Chapter 215
A faint, ghostly smile appeared on Cassian’s lips, only to disappear almost immediately like smoke in the wind. "He looked up at me with his failing eyes and laughed softly. He said to me, ’Cassian, a king who protects only the strong and discards the weak has already failed as a sovereign.’"
Lin Wan watched his stoic side profile, her heart aching slightly for the heavy weight the young boy must have felt carrying those final words.
"So..." Cassian turned his head slowly to look directly into her eyes. "Since that dark day... I stopped believing that brute strength alone could preserve and protect a kingdom."
Lin Wan asked gently, "What protects it then?"
"Responsibility does," he answered without hesitation. "Absolute, unwavering responsibility."
Lin Wan didn’t answer immediately. She had fully expected him to deliver another stern lecture about kingdom security, rules, or power dynamics.
Instead, he had shared a deeply personal memory from his childhood, revealing a small piece of the foundation that built his cold, unyielding personality.
She took a slow, quiet breath and asked, "Is that why you spend every hour of every day working yourself to the bone in the council hall? Is that why you handle every border report, every grain reserve, and every defensive line personally?"
Cassian gave a firm, single nod. "If I stop managing the realm for even a single day... if I let my guard down... someone under my care dies. That’s the reality of ruling a realm surrounded by hungry enemies."
His voice was calm when he said it. Too calm, in fact. It was the voice of a man who had accepted a heavy, suffocating burden a very long time ago and had completely forgotten how to lay it down.
Lin Wan lowered her eyes, looking at her reflection in the dark tea liquid. "It must be terribly lonely," she whispered softly.
The words escaped her lips before she could catch them or lock them away.
Cassian looked slightly surprised by her statement, his golden eyes widening just a fraction. "Lonely?"
"You carry everything entirely by yourself," Lin Wan said, raising her gaze to meet his.
"You build high walls around your kingdom, but you build even higher walls around your own heart. You never let anyone share your burdens, and you never let anyone truly help you." She smiled bitterly, a look of profound understanding in her soft eyes. "I know exactly what that feels like."
Cassian studied her quiet face, his sharp features softening almost imperceptibly. "You think you understand?"
Lin Wan nodded honestly. "When I first arrived in this strange Beast World... lost, terrified, and completely out of my depth... I thought I had to solve every single problem by myself. I thought that if I showed any fear or vulnerability, I wouldn’t survive. So I kept pretending I was fine every single day. I smiled when I was terrified inside. I told everyone who cared about me that I could handle everything on my own." She let out a small, breathless laugh. "I was absolutely terrible at lying back then."
For a split second, the cold corners of Cassian’s mouth twitched, as if he were holding back a rare, genuine smile. "I can imagine you were."
She looked directly at him, her dark eyes shining with quiet truth. "But eventually... through a lot of pain and hard lessons... I learned that depending on someone else doesn’t make you weak or pathetic. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It just means... you trust them enough to hold you up when you can’t stand on your own."
Those meaningful words lingered heavy and clear in the quiet room.
Cassian didn’t reply right away. He seemed to process her words deeply, turning them over in his complex mind. Instead of arguing or dismissing her thoughts, he slowly turned around and walked toward one of the tall dark-wood bookshelves lining the far wall of the chamber.
His long, pale fingers brushed across the dusty spines of several ancient leather volumes before stopping on a worn, dark-brown book with faded gold lettering along its spine.
He pulled it from the shelf with careful, deliberate movements.
He walked back across the room and held the heavy book out to her. "This book belonged to my teacher. It’s the only personal item he left behind for me."
Lin Wan carefully set her tea cup down on a nearby side table and accepted the heavy tome with both hands.
The leather cover was scratched and aged by centuries of handling, and its corners were soft and rounded. The faint scent of old parchment and dried pressed herbs drifted from its yellowed pages.
She opened the cover slowly and carefully. On the very first page, written in sharp, dark black ink that had faded slightly over time, was a single short sentence:
"A ruler’s greatest enemy is not hatred from his foes. It’s the silent loneliness of his own mind."
Lin Wan read the short sentence twice, feeling the heavy, bitter truth behind the elegant handwriting. She looked back up at Cassian, her dark eyes filled with a new perspective. "You still keep it close to you."
"I read that sentence whenever I start to forget why I carry this crown," Cassian confessed quietly, standing with his hands tucked loosely behind his back.
Lin Wan closed the heavy book gently, keeping her thumb marked between its pages. "You haven’t forgotten, Cassian. Not at all."
Cassian gave a faint, almost invisible shake of his head. "No. I haven’t forgotten. I simply become... deeply tired sometimes."
The room fell into another long, peaceful quiet. Neither of them paid any attention to the passing minutes or the cold wind rattling the window panes outside.
For the very first time since she had been brought to this grand stone fortress, Lin Wan wasn’t looking at the terrifying, ruthless Manticore King who ruled the realm with an iron fist.
She was looking at a deeply weary man who had been forced to carry an agonizing burden far heavier than anyone around him could ever truly comprehend.
She still couldn’t forgive him for locking her away from her life. She still wanted with every fiber of her soul to leave this place and return to the people she loved.
But for the very first time, she understood that behind the unyielding, terrifying mask of the sovereign, there was also a soul who had been standing completely alone in the freezing cold for a very long time.
Just then, a heavy, urgent knock echoed sharply against the thick wooden chamber doors, shattering the quiet atmosphere into pieces.
Captain Ronan’s stern, raised voice called out from the hallway. "Your Majesty! Forgive the interruption, but there’s an urgent, high-level battle report from General Rowan in the war room!"
In an instant, the gentle, vulnerable man standing before her vanished without a trace. Cassian’s posture straightened, his shoulders broadened, and his dark features hardened back into the absolute mask of the Sovereign. His golden eyes flashed with sharp, cold authority.
"Come in," Cassian commanded, his deep voice carrying through the thick wood.
Captain Ronan pushed the heavy doors open and hurried into the room, kneeling quickly on the polished floor. "Your Majesty, the forward aerial scouts have just returned to the fortress. They’ve officially confirmed that the main force of the Silver Leopard army has successfully crossed Black Wolf Ridge. They’re advancing forward at a remarkably rapid pace!"
Cassian’s golden eyes narrowed into thin, dangerous slits. "What’s their exact distance from our border gates?"
Ronan answered without a single second of hesitation, his voice tense. "At their current marching speed, without resting... they’ll reach our outer defensive perimeter and the forward spirit barriers... by tomorrow evening."
The remaining warmth inside the grand chamber vanished completely, replaced by a cold, heavy atmosphere of impending war.
Lin Wan’s breath hitched in her throat. She unconsciously tightened her grip around the old leather book in her hands, her knuckles turning pale against the worn cover.
Tomorrow.
The inevitable moment that everyone inside and outside the Citadel had been waiting for with bated breath... was finally about to arrive.
The heavy silence inside the grand chamber stretched on long after Captain Ronan delivered his grim update. The faint crackle of the fireplace seemed dull and quiet compared to the roaring tension that now filled the room.
Lin Wan slowly lowered her dark eyes back down to the ancient book resting in her arms. Her fingers twitched slightly against the textured leather.
Tomorrow.
The single word echoed endlessly inside her mind like a heavy iron bell. The people who loved her, the warriors who were willing to tear down mountains for her, and the sovereign who insisted on holding her fast were all about to collide right outside these stone walls.
Captain Ronan remained kneeling patiently on the cold floor, keeping his eyes fixed on the patterned rug. "General Rowan has respectfully requested Your Majesty’s immediate presence in the main council hall to review the final defense deployments, sire."
Cassian didn’t offer an immediate response. His intense golden eyes shifted toward Lin Wan’s quiet face for a brief, fleeting second, registering the sudden tension in her posture, before he turned his full attention back to his captain.
"Inform Rowan that I’ll be there shortly," Cassian ordered smoothly.