Page 47 of Legacy Found

"We do not teach their name," she says.

I frown. "Why not?"

"They are remembered only for the Great Betrayal. Their legacy is not one we honor." She holds my gaze, cool and final. "There is nothing in that name worth carrying forward."

I wait for more. There isn't any more. And I glance around the room, and here's the part that actually unsettles me — nobody else is curious. Nobody follows up. Nobody even looks like the question occurred to them. Two hundred years of erasing one of the four families that built an entire civilization, and a room full of the smartest young wolves in Europe just… accepts it. Writes it down. Moves on.

How do you make an entire people incurious about a hole that size?

Faris resumes as if I never spoke. She explains that the three surviving Houses continue to lead because their bloodlines have produced strong, stable leadership for generations — that leadership is inherited because history has proven those families worthy of it.

And I raise my hand again, because I can't help it, because I never can.

She gives me a small nod, and there's a wariness in it now.

"I understand honoring history," I say, and I mean it. I keep my voice sincere because I'm genuinely asking, not attacking. "But why should blood matter more than character? If someone's born into a Great House and grows up selfish and cruel — and someone else, born nobody, becomes a genuinely good leader — shouldn't the better person lead? Isn't that the whole point of a leader?"

This time, the room doesn't go silent.

A murmur moves through it.

A chair shifts behind me. Someone a few rows over whispers something I can't catch, and another voice answers before both of them abruptly stop.

Interesting. I glance around. Nobody's exactly waving a revolutionary flag, but for the first time since I got here, not everyone looks horrified that I asked the question.

Then, somewhere behind me, very quietly—

"She's not wrong."

I don't turn fast enough to see who said it.

Professor Faris does.

The room settles immediately. Well.

That's new.

Faris looks back at me, perfectly composed.

"Bloodlines represent generations of proven leadership," she says. "Stability. Continuity. The knowledge that those who lead were shaped for it from birth. Character is unpredictable. Blood is not."

"I think respect should be earned," I say quietly. "Not inherited."

There's another tiny ripple through the room. Professor Faris doesn't raise her voice. She never does.

"Two Merit Marks deducted."

She makes a small note. This time, the reaction around me isn't shock.

It's discomfort. And somehow that's more interesting.

I sigh. "I wasn't trying to be disrespectful, Professor. I really wasn't."

“No,” she agrees, cool and even, and there’s almost interest under the ice now, which is worse than anger. “You simply continue to question the foundations of wolf society.”

Her gaze flicks briefly past me, toward the room. Then back.

"That is a far more expensive habit than rudeness. You would do well to learn the difference."