Chapter 224
Chapter 224
Atasha’s POV
“They already left?” I asked as Grace stepped into the room. “That fast?” I couldn’t hide the small flicker of surprise in my
voice.
I had expected Celeste to linger, expected her to stretch her visit into something theatrical, expected her to throw one more line telling them that she only hoped to see her sister.
Grace stopped beside the table where I had been sitting, her gaze sweeping the room before settling back on me.
“She said nothing else after we told her you have yet to wake up. However, I believe she didn’t leave because she wanted to,” Grace reported. “They seemed to be in a hurry. She left with the Beta’s daughter.”
I hummed as I lifted the cup to my lips, tasting the tea slowly, letting the heat settle into my throat while my other hand rested on the charcoal stick I had been using to sketch.
The paper in front of me held rough lines tha
could pass as idle drawing, but it was not idle at all. I had been mapping shapes, distances, angles, and the way the room’s layout connected to the corridor outside, because old habits did not die just because I wore a different title now.
I nodded, the corner of my mouth lifting. “Good,” I said. “Let them leave hungry”
Grace did not comment. She simply moved closer and poured another cup of tea.
Night had already settled in. The room’s windows faced the forest, and the view outside was the kind that would have made a poet cry if I had ever cared about that sort of thing.
The moon hung above the treeline, pale and full, casting silver across the leaves. The forest looked deeper at night, like it had grown extra layers while the sun was gone. Mist clung low to the ground, curling around the trunks, softening edges and making everything beyond the first few rows of trees seem like a shadow waiting to take a step forward.
From this height, I could see the slope leading down into the woods, the way the path curved as it disappeared between the trees, and farther out, the faint line of the river catching moonlight like a blade/laid flat.
It was beautiful.
It was also cruel, because I had never been allowed to admire it before.
I let my gaze stay on the view for a long moment, then turned my head slightly toward Grace.
“This room,” I said, keeping my voice even. “I was never able to enter it when I lived here.”
Grace’s expression did not change.
“I came in once,” I continued. “To clean the fireplace. I was told not to look at anything else, not to touch anything else, and definitely not to linger. I did not even know it had a view like this.”,
Grace said nothing, but the silence was not dismissive. It was her way of listening.
I lifted the cup again and let the warmth spread through my hands, then returned my gaze to the forest beyond the glass.
“I missed the scenery from the South,” I admitted, because there was no point pretending otherwise. “The trees here feel familiar. The air smells the same. The river sounds the same. Sometimes it almost makes me forget what this place did to
me.”
My mouth curved, not in humor, but in something harder.
18:09 Fri, Dec 19 M
Chapter 224
“But I do not think I belong here anymore,” I added, the words leaving me with a strange calm. “Not as their daughter. Not as their sister. Not as something they can pull back into place when it suits them.”
Grace set the teapot down and watched me for a moment.
Then she spoke, “The ones who welcomed you at the border have started showing signs of the poison,”
My eyes shifted to her.
Grace continued without hesitation. “The Demon Fangs used a compound that carries traces of northern poison mixed with western poison,” she explained. “It is not easy to counter. The South has not seen something like this, and most of the herbs needed to remove it are not native here. Even if their healers recognize the symptoms, they will struggle to find what they
need.”
The edges of my smile lifted slightly, this time with satisfaction that I didn’t bother to hide.
“That is the plan,” I said.
Grace studied me for a brief moment, as if she was confirming what she already suspected about my intentions, then she asked the question that mattered.
“How long are you going to pretend that you are sick?” she asked.
I took another sip of tea before answering, because I liked that I could make her wait.
“As long as I want,” I said, setting the cup down with care. “As long as it takes for them to start panicking, for their pride to crack, and for their lies to become too heavy to carry.”
Grace’s gaze held mine, and there was no judgment there, only the sharp recognition of a soldier who understood strategy when she saw it.
Before she could speak again, the temperature in the room dropped.
It happened quickly, like the air shifted without permission. Cold rushed in through the window seams and under the door, sliding across my skin and raising goosebumps along my arms. The candles on the side table flickered, their flames bending in the same direction as if something had walked past them.
I inhaled and felt the cold fill my lungs, clean and sharp in a way that didn’t belong to the stillness of the room.
I looked toward Grace. “You can leave now,” I said, keeping my tone calm.
Grace did not question it. She stood and nodded once. “I will be guarding the door outside,” she replied.
I smiled at her. “Thank you,” I said.
Grace inclined her head, then stepped out, closing the door behind her.
The moment the latch clicked, the candles near the window flared again, the fire stretching and curling as if it had been touched by invisible fingers. Shadows shifted across the walls, not from the wind outside, but from movement inside the
room.
I set my cup down and let out a quiet breath.
Then I smiled.
“Why are you acting like a thief?” I asked as I turned.
Cassian stood not too far away from me, half in the shadow near the far wall, his presence heavy enough that the air felt different just because he was there. He had not made a sound when he arrived. He never did when he didn’t want to.
18:09 Fri, Dec 19 M
Chapter 2241
Without the bond, I wouldn’t even sense him there.
Cassian didn’t answer immediately. He stood there watching me.
After what felt like forever, he moved.
The space between us simply vanished, the cold in the room shifting with him, sliding across the floor like it knew who commanded it.
“Perhaps I am.” he said quietly. “After all, I came here to take something this place never deserved to keep.”
AD
