CHAPTER 429: A LESSON TO LEARN-I

The ministers who had once sneered at Arabella’s influence no longer had the courage to defend Christopher. Outwardly they maintained the slow civility of court life, but every furtive glance and tightened jaw betrayed a realization they would not voice aloud: the castle answered to her now. It was not theirs to dismiss her commands or to pretend her authority did not exist.

So they did the only thing left to courtiers whose teeth have been blunted by fear— they watched in silence while Christopher dissolved into cold sweat.

He dabbed at his forehead with a trembling hand, trying to arrange a posture of composure, but when his eyes met hers he felt something like a thorn push up through the ground and pin him to the spot. Arabella’s gaze was a blade; it rooted him where he stood.

"I do not repeat myself," she said, the calm in her voice so absolute that Juan visibly flinched.

"Milady—" he began in a hush, but she cut him off with the small, courteous lift of a smile that carried no warmth.

"I find that those who ask deserve an answer," she said, her tone light but steely. "A taste of their own medicine, naturally."

They all knew she hadn’t slept. The rumour moved through the corridors like smoke— Arabella was running on too little rest, eyes dark at the rims, yet her face somehow more luminous than before. The witch’s beauty had only sharpened with power, and that made them more afraid, not less. Some whispered she had gone too far; others suspected she had become Cassius in spirit. None of those murmurs broke the silence now.

Christopher’s breath shortened; beads of sweat tracked down his temple. His hands trembled like leaves in a high wind. He looked smaller than his title allowed, a man exposed.

Arabella took up the weapon with casual precision— a curious blueprint rendered into steel. "A gun of this caliber can kill anything," she said, turning it in her hands as if admiring a difficult poem. Her eyes never left Christopher’s face. "If someone could mass-produce this blueprint, it would become protection for any who held it." She let the words settle before she continued, deliberate and slow.

"But this is not a weapon for the careless," she added, her voice cool. "If it falls into the wrong hands, it will be your undoing." Her smile tightened. "Worse: it is designed to wound a vampire so their wounds will not knit, and to deliver a potion’s equivalent to a sorcerer— a concoction that stops the heart dead."

A murmur rose like a draft through the training ground. Someone half-rose, wanting to state their own thoughts but in the end moved backward, the motion timid, and ashamed.

"But weapons are for the kingdom’s sake—" a minister protested, the old reflex of duty catching his voice.

Arabella’s stare sliced through him. "Those weapons I forge," she said, her tone flattening into something that left no room for argument, "are not for anyone’s sake."

The ground exhaled into a silence heavier than any accusation. Christopher’s face went chalk-pale. He had opened a door he could not shut, tested something he couldn’t bear. Around the table where Arabella had stood, the other ministers shifted uneasily, the same thought passing like a shadow across all their minds: power had changed hands, and Arabella would not be generous with it.

"Now stand straight Christopher. Everyone is so interested in how this weapon would do. I don’t want to bring them a shame," Arabella raised her gun and Christopher closed his eyes.

They were all taught to obey the King and Queen since childhood. To go against them was impossible, especially when they have family at their estate waiting for them. It was natural that despite his fear and anger for the unfairness, Christopher couldn’t utter a word or go against her demand, not when Cassius had declared her as the one to take over his power when he is asleep.

Gradually, Christopher’s vision blurred. The thought of death crept into his skull, gnawing at him, whispering what would be left of him once his body fell cold. All he could hear was his own ragged breath— in, out, in, out— while the grass beyond swayed lazily in the wind, mocking him with its calm. Mocking him for testing the patience of the green-eyed witch.

"Christopher," Arabella called.

His head jerked toward her, and he found her gaze waiting— sharp, deliberate, and filled with a question he didn’t want answered: was the taste of death as sweet as he had once wished upon others?

"Watch closely," she murmured.

Her finger curled around the trigger with ease, and in that heartbeat, Christopher saw the bullet —a smooth marble of iron— burst forward. Time seemed to break apart, stretched between life and death. He saw its gleam, felt its promise.

Terror swallowed him whole. He threw his hands over his head, eyes squeezing shut. The gun’s roar split the air, followed by the violent shatter of bone and flesh. Something wet and hot sprayed across his face.

For a moment, he thought he had died. His heart stopped as surely as if it had been pierced. When he dared to open his eyes, he was still standing.

Shaking, he touched his cheek. His fingers came back red. Blood. A scream tore itself from his throat— high, unbidden— and only then did he realize he was still alive.

"H-How—"

His head snapped toward the source. At his left lay a stag, half its body obliterated, its lifeblood soaking into the dirt. The sight of it— of what could so easily have been him— wrung a dry swallow from his throat.

"I am the only one who can wield this weapon," Arabella said evenly, setting the gun back upon the table with deliberate care. Her eyes lingered on it, her expression unreadable.

She knew what was coming. This was her creation, her sin. One day, someone would try to mimic it— to twist what she had made for protection into a tool of slaughter. The ministers wanted nothing less than to amass it, to turn her invention into power.

She would not let it happen. Not while she still drew breath.

"Do you all understand it now?"