominant, yet there is always a Heaven above him. Your name is Starfall, but in the scope of the universe you are only a speck. The child named Ethan is meant to be light, nature, freedom, purity, supremacy, the will of the Ethereal." Blackie spoke with something like reverence, memory sharpening the meaning of each syllable.
The hall took in the implication in silence. If Overlord Caelum had any connection to Ethan, then the threads that bound distant houses and secret heirs were tighter than anyone had believed. It began to explain, in fragments, why figures from distant places had drifted together into this one hall, why names that sounded archaic and powerful had reappeared at the edge of the Whitmore territory.
Before anyone could unpack the consequences, a voice cut across the unfolding family drama with all the bluntness of someone who had neither time nor patience for genealogy. "Can you two stop chatting? Someone is about to die here," Dragon Child said, and instantly the threat that had gathered them all snapped back to the forefront of the room.