CHAPTER 67: THE PATH THAT GLOWS

Alaric led Auralyne into the courtyard.

He said nothing along the way.

The morning air hung cool and weightless, thick with silence yet brimming with purpose. Light streamed through the high arches above, bathing the white-stone path in soft gold.

The courtyard was vast, encircled by flowering trees and crystalline lanterns, untouched by wind or idle sound.

He walked ahead with steady steps and sat down upon a simple chair near the center—neither throne nor bench, but a seat carved of pale stone and divine aura, meant for reflection, not rule.

His gaze was fixed to the east, toward the distant spires beyond the veil of mountains. The silence lingered.

Then, without looking back, his voice drifted like a quiet decree:

"They will come tonight."

Auralyne stood behind him, still. Listening.

"You will guide them through the path that glows,"

He continued,

"after everyone is asleep."

His voice carried no weight of doubt. Only certainty, veiled in calm.

Then finally, he turned his head and looked at her.

"They will arrive by midnight."

The sun was still climbing. Morning birds had just begun their cautious songs. And yet the command was final. The future was already moving, and the stars had begun their descent.

*****

✢═─༻༺═✢═─༻༺═✢

✶ I Reincarnated as an Extra ✶

✧ in a Reverse Harem World ✧

⊱ Eternal_Void_ ⊰

✢═─༻༺═✢═─༻༺═✢

*****

Auralyne said nothing. But her heart stirred.

She stood there in the courtyard, the cool breeze brushing against her cheeks, carrying the scent of divine flora blooming in silence. Morning light filtered through leaves kissed by mana, gilding her figure in trembling gold.

She remembered the day she was told—coldly, cleanly—that she would be given away.

Not married.

Not engaged.

Given.

As an exchange. A tool for diplomacy. A living offering for a national-level treasure buried in history and greed.

No one asked her.

No one needed to.

That had always been the palace way.

In those days, she had trained her expression to remain calm, her words to remain gentle, her back to never bend even under silk. She imagined the man who would receive her—an aging noble, or a deranged collector of beautiful things.

She had prepared herself to endure it. To smile. To swallow it all like another ceremonial duty laced in poison.

But nothing—nothing—could have prepared her for this.

The girls were the first surprise.

Aurevia, aloof and proud, yet warm beneath her sword’s edge. Cellione, bold and mischievous, quick to tease and quicker to defend. Serineth, shy and soft-spoken, but with eyes that saw through walls.

And Virellen—gods, Virellen—a storm of wit and charm, who had nearly made her spit tea from laughter three times in a single afternoon.

They treated her not like a rival, nor a stranger, but like a long-lost sister.

They made her laugh.

Truly laugh.

Something she had forgotten how to do inside that golden cage called Caerywn.

But even stranger than that...

Was him.

The Master.

Alaric Aurelian.

From the moment she first laid eyes on him, she knew he was unlike any man she had ever met. Mysterious, yes—but not in the way that cloaks and riddles hide. His mystery was rooted in stillness. In clarity.

He moved like a man who had seen too far and carried it all in silence. He spoke not with thunder, but with gravity. When he said something, the world listened.

And yet... he was kind. Disarmingly so. Not soft, never weak—but kind, in a way that could be mistaken for mercy if one didn’t know better.

He walked these halls without fanfare. Tended to flowers with his own hands. Sat with the girls when they were eating, sometimes saying nothing for minutes, and yet his presence made them smile.

He remembered every word she spoke. Not just out of formality—but because he cared.

And he was handsome. Obscenely so. But it wasn’t the kind of beauty forged in palaces. It was older, deeper—like marble shaped by time, by silence, by storm. Sometimes she caught herself staring, heart tightening without cause.

She had come expecting chains.

Instead, she found warmth.

She had been told to surrender her pride.

But they had offered her a place. A strange, beautiful place.

And now, standing in this courtyard, hearing the calm weight of his command echo through her... she realized:

She wasn’t a hostage.

She wasn’t even a guest.

She was becoming something else entirely.

She inhaled slowly.

The morning light was growing brighter now, but the warmth she felt wasn’t from the sun. It came from something steadier—something that had begun to kindle deep inside her since arriving here. A sense of belonging, undefined but undeniable. And perhaps, in its earliest bloom... loyalty.

Midnight.

They would arrive by midnight.

Alaric’s words had not been loud, but they weighed more than orders. They were entrustments. And he had entrusted this task to her.

No guard, no knight, no seal of divine warding—just her.

She looked at his back, still seated on that chair of silent stone. He did not speak again. He didn’t need to.

He had already turned her world upside down with nothing but trust.

"I’ll be ready,"

She whispered, not for his sake, but her own.

With a gentle nod, she turned and left the courtyard. Her steps were light, but each one echoed with resolve.

She returned to her quarters first, not rushing, but careful—measured. She unwrapped the ceremonial sash she had worn since arrival and replaced it with a simpler one gifted by Cellione—stitched by hand, slightly uneven, and yet more real than any embroidery from the royal ateliers.

She braided her hair in the style Aurevia had taught her one night by candlelight, soft and elegant, but easy to undo in silence.

And she chose a pair of shoes Virellen had playfully insisted she wear—quiet leather soles, designed for "sneaking around like a proper delinquent."

She had laughed then.

She smiled now.

Finally, she knelt before the low trunk beneath her bed, and opened it. Within lay the token Alaric had given her last night, wrapped in silk. A simple stone pendant—gray and uncut—but when she pressed mana into it, it pulsed faintly with light, and the whisper of runes began to stir across its surface.

A beacon. A guide. And a key.

The path that glows.

She would lead them through it.

She didn’t know who "they" were.

She didn’t need to.

Because the one who sat behind the curtain—behind the weight of heaven and silence—had trusted her.

And she would not let him down.

-To Be Continued