There Is No Lie In This World

Chapter 40: The Whisper Room

Elune didn’t come that night.

I stood in the middle of my office for hours, rooted to the spot like a tree in a drought.

The air had turned thin, the walls pushed outward, and the clock stopped ticking at some point - I wasn’t sure when.

Once I managed to break free, my mind was blank. I slept another night with no dreams.

Nothing sweet, nothing bitter. Just vast emptiness.

I woke up naturally before the alarm. There was no knock on the door by Elune. No intrusion by cheerful Abe. No Cain standing outside the door like a guardian statue.

I put on my shirt, trousers, and blazer. . The fabric felt stiffer than usual, though it was the same suit. The air in the room had changed, or maybe I had.

And my shoes were polished even without Luc.

I stood in the mirror room and stared at myself for a few minutes.

Luc taught me to let my presence enter the room before I do, but I succeeded in something else entirely.

I managed to erase my presence.

———

Cassian waited for me outside my office, a calm fixture of poise and polish. He was sitting on my couch sipping tea as if he had always belonged there.

"We’re late," he said gently.

I followed his gaze toward a pair of velvet gloves laid out on the coffee table.

"The Whisper Room doesn’t enjoy being kept waiting," he added.

"The what?"

His smile didn’t waver. "A Roen rite. Zhen insisted. It’s ceremonial. Empowering, even. You’ll see."

Empowering.

Yes, I wanted that.

I needed that.

So I nodded and followed.

The hallway bore the Zhen crest woven into the wallpaper - muted florals, barely perceptible unless you were looking. The patterns moved subtly when I walked past, as though the walls were breathing. The air smelled of sandalwood, like the Tea Room. We passed two guards in Councilor Zhen’s colors, who opened the door with bowed heads.

The door itself was covered in thick black velvet. Heavy. Absolute.

When it closed behind us, it sealed with a hiss.

And then-

Sound vanished.

Not dampened. Not softened.

Gone.

The Whisper Room was no whisper at all. The walls were built from jagged foam wedges like a silenced scream - dense, soundless, and black. The texture was geometric and unnatural, almost painful to look at. I could hear neither breath nor fabric nor thought. My footsteps didn’t return to me. There was no echo. No answer. No presence to bounce off of. Only absorption.

Only erasure.

In the middle of this absolute silence stood a pedestal. Councilor Vale and Zhen were waiting for me there, dressed in ceremonial robes. They smiled at me while somehow managing to maintain solemn faces.

Upon the pedestal, there was a folded sash of ink-black silk, threaded with silver lines that looked like veins under skin.

Cassian’s voice sliced through the silence like a wire. I flinched before I even heard it.

"This is where Roen matriarchs made their decrees. Decisions made here are solely yours. And absolute. No dissenting voices, no echoing doubts."

His tone then softened.

"Miss Roen, in the great vacuum of responsibilities within the organization that suffered the recent tragic loss, we - Vale and Zhen families - pledge our allegiance to you. We shall be bound to nobody but you. The only thing we request is your acceptance of our loyalty."

I stepped forward.

Councilor Vale and Zhen went down on one knee. Their robes brushed the floor without sound, their heads bowed low as if in prayer.

The gesture should have made me nervous, but it didn’t. It made me feel tall. Stable. Real.

I touched the silk sash with my finger tips. It felt impossibly smooth - and deep.

I unfolded the silk and there was a scroll. The paper’s grain was thick, fibrous. The texture reminded me of the past that stretched back to the time I wasn’t born.

———

By the Authority of Lin Roen, Chair Recognized by Council Mandate

Let it be known: With the unanimous recognition of the Central Council, and under the lawful sight of those entrusted with the preservation of our legacy, I, Lin Roen, duly seated and endowed with the authority of presence, do formally acknowledge the independent and exclusive allegiance of the Vale and Zhen houses to my name and station.

This affirmation, rendered freely by the Vale and Zhen lines, is not inherited by blood, but entrusted by confidence; not assumed by lineage, but endowed by voice. I receive their declaration not as a matter of dominion, but as a solemn gesture of unity.

In so doing, the historic bonds that once tethered these great houses solely to the direct line of Roen are, from this moment forward, renewed through shared vision, and rededicated to the pursuit of enduring prosperity and the forging of a legacy yet unwritten. Let no obligation henceforth be inferred by birthright, but only by continued accord.

Signed and sealed in the Whisper Room, in silence and in clarity,

Lin Roen

Chair of the Council

Bearer of the Brooch

———

I liked it.

I liked it a lot.

To be honest, I would have been uncomfortable with receiving such words of commitment and pledge of loyalty by the Vales and the Zhens, given the fact that I was not a ’real’ Roen.

However, the decree clearly established that I had every right to make decision and accept their support - not for the virtue of being a Roen by blood, but by being in my position through recognition.

"It is as you read, Miss Lin Roen. We see you - and we recognize you. You are the Chair of the Council, the Bearer of the Brooch - by recognition. You have been bestowed with power," Cassian reassured me.

Councilor Vale and Zhen looked up at me, still with one knee on the ground. Their eyes dripped of respect and adoration. And sincerity.

"I shall sign it."

I was a failure. Unwanted. Incapable.

I was a mistake. An imposter. A liar.

Luc, you told me - you told me that there is no lie in this world.

So I became.

I became the truth.

Look at me now.