CHAPTER 558: THE DEMAND OF A DARK MAGE

The hall froze around Sheila’s final words, the last syllable hanging in the air like a drawn blade. For a heartbeat—maybe two—no one dared to breathe. Then the silence cracked, splintered into murmurs that spread through the audience like ripples through still water.

Shock, doubt, and outrage. All of it churned together.

"How could a dark mage risk his life for the Crescent princess?" someone whispered, voice trembling with disbelief.

"Nonsense," another scoffed. "Even if she said it, that doesn’t make it true."

"...Is it possible he placed a spell on her?" a third voice muttered, half afraid, half hopeful. That thought caught fast, spreading with unsettling eagerness. "He must have manipulated her mind. There’s no other explanation. No dark mage would ever—could ever—do something so... virtuous."

"Perhaps a corruption spell—"

"A compulsion, maybe—"

"A charm rooted in darkness—"

The murmuring swelled into a low roar, accusations tumbling one over the other, their words fueled not by logic but fear—fear of what it might mean if Sheila’s claim was true. Fear of what it said about them, about their prejudice, about the man standing before them.

Liam did not move. He stood firm, arms at his sides, face carved from cold marble. The accusations washed over him like a tide against immovable stone. Not a flicker of irritation touched his expression, not a hint of defensiveness. He simply watched, eyes steady, posture still. His silence only unsettled them further.

But before another accusation could take flight, Sheila rose sharply from her seat.

Her movement alone was enough to silence half the hall. Her voice silencing the rest.

"Enough," she said, her tone slicing through the noise like a blade through silk.

She stood tall—not as a frightened sixteen-year-old caught between sides, but as the princess who would one day inherit the Crescent throne. Her gaze swept across the sea of faces, each one of them struck into uneasy quiet beneath the authority she carried.

"If Liam Hunter had placed a spell on me," she said calmly, "I would know. I know my own mind better than any of you here."

Her words carried a certainty none could challenge. "And therefore," she continued, "you do not have the right to accuse my statement of being a lie or the product of enchantment—especially when no such spell was cast."

A hush fell over the hall so swiftly it felt unnatural. Shock rippled outward like a wave.

Sheila—young, once timid, once sheltered—now spoke with a boldness that rooted every listener in place. Their expressions shifted, many struggling to reconcile the girl they remembered with the young woman standing before them now. Others stared in disbelief, and some with a strange, reluctant respect.

Yet none dared speak.

Sheila’s gaze lowered then, drawn back to Liam as though the world had momentarily shrunk to just the two of them. Her eyes met his—cold, unreadable, impenetrable—and for a moment she found herself searching for something, anything, that might reveal how he felt beneath that stoic exterior.

And she found it.

It wasn’t much. Just a glint, a quiet acknowledgment. Respect and appreciation, subtle as a shadow.

Then, as though rewarding her courage, he gave her the smallest of smirks—so faint only she and a few sharp-eyed observers would ever notice. It wasn’t mockery. It wasn’t arrogance. It was... recognition. Gratitude he would never speak.

It warmed something in her chest before she could stop it.

But while Sheila’s moment with Liam passed like a soft breeze, King Valemir felt a storm rising within him.

Sheila had confirmed it.

Confirmed the words of a dark mage.

Confirmed that her safety—his daughter’s safety—had depended on someone born of the very myst he had been taught to abhor.

He had nothing left to refute with. Nothing left to deny.

And that truth gnawed at him.

He stared at Liam with simmering frustration, blamed him for forcing this position on him, for inserting himself into matters of Crescent honor. But beneath the anger, beneath the rigid pride, something else flickered.

He knew—painfully—that he now owed this young dark mage a debt he never wanted to acknowledge.

He hadn’t forgotten the shame of Sheila’s abduction. The betrayal of Eliv Borges, the man who had taught and nurtured her for years. The helplessness of knowing his daughter had been handed to Sylvathar by someone she trusted. And he had spent sleepless nights wondering what scars—visible or not—she carried from the experience.

Yet now... she stood taller than ever.

She had grown. Evolved. Strengthened.

And a part of that growth had come from rejecting the fear of dark magic that he had instilled in her.

His emotions twisted, clashing and tearing at each other—pride in her, resentment toward Liam, shame in himself, confusion about what this moment meant for the kingdom.

And then—

A calm, composed voice filtered through his thoughts, touching his mind with the soft pulse of a Silent spell.

"Valemir..." came Queen Eleanora’s voice, soothing, reasoned, carrying that soft undercurrent of wisdom he had fallen in love with long ago. "We both know he is a dark mage. And we both know our kingdom’s laws and principles. But even so... we must acknowledge what he has done."

Her presence in his mind steadied the tempest inside him.

"This boy is one of the reasons our daughter still stands beside us today. If Sheila is strong enough, mature enough, to acknowledge his help despite everything she was raised to believe... then what does it say about us if we refuse to do the same?"

Her words settled heavily into him—weighty, honest, and irrefutable.

Valemir kept his eyes on Liam, searching the boy’s features, questioning the world that had allowed such a contradiction to exist—a dark mage who had saved a princess.

He drew a slow breath.

A long exhale followed.

He allowed himself a small nod of appreciation through the Silent spell, a quiet acknowledgment of Eleanora’s guidance, before letting the last remnants of his anger cool enough for him to speak again.

King Valemir rose his hand, firm and commanding, and the hall obeyed at once. Voices died mid-breath, whispers evaporated, and the tense energy that had been steadily suffocating the chamber compressed into a thick, brittle silence. Every pair of eyes shifted back to the throne, waiting—some in fear, others in confusion, and many in resentment.

Valemir did not look at them. His gaze was locked on Liam, studying him with the same cold scrutiny one might reserve for a dangerous creature caught too close to the palace gates. Liam didn’t flinch. His posture remained as steady and unbothered as it had been from the moment the gathering began, that unreadable, icy composure never once wavering.

At last, the king’s voice broke through the stillness—low, measured, carrying the weight of authority and long-rooted prejudice all at once.

"It is true," he began, "that the child standing before us is a dark mage. Nothing can change this fact, nor can anyone here pretend that such a reality is easy to accept." His eyes narrowed slightly, though not in confusion—more as if he were forcing himself to swallow something intolerable. "His claims were unbelievable... and even now, I do not wish to trust them."

The hall held its breath.

"However," he continued, "the princess—my daughter—whose life was directly entangled in the events described... has confirmed those events to be true. And as king of the Crescent Kingdom, it is only right that I believe the words of the princess, for she is no liar."

The murmurs that followed were faint, scattered across the crowd like sparks trying to ignite. But none dared form a flame—not when Valemir added, in a tone sharp enough to cut through bone:

"No one here is allowed to question her words."

Silence returned, deeper than before.

"Therefore," Valemir declared, the words tasting bitter even as he forced them out, "with that knowledge in mind... the Crescent Kingdom is indebted to Liam Hunter for his bravery in protecting the princess."

That alone sent another ripple through the hall, but this time the people caught themselves quickly, keeping their outrage to nothing more than a suppressed exhale or the tightening of a jaw. For the king had spoken, and defiance was not an option.

Valemir turned back to Liam, and though he had acknowledged the truth, nothing in his expression softened. His eyes still held the same disgust, the same simmering disdain that had been present since the dark mage first stepped into the hall.

"For your... bravery," Valemir said tightly, "what do you wish in return from the Crescent Kingdom?"

Even as he asked it, a small part of him coiled, expecting the worst. A demand for land. Power. Status. Influence. Something outrageous. Something carefully crafted, perhaps even prepared long before this meeting. The boy was too calm, too deliberate.

He waited. The crowd waited. Even Sheila, now seated but still tense from her earlier defense of Liam, leaned forward slightly.

A long minute stretched by before Liam finally spoke.

"There’s nothing I want from the Crescent Kingdom," he said flatly. "Nothing here would benefit me anyway."

It was as if the entire hall snapped its teeth shut at once.

The crowd erupted into whispered outrage—furious but muted, because they still remembered the king’s earlier warning. The words arrogant, ungrateful, and brat drifted through the air like smoke, and Valemir’s jaw tightened, a single muscle ticking along the line of his cheek.

But Liam didn’t so much as acknowledge any of them. His expression remained carved from the same cold stone.

"However," he continued, overriding all their anger with ease, "there is something I wish for the King of Crescent to do."

The hall tensed.

And then Liam said, with the calmness of someone asking the time of day:

"Cancel the restriction term you insisted be placed on me. The precautionary measure regarding Princess Sheila’s safety—part of the agreement between you, King Valemir, and Queen Lucy of the Tempest Kingdom, when the academies reopen."

The words settled heavily over the room, dragging every gaze back to the throne.

Valemir’s eyes darkened—not with confusion this time, but with the dawning realization that Liam had not asked for gold, honor, or privilege.

He had asked for freedom.

And that... that was far more dangerous.