Chapter 160: Another Dream
The flame had dimmed the moment Cassian turned his back.
And the priestess... She said nothing more. Just stood there like a shadow that belonged to another world, her hands folded in silence, as if she had done what she was meant to and would now fade into nothingness.
"Is that all?" he had asked her—voice low, hesitant, wanting... more.
But she hadn’t answered.
She only gave a soft nod and gestured toward the exit, her expression unreadable—neither kind nor cold, only inevitable. And somehow, Cassian understood.
She wouldn’t answer his questions. Not now. Perhaps never.
Because her job had never been to explain anything. It was to give him back his belongings.
So he left; he knew now he did not have any reason to stay here at all.
Step by step, the echo of his boots trailing through the dim corridors, he walked back with a strange hollowness in his chest. There was confusion in his mind. Like a song with no lyrics that still somehow stirred his soul.
He kept the locket close, fingers curled tightly around it beneath his robe. It was warm, and it pulsed faintly against his palm, as if responding to the steady rhythm of his heart.
He didn’t know if he had imagined everything. The flame. The memory. The boy is in the fire. But he felt it. And that feeling alone was enough.
When he emerged from the temple’s inner chamber, Veyce was already there—pacing, restless, trying to look like he hadn’t been counting every heartbeat since Cassian left.