"The Witch’s Redirection"

"The Witch’s Redirection" 11

Chapter Eleven: The Caw of Time and the Price of Deception

... It was an ancient magical prophecy, written in a thick, dark blood that exhaled the literal echo of demise. It was followed by a familiar signature and a highly specific date that struck her very soul to its core. The date was not foreign; it was the exact day, hour, and moment the executioner’s blade had severed her neck in her previous life. Beneath that date, the sentence was written in bold, protruding characters that completely consumed the room's residual mana: "The witch who deceives the hands of time shall die by a silver arrow charged with dark corruption on the sixth night."

Seraphina stumbled a step backward, every drop of blood draining from her cheeks until her face resembled a sheet of dead white marble. She could feel the ghostly chill of the old sword brushing against her throat once more, her breathing fracturing into an internal hysteria that she fought with absolute, iron willpower to suppress. The shock did not stem from the threat of death—one does not fear a pit they have already fallen into—but from the terrifying reality that gripped her mind: Someone else knows. There is an entity or a sorcerer within this Imperial Palace who is entirely aware that she returned through time, knowing she cheated death to alter her destiny.

"Seraphina?"

Cassian’s deep, resonant voice shattered the wall of silence enveloping the hall. He moved his massive frame and commanding presence to stand directly in front of her, leaving mere inches between them. His golden eyes gleamed with a sharp, rare anxiety, scanning her paralyzed features and the eyes that had widened in genuine shock for the first time since her return from the dead. He leaned forward to inspect the scroll that had caused this stupor, but the moment his eyes neared the ancient parchment, the dark blood and violet script vanished. The standard, encrypted ciphers of the Shadow Guild returned as if nothing had ever happened.

Cassian turned back to her, his dark brows knitted in deep suspicion that flooded his calculated, rigid mind. "What did you see that made you look as though you’ve just encountered the God of Death? Do not attempt to lie, Lady Etherion. The body does not conceal trauma, no matter how perfected the frozen mask may be."

Seraphina gathered her scattered composure with fluid grace, lifting her chin to meet his piercing gaze as she reassembled her psychological armor. "It is nothing, Your Highness. Merely a deceptive magical resonance from the corrupt mana left on the scroll. It seems the exhaustion from yesterday's battle caused my eyes to misread the glyphs and imagine the movement of the characters."

Cassian’s golden eyes narrowed, not believing a single word of her explanation. His powerful hand moved with an authoritative grip to seize her shoulder, pressing firmly to force her to remain steady before his gaze. "I know when you are imagining things, Seraphina, and that look in your eyes was neither an illusion nor exhaustion. There is something occurring behind the curtains of this palace, and the matter of House Raven is nothing but the outer crust of a deeper conspiracy. Speak to me."

"I told you it is nothing that requires your military intervention," she replied in a sharp, cold tone, raising her hand to peel his fingers away from her shoulder with a provocative detachment that struck his imperial pride. "Focus on securing the capital from the masked zealots, and leave the decoding of arcane rituals to the scholars of House Etherion. I am fully capable of managing my own affairs."

Before Cassian could assert his authority further, heavy, disciplined military footsteps echoed outside the corridor leading to the lower archives. The massive iron door was violently pushed open, and the Grand Sorcerer of the South—a loyal dependent of House Raven and the old regime—entered, flanked by a full platoon of heavily armed Imperial Guards. He was an elderly man with fox-like, cunning eyes, clad in an ornate purple mantle embroidered with gold thread, holding a scroll sealed with Emperor Alexander’s personal crest.

"Your Imperial Highness, Lady Etherion," the southern sorcerer said, bowing with a hollow reverence that failed to reach his eyes. "I am here to execute the Emperor’s sovereign command issued moments ago. At the formal request of the nobility and to preserve the integrity of the investigation, you are requested to surrender all scrolls and magical evidence seized from yesterday’s ambush immediately. They are to be transferred to the Southern Wing under my direct supervision."

Seraphina stood behind the table, her eyes flashing with a lethal coldness as a serene blue mana began to hum around her fingertips. The shock of the prophecy made her instantly realize that surrendering these scrolls now meant losing her only thread to identifying the faceless caster who threatened her life on the "sixth night." If this evidence fell into the hands of House Raven, the truth would be buried forever, and she would be marched to her s*******r entirely unarmed.

Yet before she could move or speak a single word to defend her right, Cassian took a massive stride forward. His towering frame and military build rose like an absolute barricade and a protective shield, separating the southern sorcerer from the table where Seraphina stood. He drew his broad imperial sword with a slow, deliberate motion, the steel letting out a sharp, terrifying ring that vibrated through the darkened hall. He planted the tip of the blade into the ground, resting both hands on the hilt with a dominant, stormy pride that rattled the hearts of everyone present.

"The imperial order was issued based on political parameters and pressure from nobles who comprehend nothing of warfare," Cassian said, his deep voice dropping to a register that made the guards in the back instinctively take a step away from the golden imperial aura beginning to hum around his body. "As the Crown Prince and the Supreme Commander of the Capital Defense Forces, I declare this room and this evidence to be a closed military security asset. Any step you take toward this table, sorcerer, will be deemed an act of high treason and an attempt to sabotage imperial evidence during a state of unrest... The immediate penalty for which is your execution on this very spot without trial."

The southern sorcerer’s face drained of color, the imperial scroll trembling in his hand. He looked at the guards behind him, silently begging for the Emperor’s authority, but the soldiers lowered their heads. No one in this empire possessed the courage to raise a blade against the black dragon of Cassian Valerion when he chose to enforce his absolute sovereignty.

"But... Your Highness... this is an explicit defiance of your father’s command!" the sorcerer stammered, his voice shaking.

"Then go to my father and inform him that Cassian Valerion awaits him here in the lower archives to discuss the parameters of military jurisdiction and the preservation of imperial blood," Cassian roared, his tone as sharp as a razor, his golden eyes burning with a terrifying wrath completely channeled toward protecting Seraphina. "Leave my sight before I lose my patience."

Under the weight of this crushing dominance, the sorcerer and his escort retreated in absolute terror, the heavy iron door slamming shut behind them with a force that caused a slight tremor in the stone ceiling.

The room returned to its stifling silence. Cassian turned back to Seraphina, sheathing his sword with a fluid, rapid motion that spoke of legendary combat efficiency. He advanced toward her until only inches separated them, his golden eyes piercing into hers, tracking every detail of her face to break through her marble facade.

"I have bought you the time you require, and I have blocked them from stripping you of your investigation," Cassian said, his voice dropping to a low, velvety murmur laced with an unmistakable possessiveness. "And now, I am not moving from this room, nor will I permit you to leave it, until you tell me the absolute truth behind the look I saw in your eyes. I am no fool, Seraphina. I know you are harboring a secret that could claim your life."

Seraphina looked up at him, the intense heat radiating from his body filling the narrow space between them. Her heart betrayed her with a violent contraction; her deep-seated, buried love stirred in the face of this fierce protection he offered with his customary pride. Yet, the supreme irony and the true curse consumed her mind: Tonight was the first night of the six nights decreed by the prophecy, and Cassian—the very man who had caused her execution and the fall of her head in her past life—was now the only person standing with his imperial sword as her shield against a faceless death she did not understand.

Seraphina offered a faint, icy smile, keeping her voice entirely steady as she met his golden gaze. "You are chasing ghosts that do not exist, Your Highness. My only secret is that I wish to conclude this file so I may return to my family’s estate, far away from the volatile politics of your palace."

Cassian’s eyes remained unconvinced, but before he could utter a single word to enforce his control, both of them registered a sudden, chilling shift in the localized mana of the entire Imperial Palace. Their gazes locked instantly. It was a freezing, foreign mana that did not belong to any known caster within the capital.

The torches lining the external corridor suddenly died one by one with an ominous hiss, and the heavy caw of a massive black crow echoed through the lower archives... but it was no ordinary bird. It was a caw that carried the distorted echo of human words, vibrating directly behind the heavy iron door.

Cassian acted on pure, infallible combat instinct. He pivoted his body to place Seraphina firmly behind his back, drawing his royal sword in the blink of an eye as his golden imperial mana erupted around him like a burning barrier. Simultaneously, Seraphina began to channel her fluid, river-like blue mana into her palms, preparing for the worst-case scenario.

Suddenly, with an immense, terrifying surge of arcane force, the massive iron door of the lower archives buckled violently inward, as if an entity of legendary strength was compressing it from the outside. The protective runes carved into the stone walls disintegrated within seconds, and a dense, black fog poured through the fractures, carrying the identical scent of corruption and death that Seraphina had seen written upon the parchment.

From the thick of the fog behind the shattered threshold, there emerged neither a masked sorcerer from the Shadow Guild nor an imperial guard... Instead, a towering, animated wooden skeletal frame of a faceless "living puppet" materialized. It held a primitive bow forged from the bones of the dead, notched with a long silver arrow that gleamed with a corrupt, necrotic violet light—targeted directly at Seraphina’s chest.

Seraphina’s blue eyes widened in a state of absolute horror as she watched the silver tip ignite, the terrifying truth freezing the very blood within her veins. The faceless caster had never intended to wait until the sixth night to grant her time to escape; the sixth night was merely a deceptive riddle designed to lower her guard.

Death had arrived to claim her on the very first night.

The silver arrow erupted from the bow string with the speed of a thunderbolt, cutting through the fog and the empty space with a piercing, unnatural shriek that tore the air apart, driving straight toward the heart of Seraphina, who stood completely frozen for a fraction of a second due to the sheer shock of the trap.