Transmigrated Into A Women Dominated World

The lie was brilliant in its audacity. It perfectly explained Zaeryn, his immunity, and his existence. Viora listened, her suspicion warring with the terrible, logical sense of it all.

"To create such a specimen," Athea continued, her voice laced with the cold logic of a scientist, "we needed the purest genetic template available. One free of defects, with the highest potential for Vitae resonance." Her eyes met Viora's. "I used my own DNA as the baseline. That is why he resembles our family, Viora. Genetically, he is a male iteration of me."

The final piece slammed into place. It was a horrifying, unethical, and completely plausible explanation. It fit her mother's character perfectly—her ambition, her ruthlessness, her willingness to operate in the shadows for the 'greater good.'

"You're saying he can also wield Vitae?" Viora asked.

Athea nodded. "So you see why I panicked," Athea said, her voice now filled with a mother's feigned vulnerability. "You didn't just stumble upon a secret, Viora. Your curiosity has brought you to the edge of a treasonous act that I undertook for the survival of this world. If this were to get out... everything I have worked for, everything I have sacrificed, would be for nothing."

She took a step closer to Viora, her expression pleading. "Zaeryn already knows he is an anomaly, a project. He knows nothing of me, or his connection to the Lumina. To him, I am a distant benefactor, nothing more. My only concern now is keeping him, and this project, safe. His very existence is a crime."

Yet another lie she told.

Calyra, who had been listening with fascinated attention, couldn't believe what a perfect liar her sister was. Actually, it was sort of worrying to her; Athea had grown more calculating and ruthless than Calyra had ever seen.

The young princess who once dreamed of exploring the stars had transformed into a master of the court's cruelest games, a princess who moved shadows with unnerving precision.

For a moment, Calyra wasn't sure if she should be proud or terrified.

Nonetheless, as an accomplice in this treason, Calyra had to back her sister. And so she did. "She's telling the truth, Viora," she said softly, her voice carrying a quiet finality. "Some secrets are kept for the survival of us all."

Viora was silenced. The theory fit every piece of evidence she had. The resemblance, Athea's reaction. It all made a terrible kind of sense.

Viora processed the story her mother had told her and she felt the seriousness of it.

It wasn't just a family matter; Athea had framed it as a state secret of the highest order, a burden she claimed to have shouldered for the survival of the entire world.

To pursue it further, to try and expose what she now knew, would be to risk everything Athea had supposedly worked for. The explanation was logical and it fit her mother's character perfectly.

Her rational mind told her to accept it, and she almost did.

Almost.

But her mind, honed by years of battlefield tactics and courtly observation screamed at her that she was still being lied to like a fool. She latched onto a single, glaring inconsistency. A variable Athea, in her haste to construct the perfect lie, had overlooked.

Aphrodite.

A slow, dangerous smirk, so much like Athea's own, spread across Viora's face. The flicker of confusion in her eyes vanished, replaced by a cold, triumphant clarity. She had her.

"That's a brilliant story, Athea. Truly," Viora said, her voice now dangerously calm, almost admiring.

The use of her given name, stripped of any title, hit Athea like a physical blow. She could feel the cold disappointment rolling off Viora in waves.

Viora continued, "Your story is perfect. It explains everything about him. But it creates a new, much more interesting problem."

She took a step forward, reclaiming the power in the room. Her gaze was no longer that of a questioning daughter, but of a victor before a fallen queen.

"If this Zaeryn is the secret experiment, the male iteration of your DNA who explains the Lumina features," she began, letting each word land with surgical precision, "then who is Aphrodite?"

Athea's perfect mask of control didn't just crack; it shattered. The blood drained from her face, leaving behind a pallor of pure, unadulterated shock. Calyra's amused expression froze, her wine glass pausing halfway to her lips as she watched a master strategist get checkmated by her own blood.

Viora's smirk widened. "You see, that's the flaw in your perfect lie. Aphrodite has dark hair and green eyes. She bears no resemblance to the Lumina line. So if he is the secret project who carries our blood... then what is she?"

She let the question hang in the air, a blade poised over her mother's throat.

The lie was perfect, Mother," Viora finished, her voice dropping to a soft, merciless whisper. "Almost. Now tell me the real truth."

"Viora, your mother…." Calyra tried to intervene, finally setting down her wine glass.

"Don't." Viora cut her off without even glancing in her direction. "I won't believe your lies either, Calyra. And frankly, I'm disappointed that you're complicit in this treason."

She turned back to Athea, her ice-blue eyes unforgiving.

"You don't even need to confirm it. I already know the truth." Her voice was steady, certain, each word a nail in a coffin. "Zaeryn is your real child. That's why he looks like us. That's why he has our eyes, our features, our blood."

She paused, letting the weight of the accusation settle.

"And Aphrodite is not your daughter at all. That's why she has different eyes, different hair. That's why she carries not a single trace of Lumina heritage."

Viora let the final, terrible truth settle in the silent gallery. She watched her mother's composure crumble, watched the unshakeable princess finally break. Only then did she take one final step closer, her voice dropping to something quietly devastating.

"So tell me, Mother. If she's not yours... whose child is she?"