Chapter 16 - The Whistleblower’s Revelation
Locked inside a sterile glass holding room on the fiftieth floor, Rowan plugged the encrypted drive into a terminal left unattended by a careless guard. The screen flickered to life, downloading thousands of classified documents, internal emails, and financial ledgers.
As Rowan scrolled through the files, a horrifying truth emerged. It wasn't just Alaric who had ordered the purge of the Crown Eagles nineteen years ago; it was Victoria Vance herself. The corporate board had discovered that the genetic markers of the Crown bloodline—bonded to the mystical eagles—held the key to unlocking a vast, multi-billion-dollar rare-earth mineral reserve hidden directly beneath Crown Mountain. The "diseased eagle" proclamation had never been about health or conservation; it was a premeditated corporate clearance operation to exterminate both the birds and the true heirs so the board could strip-mine the sacred peaks.
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Worse still, a personal diary entry written by his mother, Elena Mercer, flashed on the screen. She had been the lead archivist at Blackthorn Hall before falling in love with a junior researcher from the valley. When Victoria ordered the infant Rowan eliminated to secure full corporate control of the trust, Elena had risked her life, staging a daring escape into the blizzard with the newborn child and a fledgling Crown Eagle egg that had imprinted upon the infant's heartbeat.
Tears welled in Rowan’s eyes as the pieces finally fell into place. His mother hadn't just abandoned him in the snow; she had hidden him among the poorest villagers because she knew corporate assassins would search every major city, but never suspect a royal heir growing up in a patched wool cloak in Crownridge Valley.
