The Crown's Poisonous Truth...

Prologue

"Maybe in another life I'll have loving people around me, instead of those who despise me."

Darren sat on the cold, hard chair, the metal cuffs chafing his wrists. His gaze drifted downward, his mind barely able to process the reality of the situation. They thought he’d killed his sister, Annalisse, and his friend, Casean. They all believed it.

The door creaked open, and he looked up to see Shion enter, flanked by two guards. Shion’s eyes, once filled with warmth, were now cold, piercing.

“Darren,” Shion said, his voice devoid of emotion. Darren took a shaky breath, meeting Shion’s gaze. “You’re really going through with this, Shion?” His voice wavered, a mix of anger and desperation.

Shion clenched his jaw, looking away for a brief moment before his gaze snapped back, hard and resolute.

“I didn’t do it,” Darren insisted, his voice breaking. “Annie was my sister, and

Casean—.... Casean was like family to me. You know that. How could you believe I’d hurt them?”

Shion’s lips pressed into a thin line, his expression unreadable. “Maybe I never really knew you at all,” he murmured, almost to himself, and Darren felt the sting as if Shion had slapped him.

“This is how you're gonna play games with me?” Darren's frown turned into a mischievous grin. “What?” Shion furrowed both of his eyebrows.

Suddenly, a loud explosion hit their ears. “fuck.” Shion said before running out the door. After Shion left. Darren just laughed seemingly out of sanity.

There was once a boy, bright and small, shaped into the image of another. He wore silks that weren’t his, smiled a smile not his own, an echo of a child far more precious than he’d ever be. To them, he was a shadow, an illusion cast to fill a void.

They dressed him up and told him to act, to carry himself with grace, but behind closed doors, his skin bore the lines of a whip’s harsh lesson. Each lash reminded him of his place a name only borrowed, a role never meant to last.

They caged him when he was no longer needed, slipping stale food between the bars as though he were an animal. He ate in silence, hunger and loneliness gnawing together, yet something inside him remained untouched. There was a flicker of warmth, a quiet, unbreakable hope.

Then she came home the true Duchess, the child they’d missed. They cast him aside as if he were nothing more than a costume, tossed away now that the show was over. But in that hollow dismissal, he found a strange, unyielding strength.

He was no part of the family, he was a shadow, a replacement. He was himself a heart forged in darkness, yet glowing still, and that, he would carry forward.

Van Cania, was the surname he had borrowed. “Darren Van Cania” pretty prestigious right? But his name isn't as sophisticated as his life.

“brother please stop!” he plead continuously as he gets striked by a whip over and over. He didn't do anything wrong, this adoptive family just has their blood boiling on him.

Yua Van Cania, a woman who he treated as his sister, the same woman who locked him up to a cage, the same woman who fed him like an animal. Azrael Van Cania, the brother whom he had treated like one. The same person who will punish him with a whip every tiniest mistake he makes.

Hayato.... Hayato Van Cania. The person who had treated him the worse, not physically, but both emotionally and mentally. He was the one who kept him in the house. But everytime he suffered he'll just watch there and stand, sometimes he isn't even there to help him.