CHAPTER 158: CHAPTER 158 | SPECKLE

The single word "Contract" echoed inside Jinn’s mind with a sharp, almost painful clarity, like someone had struck a bell right behind his ear.

His eye twitched in response, before narrowing as he looked at Akavi.

"I’ll help you gain freedom... in exchange, you will serve me and me alone—you will be mine to do whatever I see fit," Akavi said as she stepped toward him.

Her movement was slow and smooth, and something about it felt dangerous, like a shadow creeping along the ground.

Her expression darkened into something cold and predatory, as if she was a slithering snake drawing closer to its chosen prey.

And Jinn could feel her presence pushing against him, not with force, but with confidence—like she already knew he had no way out.

She lifted a single finger and set it gently on Jinn’s shoulder, letting it drag down the length of his arm with a soft but unsettling touch.

The motion was steady, almost lazy, and she circled around him in a way that felt far too deliberate.

It was like a python moving around its prey, not yet tightening, but already imagining the moment it would.

"You must have forgotten, Jinn," she whispered as she slid both of her arms through the gaps between his arms and his sides.

In one fluid motion, she wrapped him in a back hug, her body pressing lightly against him.

The contact felt both possessive and strangely gentle, her hold firm enough to remind him he wasn’t going anywhere, yet soft enough to make it clear she wasn’t trying to restrain him—at least not physically.

"Until then," she murmured near his ear, her voice carrying the warmth of a quiet threat, "you are mine."

"What is it that you actually want with this contract... with me?" Jinn asked, keeping his face cold and expressionless, though his voice carried a clear edge of irritation that slipped through no matter how he tried to hide it.

His calm appearance did little to mask the slight tightening of his jaw, or the way his shoulders shifted as if bracing for something unpleasant.

"It’s obviously not love. So is it power? Control? Or something else you refuse to say?" he continued, his tone roughening with each word.

Jinn had spent a long time wondering why Akavi behaved this way around him—why she clung so tightly, why she acted as though every part of him already belonged to her.

Her possessiveness never made sense to him, and it remained one of those things that bothered him quietly, like a question that always stayed half-answered.

"Not love?" Akavi lowered her head until her forehead touched the back of Jinn’s shoulder, her breath warm against him.

"Who said it wasn’t love?" she whispered, her voice soft and strangely tender in a way that felt completely out of place coming from her.

The words slid down his spine like a needle made of ice, and Jinn’s eye twitched once again.

He brushed her arms away with a sudden, sharp movement, stepping out of her hold as fast as he could.

He then turned around, but not before taking a few steps backward, putting a bit of space between them.

"Hah. You? Capable of love? I didn’t know you had a talent for comedy," Jinn said, letting out a short scoff that carried more annoyance than actual amusement.

He then walked toward the ornate wooden table nearby, trying to ground himself.

He placed his sword—Fangeryth—onto the surface with a gentle, almost careful motion, as if the blade itself anchored him.

Then he sank into a chair beside it, letting out a slow breath that did little to calm the heat building inside his chest.

"If you have nothing else to say besides your usual theatrics, then leave," he said.

His voice turned flat and final, the kind of tone that gave no room for further argument, and he didn’t even bother looking at her afterward.

"Mhm, you really are a tough nut to crack, Jinn," Akavi replied, her voice carrying a teasing note, though it dropped into something lower and more focused as she moved across the room.

She stepped toward a tall cabinet, pulled open one of the drawers, and retrieved a curled piece of parchment that seemed to hum faintly with dark eidric energy.

The air around it shifted in a subtle way, almost like a low vibration.

Raising her right hand, she let dark eidra crackle between her fingertips before snapping them.

*crack!

A small spark burst out, and whatever lock or mechanism sealed the parchment released instantly with a soft, broken click.

"I’ve found information about one of your... friends," she said as she ran her fingertips across the surface of the parchment, the dark energy moving like a shadow that followed her touch.

The moment the words left her mouth, Jinn’s lone eye widened, his entire body reacting before his mind could even catch up.

He shot to his feet so fast that his chair scraped sharply against the floor.

"Who? Are they alright? Where are they?" Jinn’s voice rose in urgency, all irritation replaced with raw concern as his composure cracked open.

His tone was tight, rushed, and desperate, revealing emotion that he usually kept buried deep beneath his hard exterior.

"Oh, I know where they are," Akavi replied, letting her voice shift into that same teasing rhythm again.

"Whether they’re alive or dea—"

She didn’t get to finish.

"WHERE ARE THEY!?" Jinn roared, grabbing her arm in a hard, instinctive grip. His voice exploded with anger and fear mixed together, completely shattering the cold, controlled demeanor she was used to seeing.

His patience had snapped entirely, and every bit of annoyance he’d held back came pouring out at once as he glared at her.

For years, Jinn had lived with nothing but silence when it came to his old friends, the ones who had broken away from him long ago.

He had been the one who pushed them to leave, after all.

It was his choice, his order even, because he wanted them to gain the freedom that he himself could no longer chase.

They fled from the reach of Zerafhon while he stayed behind, chained not by iron but by duty, by training, and by the weight of becoming a soldier shaped by the empire.

He remained as the personal apprentice of Venedix herself, forced into a life where every day sharpened him into a weapon instead of a normal person.

And in all those years, not even a whisper of his friends ever reached him—only the memories that refused to die.

So now, hearing even the slightest hint about them hit him harder than a blade to the heart.

This moment, small as it seemed, was the first tiny crack in the wall of uncertainty that had followed him for so long.

A speckle,

a trace,

anything that could tell him whether they were safe, suffering, or even still alive.

He would not—no, he could not—let such a chance slip away from his grasp.

Not after carrying the guilt and the hope for so many years.

Not when this might be the only chance he ever gets to know the truth.