CHAPTER 314: WHICH IS WITCH-I

But as Atlas’s voice faded into the quiet, Arabella found her thoughts drifting elsewhere, toward the fragments of stories she had been told, toward the tale of the first witch.

Didn’t Lastor once say the first witch had fallen into a King’s lies? That she had loved him so blindly, she cursed her own followers, and in doing so, caused them to turn against her?

Which King was that?

"Did you ever make a contract or swear an oath with Circe?" Arabella asked suddenly, her green eyes shining with quiet intensity.

Atlas blinked at the question, then shook his head. "Why do you ask? Is there something that doesn’t make sense?"

Arabella hesitated, arms wrapped tightly around her knees. "Yes... quite a few things, actually," she admitted. "The version of the past I know, it’s not what you’re telling me. But maybe that’s because no one ever told me everything. Just... fragments. Cautionary pieces that they didn’t wish to discuss again and again. I don’t even know if I was meant to know about Circe at all."

"But knowing," Atlas said gently, "is always better than not. Isn’t that what wisdom is built on?"

Arabella nodded, and Atlas turned his gaze back to the moon. He let out a quiet hum, thoughtful, almost resigned.

"I could tell you the whole of it. At least, the parts I still remember, everything that happened before I was put to sleep in that glass coffin."

Arabella studied him closely. The man beside her had awakened from a century-long slumber, and yet... she could tell that some part of his soul still lived in the past, as if time had not truly moved for him.

"Let’s see..." Atlas began, his voice low, like he was unspooling memories buried deep.

"I learned Circe was a witch when I was eight. That’s when we grew close, first as friends, then as allies. She was always hated, always hunted for what she was. And back then, there was a purge, a bloodthirsty rage against women with magic. The word ’witch’ alone was enough to sentence someone to death."

His jaw tightened.

"My eldest sibling, he was Crown Prince at the time. Power hungry, cruel. Like many kings before him, he believed the path to the throne lay in violence. His method was to kill witches. Publicly. He’d have them strung up on crosses in front of the castle, just to send a message."

Atlas’s hands clenched around his arms, his voice dipping into a low, bitter tone.

"I couldn’t bear the thought of Circe meeting that fate. Or the women she protected—those who’d just begun to understand the magic inside them. But I also knew I couldn’t save them through sympathy alone. I had to prove their worth. Their loyalty."

He exhaled shakily.

"So I fought. I spilled blood in wars, built my name through victories. I had to show that I could rule, that we could rule. That the witches weren’t threats, they were allies. Faithful to the crown. Loyal to the castle. Harmless... if protected."

Arabella said nothing. She only hugged her knees tighter, heart twisting at the idea of a young boy forced to carry the weight of an entire people’s safety on his shoulders. And all for the sake of a girl he couldn’t keep.

And yet... there was still that question burning in her heart.

If Circe was the first witch... if this was the King she had once loved, then what had gone so wrong?

"And you became the King," Arabella whispered.

Atlas turned slightly, giving a faint nod. "I did."

"But... at a cost."

His voice had grown quieter, almost brittle. He slowly loosened his grip on his arms and leaned back against the cold tiles, exhaling as if the weight of memory pressed against his chest.

"I killed them all," he said simply. "My siblings, the ones who despised witches and sorcerers... the ones who wanted me dead. The ones who couldn’t hide the hunger for the crown in their eyes."

Arabella didn’t speak. She could feel the heaviness of his confession settle in the space between them like mist.

"I thought I had won," Atlas continued, voice barely a breath. "After the bloodshed, after all the bodies were buried and the throne was finally mine, I believed things would get better. That I had done what needed to be done."

He let out a slow, tired sigh, then added, "But perhaps the Goddess was not so forgiving of the path I took." His eyes lifted toward the moon, now fully visible again, bright and watchful. "It happened just a week after my coronation. I was on my way to visit Circe... she had gone to see Rafael again."

Arabella stiffened slightly but said nothing.

"And then, my body stopped responding."

He reached down and touched his ankle, the motion slow, almost reverent. Arabella followed his gaze, frowning in confusion.

"You’ve walked just fine," she murmured.

"It started from here," Atlas said, fingers resting against his left ankle. "The muscles gave out, suddenly and without warning. I couldn’t move it. Then... the numbness spread. Day by day, inch by inch. My limbs grew stiff, heavy. As though I was slowly turning to stone."

His voice faltered for a moment, not from emotion, but from remembering the helplessness.

"I could feel everything. I just couldn’t move anymore. My body betrayed me, one piece at a time."

Arabella’s heart twisted. The image of a young king, fresh from war and bloodshed, cursed by something he couldn’t see or fight, it sent a shiver down her spine.

"And then... the glass coffin," she murmured.

Atlas nodded. "The only way to preserve me. A stasis, they called it. Perhaps to wait for a cure, or maybe to trap me between life and death. A fitting end for someone who tried to force fate’s hand."

Arabella was silent, eyes drifting toward the stars. And as the wind whispered across the rooftop, she couldn’t help but wonder—

"That was the illness?" Arabella softly frowned as she had seen some writings on Lastor’s notes before, things about an illness that was so similar to the one Atlas had suffered. Then perhaps those notes were something that Lastor had really gathered as a remain from Circe, the ones she had used to find a cure for Atlas. But there... "It’s not only an illness, it started from a poison, isn’t it?"

Atlas seemed startled at how she managed to guess that fact.

"I was indeed poisoned for years without my knowledge but how did you..."

"I saw them, the notes that Circe had written about your illness," she then saw how his eyes for a moment seemed to sparkle though it slowly dimmed with sadness then.

"I see..."