Lyerin knew the truth—had lived it.
The Borgias Family cared only about their pureblood members, their true heirs.
Halflings like him, born of mixed blood, were nothing more than tools or pawns, tolerated only as long as they served a purpose.
The idea that any of these people's fathers or mothers were truly safe was a cruel joke. More likely, they were dead or dying, victims of the same chaos that had engulfed the world.
He felt a pang of bitterness in his chest, the old wounds reopening as memories of his own mother surfaced.
She had loved him, or at least she had pretended to. But Lyerin had always known, deep down, that her affection was tainted by resentment, by the shame of having given birth to a halfling.
He remembered the way she would look at him when she thought he wasn't watching—the sadness in her eyes, the bitterness that marred her smile.