Claire's words were like pouring gasoline on a fire.
"So what if they had money? They made the wrong choice, and that's why they vanished without a trace."
"For all you know, they're already dead. Or maybe they defected."
Vane quickly forced himself to calm down and retaliated, trying to rattle her.
Claire rolled her eyes. "You think my parents are anything like you?"
"Just because they're off the grid doesn't mean they aren't out there accomplishing something incredible."
"Only cowards like you end up with a pathetic lifespan."
"As for defecting? You think everyone is as spineless as you?"
"You sold out for Sundara's chump change. For all you know, your own family might have died by Sundarian blades."
"How do you even face your ancestors?"
Something in her barrage of insults struck a fatal chord. The color drained from Vane's face.
He fell dead silent.
It was true. Vane's own father had been murdered by Sundarian forces.
He had been an innocent villager who vehemently refused to guide the enemy
troops into their home, and they slaughtered him for it.
Vane had been raised solely by his mother.
With a house full of siblings, they had lived a brutal, starving existence.
He grew up terrified of poverty.
Even if Sundara was his blood enemy, Vane wanted the lavish life they offered.
So what if he betrayed his ancestors?
He convinced himself that his ancestors would understand.
If a man couldn't even put food on his table or clothes on his back, what was the point of ancestral loyalty?
Unable to stand Claire's confident demeanor, he sneered. "Do you honestly think Sundara was the only nation that approached them back then?"
Claire's expression didn't waver. "If Sundara's pocket change was enough to buy you, it just means the other countries didn't bid high enough."
"What makes you think my parents would bow to any foreign power?"
Vane let out a dark laugh. "Because you have no idea the terrifying lengths these nations went to."
"Forget the others for a second-look at Cascadia. They use absolutely any means necessary to secure prodigies."
"If they can't control a genius, they destroy them."
"You still haven't heard a single whisper about your parents, have you?"
For years, those keeping an eye on the Churchill family insisted there was no news of Melissa.
Over at the James family, it was just an old woman raising a child.
Originally, the person Sundara had been observing was Cindy.
But Cindy never showed any extraordinary talent growing up, leading Sundara to eventually give up on her.
Their spies probably got lazy after that.
What they didn't know was that Pandora had meticulously curated a flawless illusion for the outside world.
The entire James Village was under
Pandora's ironclad control. Even i foreign
atives wanted to
infiltrate the village, they couldn't
The most they could ever scout was the neighboring town.
Gathering actual intelligence on the James Village was virtually impossible.
However, it was easy to gather information on Cindy at school.
But Cindy was so aggressively average that she completely fell off Sundara's radar.
It wasn't until Claire and Cindy's identities were swapped, and Claire linked up with the Churchill family in Cabinda, that she finally sought the attention of Sundarian intelligence again.
From Vane's reaction, Claire deduced one crucial fact: Agassi and Melissa were not
in Sundara's hands.
She felt a profound wave of relief.
As for Cascadia...
While Cascadia had trained their fair share of deep-cover operatives, their spy network wasn't nearly as invasive as Sundara's.
Because of the stark differences in demographics, if they wanted to plant spies, they essentially had to recruit Solenian locals.
Sundara, on the other hand, could smuggle their own children into Solenia to be raised as sleeper agents.
The operational difference was massive.
Still, even though she desperately
wanted to believe her parents hadn't
been black-bagged by Cascadia, she
couldn't rule out the possibility entirely
"Who else made contact with my parents besides you?"
Claire demanded, her gaze locking onto Vane with lethal intensity.