CASSIAN AND THE INFINITE THRONE

CASSIAN AND THE INFINITE THRONE

Volume 2: The Road to the Academy

Chapter 47: The Answer Standing Beside Them

The King lifted one clawed hand before Brightroad completed one step.

“Every gallery is firing!” Oren warned. “Renn, the hobgoblins are advancing beneath tower shields.”

“Astra vel seir.” Layered Aegis expanded around Brightroad. Three translucent planes overlapped into a revolving shell and rang beneath the first iron rain.

“Oren suppresses the left gallery,” Renn ordered. “Tavi stays with Mira. Pella saves mana for grouped targets.”

“I need three breaths,” Oren said while raising his bow.

“You have two,” Renn answered. “Cassian, keep our passage open.”

“Two archers down, three suppressed,” Oren reported. “You have several paces before they recover.”

“Rear ranks are opening firing gaps,” Tavi warned. “The hobgoblins are using themselves as moving cover.”

“This is drilled movement,” Oren said. “They practiced killing formations exactly like ours.”

“Then we disappoint their instructor,” Renn replied without humor.

Cassian focused upon the shamans’ chant. “This is Curse Magic. I recognize the structures, but their language follows no grammar I know.”

So, the monsters have their own unique style of using the magic. Though it is the worst place to become curious.

“The threads passed beneath the barrier,” Cassian warned as cold pressure seized his joints. “They are attacking circulation instead of striking the defense.”

Mira dragged one breath through clenched teeth. “Those are Withering Brands. Healing repairs the damage, but it cannot remove the curse itself.”

Renn caught a hobgoblin blade upon his shield. “How do we break them?”

“A trained Curse Magic practitioner can dismantle them,” Mira said. “Otherwise, the shaman maintaining each brand must die.”

Oren fired toward the nearest platform. “The ward stopped my arrow before the throat. I cannot pierce it from here.”

“Two on my shield,” Renn called as Vital Force flared beneath his armor.

Shielding Drive linked Renn’s boots, knees, spine, shoulder, and shield into one braced structure. The first axe stopped against steel, while the second cracked the stone floor beneath him.

“The stone floor is breaking.” Renn shouted.

“Your left side is folding,” Mira warned.

“Yes, I’m aware” Renn said, driving upward and throwing both attackers into the ordinary ranks.

Pella forced out a Fire incantation. Orange-red flame compressed above her good palm into a narrow lance, pierced four shield faces, and erupted across the goblins sheltering behind them.

“Four shields are open,” she announced as poison seized her injured arm. “The fifth can wait until my fingers become usable again.”

I am still measuring what Brightroad sees while her arm grows numb. That choice sounded defensible before her blood reached the stone.

“I cannot feel three fingers,” Pella said.

“Stop casting through the injured side,” Mira ordered. “The curse is using the poison damage as an anchor.”

“That information has become professionally inconvenient.”

Tavi intercepted one dart, but another knocked the blade from his numbed hand. “I formally object to losing coordination during paid employment.”

Mira voiced a strained Healing incantation. Silver-blue bands closed around Tavi’s forearm, briefly calming the curse-driven spasms before black-violet lines tore through the radiance.

“Hold still, Tavi. I can ease the spasms, but the Brand keeps tearing my structure apart.”

Mira keeps forcing the light together, and the curse keeps tearing it apart. I cannot let secrecy cost them their healer.

Cassian voiced a clipped Earth incantation. Jagged stone walls surged along both flanks of the broad shelf, interlocking into steep barriers that sealed the narrow approaches around Brightroad.

“Both flanks sealed,” he said.

A shaman struck its staff, and black symbols spread through the left wall.

“The structure is being corrupted from within. Left barrier fails within five breaths,” Cassian warned.

“Oren take Renn’s right,” Mira ordered. “Tavi stay behind me, and Pella stop casting.”

“I thought Renn was our leader,” Pella complained.

“I assumed command when everyone began treating the healer’s orders as suggestions,” Mira snapped.

“Wall is breaking now,” Cassian warned.

Tavi cut the rushing hobgoblin’s leg. “Opening created,” Tavi called before Oren’s arrow entered its eye.

“Seven hobgoblins remain on the central approach,” Oren said. “Eight more hold the upper junctions.”

“Three shamans maintain wards,” Cassian replied. “The fourth is corrupting my Earth Magic.”

Renn’s shield arm shook beneath the darkening curse. “Can you build us a route?”

“Not while that shaman breaks every structure I raise.”

“Another line is advancing,” Cassian said. “They watched the front ranks fall, yet none of them hesitate. I cannot tell whether the King commands loyalty, terror, or something the shamans imposed.”

Mira forced out another Healing incantation. Silver-blue threads entered Renn’s shoulder, slowed the bleeding, and began drawing the torn muscle together. “The wound is closing.”

Black-violet lines spread through the radiance and tore it apart before the flesh sealed. “The Brand broke it again.”

“My mana circulation is failing,” she said. “I can prevent immediate deaths, but I cannot restore fighting strength.”

Oren missed by half a handspan. “My vision doubled.”

“Use the center image,” Cassian said. “The false one drifts outward when you breathe.”

Renn planted his shield. “Brightroad retreat three paces on my count, then turn toward the passage.”

“The passage is closing,” Tavi warned. “Two hobgoblins are moving chains behind us.”

A human girl screamed above the battle.

“Hostage above us!” Oren shouted as the King dragged a bound girl onto the highest bridge by her collar.

“Please help me!” the girl screamed, crying profusely. “Please do not let him drop me!”

The King shouted in the monster tongue and pointed toward Brightroad’s weapons. The goblins laughed while striking blades against shields.

Pella’s remaining fire vanished. “He wants us to surrender.”

“If we drop our weapons, everyone dies,” Oren said, though his bow had already lowered.

“If we keep fighting, she dies first,” Mira whispered.

Renn looked from the girl to his companions, whose bodies were failing beneath poison and curse. Cassian remained beside them, bloodied but unnervingly steady.

“Do not surrender,” Tavi said. His voice shook despite the words. “He will kill her after he has us.”

Pella’s eyes filled with furious tears. “Then give me another answer.”

Renn opened his mouth and found none.

I can see Renn searching for an answer, but both choices are lies. I have the only answer left, and using it ends every excuse I have protected.

The King watched Renn’s silence deepen, satisfaction spreading across his scarred face. He looked like a creature savoring control.

The girl twisted desperately in his grip, bare feet scraping uselessly against the stone. “Please, do not let him—”

The King opened his hand, and the darkness took her before anyone could reach the span.

Her scream tore through the chamber as Renn lunged forward despite the impossible distance.

Cassian watched the girl fall beneath the bridge, her reaching fingers shrinking against the abyss.

Screw that. I will not trade her life for another moment of secrecy.

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Mana surged around Cassian, no longer compressed to the narrow limits Brightroad had seen.

Ambient mana closed around his entire body. Air detonated outward in a widening ring, stone cratered beneath his boots, and nearby goblins were hurled across the chamber floor while the solid shelf beneath Brightroad remained stable.

Cassian vanished over the edge before anyone could call his name.

He plunged headfirst into the abyss. A wind shell snapped around him, and distributed pressure drove his entire body downward at roughly eighty-five percent of the speed of sound.

I am still too fast to touch her. Match her fall, support the spine, then slow everything together.

The girl tumbled below him, twisting through darkness. Cassian bled speed before reaching her, spread ambient pressure around her head, spine, chest, and limbs, then matched her fall without allowing a single violent jolt.

He held her carefully. The surrounding field slowed both bodies together until her terrified scream became a ragged breath.

So much for keeping my true abilities secret. Though I would still make the same choice again. So, I shouldn’t fret over it.

Above them, the chamber thundered while Cassian reversed the pressure shell and began rising.

◆ ◆ ◆

Renn raised his shield against falling stone. “The pressure struck before I saw him move. Cassian was already gone when the crater opened.”

“What exactly did he just do?” Renn demanded.

Oren leaned over the edge. “I never saw him cross the distance. He was below us before the stone finished breaking.”

“That was not the levitation he showed us,” Pella whispered. “He hid the speed even while showing his flight at the test.”

Mira caught Tavi’s collar before he leaned farther. “A human body should tear itself apart under that acceleration.”

Tavi stared downward without smiling. “Then Cassian has been negotiating with different rules.”

“Oren, can you estimate his speed?” Renn asked, because numbers felt safer than astonishment.

Oren kept staring into the abyss. “He crossed the visible distance before my eyes could refocus. The pressure struck before I understood he had moved. He was traveling close to the speed of sound.”

I asked him to keep our passage open. He obeyed every order while pretending my limits were his. How many times did I mistake restraint for effort?

Gold was the highest comparison I allowed myself. That belief now feels childish. I do not know what Adamant-class power looks like, but nothing beneath it belongs beside that speed.

Tavi watched the galleries. “Their laughter stopped. They are shouting about the abyss and pointing toward Cassian’s crater.”

Oren watched clawed fingers point downward. “I do not understand their words, but they are frightened by what they saw.”

“Wind is rising below us,” Mira said.

Cassian rose through the darkness with the rescued girl secured against his chest.

Pella tracked him upward. “He slowed before reaching our level, and now he is holding position without touching anything.”

The girl clung to him with both arms. Her face remained hidden against his shoulder, but her breathing proved she was alive.

He went into that darkness faster than my eyes could follow, then returned carrying her as though the abyss had simply handed her back.

Renn forgot the army for one dangerous instant.

“She actually survived,” Mira whispered, staring at the child clinging to Cassian’s shoulder.

Cassian looked toward her. “Mira I’m sending the girl to you. She may have spinal strain, bruising, and shock despite the controlled catch.”

Pella stared upward. “You are giving medical instructions while standing on nothing.”

“The ground is currently inconvenient,” Cassian replied.

Tavi released one unsteady breath. “That explanation has failed to improve the situation.”

The Goblin King roared and struck its throne with one armored fist.

“Another hostage behind the throne,” Tavi warned. “Bound wrists, knife beneath the throat, and no safe angle for an arrow.”

The hobgoblin shouted toward Cassian and pulled her head backward.

Renn saw Cassian’s expression change. The difference was small, but the chamber suddenly felt colder.

A gentle current folded around the girl in Cassian’s arms, holding her face safely against his shoulder and sealing away the chamber’s sounds before he acted.

I should give an order. I am still the leader, yet every command I know became useless the moment that knife touched her throat.

“The knife stopped,” Pella whispered. “He caught the blade before the hobgoblin could tighten its hand.”

An invisible grip locked the blade, wrist, elbow, and shoulder in place. Another current steadied the girl’s body before the hobgoblin could tighten its hold.

Only then did the helmet collapse inward.

“The helmet is collapsing,” Oren said as steel crushed bone and flesh. “The pressure is avoiding the torso and core.”

The corpse began to fall away from the hostage. Separate currents lowered the body, lifted the knife, and carried the girl gently toward Mira.

Pella’s lips parted as she watched the corpse descend. “He never spoke.”

Mira received the girl and drew her behind Renn’s shield. “There was no formal structure. That was not compressed casting.”

“Save the questions,” Renn ordered, though he needed the answers just as badly. “The King is moving again.”

“Every bow changed targets,” Renn warned. “All four shamans are directing their curses toward Cassian.”

“Cassian, the curses are converging!” Mira shouted a warning.

Mira stared upward. “He is gathering ambient mana, how is that possible—, and without speaking nonetheless.”

Cassian remained suspended above the abyss.

Pella followed the forming shell. “Transparent planes are condensing around him. Hundreds of curved facets are overlapping, and pale currents are distributing each impact through the entire sphere.”

“The arrows stopped without touching him,” Oren said. “The curse threads cannot cross the outer surface either.”

“That is not Layered Aegis,” Pella said. “It has no seams.”

Oren lowered his bow without realizing it. “It also has no chant.”

Tavi’s voice tightened. “The entire volley is turning around. Every archer is standing inside its return path.”

They drove through eyes, throats, and open mouths. Invisible force caught every falling body before the abyss could claim it, laying each corpse across the galleries with its core still protected inside.

“He is preserving the cores,” Tavi said. “Even now, he is controlling where every fragment falls.”

Oren tracked empty air between the platforms. “I can follow the results. I cannot see the actions producing them.”

Mira pulled the rescued girl closer. “Count his structures after we survive. Guard the girls now.”

Renn forced his attention toward the approaches. “Brightroad holds formation. Nobody advances beyond the shelf unless Cassian calls.”

I am giving orders because they need my voice. I no longer know whether any command can matter beside what he is doing.

Pella watched green light close inward around the first shaman. “First platform neutralized.”

The second shaman’s own staff reversed and tore through its skull.

Oren recoiled from the impact. “Second platform neutralized.”

Opposing currents lifted the third shaman and tore it apart above the marked stone.

Tavi swallowed against his revulsion. “Third platform neutralized, and nothing fell into the abyss.”

“Last shaman moving toward the rear platform,” Mira warned.

Cassian drove it face-first against the altar before it completed one step.

Stone split beneath the impact, and the shaman’s skull burst across its own curse markings.

Black-violet threads vanished from Brightroad’s bodies as the final shaman’s curse structure collapsed.

Mira drew a deeper breath. “The brands are broken but do not confuse that with being healed.”

Oren blinked twice. “My sight is clearing.”

Tavi flexed his fingers. “My hands have ended their rebellion.”

Mira pressed silver-blue light against Renn’s wound. “The curse is gone. The damage remains.”

Yes, the curse is gone finally, but why I still feel useless? Cassian solved the impossible while I held a shield that could not reach him.

“Ordinary ranks charging!” Renn called before Mira finished speaking.

Oren’s voice tightened as he followed the invisible cuts. “Every pressure line is curving around the cores. The central ranks are collapsing.”

“Three tower shields ahead,” Pella warned. Their armor collapsed inward around them. “All three are down. Their cores remain intact.”

“He is choosing every wound,” Oren said.

Mira kept the rescued girl facing her while the slaughter continued beyond Renn’s shield.

Tavi watched the spears reverse through the charging rank. “Spear formation down. Nothing fell beyond recovery.”

Pella swallowed hard. “He could have done this when the first arrows opened.”

Mira kept her eyes on the rescued girl. “He was still trying to leave without exposing himself.”

“Pella bled for that choice,” Oren said.

Renn tightened his jaw. “Cassian already knows what his restraint cost. We discuss it after every captive is safe.”

I want to defend him because he saved us. I want to accuse him because we suffered while he measured consequences. Both feelings are true, and leadership gives me no place to hide either one.

“Movement inside the crawlways,” Oren warned. Bodies flew backward through the openings. “He is reaching them through the stone.”

“Keep the girls facing us,” Mira ordered as blood crossed the bridges. “Nobody describes what is happening behind them.”

I should be horrified by the blood. I am horrified by the precision. He knows where every core rests, where every hostage breathes, and how much force each body can survive before it cannot.

Pella’s voice barely carried. “They cannot even run from him.”

“Do not pity them more than their captives,” Mira said quietly. “But do not pretend this is easy to witness.”

Tavi’s usual grin failed to appear. “I was not planning to pretend anything for several years.”

Mira kept the rescued hostages behind her. “Do not look at the bridges. Keep your eyes on me.”

Pella pointed with her good hand. “One visible goblin remains beneath that shield.”

“The visible chamber is finished,” Oren said after its neck twisted. “Cassian is still watching passages we cannot see.”

“There are more alive beyond this chamber,” Cassian said. “None can reach the captives before us.”

Oren looked toward the sealed passages. “You know their locations without seeing them.”

“I can sense their movement through the stone,” Cassian replied, his gaze remaining on the King. “The prisoners are still alive, and none of the remaining goblins can reach them before us.”

Renn heard the answer Cassian had avoided and chose not to pursue it while children remained imprisoned.

He left the King alive deliberately. That should comfort me, because it proves control. Instead, it tells me the slaughter was never difficult enough to require haste.

Renn raised his shield. “Only the Goblin King remains in the chamber.”

“Take the girls to the eastern passage,” Cassian said. “Five more girls are alive beyond two barred doors.”

“We are not discussing anything until they are safe,” Mira replied.

“That was already my intention,” Cassian replied before flying toward the throne.

I keep waiting for the King to reveal something that matters. Cassian watches every attack without concern, and that certainty frightens me more than the creature’s rage.

Pella followed the turning layers. “The entire defense moved with him. I still cannot find one seam or exposed direction.”

Oren watched the trembling weapon. “The King is afraid, but the fear is making it angrier.”

“The Goblin King is charging with the cleaver,” Renn warned.

Tavi watched three impacts fail. “The platform cratered, the cleaver broke, and the barrier never moved.”

Pella stared through the transparent layers. “It is not absorbing the blows. It is passing each impact around him.”

Mira watched the light circulate. “No formal barrier should maintain that many directions without collapsing its own structure.”

Oren lowered his bow. “The Goblin King cannot reach him.”

“Cassian knows,” Renn said. “He is letting the creature understand it.”

Cassian is not in a hurry to defeat the Goblin King. He is giving the monster time to recognize defeat.

“It is using everything now,” Oren said as cleaver, claws, shoulders, and fists crashed uselessly against the sphere.

Tavi watched the ruined cleaver bounce from the barrier. “I have seen fortress gates show more concern during a siege.”

Pella did not laugh. “He is not even reinforcing it.”

Mira studied the circulating layers. “He does not need to. The force never reaches the center.”

Renn heard Goblin King’s roar change from fury into panic. “It finally understands that nothing it does matters.”

Cassian remained motionless within the light while the King raised its ruined weapon again.

“You will never use another child against anyone.”

A circular band of compressed ambient mana locked around the Goblin King’s torso. Scavenged plates folded inward before flesh, ribs, and organs burst outward through the ring, while the force curved precisely around the monster’s core.

The resulting cavity stood wide enough to reveal the throne behind him. His untouched core remained suspended within a narrow strip of tissue for one heartbeat before dropping onto the blood-dark platform.

Tavi flinched at the final crash. “He killed the Goblin King with one attack—.”

Nobody cheered when the Goblin King struck the platform and remained still.

Oren lowered his bow completely. “The Goblin King died before I could loose another arrow.”

Pella looked from the corpse to Cassian. “That was not a duel.”

Tavi’s voice returned quietly. “It was a verdict.”

“Brightroad hold the shelf,” Renn ordered while advancing several paces across the blood-slick stone. “Oren keep an arrow ready. Nobody leaves Mira or the girls exposed.”

“Cassian, answer me,” Renn called. “Tell me the chamber is finished.”

Cassian looked across the blood-covered galleries. “The visible force is finished. Several goblins remain elsewhere in the warren.”

The battle ended before I understood Cassian had begun it. Relief should be simple. Why does it feel so close to fear?

I wanted strength enough to keep everyone alive. Cassian possessed it from the beginning, yet I still resent learning that only after my choices failed.

That resentment is unfair, but knowing it is unfair does not make it disappear. I have never felt smaller as a leader, and I have never been more grateful to be wrong.

End of Chapter 47