Chương 117: Chapter 50: The Price of Truth

Only then, after weighing everything in her mind, did she look at the King, into his gray eyes that waited with the infinite patience of power. She looked at Cassian, whose silence was more eloquent than any speech. She took a deep breath, and the flower-perfumed air burned her lungs. —I accept —she said, and her voice sounded remarkably clear in the silent room, a sigh laden with determination that broke the spell of the waiting.

Then, she uttered the justification, not for them, but for herself, carving into the air the reason that made the foolish risk worthwhile. —The risk is worth it… for the truth I have always sought. The King nodded, just once, slowly and solemnly. There was no smile of triumph, only the acceptance of a pawn that had taken its place on the board. Cassian, for the first time, showed a glimmer of something in his light eyes: it was not approval, nor admiration.

It was the recognition of a colleague who sees another cross a threshold from which there is no return. The deal was done. The hunt for the truth, and the plunge into the nightmare, was beginning. Cassian's voice rose from the silence like an obsidian blade emerging from the mist. Soft, precise, but with an edge that could cut without apparent effort. There was no emotional cadence in it; it was a pure instrument of communication, which made it strangely piercing.

—After the formal audience with the King tomorrow —he said with deliberation. His light eyes were fixed on Selena without blinking, making her feel strangely uncomfortable. —You will come with me. I will introduce you to the others. He made a brief, calculated pause, and his gaze descended toward Selena's left wrist, where the bracelet of thread and stones, the silent link to Corren and the Path of the Voice, rested beneath the sleeve of her clothes. —By the way, that bracelet contains an… interesting sensation.

I wonder what led you to find one like that. It is not the kind of object Isolde creates with the written touch. It is… unknown. The comment was a subtle and alarming intrusion. Cassian did not just perceive the residual void; he seemed to see the nature of the link or at least intuit it. Selena kept her wrist still, making no attempt to hide it. Attempting to dissimulate before someone like him would be futile and revealing.

Cassian continued, his tone unvarying, as if reciting an axiom: —So, Selena, remember: a resonant is always a beholder of destiny, or as the Blindfolded Mage said in his treatise: 'the Echo protects itself from our influence, but not from our observation.' The quote was exact, and he delivered it with the familiarity of someone who had lived with those words for decades.

His strange tonal constancy was not monotony; it was the sound of a mind that had eliminated the noise of the world to listen only to the frequencies of power and knowledge. The King, who had been observing the exchange with an impassive expression, cleared his throat. The sound was dry, a small hammer blow to reclaim the thread of the conversation. —I will give you the answers now. He was thus fulfilling his part of the deal with the coldness of a merchant delivering contracted goods.

—All the information we possess regarding those who kidnapped you. He settled back in his armchair, interlacing his fingers over his lap. The ruby of his diadem seemed to darken, as if absorbing the light in the room to feed his tale. —It was those whom many call 'the Omnipresent Shadow.' A melodramatic name for an organization that operates precisely in the absence of drama, in anonymity. We know it clearly because… we interrogated everyone we managed to catch that night.

He did not use the word 'tortured,' but the echo of violence resonated in the air between his words. His gaze wandered for an instant, as if reviewing a mental archive of confessions extracted through pain. —In particular, the method of the 'rat in a hot jar' upon the abdomen was very… effective. They confessed to being mere contractors, paid by a man they described as a vagrant. He paused, taking a sip of tea. The gesture was mundane, in grotesque contrast to what he was describing. —We found the vagrant.

He had been hired by a fur merchant from a border city. We interrogated the merchant. He confessed, of course. He paid his debt by being sold as a slave in the northern mines. The King recounted it like someone detailing the outcome of a routine commercial transaction; it was the currency of power and the influence of those born with power. —But the chain, Selena, did not end there. That is how they operate. Intermediaries of intermediaries.

Layers of anonymity and cannon fodder standing between the core of their organization and their deeds. We know they are looking for you because they had already tried before, even before you arrived in Kaelburg. And what is more… perhaps they will try again. Their concrete purpose with you is unknown. Their motives, unclear. We only know that you are a target. Intermediaries of intermediaries. The words resonated in Selena's mind with a familiar and frustrating echo.

This was exactly what her own investigation in Terracanto, during her first desperate days, had unearthed. She had followed the trail of her own bribes and whispers from old Orla's hostel to the cave where that man told her about the baron, and there she had crashed against a wall of silence and power. The trail had gone cold, buried under the demands of the university and the shadow of the whispering void.

Only once, upon drawing closer to the Path of the Voice through Corren and gaining access to his restricted books, had she caught glimpses of mentions of a hidden faction with similar methods. But she had never linked it directly to the original Selena, to the body she now inhabited, to her own kidnapping. The King confirmed the connection, but left it just as enigmatic as before. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

—That is enough information for me —Selena said. Her voice sounded firmer than she felt. Although no one seemed to notice, both men nodded. —But I believe it is not enough of a reward for the mission you are asking of me. The King arched a brow, interested, not offended. Negotiation was a language he understood perfectly. Selena continued, casting a hook she had been polishing in her mind for weeks: —Some time ago, Valerian mentioned that Eliud left a resonant artifact upon his death.

He called it 'The Book of the Joined Flesh.' I would be interested to know more about it… if Your Majesty deems it appropriate. —She said this with calculated conviction. She was trying to project an intellectual curiosity that hid the core of her true anxiety: to understand the full nature of the curse she shared with the first king, and the horrors her power could bequeath. The King observed her for a long moment, and a slow, almost paternal smile formed on his lips.

It was the smile of a chess master watching his student attempt a bold, yet predictable move. —Curiosity is a virtue, Countess —he said, and the use of the new title was a reminder of her change in status. Selena kept her expression serious; it was an invisible tug-of-war between the two of them. —But to you, whom I granted the secret book of my ancestor, translated and annotated… how could I deny you a harmless answer?

He took one of the thin biscuits from the table, examined it briefly, and bit into it with a dry crunch. Then, his expression grew more grave, that of the royal chronicler unveiling a fragment of the sacred and bloody history of his lineage. —As you know, Eliud was a great warrior, a unifier, the hammer that forged this kingdom. Many fools, those who only see the surface of history, think that 'The Book of the Joined Flesh' inherited a devastating echo, the explosive fury or the tactical fear he utilized in battle.

He slowly shook his head, a gesture of disdain toward popular ignorance. —But we, you and I, because we have read it, know the truth. Eliud, before he was a conqueror, was a physician to his tribe. A healer. Cradled since childhood by the gift of curing, by compassion for the pain of others. His deepest echo, the most mastered and essential, was not to destroy, but to repair. He paused, letting the revelation settle.

Selena held her breath, remembering Eliud's confessions about his horror at the suffering he caused, his longing for the simple happiness of healing his dying wife. —The book —the King continued, his voice dropping to a respectful and somber whisper. —Inherited that gift. The capacity to heal any physical injury, any illness of the body, and even… any fracture or ailment of the mind. An absolute panacea. His gray eyes hardened, remembering a nuance just as important as the effect of the benefit. —But at a price.

The highest price. At the cost of the very life of the one who uses it. Every cure, every miracle, consumes days, months, years of the bearer's existence. And within its pages, there remained trapped not only Eliud's healing power, but also an echo… a fragment of the creature of the Void that he summoned. Whomever utilizes the book will not pay with their time; they will become a beacon for that entity. At any moment in what remains of their life, the creature can manifest and… tear them apart.

Not as a punishment, but as the collection of a debt contracted with the Void itself. The silence that followed was eloquent, denser than any words. It floated in the perfumed air, heavy with the horror of the revelation. The founder's most powerful artifact was not a weapon, but a poisoned blessing, a trap of hope whose final price was a gruesome and random death. It was the very essence of the resonant's curse, perfected and bequeathed in a volume. The King kept his gaze on Selena, studying her reaction.

He had given her another piece of the puzzle, a terrible piece. And with it, he had intangibly increased Selena's debt toward him, and the weight of the mission she was accepting. The truth about her kidnappers remained vague, but the truth about Eliud's legacy was now a concrete and terrifying burden she carried in her knowledge. The match continued, and the King had just moved another piece masterfully.

Selena processed the image: the sacred and cursed book, healing at the cost of life, the debt to the Void hanging like a sword over the user. Then, Cassian's voice cut through the air once more, his unvarying tone turning a monumental confidence into a mere factual clarification. —Tell her the truth, Your Majesty —he said, addressing not Selena, but the King. He was like a secretary reminding someone of an item on the agenda. —Valerius cured his… reproductive capacity with the gift of the book.

He paused briefly, the only sign of anything resembling emotion: a slight, almost inaudible sigh. —The Countess deserves to know that the echo, though it is a poison, is also, at times, the sole solution for concrete problems. It is the knife that cuts the Gordian knot, even though it may also sever your hand. It was a brutal statement in its simplicity. The news of the pregnancy, the motive behind the succession change, was not just a miracle of nature or fortune.

It was a transaction with the founder's darkest legacy, a price paid in years of future life and in the shadow of an interdimensional monster, in exchange for the perpetuation of the family line. Valerius's love for his wife, his desire for an heir of his own, had been strong enough to sign that terrible pact or force another to sign it for him. But it was not the King who responded. Selena, before the monarch could add anything, spoke.

Her voice was calm, with a tinge of sympathetic sadness that surprised even Cassian, who blinked once, quickly. —My uncle mentioned it to me. Selena placed her gaze directly upon the monarch, then sighed. —He did not specify the means, of course. But I suppose he would have told me if I had questioned him about it. Do not worry, Your Majesty. I understand the weight of the decisions made to secure legacy.

Her words were a perfect shield: they acknowledged the truth without judging it, accepting the crudeness of the act while maintaining an emotional distance from countess to king. Inside, however, she felt a shiver of pity for Valerius, a new level of respect and fear for the power of the book. The King nodded slowly. The tension in his shoulders, barely perceptible, seemed to dissipate a little. Selena's understanding, her lack of scandal or accusation, made things easier.

—Good —he said, rising from his armchair with an elegance that belied his age. —Let us bring today's meeting to an end. Tomorrow we shall meet again, Countess, in a rather more… bustling setting. He walked toward the door, but paused and turned, a spark of something resembling old, cynical humor gleaming in his gray eyes. —And remember to go with the same beauty as always. With that beauty with which you once rejected, with notable firmness, the marriage proposal of my son, the crown prince.

He winked at her, a quick and surprisingly human gesture that contrasted with all his previous solemnity, and disappeared through the side door, followed closely by the silent shadow of Cassian. Selena was left alone, sitting on the purple sofa that now seemed too large, too empty. The shock did not stem from the revelation about the book, but from the King's last sentence. The original Isabella had rejected the crown prince.

The information fell into her mind like a stone in a pond, generating ripples of implications. That spoke volumes, not of the whim of a frivolous young woman, but of the real economic and political power of House Solendra, and of the considerable autonomy enjoyed by the major duchies. An autonomy so great that it allowed an heiress duchess to say "no" to the future king himself without suffering devastating consequences. A power that, perhaps, she still retained in part as a Countess.

Despite the gravity of the moment, a small, genuine smile formed on her lips. There was something deeply satisfying in that image: the previous Selena, with all her burden of cruelty and privilege, had at least possessed the courage or the arrogance to choose her own path in something so fundamental.