CHAPTER 160: CHAPTER 160: ANOTHER DREAM

The flame had dimmed the moment Cassian turned his back.

And the priestess... She said nothing more. Just stood there like a shadow that belonged to another world, her hands folded in silence, as if she had done what she was meant to and would now fade into nothingness.

"Is that all?" he had asked her—voice low, hesitant, wanting... more.

But she hadn’t answered.

She only gave a soft nod and gestured toward the exit, her expression unreadable—neither kind nor cold, only inevitable. And somehow, Cassian understood.

She wouldn’t answer his questions. Not now. Perhaps never.

Because her job had never been to explain anything. It was to give him back his belongings.

So he left; he knew now he did not have any reason to stay here at all.

Step by step, the echo of his boots trailing through the dim corridors, he walked back with a strange hollowness in his chest. There was confusion in his mind. Like a song with no lyrics that still somehow stirred his soul.

He kept the locket close, fingers curled tightly around it beneath his robe. It was warm, and it pulsed faintly against his palm, as if responding to the steady rhythm of his heart.

He didn’t know if he had imagined everything. The flame. The memory. The boy is in the fire. But he felt it. And that feeling alone was enough.

When he emerged from the temple’s inner chamber, Veyce was already there—pacing, restless, trying to look like he hadn’t been counting every heartbeat since Cassian left.

As soon as he saw him, he rushed forward.

"How was it?" Veyce asked, eyes lighting up with rare curiosity. "I mean, you actually went inside. Hardly anyone’s ever been allowed in there, Cass."

Cassian gave a small smile, the kind that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He loosened his cloak subtly, making sure the locket remained hidden beneath the layers.

"It was... peaceful," he said slowly, deliberately. "There was a beautiful flame at the heart of the temple."

Veyce blinked. "That sounds... weirdly poetic for you."

Cassian only gave a low chuckle and shook his head. "Maybe the temple’s finally cured me."

But his gaze never quite lifted from the ground. His thoughts were still trapped in that room—in the priestess’s silence, in the heat of that impossible fire, in the echo of that memory that hadn’t belonged to him and yet somehow did.

Veyce tilted his head, watching him carefully. "So... does this mean the ritual stuff will no longer affect you badly?"

Cassian cut him off gently. "Yeah! Everything is fine; now you can sleep peacefully." But he thought in his mind that maybe this was just a way to call him here.

Veyce frowned, clearly wanting to ask more, but something in Cassian’s voice made him stop. He nodded instead, stepping into stride beside him. "Well, that’s good."

The two of them walked away from the sacred grounds, the temple fading behind them like a dream slipping through their fingers. But Cassian didn’t look back.

He didn’t have to. That place had already fulfilled his duty.

By the time they reached the palace estate again, dusk was spilling across the sky like bruised ink. Lanterns flickered to life along the corridors, and distant laughter echoed from the halls. Life went on—unaware, uncaring of what had stirred inside him.

Cassian murmured a quiet goodbye to Veyce, who—thankfully—didn’t press him further and retreated into his private estate.

The doors closed behind him with a soft thud.

Silence.

It settled over his shoulders like a shroud. Familiar. Heavy. But this time, it wasn’t unwelcome.

He walked slowly to his room, each step louder than the last, the walls of the palace suddenly too narrow, too tight.

And when he sat on the edge of his bed and finally pulled the locket out from beneath his clothes... his heart started beating faster.

It hadn’t changed.

Same shape. Same glow. The same haunting hum that trembled against his skin like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to him.

He turned it over in his fingers.

There was no hinge. No seam. No latch. Just a smooth, impossibly intricate surface—symbols etched so finely they felt like threads of fate themselves.

He pressed his thumb against the center, hoping it would open, shift, or reveal something.

But it didn’t.

It remained sealed.

Silent.

He tried again. Tapped it. Held it to the candlelight. Even whispered a question—"What are you?"

But the locket gave no answer.

Cassian stared at it for a long time.

And though his mind offered no explanations... His soul ached. Ache like mourning a name he didn’t remember forgetting. Ache like the whisper of a home he had never seen but once dreamed about.

Something inside this thing was his.

A part of him that had been lost and buried. And now he had it again. Even if he didn’t know what it meant.

He closed his hand around it slowly and lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The room was quiet. The palace was asleep.

The moment Cassian drifted into sleep, it was like slipping beneath the surface of still water—silent, seamless, and sudden.

But what he awoke into... wasn’t a reality.

He found himself lying on soft grass, damp with morning dew, beneath a sky that didn’t belong to any realm he’d ever known. Pale lavender clouds swirled overhead, and the scent of wildflowers mixed with something else.

His head rested against someone’s chest. He could feel the warmth radiating from the man behind him and his steady breath.

The faint thrum of a heartbeat that was not his own.

Cassian blinked. He tried to sit up—tried to look over his shoulder and see who held him so tenderly—but his body wouldn’t respond. He wasn’t paralyzed... but it was as if he didn’t own himself here.

He was a passenger inside his own skin. A ghost, watching through the windows of someone else’s eyes.

He could...only listen.

Strong arms curled around his chest from behind, slow and reverent, as if afraid that he would disappear if held too tightly. Fingers slowly pried open his hand and held it gently.

And then—that voice. Familiar in a way that stole the breath from Cassian’s lungs.

"My heart only beats for you." A pause. The arms tightened.

"No one can take the place beside me other than you."

Cassian’s breath hitched—who was this?

Who was he to this man? Is it really him?

But even as he asked, he heard himself scoff. His lips moved—but not by his will. His voice came out light, playful, and drenched in teasing scorn.

"Hmph. You have such a big harem, but you dare to declare your love only for me? Aren’t you shameless?"

The words were laced with false annoyance, but his heart—Cassian’s own heart—ached with tenderness.

He felt his dream-self jerk his hands away, but they were caught before they could flee too far.

And then came the laugh.

Deep. Magnetic. Like velvet soaked in starlight. It rolled through the dreamscape, rumbling with such affection that it pulled something forgotten from within Cassian’s soul.

The man behind him buried his face against the back of his neck, laughing still.

"Shameless only for you."