Chapter 69: The Dungeon And The King’s Plan!
All eyes moved to Isabella.
In the span of a single moment, her accusation had flipped. She was no longer the victim telling the truth. She was the suspect—the one who had poisoned the man and tried to frame Neve for it.
"Don’t listen to him," Isabella said, her voice taking on a desperate edge. "There’s no way I would harm a member of the leopard tribe. I’m a princess, and my father was the chief."
"Princess, my foot," Ryker said flatly. His disgust was clear. "Neve and I were together. There’s no way Neve would even harm anyone. There’s no reason for him to harm anyone."
"Oh, Ryker," Isabella’s voice softened. She was trying a different approach, appealing to sympathy rather than authority. "You have to trust me. Please."
Ryker only looked at her with more disgust.
Soren stepped forward. His expression had shifted from confused to cold. The look of a chief deciding on his tribe’s security.
"Don’t worry, Bella," he said. "I’ll make sure you get what you deserve."
Isabella’s eyes widened. "You believe me, right? Oh Soren! Please!" Her hands pressed against her chest in a gesture of innocence that nobody believed anymore.
Soren did not respond to her plea. He looked behind him and signalled two large beastmen standing near the entrance.
They walked closer immediately.
Soren pointed directly at Isabella. "Take her to the dungeon and make sure she doesn’t leave."
"What?" Isabella yelled. She stepped backwards, away from the approaching beastmen. "I won’t let anyone lay a hand on me. Never! I’m innocent! Neve is the one who should be taken!"
"Take her away," Soren commanded. His tone left no room for argument. "Until this man wakes up and shares his own side of the story, you’ll remain in the dungeon."
"But I didn’t—" Isabella’s voice stopped trailing as the beastmen grabbed her arms and started dragging her toward the entrance.
She fought. She struggled. She yelled about her status, her father, and her innocence.
Nobody listened.
She disappeared through the straw curtain, still yelling.
The hut went quiet.
Neve sighed in relief and walked back to the young man’s unconscious form. He checked the pulse again, and it was better. It was still improving steadily.
He exhaled deeply and looked at Ryker, then gestured to a straw mat in the corner.
Ryker understood immediately. He helped Neve lay the mat over the man’s body, creating a barrier between his skin and the cold ground.
"He’s burning up," Neve said, "but he’s better."
Just as Neve finished speaking, the man lurched to the side.
He vomited multiple times. His body convulsed slightly as whatever poison was still in his system was forced out.
It was ugly and uncomfortable to watch, but it was also a very good sign.
The body was fighting back, and at the same time, his body was healing itself.
Soren stood and watched. His expression was something between disbelief and calculation.
He could not believe what he was seeing. Neve had cured someone poisoned with the most potent poison in the entire beast world. The golden frog poison had no known antidote. The poison that killed within minutes.
And Neve had reversed it.
Soren’s mind was already working through the implications. If the outcasts found out that someone had developed a cure for this poison, they would want Neve even more desperately than they already did. They would try to capture him. They would try to force him to share the cure so they could neutralise the leopard tribe’s deadliest weapon.
He could not let that information spread.
He looked at Neve.
"Can you keep looking after him?" Soren asked. "I’ll get Gideon to assist you."
"It’s okay," Neve said calmly. "Ryker is here with me. Besides, he’s already stable."
Soren nodded slowly. He was still processing everything that had happened. The attempted murder. The dramatic reversal. The cure that should not have existed.
He left the hut without another word, his mind already planning how to keep this secret from spreading beyond the leopard tribe.
The implications were too dangerous.
.
.
Ryker waited until Soren was gone before turning to Neve.
"You knew this would happen, didn’t you?" he asked. His voice was careful, like he was testing out a theory. "How did you prepare a potion for the poison so fast?"
Neve walked to the hut entrance and looked out at the snow-covered village beyond.
"I wonder," he said softly. "Maybe I’m just gifted."
Ryker just sighed and shook his head. He could not argue with Neve. Not after knowing how precious he was. Not after watching him save someone’s life with knowledge he should not have had and a remedy that should not have existed.
Some people were simply exceptional.
Neve was one of them.
.
.
Far away from the leopard tribe’s territory. Far away from the snow and the caves and the quiet village.
In the outcast lands where the banished gathered.
A beastman ran through the darkness toward a warm cave at the centre of the settlement.
He was breathing hard from the run. Sweat was dripping from his forehead. But his eyes were bright with the importance of the news he carried.
He burst into the cave where his king was seated in the shadows.
"I bear news," the messenger said, his voice urgent and excited.
The king did not move. His cold, yellow eyes remained fixed on nothing, absorbed in whatever dark thoughts occupied his mind.
"I do not wish to listen if it’s nothing that can tell me how to defeat Vaelthorn," the king said flatly.
"My king," the messenger said quickly, "fortunately, I brought exactly that news."
The king’s attention shifted immediately. His entire posture changed. He leaned forward slightly, his yellow eyes focusing on the messenger with sharp intensity.
"The dragon king has found his mate," the messenger said. "And that mate is a man from the leopard tribe."
Silence.
Then the king laughed.
It was a sound that had not filled this cave in years. A sound so rare that the messenger actually flinched at the shock of hearing it.
The king’s laugh was cold and cruel and filled with something like hope.
"A man?" he said between laughs. "From the leopard tribe?"
He stood up slowly, stepping out of the shadows for the first time.
His form was massive. He was scarred from old battles. His eyes were that distinctive yellow that marked him as someone powerful and dangerous. This was the king of the outcasts. The one who had stood against Vaelthorn himself and survived, though at great cost.
"Go," he commanded, his voice cutting through the laughter like a blade. "Find information about him. Learn everything. Come back to me with details."
"Yes, my king!" The messenger bowed deeply and ran from the cave.
The king stood alone in the shadows and grinned.
His lips pulled back to show teeth that had torn through countless enemies.
"This is my only chance," he said to the empty cave. "Get his mate into my hands. Kill him slowly. Kill him where Vaelthorn can watch. Make the dragon king feel what I felt when he banished me."
He looked up at the ceiling of the cave like he could see through it to the world above.
"I guess it’s time the second war begins," he whispered.
The darkness seemed to deepen around him. The smile on his face was the smile of someone who had just found the weapon that would destroy his greatest enemy.
And that weapon was a young red panda from the leopard tribe.
A red panda who had no idea that his existence had just signed a declaration of war.