She thinks she wants to see the destruction of the Bloodburn Kingdom, but ultimately she wants a safe future for her people. Who knows, maybe she will live to see that and the fall of certain house(s), and they are mistaking this for the fall of the kingdom itself.

"Resembling a man" sounds like a eunuch.

I hope Stacy steps forward still a bit disheveled from what Ray did to her. And that Arthur tries to pin it on Asher only for her to correct him on what happened. Because right now Arthur is an annoying B and needs a bit of a wake up call. He's kind of getting one, but something like Stacy coming forward would probably be more effective.

Only a few were smart enough to realize that he only woke them because there was a massive threat in the human world.

Time for her to meet her future husband.

Cedric's mother killed herself back when Rowena was doing her first Reaping Quest. Specifically Cedric was the target, Rowena possessed his mom, and his mom fought against the possession and committed suicide to prevent her body from being used to kill him.

His bright blue eyes? plural??

Why do I feel like the Oracle might have told Derek "if you do this, then Cedric will do X to stop you" and much like his lie by omission to Rachel, he used the same thing to remove Cedric...creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm expecting this to be Hecate to be wrecking things due to Abaddon messing up her plans and sacrificing her followers. Now if she actually has good will towards humanity or not, that needs to be seen. But the subversion and destruction of the Sacred Tirtha (who predicted the coming of The Overlord, aka Van) is undoubtedly going to mess up any plans, good or evil, that she might have had.

The Oracle or...Aira? No clue who else he might have imprisoned here.

I see he is quite proficient at lying. Weaving in the half-truth that it could destabilize things, while intentionally leaving out that it could destabilize the BAD things that him and his lackies have been doing.

It's the eyes...

I think two things here. The first is that this reaffirms my thoughts that Aira didn't betray Cedric but was most likely pregnant and did what she had to to save their child. The second is that it seems her brother was specifically raised in a manner to be a "face" of good but easily manipulated by those in power.

Oh hes's going to pay for it alright. I'm already imagining something like, "With deft movements not befitting of a cripple, Ash parried the punch while striking Bernard's elbow, causing it to bend at an unnatural angle." or some such.

Irina, been awhile since I heard that name. she was the sister of his hunter blood brother that he met up with during the Quest and she got killed at some point, right?

"Why are you helping us" oh I don't know, because it keeps my kingdom alive while also destroying my enemy whom you also happen to loathe? Like what else is she expecting him to say lol. Though maybe after doing all this the Drakaris Kingdom can be reworked to not be such scum, who knows.

I'm expecting him to beat some resemblance to Cedric. Enough to be uncanny, but not enough that people would think it's him reincarnated.

More than suspects, Vernon seems to know that "his" wife is not really his, but for appearances (for both of them) such a fact can't become public. Makes one wonder what he did in the past to cause this as there seems to be some level of care there for her even if it isn't reciprocated.

Huh? Who said she thought her and her child would be safer without him? It's about survival. It was what, 25 v 1? If she stood with him then she almost assuredly would have died, and their unborn child as well (again, my hypothesis here is she's pregnant with his kid). The ONLY chance of survival is to "betray" him and then retreat from the world and raise their child. Now I'm not saying this what happened. Maybe she really did turn on Cedric. But all throughout this story things are constantly not what they appear. Even how she acted here just feels off to me. And her doing all this to save their child would be a crazy twist that would explain both her actions that day and why she has literally vanished from the Hunters World since that day. But only time will tell.

It's not stupid at all. We don't know when she was told of this or if she was. For all we know she found out there. Then she's put on the spot to stand with him and die, killing their baby, or to "betray" him and save their kid. Given that she has vanished and hasn't been seen since the event chances are she's either in hiding or captured for some reason. In hiding would make sense if she's raising their kid, captured would make sense if she didn't actually betray him. Simply put there's just too much we don't know. but these are my speculations.