Brute 302

Chapter 302 

Atasha’s POV 

“So… you took us out of the cave?” I asked Elder Agape. 

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We were not in the north, and we were not in a war tent either. We were in a place that tried very hard to look like comfort without admitting it was comfort. 

The bed I woke in had been real, the blankets thick, the air clean, and the room had windows tall enough to let in a pale slice of morning light that softened the corners of everything it touched. 

The house itself sat just outside the capital, far enough that the city noise became distant and the air smelled less like smoke and more like damp earth after rain. Cassian called it a house when he brought me here, but it was not a house in the way common people meant it. 

It was a castle that had been dressed down into something quieter, a private estate owned by the royal family, with thick stone walls, long corridors, and servants who moved like ghosts because they had been trained to pretend they did not exist unless summoned. 

After I woke, Cassian did not let me spiral for long. He told me Elder Agape was here. He told me it was Elder Agape who led a team into the cave when word reached the capital that the mountain had started convulsing and the passage had opened. He said it like it was a simple fact, like he had not been bleeding out when they found him, like the world had not been one breath away from splitting open. 

Elder Agape sat across from me now. 

“Yes,” he answered, he did not pretend it had been easy. “When the tremors began to subside, and the pressure inside the mountain shifted, we moved in. The tunnels were unstable. The beasts had scattered. The air was still thick with residue that should not exist in our world.” His eyes flicked briefly toward Cassian, who stood near the window, then returned to me. “We found you both before the ceiling could finish collapsing.” 

I nodded slowly. 

Sadly, this did not explain why the inside of my chest still felt wrong. 

The surge is gone,” I said, because I needed to hear it spoken again. “The passage that the stone created disappeared.” 

Elder Agape gave a small nod, as if he knew I was listing facts to keep myself from touching the emotions beneath them. 

“By all means,” I continued, forcing the words out with a thin edge of bitterness. “That should have been enough to make me smile.” 

It wasn’t. Something in the way he looked at me was telling me that I should not celebrate. 

Elder Agape leaned back slightly. “It would have been enough, if the problem was only Arecor.” 

My eyes narrowed. 

I had been expecting this. The stone had not felt like an ending. The visions had not felt like an ending either. They had felt like a warning carved into bone. 

Elder Agape’s voice lowered, not because he was trying to make it dramatic, but because it was the kind of information people feared repeating too loudly. “The passage closed in that mountain, yes. The mouth that opened there has sealed. However, we have received reports that the same phenomenon has appeared elsewhere.” 

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Chapter 302 

My spine tightened. 

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“In the fae kingdoms,” he said, the words made my stomach turn because I had never trusted the fae to be honest about anything that threatened them. “In the west. There are whispers of distortions in places that have not seen war in decades, as if the land itself is being tested for weak points. We do not yet know how many. We do not yet know where else.” 

I held his gaze. “And they closed theirs?” 

Elder Agape’s expression did not change much, but his eyes did. A flicker of frustration passed through them, and it looked like the kind that had been held back for years. 

“They could not,” he said. “Not the way you did.” 

My throat tightened. “What do you mean, not the way I did?” 

Elder Agape did not answer immediately. He looked toward Cassian again, and this time his gaze stayed there. 

“There is no point in hiding things now,” Elder Agape said, speaking to him as much as he spoke to me. “I am sure you have already pieced together what really happened.” 

Cassian did not move from the window. He did not deny it either. His jaw tightened that alone told me this conversation was not new to him, only unavoidable now. 

Elder Agape turned back to me. “For years, worshippers of the Shadows have been searching for a way to break the seals that kept them trapped in another space. Those seals were not created because our ancestors wanted mercy. They were created because killing a Shadow is almost impossible. When our people learned they could not destroy them, they contained them. They buried them behind locks made of blood, bond, and sacrifice.” 

The word hit something inside me that still ached from the stone’s visions. 

Elder Agape continued. “Around thirty years ago, a group of worshippers began experimenting. They targeted newborns. They targeted pregnant women. They believed they could imitate what the Shadows once did, which was to create a new generation of powerful bodies and then consume them or perhaps even sacrifice them, using those lives as fuel to become strong enough to open the seals.” 

My stomach clenched, but I did not interrupt him. 

“They used remnants they claimed they had recovered,” he added. “Objects that once belonged to Shadows, Dried blood they swore was theirs. Fragments of old rituals. They did not have full knowledge, only obsession. They were witches in the sense that they practiced forbidden craft, not because they belonged to the old courts of our kingdoms.” 

His eyes did not soften when he said the next part. “They tried to imitate what the Shadow did in the past, until the previous King of the Werewolves eliminated many of them and drove the rest into hiding. Their work did not end because they felt guilt. It ended because they were forced to run.” 

My fingers tightened against each other. 

“In the aftermath,” Elder Agape said. “Some of the newborns they deemed valuable were abandoned. Some were traded. Some were discarded in places where no one would ask questions. Many of them ended up near the west, because the west is chaotic enough that suffering disappears into the landscape.” 

I swallowed, because the words slid too neatly into the shape of my life. 

Elder Agape watched my face as if he was checking whether I would deny it out loud. When I did not, he continued. 

“The experimentation never truly stopped,” he said. “It only changed hands and locations. The fae kingdoms have tried, in their own way, to find people like you. They have tried to work with them, to measure them, to test whether any of them 

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Chapter 302 

could stabilize what the seals require.” 

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My throat tightened. “People like me,” I repeated, because I hated the way it sounded like a category rather than a person. 

“There are few,” Elder Agape said. “Too few. Many were abandoned and died. Many grew up in places that did not protect them, and whatever they were supposed to become was shaped by suffering instead.” 

My chest felt heavy. I did not speak, because I did not trust my voice not to crack. 

Elder Agape leaned forward slightly. “You are the first one who managed to use her ability in a way that held a kingdom together instead of tearing herself apart. You are the first one who reached the seal, touched it, and closed it.” 

His eyes held mine. “And we believe your connection to the Shadows is the reason you could do it.” 

Cold spread through my stomach. 

Not fear of the words themselves, the weight of what they implied. That what saved us might be tied to what tried to destroy us. That I was a mistake that somehow fit the lock. 

Elder Agape exhaled. “When I heard you went in, I was afraid you would not be able to close it. I was afraid you would trigger something you could not stop, and I was afraid we would reach the mountain only to find an open mouth and no way to shut it again.” His gaze stayed on me, and for the first time his control slipped enough to show something human beneath it. “So I rushed with my team. I hope you do not mind.” 

I nodded, because I did not have the energy to pretend I was offended by being saved. I did not have the energy to pretend I was anything but exhausted inside. 

Silence stretched. It felt like time was thickening around us. 

After what felt like forever, I forced the question out anyway because it was the only part that mattered now. “So,” I said, voice low. “Are you saying that Shadows are pouring out of the passages in other parts of the world?” 

Elder Agape nodded. 

“It should be,” he said, and the certainty in his tone made the air in the room feel colder. “If one mouth opens, others will follow,” 

Then he added, “But what you did… somehow weakened the passage.” 

I frowned as I recalled what happened to the cave. Only I knew this but my body had not destroyed anything. 

It had not shattered the seal nor had it erased the passage. 

Instead, it had taken the stone into itself. 

The white core that Xylas wanted broken had not vanished. 

It lived under my sternum like a second heartbeat. 

I had not sealed the mouth. 

I had swallowed the key. 

“I do not fully understand what you did,” Elder Agape admitted, and for a man who guarded his knowledge like treasure, that admission carried weight. “Our records speak of containment, of sacrifice. Of blood used as anchor and bond used as lock. They do not speak of absorption.” 

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Chapter 302 

His gaze sharpened. 

“But I know this much. You closed it.” 

I did not correct him. 

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He reached beside him and lifted something from the table. The object was wrapped in dark leather, thick and worn from years of handling. When he placed it between us, I saw the emblem pressed into the cover: the crest of the Fae High Court! 

It was not a simple book. 

It was a decree. 

“I know this is sudden,” Elder Agape continued, his voice no longer that of a teacher explaining history, but of a representative speaking on behalf of a throne. “But the High Court of the Fae Kingdom has already convened. The western lords are in disarray. Their passages remain open. Their scholars cannot contain them. Their magic cannot seal them. Their warriors cannot kill what does not stay dead.” 

His eyes held mine without blinking. 

“And we do not have another you.” 

The room seemed to narrow around the weight of that sentence. 

He pushed the leather–bound volume toward me. 

This is not a request made lightly,” he said. “The Fae Kingdom formally recognizes what you are, not as an experiment, not as an anomaly, but as the only known individual capable of interfacing with the seals without being consumed by them.” 

His voice did not soften. 

“We are asking you to stand where others cannot. To enter the passages that are opening beyond our borders. To close them before the Shadows regain strength enough to unify.” 

He paused, then added with measured gravity, 

“This is an invitation backed by the authority of the High Court and the Western Coalition. If you accept, you will not go as a subject. You will go as an envoy of sealed fire, protected under treaty, escorted by royal guard, and granted autonomous command over any operation involving Shadow containment.” 

“We are not asking you to sacrifice yourself,” he said carefully. “We are asking you to lead.” 

I took in a deep breath then I looked at Cassian then towards the Elder. “I apologise…” I said. “But I cannot do that‘ 

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