Chapter 705: You don’t have to do this. You don’t always have to keep accepting them
He did not say phoenix.
He did not need to.
The room felt different now.
Because Osiris was no fool when it came to this.
He might act stupid in many ordinary matters, and he might say outrageous things without thinking, but when it came to his people, the blood inside him always knew before his mind did. Even though he remembered very little clearly, he still understood enough to feel that this man knew something.
So he asked the question that truly mattered.
"And those fire beasts," Osiris said slowly, his eyes fixed on the messenger, "are they all alive?"
Everybody in the room listened.
Isabella listened.
Kian listened.
Cyrus’s body stilled completely beneath her.
Zyran’s eyes narrowed.
The messenger smiled.
Then he lied.
"It was a long time ago," he said. "By now they are probably all dead anyway."
The moment those words left his mouth, the air in the room changed.
Osiris went still.
Completely still.
Then, for the first time in a long time, something primal rose inside him so violently that even Isabella felt it.
It was not the ordinary little bit of fire he used when annoyed or playful.
It was something deeper.
Older.
More terrifying.
His killing intent flooded out in such a raw and savage way that even Isabella’s heart jumped. The temperature in the room seemed to shift with him, and his eyes, which usually carried that foolish bright flame, now looked like something ready to burn the whole world down.
He wanted to kill this man.
No.
He wanted to kill everything connected to those words.
The messenger also felt it.
His face changed at last, though only for a moment.
Cyrus’s hand moved to Isabella at once, and Kian’s whole body grew tense in case Osiris actually acted on the urge in front of them all.
Then Zyran moved.
His timing was as strange and perfect as always.
He stepped closer to Osiris and said lazily, as if this were all some joke, "How about you get some fresh air? You seem hot."
Osiris turned his head and glared at him so fiercely that another man might have stepped back.
Zyran did not.
He only looked back with his usual bored face.
For one full breath, nobody in the room moved.
Then Osiris laughed very tightly.
The sound had no amusement in it at all.
After that, he turned and walked out without another word.
The room stayed silent for one second longer.
Then, outside and far enough from the palace that nobody nearby would be burned by mistake, Osiris finally lost control.
He raised one hand.
The tree in front of him went up in flames.
It did not simply catch fire.
It burned violently, so fast and so bright against the falling snow that the sight looked almost unreal. White flakes fell through red-orange fire, hissing as they touched the heat, and Osiris stood there with his whole body shaking from rage.
Then he screamed.
It was the kind of sound that came from somewhere very deep. A sound full of grief, fury, helplessness, and that terrible feeling of being too late to save something that might already be gone.
Zyran stood nearby and watched.
He did not rush over.
He did not say soft things.
He did not even put on one of his annoying smiles.
That was because this was Osiris’s pain, and Zyran understood more than most that some pain did not want comforting hands. It wanted fire. It wanted screaming. It wanted one tree, then another, then maybe a whole forest if nobody stopped it.
So he only waited.
His tail swayed once behind him in his black panther form before he changed back, crossed his arms, and leaned against another tree with complete patience.
He looked like someone waiting for a storm to finish throwing itself against the mountain.
Osiris breathed hard, his eyes bright with fury as the burning tree cracked and collapsed.
Snow kept falling.
The contrast was so strange that it looked almost beautiful.
And while he stood there with smoke and heat rising around him, he made a promise in his heart.
Once he recovered his strength fully, once he got back everything that had been stripped from him, he would wipe out First City himself.
He did not care how strong they were.
He did not care how many walls they had.
He did not care if he had to burn until the skies turned red.
He would erase them.
Inside the hall, Isabella looked at the messenger with a smile that had become much thinner than before.
The man still tried to keep his polished manner, but now that everyone had seen what his words caused, the shine on him looked uglier.
Still, Isabella did not tell him to get out directly.
That would be too easy.
Too simple.
So she sat there, wrapped in fur, supported by Cyrus’s tail, and said very calmly, "This matter is too large to answer in one breath. I will decide tomorrow."
The moment she said that, she had already made the choice in her heart.
The answer was no.
A clear, cold, beautiful no.
Still, there was no reason to show him all her teeth yet.
The messenger bowed his head and accepted it with a smile.
Luca was then called to take the man to a guest room.
Naturally, Luca looked like he had just been assigned the honorable task of carrying trash with his bare hands. Still, because Isabella told him to do it, he obeyed.
Once they were gone, the hall became quieter.
Cyrus looked at Isabella and said softly, "You don’t have to do this. You don’t always have to keep accepting them."
Hearing that, Isabella turned to him.
"I know," she said. "But some things are inevitable. If I keep rising, they will keep coming."
Kian, who had been silent all this time, finally reached out and took her hand.
He still said nothing.