Chapter 120: She Will Walk Into Her Inheritance

Chapter 120: She Will Walk Into Her Inheritance [Emperor Cassius’s POV] The war tent reeked of ink, ash, and long hours. Outside, thunder cracked low against the hills. A storm was coming. But inside—the real Tempest was already seated at the table. I pushed past the heavy flaps and entered. "So..." I said coldly, my voice slicing through the stale air. "What did we find?" Regis, hunched over a scroll, glanced up. He looked tired. Gaunt. Like the parchment in his hands had drained more blood than the battlefield ever could. He lowered the scroll and stood, spine straightening out of sheer habit. "It’s confirmed," he said gravely. "There’s been a change of emperor in Irethene." I moved past the table and dropped onto the high-backed war chair they called my "field throne." It wasn’t gold, but it carried the same weight. And that weight settled onto my shoulders like iron. "Go on," I said. Regis didn’t waste time. "Just as we suspected—Orlen, the former Emperor of Irethene... is dead." I raised an eyebrow. "Dead? Assassinated?" Regis nodded slowly. "By his bastard son." That made me pause. "Name," I demanded. "Kaelith Ilstar," Regis said grimly. "The illegitimate child of Emperor Orlen and a low-born priestess." "Kaelith Ilstar?" I mumbled the name. I let the name roll through my mind like a curse being shaped. Regis continued, "He didn’t just kill the emperor. He slaughtered the entire imperial family. Brothers, cousins, ministers—every noble house loyal to the crown. Burned their halls to ash." "Hm," I muttered. "Efficient." "And he wasn’t alone." I looked up sharply. Regis’s eyes were flinty. "The massacre was done with the guidance—some say manipulation—of Irethene’s High Priest. A man named Velsior. A fanatic cloaked in divine authority, with enough influence to bend an empire’s spine." "Velsior," I repeated. "A holy man... playing kingmaker." "He did more than play," Regis said darkly. "He whispered into Kaelith’s ears. Fed him prophecy. Gave him purpose. They say Kaelith never once questioned him." I leaned forward slowly, fingers steepled. "And what purpose," I said, voice low, "does a bastard-turned-emperor have for slaughtering my knights and spitting on the peace we’ve never once broken?" Regis unfolded another parchment—hand-drawn sketches, intercepted reports—and tapped it. "He wants to unite the world," he said. "Under one flame." I said nothing. He continued, "Velsior believes Irethene was blessed by the ’true flame of creation.’ A divine right to cleanse and rule. They began with their own lands. And when no one objected—" "They moved on," I said coldly. "To us." "Yes. Our empire, Elorian, was next," Regis said. "Our southern border was the first act in their so-called divine expansion." I laughed once. Dry. Cold. Without humor. "The first act?" I echoed. "Then let me write the second." Regis nodded. "Our scouts say Velsior now sits beside the new emperor. A shadow to his throne. The people call him ’The Tongue of Flame.’" "The tongue, is it?" I growled. "Then I’ll cut it out myself." There was a moment of silence. Then Regis said, "This is no longer politics. No longer vengeance. It’s prophecy to them." "Prophecy," I said bitterly. "Always the excuse of cowards who want to play god with blood and banners." I stood, slowly, letting my cloak fall back over my shoulders. My boots thudded with purpose as I walked toward the burning brazier, gaze pinned to the flickering flames like I could see the face of the man who dared take my empire as a conquest prize. "Kaelith Ilstar thinks he can rewrite the world with sermons and slaughter?" I smiled—cold and sharp as a sword edge. "Then let him come. I will carve out his kingdom piece by piece. I’ll grind his cities into salt and leave them as offerings to my daughter’s name." Regis, who had long learned not to flinch at threats soaked in blood, folded his arms and gave me a look. One of those rare, exasperated, human ones. "There’s a rumor," he said, slow and cautious, "spreading through the camp." I turned to him, brow raised. "What rumor?" He hesitated. "Speak." He sighed. "That... after you conquer Irethene, you’ll rename the kingdom. Call it—" he winced like he was embarrassed to even finish the thought, "—LAVINIA." I stared at him. Long. Unblinking. "And?" Regis cleared his throat. "Don’t you think... that’s a bit much?" My answer was immediate, thunderous in its finality. "NO" He blinked. Deadpan. "I can’t believe you’ve become a doting father." I smirked, not even denying it. "You wouldn’t understand," I said, stepping toward the map again. "You never had a daughter." "You make it sound like fatherhood is a battlefront," Regis muttered. "It is," I replied coolly. "But unlike war, this one is worth every scar." He stared at me, and then—to my eternal suspicion—he smirked . Slowly. As if something unpleasantly clever had just wormed its way into his skull. "Well," he said lightly, "I’ll make sure Princess Lavinia becomes my daughter too, then." I blinked once. Slowly. "What?" He lifted a brow, pretending to examine his fingernails. "You know. Through marriage. My son Osric—" I didn’t let him finish. In a single, fluid motion, my hand went to the hilt of my sword, and with a cold metallic whisper, I drew the blade and slammed it against his neck. Steel-kissed skin. The tent stilled. The fire crackled softly behind us. "Utter that again," I said in a voice as cold as death. "Utter even one more syllable of that treasonous fantasy, Regis—and I swear by the blood of the empire—I will end you here, now, and without ceremony." Regis didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink. He looked down at the blade resting against his throat, then up at me, smile never wavering. "My, my..." he murmured. "So this is what it looks like when the Blade of the Empire becomes a possessive father." "You’re dancing on the edge of my patience," I growled, pressing the blade a fraction deeper, enough to draw a bead of blood. "She is a kid. She has a future forged in fire, not in feeble marriage pacts." "She’s also smart," Regis said, infuriatingly calm, as if he hadn’t just spoken a curse into the room. "And stubborn. Just like you. What will you do when she comes to you one day, stands tall, and says she wants to marry my son?" I smirked, slow and razor-edged. "That fantasy of yours will never be fulfilled." My voice turned into a growl, deliberate and dangerous. "I. Will. Make. Sure. Of. It." Each word struck like a war drum, and with it, I saw his smirk twitch—just slightly. Good. But still, Regis—arrogant bastard that he is—persisted. "And what if she still chooses Osric?" he asked, softer now. Too soft. Like the whisper of an assassin’s blade. I didn’t even grace him with a glance. My words cut through the air like winter wind through a graveyard. "Then he better survive me first." A beat. I leaned back just enough to let my voice carry the weight of the death it promised. "And you know..." I murmured, running a gloved hand down the hilt of my sword, "...my hand does tend to slip during duels." Regis’s eye twitched. Just a flicker. He swallowed something back—probably a prayer for his son’s future limbs—and sighed, exasperated but not surprised. "Fine. All right," he muttered, rubbing his temple like fatherhood by proxy was giving him a headache. "Let’s focus. What should I do now?" I strode back to my war-throne and sat, the heavy furs of my cloak falling like shadows across the stone beneath me. My gaze swept the war map, then fell back to him with the cool authority of a man whose word shaped fate. "What do you mean, what do you do?" I said, tone dipped in disdain. "We’re not throwing a banquet, Regis." I pointed to the blood-red mark on the map—the border that once protected Irethene’s silence. "We are attacking." I stood again, pacing around the map like a lion circling its next kill. "Inform Ravick," I said, my voice steady but rising like a storm tide. "Tell him to prepare the front lines. We move at dawn." Regis blinked. "You want him to cross the border now?" "Now?" I echoed, stepping closer. My glare flared like a forge. "We should’ve crossed it the moment I saw my knights burnt to bone. This is already late." I turned my back to him, letting the crackle of the war fire underscore every word. "I want our banners in their skies. I want the wind howling with our warhorns. I want the people of Irethene to wake up and realize that in their foolish silence, they’ve summoned a god of fire." Regis nodded stiffly. "It will be done." "Good." I sat again, slower this time, every inch the emperor. "And when their cities crumble—when their temples collapse under our siege—I want you to remember this moment." He looked at me questioningly. "Because the day Lavinia sets foot in Irethene, she will not walk into a foreign land. She will walk into her inheritance." Regis stood silent for a long moment, watching me like a man staring into a prophecy he wasn’t sure he wanted fulfilled. Then, with a weary sigh, he turned on his heel. "...I wonder what the world will look like by the time the princess gets crowned," he muttered on his way out. I heard him. I didn’t answer. Because I already knew the answer. Whatever the world looks like—it will belong to her. Because I will not make the same mistake again. Not again in this life.