Chapter 269
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ATASHA’S POV
If there was one thing I never expected, it was to hear the King laugh instead of taking offense. He turned toward Cassian and patted his shoulder as if they were simply discussing weather instead of a kingdom on the verge of being swallowed.
“Calm down,” he said with that same amused tone. “I do not devour kittens.”
My lips twitched, because he was either shameless or fully aware of how insulting that sounded. He might not devour kittens, but he had no problem throwing them into a storm and calling it strategy.
Then the King’s gaze returned to me, and the humor did not leave his face, but something else sharpened behind it.
“I presume you are here because you learned that Cassian intends to destroy the passage,” he said.
The word struck harder than it should have, and my body reacted before my mind could sort it.
I looked at Cassian immediately.
His expression had gone rigid. The tightness in his jaw suggested he was holding his temper by force rather than choice. He did not look at me, as if he already knew what I would ask and refused to answer it in front of
the throne.
Cassian’s hand tightened around mine. He turned his head away slightly, like he was restraining the urge to grab me and walk out again.
“Xylas,” he said, his voice did not sound like he was calling the king’s name. It sounded like a warning, like a growl barely kept behind teeth.
King Xylas blinked, then widened his eyes in exaggerated surprise as if he had been caught speaking out of
turn.
“You did not know?” he asked me. “Kenneth did not tell you?”
I knew the King said that knowing full well that Lady Kenneth did not tell me. I was not dumb enough to think that he accidentally stated those words. My fingers curled harder around Cassian’s hand. I tugged him. “Cassian,” I said. “What does he mean?”
Cassian’s gaze flicked toward me, and the refusal was there, plain and immediate. “We will talk somewhere else,” he said.
I did not move.
I did not even pretend to consider it.
“What does he mean?” I repeated, because this was not a small matter, and I was done being kept outside doors while everyone decided my place for me.
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Cassian’s eyes darkened, his grip tightened again. He wanted me silent. He wanted me away from the King. He wanted control of the conversation.
He was not going to get it.
King Xylas exhaled slowly. “As you already know,” the King said. “There is a passage within Nightfall now, and it is not merely a wound in the land. It has become a route, a mouth, a place where beasts can cross through as if the world itself has been forced to open.”
My stomach tightened.
I already knew something like that existed.
King Xylas continued before I could speak. “We have documents about such matters,” he said, and his tone suggested the records were old enough to be treated like myth until they stopped being myth. “Stories passed down through the capital’s archives, accounts written by those who survived earlier passages summoned by powerful witches. However, those passages were usually something that happened in the West. It never happened in Arecor.”
I frowned. “Then it can be closed,” I said, because if it could be opened, it had to have an ending.
“Smart…” The King’s expression shifted into something almost satisfied, as if he approved that I had jumped to the correct part of the conversation. “The answer to your question is.. yes,” he answered. “But closing it requires more than steel and rage.”
He then turned towards Cassian. “Something that not many people possess.”
Cassian’s jaw flexed again at the word rage. The King did not even bother to hide the fact he was provoking
him.
“To close a passage,” Xylas went on. “You must remove its anchor.”
I stared at him. “Its anchor?”
“The life that holds it in place,” he said. “The sacrifice that turned a ritual into a fixed door is rarely the only price. A passage needs a stronger tether, something that binds it to the land, and in most accounts, that tether is not the witch’s life alone.”
My throat tightened. “Then what is it?”
Xylas sighed, and for the first time, the humor in him dulled. “It is usually the strongest presence within the area when the passage is formed,” he said. “The one with authority that the land recognizes, the one whose blood carries the right to command.”
My mind began to move.
Alpha blood.
I did not want the answer, and yet my thoughts were already forming it, because the King’s gaze held a certainty that felt practiced.
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“If my understanding is correct,” King Xylas said. “Then during the moment the passage stabilized, there was only one man within that territory whose blood would have been acknowledged by the land as an Alpha’s.”
The hall felt colder.
My face tightened before I could stop it, and I heard Grace’s earlier report in my head like an echo that had never stopped.
They did not find Collin.
They did not find Celeste.
It had been presumed they died in the beast surge, swallowed by the storm and the chaos and the collapse.
But what if they had not?
My mouth went dry as I looked at Cassian.This time, he finally looked back at me.
“You intend to go back,” I said slowly. “And you intend to kill the anchor yourself.”
Cassian did not answer immediately, and the silence was its own confirmation.
King Xylas snorted, unimpressed by the tension in the air. “Of course he does,” he said, as if Cassian’s plan was as predictable as breathing. “My brother has never been the type to let a problem sit and grow teeth.”
A cold sensation spread through my head, sharp enough that it felt like someone poured water over my thoughts and left me blinking.
“Earlier,” I said. “Grace told me they did not find him. They did not find Celeste. They believed they were dead.”
Cassian’s expression did not change, but the way his shoulders held tension told me he had been thinking the same thing long before I arrived.
“You think they survived,” I said, and I hated how steady my voice stayed when my chest felt like it was cracking open. “You think Collin survived, and you think he became the anchor.”
Cassian’s eyes narrowed slightly.
He still did not answer.
That was answer enough.
King Xylas tilted his head, watching me as if he wanted to see whether I would break, cry, or lash out.
Instead, I tightened my grip on Cassian’s hand.
“Is that why you tried to pull me out,” I asked Cassian, and I kept my eyes on him so the King could not steal the moment. “Is that why you did not want me here, because you were going back to Nightfall, and you were going to do it without telling me the truth?”
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Cassian’s throat moved as he swallowed something he refused to say.
Then the King stepped in again, as if he could not help himself.
“But he will not be alone,” Xylas said.”Because I will be coming with him.”
The words hit like a crack through the hall.
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My eyes snapped to the throne, then back to the man who had risen from it earlier, because I had not expected that. I had expected orders, demands, soldiers being assigned, but not the King himself stepping into the mess.
“You,” I said slowly, and I did not hide the disbelief this time. “You are going to Nightfall.”
King Xylas’s smile returned, but it did not feel playful now. It felt like a blade polished clean.
“I am,” he confirmed. “Because if Collin Black is truly the anchor, then this is no longer merely the North cleaning up the South’s ruin, and it is no longer merely Nightfall’s problem.”
He looked toward Cassian, the pressure returned briefly, thickening the air again.
“This is the kind of threat that swallows kingdoms,” Xylas said. “And I will not sit on a throne while my land grows a mouth beneath it.”
Cassian’s gaze sharpened. For a moment, I could feel the clash between them without a single blade drawn.
Then Cassian spoke, and the words were aimed at the King even though his hand still held mine.
“If you step into Nightfall,” Cassian said. “Then you do it knowing that I do not trust you.”
King Xylas smiled like he had been expecting that exact sentence.
“I would be insulted if you did,” he replied. “Now, Your Highness,” he added, shifting his attention back to me. “You may understand why I was surprised that you did not know.”
My chest rose with a slow breath. I forced my thoughts into order because panic would help no one.
If the anchor needed to be removed, then closing the passage was not a mystery anymore.
It was a hunt.
It was a kill.
And it was going to drag me back into the place where everything had broken.
I looked at Cassian again, and this time I did not ask.
This time I stated it.
“You are not leaving me behind for this,” I said. “If Collin is alive, and if he is tied to that passage, then this is not just your war. This is mine as well.”
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Cassian’s jaw clenched, and for a heartbeat I thought he would refuse out of sheer stubbornness.
Then his grip on my hand tightened, and his eyes burned with something darker than anger.
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“You are going to hate what you find,” he said quietly, and the sentence carried a promise that made my stomach twist.
King Xylas watched us both, then exhaled as if he was satisfied that the room had finally reached the point he wanted.
“Good,” he said. “Because hatred has a use, and we will need every useful thing we can carry into Nightfall.”
AD
