Chapter 3

I pulled Elian's trembling little body tightly against me. Caleb toyed with the sharp point of the iron spike, his lips curling into a grotesque smile. "Be a good boy. I forgot to ask you for a whole month. Tell me where exactly my parents went, and I'll let him go."

That exact phrase again.

It felt as if every ounce of strength had been drained from my body. For the first time, I looked at Caleb with pure, unadulterated hatred.

"You know nothing. You understand absolutely nothing."

"I told you a long time ago, when the right time comes, you'll understand everything. Why must you hurt my family?"

Seraphina feigned sympathy, her voice sickeningly sweet. "Caleb, look at his pitiful face. Just let him go!" Subtly, she viciously ground her heel into Elian’s foot where it rested on the floor.

"Ah!" Elian let out a childish, agonizing shriek, and kicked out reflexively.

His feeble strength wasn't even enough to knock over a chair. Yet, Seraphina threw her entire body backward, crashing heavily onto the floor. A glaring stream of blood flowed down her leg, and the thick, putrid stench of dark magic decay filled the air.

But Caleb couldn’t smell it at all.

"Seraphina!" Caleb’s reason snapped completely.

"My stomach... it hurts so much..." Seraphina clutched desperately at the hem of Caleb’s suit.

"Don't be afraid. The doctor is right next door." Caleb handed her off to the bodyguards who had rushed in. He then walked step by step toward Elian, raising the pure iron military spike and advancing with lethal intent.

"Caleb... no!" Dragging my torn right ankle, I scrambled and crawled forward, throwing myself onto his boots and hugging them tight.

I shook my head frantically. I beg you. Truly, even if you ripped open my chest and carved out my Source Stone, I have never begged you in my entire life. I beg you, don't hurt him. He's blind, he can't see anything, he doesn't understand anything!

"Get lost." Caleb coldly kicked me in the shoulder.

My back smashed brutally against the edge of the abandoned metal freezer. The wound from where he had carved out my Source Stone just yesterday tore open again, and golden blood violently sprayed out.

I stared upward blankly.

Caleb grasped the black hilt.

He drove it ruthlessly directly through Elian’s frail chest. With a flick of his wrist, a tiny, grain-sized nascent Source Stone was gouged out from the boy's body.

Elian didn't even scream. Beneath the bloody cloth covering his eyes, he seemed to make one last, desperate effort to find my direction before his head dropped heavily forward, completely lifeless.

"This is the price!" Caleb slowly pulled out the blood-dripping military spike, sweeping a chilling gaze over me. "Scum like you don't even deserve a decent death."

"I'll settle the score with you after my child is born!" Saying that, he prepared to turn and leave.

I thought I would go mad. I thought I would scream.

But I did none of those things.

Leaning against the freezing metal door, I stared at Elian’s small body as it gradually lost its warmth. I couldn't even shed a single tear.

Clinging to the wall, I staggered to my feet.

"Cough."

I took a deep breath, gathering absolutely every remaining shred of my life force into my throat, forcefully slamming it against that damning "Silencing Curse."

Even if it meant dying right here today.

"Cough, cough, cough... blergh!"

A mouthful of pitch-black, minced flesh mixed with dark blood spewed violently onto the ground. I had shattered the curse's magical barrier with my own life.

Caleb’s footsteps abruptly halted. He turned his head and frowned at me. For the first time in three years, he seemed to see a complete lack of concern on my face.

"Caleb."

"You're right. Scum like me really doesn't deserve a decent death."

I looked right at him, not a single trace of affection left in the depths of my eyes.

My fingers spread open slightly, and a blinding golden light began to radiate from my palms.

This was the supreme forbidden spell of the Fae: Stardust Self-Destruction. It wasn't just my palms. My fingertips began to peel away and disintegrate, turning into glowing specks of stardust, slowly scattering into the air like ashes blown by the wind.

"What are you doing?!" Caleb watched as I began to turn transparent from the fingertips up. A sudden, unprecedented panic instantly pierced through his hypocritical coldness. He lunged toward me with massive strides.

I looked down at my own legs, which were rapidly turning to starlight and fading away. Finally, I raised my head and gave him the most mocking smile I could muster.

"I should have known a long time ago... how could anyone ever expect to find a god in a garbage dump?"

As I spoke, I met his eyes—now completely unhinged by sheer terror—and spat out my final curse, every word cold and deliberate:

"I take back the life... I once gave you."

As soon as the words left my lips, right before his reaching hands could touch me, my entire lower half violently collapsed into a swirling storm of starlit ash.

Just then, a bodyguard burst into the room, screaming at the top of his lungs. "Sir! Someone is looking for you at the manor gates!"

"Who?"

"Your parents!"