Chapter 112 – Drag me with you [1]

Morgan, face taut and clearly annoyed, watched Morenna Hood pull her little brother into her arms, and felt something close to indignation about it.

The Queen hadn’t spared her more than a single glance before taking the wounded Cassius into her embrace, looking at him with a tenderness that made every watching heir quietly shiver.

Esmeray, in particular, wore a jealous expression, unable to fully stomach the sight of her mother showing more warmth to her grandson than to her own child.

She clicked her tongue and snapped her head away.

"My angel," Morenna whispered into Cassius’s ear, holding him tightly yet gently. "Who did this to you?"

Cassius smiled wryly at the name but chose not to address it right now. "It’s nothing important, grandmother." He said, not wanting to drag her further into his own affairs with Emrys. "My current state just means I need more training."

Morenna was silent for a couple of breaths. Then she turned her head and pinned Emrys with her all-black eyes glowing with a soulless light.

Emrys Stormblessed nearly flinched, feeling his soul coil upon itself for a brief, terrible instant, like a frightened animal.

The sensation disappeared as quickly as it had come when Morenna turned her attention back to Cassius.

The Chosen One exhaled faintly, cursing under his breath.

"Still, are you feeling alright, angel?"

"As well as I can be." Cassius nodded, unaware of what had just occurred. "Just... a bit more tired than usual."

The Queen nodded softly. She let her eyes travel his body, assessing his wounds — the Tier Five poison especially — and reached the same conclusion as Persephone.

"You will need an Apothecary for a full recovery." She said. "But your body is strangely more resilient than a standard Mortal rank. The wounds are not lethal. You have nothing to worry about."

’I am not worried.’ Cassius thought inwardly, lifting his head slightly, noticing a Snake Loop for poison immunity already progressing slowly. ’I don’t mind bearing the pain a little longer. I want this Loop to close.’

After all, it would not be his last encounter with the Crimson Daggers.

He had been fortunate that the Realm of Red Moon summoned this time was weaker, the Tier Five monsters incomplete, lacking Ultimate Skills.

But next time, he could not count on that. He would far rather endure the pain now and come out immune on the other side.

It was visibly agonising — his lips trembled constantly, his movements stiff — because the poison worked by injecting crimson starlight into his bloodstream, slowing his heartbeat until it stopped entirely.

It was dangerous. But the healing potions had neutralised the worst of it.

Cassius sighed at last and offered his grandmother a quiet, grateful smile.

She returned it, then drifted toward her children — Esmeray doing her best to disguise her joy behind rudeness — and began soothing the heirs of the other Tiered families.

The King stood with Persephone beside the headless body of Emily, speaking in low, measured tones.

Dantes’s face was growing colder by the second. One could see it literally fracturing at the edges, the skin beginning to transform into crimson-black weathered flies.

"Finally, she is away!" Morgan chirped, talking about her own grandmother, and pulled Cassius back into a hug. "I have truly missed you, Cass."

"And I you, sister." He said, letting himself be cradled without any shame of the eyes watching. "How have you been?"

"Fine enough." Morgan answered, resting her chin on the top of his head. "Training and thinking about my advancement to the Fourth Rank."

Cassius frowned slightly. "Already, sister?"

"What?" Morgan grumbled like a child told she couldn’t have a second snack. "Don’t tell me you think it’s too soon as well, Cass."

"It is."

"But I have been at Exalted for over a year. It will be two years soon enough."

Cassius laughed softly. "Sister, people take at least five years to step into the Fourth Rank. And you know why. If you fail the advancement, it’s over. You will either die or remain at Exalted for the rest of your life. There is no in between."

"Do you—!"

"It is not that I doubt your strength or your talent, sister." Cassius cut in, already knowing what she was about to say. "I just don’t want you to be hasty and end up with regrets."

Morgan fell silent. She closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of him — blood and sweat and all — and felt immediately better for it.

She exhaled, unable to refuse Cassius the way she could refuse Dorian.

"I will not be hasty." She whispered, kissing the top of his head. "Before taking the Advancement Quest, I will make sure I am truly ready. Perhaps I will even try to evolve my skill first."

"That would be perfect. It would give you a far better chance of success."

"Yes." She nodded. "But I need the conditions for evolution. And Mother System only grants them whenever she pleases."

Cassius smiled wryly. On that, there was nothing he could do. Even he didn’t understand the mechanics behind skill evolution.

The siblings continued their quiet exchange, entirely indifferent to the eyes watching them, faces aghast, as if confronting something from a nightmare.

None of them could have imagined, even in their wildest dreams, that the Desdemona family could be this tender with one another.

That was a genuine shock to most of them. They knew the Desdemona’s reputation. They knew Morgan Desdemona’s reputation even better, especially from her Academy years.

She was a living legend. Known for being among the most ruthless students the Academy had ever produced.

Few could bring themselves to count the number of peers and upperclassmen she had killed during her time there.

She had been Palatine from her First Year to her Fifth. Earning the nickname the Coldblooded Palatine before the end of her very first term.

And now, in front of them, that very legend was whispering, holding and kissing the head of her little brother as if he were the most precious thing in existence.

Which, for the Desdemona family, was actually the case.

Eventually, they could no longer watch. With nothing else to do, most heirs settled on the floor in scattered clusters, talking and whispering among themselves with a startling ease...considering they had nearly been killed not long ago.

But these were children who had known the cruelty of the world since birth. They moved past it.

They wondered briefly who the Lord of the Red Moon was, and what his goals might be, then immediately shifted to the subject more relevant to their immediate future.

The Academy. And its Entrance Test.

After what had happened today, most of them were fairly certain that the Palatine of their promotion would be either Emrys Stormblessed or Cassius Desdemona.

But there were those who refused to accept that. And they were already turning over, in their minds, how they would prove otherwise.

All of this unfolded while, on the other side of the Hall, Dantes, Morenna and Persephone stood together, their faces stern.

"Her soul has been destroyed." Morenna said, smiling yet not smiling, something cold underneath it. "I cannot use her lingering spirit to ask what happened."

"Is there any need?" Dantes replied, voice flat and frozen. "Look at her body. Look at the tattoo at her lower back, Morenna. Doesn’t it look familiar?"

His fury was enormous, his face unable to hold its shape, transforming slowly at the edges into a swarm of flies.

Persephone clicked her fingers. An invisible barrier rose between them and the heirs on the other side, shielding them from what was coming.

Not everything was meant to be witnessed. The King’s Soulblade was known to activate itself when he was sufficiently angered. Its Manifestation could destroy — or rather, infect with an incurable affliction — the minds and bodies of weaker beings who witnessed it unprepared.

"The Crimson Daggers." Morenna said, nodding slowly. "I know them well, darling."

Her expression hardened, her black eyes darkening.

"We have a long history with them. One I would rather not revisit. One we ended ourselves, for our own reasons." Her voice was stripped of all feeling, as if it were no longer a person speaking. "And now they have returned and taken Mort’s Linked Artifact?"

She clenched her fist. The lingering souls hovering around her detonated silently.

"For what purpose?"

"That is precisely what I wish to know." Dantes replied. "And how did they enter the Burial Ground? The key is held within me. How did they manage that? Did this woman kill the guards? Why did she leave the maids and butlers only unconscious and not dead then? It makes no sense, Morenna. Something is still missing."

Many questions. Almost no answers.

The King and Queen were growing angrier, but both knew that anger would not serve them here.

They had answers to find. They had Tiered Families to appease after their heirs had been placed in mortal danger inside the Hood’s own palace.

That responsibility was theirs regardless of whether they were the victims.

But it was not only the Tiered Families that demanded attention.

"Two sisters of the Church of Death were also killed." Persephone added.

"To hell with them." Morenna spat, unmoved by the deaths of her grandmother-in-law’s pawns.

"Have you informed her?" Dantes asked, referring to his grandmother, the mother of his father.

"No." Persephone replied. "She cut all contact with me some time ago. I no longer recall the reason, perhaps one of me did something to displease her. I have informed the High Priestess instead. She should be—!"

She stopped abruptly and turned her head. Dantes and Morenna mirrored her.

Persephone lowered the barrier.

There, entering through the door of the Hall of Welcomes, were two women.

One was clearly Helene Mars, the High Priestess, her face wearing a carefully composed sorrow.

At her side was a woman, tall and straight, wearing a stunning white robe, black hair falling down her back like ink spilled across pale paper, with cold purple eyes so striking that most men and women found themselves shivering just to look into them.

A scar traced the edge of her lips. And rather than diminishing her, it only made her more.

Her presence was like a whisper, almost nonexistent, fleeting like a mirage, as if she were a dream never meant to be fully seen or lived, only glimpsed, and never forgotten afterward.

The Hall of Welcomes went completely silent. The heirs choked on the quiet silence that was somehow wrong, somehow deeper than it should have been.

Even sound itself seemed to go still.

"I came as quickly as I could." Helene said, breaking the tension at last. "However, I was in the middle of a conversation with this lady, who had come for a confession and a blessing...for her and her husband."

"Husband?" Dantes and Morenna echoed, and then their eyes widened slightly in quiet understanding as the woman’s purple gaze settled on Cassius.

At that moment, she took one step forward, letting her eyes sweep the room before coming to rest on the King and the Queen.

She smiled, and bowed her head with respectful composure.

"I pay my respects to the King and Queen of the Kingdom." She said, her voice sweet and unhurried. "Allow me to introduce myself."

Anesthesia’s heart was hammering.

Emrys’s face carried a frown.

Natalia’s eyes went somber. Keisha’s were shining as if she had just come face to face with her idol.

Every other heir stood stunned, watching this woman who bore an eerie resemblance to Anesthesia yet felt entirely different.

No one could explain why. But she felt...more.

That sensation only intensified when she spoke again. Her voice was barely above a whisper, yet it echoed somewhere deep within each of them — like a sound that would never fully fade.

"I am Isolde Amaris. Firstborn of the Tier Three Amaris Household. And most importantly..."

She lifted her head slightly. Her purple eyes found Cassius’s red ones.

They both smiled.

"...I am Cassius Desdemona’s wife."

—End of Chapter 112—