CHAPTER 160: THE ONES WHO LET HER DIE

[Cassius’s POV—Imperial Hall, Cassius’s Chamber, Nightfall]

The sound of my boots echoed across the obsidian floors—each step like a gavel pounding against the bones of memory.

The palace was silent now. Deadly silent.

Not even the wind dared whistle through the high-arched corridors.

The guards at my chamber door stood to attention, but I only spared them a glance. Ravick was already waiting, as expected—his presence like a shadow stitched to my spine. As I approached, he bowed low.

"Your Majesty."

I didn’t slow my stride. "If you’re here to beg for my daughter’s forgiveness..." I flung the door open. "Get out."

He followed me anyway.

Of course he did.

"No, Your Majesty," Ravick said, falling into step behind me. "I am no one to meddle between a father and his daughter."

I paused.

Turned.

My eyes narrowed into blades. "You are her personal knight."

He bowed again, low and respectful. "That title was claimed by Lord Osric after his oath."

"Osric," I muttered, lips curling around the name like it burned. "He’s a person who took an oath. Nothing more."

I pushed open the doors to my chambers.

The fire was still lit.

Shadows stretched long and thin across the cold floor.

I walked inside, poured a glass of wine that tasted like ashes, and sank into the high-backed chair that overlooked the gardens below.

"I don’t want that boy circling her like a vulture...but I cannot stop him either," I muttered, more to myself than to him. "After all, I don’t want history to repeat itself."

My voice cracked against the stone walls—harsh, bitter, loaded with a fury the world could never understand.

Ravick stood near the hearth, silent, because he knows what I am saying.

And then he said it. The words made the fire hiss and my grip tighten around the glass.

"But... it seems like nothing is changing, Your Majesty." He stared at me with haunted eyes. "I feel like everything is falling into place... just like before."

He swallowed. "Can we really save her this time? Can we stop what’s coming? Or are we going to lose the princess again in this life?"

I turned to him slowly. My voice dropped to a rasp.

"NO."

I slammed the glass down on the table—wine splashing like blood across the silver.

"No," I repeated, slower. "I am not losing her. Not in this life. Not again."

The silence between us grew thick.

Ravick shifted uneasily. "Then... what do we do now, Your Majesty?"

I turned to the window, where the moon was high and merciless.

"Have you found the priest?"

He shook his head. "Not yet."

I cursed under my breath. "Then keep looking. Turn over every stone in this cursed empire. Because I am starting to believe—"

My fingers curled into fists. "—that Lavinia remembers everything."

Ravick stiffened. His eyes widened. "Y-Your Majesty... how could you possibly—"

"She hired a guild master," I cut him off, my voice sharper than any blade drawn in my court. "To dig into the name Eleania Talvan."

Ravick’s face drained of all color. "How... how is that possible, Your Majesty? She was never supposed to—"

"Exactly," I growled, rising slowly from my seat, the shadows of the tall windows casting slashes of light across my face. "She was never supposed to remember her past life. The life where I—" I paused, the words scraping my throat raw. "The life where I abandoned her like a coward... the life where I neglected her... broke her. She was never supposed to remember that nightmare."

I turned away, the weight of my own guilt clawing its way up my spine like ice.

"I burned every trace. Buried every name. Made sure time itself would forget. So—why now?" My voice dropped to a whisper, laced with dread. "Why now... is she searching for Eleania Talvan?"

Ravick’s hands trembled as he bowed his head. "Perhaps... perhaps the princess is remembering through dreams. The way you did... Your Majesty."

A bitter laugh escaped my throat, hollow and humorless. "Dreams... curses that bleed through time."

I turned sharply, eyes dark and cold. "There is something more than that, Ravick. I can feel it. but I also feel like the universe is mocking me. Is fate demanding she suffer again for my sins?"

"I don’t know what to believe anymore. I just know this—" I slammed my fist on the window frame, the sound echoing like thunder. "— I do not want her to remember."

Ravick looked at me, startled. "Your Majesty..."

I stared out at the capital—the city I had conquered, the world I had reshaped, all to escape that one truth. After all, how can I—her father—allow her to recall the damned life I gave her before? How can I let my daughter carry the weight of a pain I authored with my own hands?

I cannot let it happen. If I have to burn the world to protect her, let it be.

I exhaled, slow and shaking. Then, coldly, "Find that priest, Ravick. The one who spoke of rebirth and borrowed fates. I don’t care if you tear apart every temple in the kingdom or the entire continent. Bring him to me, because only he has the answers."

Ravick bowed. "Yes, Your Majesty."

Because deep down... I already knew. Someone—something—wanted her to remember. And this time, I may not be able to protect her from the truth. Or myself.

But as I turned, expecting solitude...He didn’t leave.

I saw it then—the stiffness in his posture.The tightness in his jaw.The way he stood like a man balancing a blade on his tongue.

I narrowed my gaze.

"Speak," I said, my voice cracking like a whip through the silence. "You came here to ask something. Don’t test my patience. Say it."

He raised his eyes to mine, not with defiance—but with something close to fear laced in duty.

"With all due respect, Your Majesty... Why are Lord Osric and Caelum still permitted near her?"

The air thickened. Even the fire in the hearth seemed to pause.

My eyes narrowed. "What are you implying, Ravick?"

He stood straighter, though I saw the tremble in his fingers.

"They were the reason, Your Majesty. The reason we lost her the first time."

His words struck like a blade—sharp, familiar, unavoidable.

I turned my head, slowly, to the gardens beyond the arched windows. Where Osric’s eyes were on the Dawnspire wing at Lavinia’s chamber, where she is grounded.

And then I answered, not with rage, but with something colder. Deeper. A truth carved from the marrow of my soul.

"Because that... is how you change fate, Ravick."

He blinked. Confused.

But I kept going, my voice low, bitter, echoing like an ancient curse.

"The ones who failed her. The ones who let her die in the last life... Will be the ones who bleed to protect her in this one."

His breath stilled.

I rose slowly from my chair, the flames casting cruel light across my crown, my face, and my sins.

"I want fate to watch this story unfold. I want the gods to choke on the ending I carve for her. Lavinia will live, Ravick. She will live—if I have to shatter heaven and hell alike to make it so."

A pause.

Then, lower, almost reverent—almost broken:

"...And if that means putting her back in the lion’s den... then so be it.Let the lions learn fear."

Ravick lowered his head with slow reverence. "As you command, Your Majesty."

I didn’t answer.

Not until my eyes returned to him.

"What about Marquess Everett?"

His voice was quiet, wary. "He remains silent... for now, Your Majesty."

"Keep an eye on him." My tone brooked no argument. "And on everyone who breathes in his shadow."

Ravick bowed again, deeper this time. "It will be done."

Then he turned, and with a soft creak of the ancient hinges, the chamber doors closed behind him.

And I remained—

Alone.

The fire crackled quietly in the hearth, but its warmth could not reach the cold carving its way through my chest. I lifted the goblet to my lips, sipping the wine... bitter, metallic. It tasted like regret.

"Lavinia..." I breathed her name into the empty room like a curse and a prayer in one.My daughter. My blood. My ruin. My redemption.

Even before I remembered the past, the strings of fate always pulled me closer to her in this life. As if my soul knew... Knew what my mind had long forgotten.

The sins I carried.The scars I left.

Before her tenth birthday... before the war stole me from her side... I was just a man—flawed, blinded, but trying. But then the memories came flooding back.

Not like a dream—No.Like a curse.

Each flash from my past struck like lightning across my mind—her eyes filled with hurt, her voice trembling as she called out for me.

Her silence.Her loneliness.Each one, a dagger to the heart.Each one, a mirror to the man I used to be.

I thought I was protecting her from this cruel world... But in time, I realized—I wasn’t protecting her.

I was breaking her.