CHAPTER 509: FACING HIS PAST

Cedric’s heart dropped to his stomach when he heard that voice. He was initially flooded by confusion. They Raziel brought him here and wherever they were he didn’t sense Kaiden at his

Cedric’s brows furrowed deeply. He didn’t believe what his eyes were showing him.

Kaiden.

It wasn’t a memory. It wasn’t a trick of the light.

It was Kaiden, bloodied, chained, breathing heavily. His eyes were not playing tricks on him; he could recognise his scent, too.

Kaiden’s teeth were gritting, he could barely move from the pain. His body was stabbed with several blades. Even speaking felt like a chore.

Kaiden looked like he had been dragged through death’s door, yet somehow yanked back right before stepping through it. His skin was pale beneath the smears of blood. Chains bound his wrists and ankles, and deep cuts marred his chest.

His clothes hung in rags. The glint of metal cuffs dug into his flesh like the chains were never meant to hold him but punish him for burning through his skin.

Kaiden had always been proud. Always composed. Seeing him this way did something to Cedric’s chest that he couldn’t put words to. The proud king had been reduced to nothing

"You’re..." Cedric’s voice came out hoarse. "But you’re dead." Cedric blurted trying to piece everything together. How could he see Kaiden, who was dead?

Kaiden’s eyes were still wide with disbelief, like he was the one hallucinating. "Cedric?" he whispered, like saying the name might shatter some illusion.

They stared at each other, both confused by the other’s presence.

The air between them was too tense, too heavy. It carried decades of grief.

Kaiden tried to move, but a groan tore through him as the chains rattled violently. He winced, then gave a bitter smile. "How are you here?" he muttered, mostly to himself. He then looked away. "Did Lucien kill you?" The king knew Lucien wouldn’t keep Cedric alive, knowing the threat he posed to him.

Cedric said nothing. His gaze wandered across the cell for the first time. Was this hell? He wondered.

He didn’t know how he knew, but something deep inside him whispered it. This wasn’t just some dungeon.

The walls bled warmth, not the comforting kind, but the suffocating, dry heat that crawled under the skin and stayed there. The air itself burned as he breathed it in, filled with smoke and something metallic—like blood and iron. The distant echoes of torment never stopped agonised screams, distorted laughter, the kind that made goosebumps rise beneath the skin.

There was something wrong with this place. Something primal.

The stones beneath his feet were slick and blackened, and the low growl of pain from creatures he couldn’t see stirred something deep inside him. There was no light here. Only the dull flicker of dying torches seemed to survive out of cruelty.

And in the middle of it Kaiden. His father. The man who was irrefutably his father. The one he once looked up to.

Kaiden was a man who had done unspeakable things, who Cedric had hated with every drop of blood he carried. Yet he still silently grieved his death which came suddenly.

A man who once tried to use him like a pawn. Who left him bleeding under everyone’s gaze. Kaiden never blinked once, seeing how he was treated, or visited him once when he was sick from poisoning.

But also... The man whose blood ran through his own.

The one he once hoped for the smallest heartfelt approval. The best Kaiden treated him as if he were a general, and yet they tell him, Kaiden loved his mother.

If he loved his mother, why couldn’t he love the child born from that love?

Cedric didn’t know what to feel.

The hatred was there, but it wasn’t sharp anymore. Just dull and tired. Like a blade that had been used too long and too often.

He took one step closer, then another.

Kaiden’s head rested back against the wall, his chest rising and falling unevenly. "If you’re here, you must be dead too," he said dryly, then gave a half-laugh, half-cough. "Of course. Figures I’d see you in hell."

Cedric didn’t correct him. "I guess you silently prayed for my death", Cedric scoffed, his eyes darting around the cell. Those eerie dark walls didn’t reduce the screams.

"Too bad you died before me, dear father." His lips pressed into a thin line. "What is this place?"

Kaiden’s eyes fluttered, dark lashes heavy with fatigue. "The space between. Not heaven. Not the realm of gods. Definitely not the mortal plane. Just... where broken souls go when their souls have been rejected for reincarnation." the former king said.

Cedric sneered, that wasn’t surprising. Kaiden’s soul could not be reincarnated. Why did he have a feeling Raziel had a hand in that? This was his realm after all.

Raziel decides the fate of the dead. From what he heard.

"Why are you here then if you are not dead?" Raziel asked him barely able to lift his head.

"Even I don’t know why," Cedric muttered.

A low laugh escaped Kaiden’s lips..dark and heavy. How could he laugh in his situation? Cedric’s eyes narrowed at the Kaiden.

"You must be here to mock me then." Kaiden chuckled. His eyes were dead and hollow. "You must have been happy to hear about my death," Kaiden added. His heart squeezed for an unknown reason.

"I wish I were happy with your death," Cedric admitted. Kaiden’s heart bobbed up stunned. His face was pale with disbelief. "You..." He stuttered.

Cedric smirked then added. "It’s not that I hated your death trust me I wish I was the one who ended you myself, unfortunately someone beat me to it",

Kaiden laughed again, this was indeed his son.. Kaiden was not disheartened by his words. He deserved this from the son whom he could never bring himself to love.

"Callista was faster than I was. I was surprised to find out that she was the maid spiking my drugs. I didn’t find out until I was forced to look back at my life when I arrived here." Kaiden’s eyes darkened. He was forced to relive everything.