Chapter 171: What is Family? [3]

"I didn’t..."

"Why did you drag the Belozersky name through the mud?"

"...."

Mikhail froze.

It was a broad accusation, broad enough that someone unfamiliar with the situation might not have understood what Ilya was referring to, but Mikhail understood immediately.

More importantly, he understood why Ilya had chosen those words instead of simply accusing him of spreading rumors.

This was no longer about Ilya.

"You encouraged outsiders to mock a Belozersky," Ilya continued. "You gave them stories to repeat, then stood aside while the Belozersky name became part of the joke."

By deliberately spreading stories about him throughout the academy, encouraging students to ridicule him, and making sure he was isolated wherever he went, Mikhail had done more than damage his cousin’s reputation.

Ilya Valentinovich Belozersky was still the son of the Grand Duke, and every time an outsider laughed at him for being a failure, they were laughing at a member of the family Mikhail himself claimed to represent.

Put in those terms, Mikhail had very little room to defend himself.

"...That’s not what I was trying to do."

"I don’t care what you were trying to do."

"...."

"You wanted to humiliate me? Fine." Ilya leaned back in his chair, keeping his eyes on him. "But you couldn’t separate Ilya from Belozersky, could you? Every rumor you spread about the Grand Duke’s useless son still had the words ’Grand Duke’ attached to it."

"...You’re twisting what happened."

"So you did have something to do with it?"

"...."

Mikhail had taken the bait.

Until that moment, Ilya had never actually said that the documents proved Mikhail was responsible. He had placed them on the table, asked questions, and spoken as though the answer had already been decided, leaving Mikhail to fill in everything else himself.

And Mikhail had just done exactly that.

"I..." Mikhail’s eyes dropped toward the papers. "That’s not what I meant..."

"Really?"

"...You were accusing me of something... so I responded."

"I accused you of dragging the Belozersky name through the mud." Ilya tilted his head. "You’re the one who decided I was talking about the rumors."

Mikhail’s mouth closed.

Ilya smiled.

"Thank you, Cousin. My informant found plenty, but hearing it from you makes things easier."

"Informant...?"

Mikhail’s expression worsened as he realized who Ilya’s informant likely was. If Solenne Vernet had been involved in gathering the information sitting on that table, then dismissing everything as fabricated evidence had suddenly become much more difficult.

"You had someone investigate me? An outsider into a family matter?"

Ilya’s smile faded. "Interesting."

"...."

Mikhail realized his mistake a second too late.

"You had no problem involving outsiders when you wanted them to make my life miserable," Ilya said. "But now that one of them helped me find out who was responsible, suddenly this is a family matter?"

"...."

Ilya stood from the chair and walked toward him, leaving the documents behind. Mikhail remained where he was this time, forcing himself not to retreat even as the uneasiness returned with every step his cousin took.

"I gave you the chance to deny it," Ilya said. "You couldn’t even do that properly."

"C-Cousin Ilya, listen to me..."

"I’m listening."

"I never intended to disgrace the family."

"I believe you."

Ilya stopped in front of him.

"I think you only wanted to disgrace me." He looked directly into Mikhail’s eyes. "You were just too stupid to realize there wasn’t a difference."

At that moment, something inside Mikhail finally snapped.

"It was a joke, for fuck’s sake!"

"A joke?"

"Yes, a fucking joke!"

Mikhail’s voice rose before he could stop himself, and whatever composure he had been desperately holding onto began to fall apart.

"I told a few friends this and that, they told other people, and before I knew it, everyone in the academy was talking about you. I didn’t think it would get this far out of hand."

Ilya stared at him without saying anything.

"I didn’t!" Mikhail repeated, as though Ilya’s silence was an accusation in itself. "At first, it was just stupid shit between friends. Stories about how the great Ilya Belozersky couldn’t use Aura, how you couldn’t even live up to your own family name, things everyone in the North already fucking knew anyway."

"...."

"And then people started repeating it."

Mikhail dragged a hand through his hair, his breathing becoming rough as the words continued spilling out.

"Every time someone asked me whether something they heard about you was true, what was I supposed to say? Suddenly everyone wanted to hear about the Grand Duke’s useless son from someone who actually knew him, and every time I told them something, they laughed."

Mikhail laughed as well, although there was nothing amusing about the sound.

"So I kept talking."

Ilya’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"I told myself it didn’t matter because most of it wasn’t even a lie. You were the disappointment of the main family. You barely spoke to anyone, and people already thought you were strange, so what difference did it make if I gave them a few more things to talk about?!"

Mikhail’s voice grew faster with every sentence.

"Then it became bigger than me, and by the time I realized that, what the hell was I supposed to do? Tell everyone I’d exaggerated things? Admit that half the stories they were repeating started because I wanted a few people to laugh?!"

"That would’ve been a start."

"And make myself the fool?!"

Mikhail slammed his hand against the table, sending the documents sliding across its surface.

That was more or less what Solenne’s investigation had uncovered.

There had never been a single letter in which Mikhail conveniently admitted to orchestrating everything, nor had he personally approached every student who later avoided Ilya.

What Solenne had given him was a collection of correspondences, statements, names, and dates that showed how the rumors had spread through the academy, and when those separate pieces were placed beside one another, the same small circle of students appeared repeatedly near the beginning.

Mikhail was at the center of that circle.

The earliest stories had been comparatively harmless, mostly embarrassing anecdotes about Ilya’s inability to use Aura and his position within the Belozersky family, but they became uglier each time they passed from one group to another.

Mikhail continued feeding his friends new stories even after he knew how widely the previous ones had spread, and whenever someone asked whether the latest rumor about Ilya was true, having a Belozersky relative confirm even part of it gave the story enough credibility to keep spreading.

Eventually, Mikhail barely needed to do anything himself.

Students began treating his silence as confirmation, and the occasional comment from him as proof that whatever they had heard couldn’t be far from the truth.

The rumors spread beyond his immediate circle until students who had never exchanged more than a few words with Ilya already had an opinion of him, while those who might otherwise have approached him learned that associating with the academy’s infamous Belozersky failure meant becoming part of the joke themselves.

That was how the isolation sustained itself.

And Mikhail had known.