Chapter 45: The End of the Cycle
Astelion POV
Cold. Everything was so bitterly cold.
My eyelids felt as heavy as lead, but I forced them open, my vision swimming in blurred, disoriented shapes. Pale light filtered through high windows. The scent of damp stone, and familiar silk filled my lungs.
I was back. I was back in my room in the future.
Panic surged through my chest like electric fire. I tried to sit up, tried to spring out of the mattress, but my limbs refused to obey. My legs were completely useless, my arms pinned helplessly to my sides as if bound by invisible lead weights. I couldn't move a single muscle from the neck down.
A soft, dark chuckle echoed from the shadows beside me.
"Careful, my sweet," a smooth, cultured voice drawled.
My head snapped sideways. Sitting on the edge of the plush mattress, dressed in immaculate dark robes, was Cion. He was watching me with a look of terrifying, triumphant amusement, a cup of tea resting casually in his hands.
Tears instantly burst from my eyes, hot and blinding, spilling down my cold cheeks as my chest began to heave in frantic, erratic gasps. I sobbed out loud, a sound of pure terror—and then, my breath hitched in my throat.
Underneath the heavy blankets, I felt a sharp, unmistakable pressure. I forced my eyes downward. Beneath the linen sheets, the large, rounded swell of my belly remained intact. The baby was still there. Warm, alive, and moving restlessly inside me.
"I... I didn't lose the baby?" I sobbed out, my voice raspy and broken.
Cion threw his head back and laughed—a rich, booming sound that chilled the very marrow of my bones. "Welcome back, Astelion. Tell me... did you enjoy the memories you were allowed to keep this time?"
I stared at him through a blur of tears, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. "W-What... what are you talking about?"
"Oh, did you really think this was your first journey into the past?" Cion sneered, leaning closer, his eyes gleaming with wicked pleasure. "You foolish, tragic girl. You have run back into the past dozens of times, desperately trying to rewrite history, trying to alter fate. And every single time, I followed you. Every single time, you failed to learn your lesson, died a pathetic death, and were yanked back to the future with your mind completely wiped—forced to be reborn into a new, useless existence."
"No..." I gasped, shaking my head violently against the pillow. "No, no, that's not true! You're lying!"
"Denial looks so tiresome on you," he chuckled softly.
"Then... then how do I remember now?!" I cried out, my voice cracking under the agonizing weight of the truth. "Why do I remember everything?!"
"Because I personally carried your physical vessel across the temporal rift," Cion murmured, his smile widening into a terrifying, razor-sharp line. "I had to ensure my prize made it into the future intact."
I swallowed hard, tears choking my throat as I tried once more to wiggle my toes, my fingers—anything. "Why can't I move? What did you do to me?!"
"You are a magicless, ordinary human now, my dear," Cion explained smoothly, as if discussing the weather. "The moment Castel's heart stopped that night, the magical anchor linking your bloodline shattered. Oh, and as for your precious Arastella? Once she was knocked unconscious, she was trapped with no power, no dragon king, and nowhere to run. She ended up pregnant by one of the filthiest rebel leaders, locked in a squalid room, completely broken by the very fate she tried to escape."
He set his teacup down on the nightstand, leaning over me until his shadow completely swallowed my frame.
"I really must thank you, Astelion," he whispered, his breath warm and metallic against my skin. "Because of your pathetic, desperate rebellion, this is the most successful jump I have ever executed. I now have a vessel—a child born of dragon, spirit, and shadow—tied simultaneously to the past and the future. An immortal god."
"Please..." I wept, trying with every ounce of my soul to channel a spark, a single drop of telekinesis, but my inner well was dead and dry.
Cion leaned down and pressed a cold, sickening kiss against my lips.
Indignation and pure hatred flared through my veins. As he pulled back, I snapped my jaw forward and bit down viciously into his bottom lip, drawing dark, hot blood.
Cion pulled back, wiping the crimson smear from his chin with the back of his thumb. He didn't get angry. He simply laughed—a dark, sinister sound that stripped the last rays of light from the room.
Then, he reached into the folds of his cloak and pulled out a long, curved silver blade.
My eyes dilated in absolute, paralyzing horror. "No... no! Please! Cion, please, don't!" I screamed, begging him as tears streamed endlessly into my hair. "If... if anything we shared was real... when you were in Kiono's body... if you ever cared for me, please! Spare our child! Spare us!"
Cion paused, looking down at me with a look of profound, mocking pity.
"You truly are a fool," he whispered softly. "Kiono was never a separate person, Astelion. Kiono was my original body all along. Every touch, every word, every lie... it was all just a game to break you."
The final, lingering spark of hope in my eyes died completely. My world shattered into cold, empty ash.
Before I could even process the words, Cion shifted my paralyzed body across the bed, dragging me roughly by my hair until my torso was positioned over the edge. He was brutal, unyielding, handling my flesh like meat on a butcher's block.
Then, he plunged the blade down.
A sound tore from my throat that was barely human—a raw, gut-wrenching shriek of unimaginable, blinding horror as the sharp steel sliced deep into my abdomen. The pain was an apocalyptic wave of fire, tearing through my flesh, my muscle, my very soul. I screamed and screamed until my vocal cords shredded, my eyes bulging as my body twitched helplessly in its paralyzed state.
I felt the horrific, cold drag of the blade, the warm, thick river of my own blood flooding over my skin and soaking the mattress. He worked without an ounce of gentleness, ripping into my flesh, slicing through the layers to reach the precious prize hidden within my womb.
"No... please... my baby... my baby..." I wheezed, my voice reduced to a wet, dying whisper as my vision began to darken around the edges.
The cold air hit my exposed inner core, and then— A sharp, shrill, clearing cry cut through the nightmare.
The baby was crying.
Through the red, fading haze of my dying vision, I saw Cion standing over me, cradling the tiny, blood-covered child in his arms. The baby's skin glowed with an eerie, unholy mix of golden dragon light and swirling pitch-black shadows.
Cion didn't look back at me. He turned on his heel, his heavy, deliberate footsteps retreating toward the chamber door.
My body hung limply off the side of the bed, my upper torso suspended over the edge, my hair dragging in the thick pool of blood gathering on the cold stone floor. I couldn't move. I couldn't reach out. I couldn't hold my child.
With every passing second, the room grew darker, quieter, colder.
My lungs gave one final, wet, rattling heave. A single tear slipped from my motionless eye, trailing through the blood on my cheek, as the dark void rose up to swallow me whole.
Breath…
Breath…
I took my very last breath....
AUTHOR
Did you feel it?
Did you feel the cold steel of the blade? Did you feel the crushing weight of every betrayal, the agony of a love built entirely on lies, and the absolute horror of her final, dying breath as her child was ripped from her stomach?
Astelion fought across lifetimes, across eras, and through the depths of time itself... only to serve as the incubator for the ultimate evil.
Hehehe... MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Did you truly believe love would conquer all? Did you actually hold out hope for a sweet, poetic salvation? How wonderfully naive. In this world, hope is just a delicious little appetizer before the slaughter.
No one escapes the Shadow. No one rewrites my game.
The cycle is finished. The god is born. And your precious heroine is nothing but cold, rotting meat on the floor.
The darkness wins. Always.