Chapter 48: The Day Emperor Cassius was Born

Chapter 48: The Day Emperor Cassius was Born [Theon’s Pov] "Theon, meet my son Regis and the future emperor, Cassius." That was the first time I saw them—under the orange-tinged sky of late autumn, framed by the courtyard of the Everhart estate. I was fifteen. Just a boy with calloused hands, a stiff uniform too big for me, and a heart still raw from my father’s death. He died in a war... a war that had nothing to do with him but everything to do with honor. My father had been a knight who gave his life protecting Grand Duke Gregor. And the Grand Duke, in return, took me in—out of gratitude, duty, or perhaps guilt. I never asked. He gave me shelter, food, an education... a new purpose. I suppose my father’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain. Because that was the day I became more than a forgotten orphan. That was the day I met them. Prince Regis smiled the moment our eyes met. "You look nervous," he said with a playful grin. "Don’t be. Cassius looks like that all the time." ’That’ meant the boy who stood behind him—golden-haired, crimson-eyed, eerily still, unreadable. Cassius didn’t offer a word that time. He just stared at me like he was deciding where I belonged—beneath his sword or beside it. Then I came to learn that he always looked like that. Even in the years that followed... he never changed. He never smiled. Not once. As we grew up together, the three of us, under the ancient stone arches of Everhart. Regis with his easy laughter and mischief. Cassius, with his silence sharp as daggers. I watched Cassius train alone in the dark, sparring with shadows like they owed him blood. He rarely spoke unless necessary, but I learned to read him anyway—the slight twitch of his jaw when he was angry, the narrowed eyes when he was plotting. I always wondered: why did the future emperor of Elarion grow up here, so far from the palace? Why did the crown prince wear secondhand clothes and eat with soldiers? And then... I saw the scars. One night, I entered the training yard with a towel in hand, thinking he might need it. He had stripped off his shirt—chest heaving from another round of sword drills. And I saw it. His back. It looked like a battlefield. Old whip marks, crisscrossed and healed poorly. Blunt bruises that spoke of fists and boots. I stood frozen, the towel slipping from my fingers, and he sensed me. "Don’t ask," he said coldly, still facing the target dummy. And I never asked. But Regis did tell me that Cassius was the illegitimate child of the emperor, born of a lowborn maid. The empress, proud and poisonous, saw him as a stain. Her sons—pampered, cruel, and spineless—treated him worse than a stray dog. And the emperor? He let it happen. Cassius was nine when Grand Duke Gregor found out. Ten when he was dragged out of the palace, half-dead, and brought to the Everhart estate. I remember the first time I heard Cassius speak his dream aloud when we were sixteen. "I will take his throne. I’ll burn his palace to the ground. And when I wear that crown, it will be on the bones of everyone who betrayed me." That was the only time I saw fire in his eyes. Not warmth. Not hope. Just pure, sharp vengeance, and that time maybe... Regis and I decided to support him in any way we could. Not because we feared him, but because he was a friend. The nobles had already begun turning against the old emperor. Greed makes enemies, and he hoarded everything—coin, power, even the gods’ favor, or so he claimed. With Grand Duke Gregor’s influence, Cassius gained nobles favor. But he never relied on them. He never trusted them. He was simply... waiting. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike. To end the man who called himself father of the Elarion empire. And every night, no matter how late it was, no matter how bruised or bloodied his body became... He trained. We’d watch from the upper windows sometimes, Regis and I. The moon would hang heavy above the field, and Cassius would move like a ghost—precise, relentless. Regis would sigh beside me, arms crossed. "Sigh... he’s still practicing?" I wouldn’t answer. Because I knew. That wasn’t just training. It was survival. It was war, in silence. And when Cassius turned eighteen... The silence ended. Grand Duke Gregor made the first move. With documents, testimonies, and forged letters—all real, all damning. He exposed the emperor’s rot in front of the entire court. Secret alliances with hostile empires. Taxes squeezed from starving peasants. The disappearance of whistleblowers. The embezzlement rings of the high nobles who swore their loyalty with gilded tongues. And the people... they erupted. Anger spilled like wildfire in the streets. Riots bloomed across the empire. The nobles turned on each other, desperate to prove their hands were clean. And in the eye of the storm, Cassius moved. No warning. No announcement. Just steel drawn in the dark and an army marching on the imperial palace. I was there. We all were. Regis, the Grand Duke, Ravick, and the nobles who dared to stand with him. The night reeked of blood before the gates even fell. Cassius... didn’t show mercy to any of those who attacked him. Not to the empress. Not to his half-siblings. Not to the emperor who sired him. I remember the emperor’s voice as he knelt on the marble floor, soaked in blood, his crown lost somewhere in the chaos. "Cassius... my son... please," he rasped, crawling toward him on all fours, his golden robes torn and stained. "I am your father. Spare me... I beg of you..." Cassius didn’t flinch. He raised his boot and crushed the emperor’s outstretched hand beneath it, bone cracking like dry twigs underfoot. "Did you spare me?" The emperor screamed. His tears mixed with blood as he clutched what was left of his hand. "I was eight," Cassius said. His voice was calm. Cold. "When your wife whipped my back with a branding iron. I was nine when your sons held me down and made bets on how long I could scream." "I—" the emperor choked. Cassius didn’t let him speak again. He didn’t kill them there. No. "Ravick, drag them to the throne room," he ordered, and Ravick nodded. He dragged them—what was left of them—into the throne room. I followed behind. The halls were quiet, too quiet, as if the entire palace was holding its breath. The twin princes were first. They begged. They cried. One of them even tried to hide behind a pillar. Cassius didn’t even blink when he beheaded them both—one swing for each neck, clean and precise. Blood splattered across the marble floor. The empress screamed, her voice cracking. "No! My children—no!" she wailed, crawling forward, clawing at the floor as if she could gather their bodies back together. Her cries echoed through the throne room, raw and broken. Cassius stepped over the corpses without a word and ascended the steps. Then, he sat on the imperial throne. The empress looked up at him through a curtain of tears and blood, her body trembling. Her once-beautiful face was smeared with soot and ash, her jeweled robes torn and soaked in grief. "I knew it..." she hissed, her voice shaking with rage. "I knew it from the start—you’re a monster. A monster!" The emperor, kneeling beside her, was silent. Shaking. Eyes wide. Mouth slack. And beside him, his wife kept mumbling the same thing over and over, like a prayer turned curse. "A monster... he’s a monster... a monster..." the empress kept mumbling, rocking back and forth, her eyes glassy with terror. Cassius tilted his head, a slow, cruel smile tugging at his lips. "A monster?" he echoed, voice low and mocking. Then, still seated on the throne, he leaned forward slightly—his eyes gleaming with something far colder than hatred. "Then let me show you exactly what kind of monster you created." His gaze shifted toward me. "Theon," he said, calm as ever. "Bring me the whip." I didn’t hesitate. I simply nodded and obeyed. When I returned, I placed the braided leather in his hand. Cassius didn’t move. He turned to the man Ravick, who was standing near him. "Ravick," he said, tossing the whip like it was nothing. "Let her feel every scar she left behind." Ravick bowed. "Yes, Your Majesty." The empress shrieked. "NO! You can’t—I am the—" Crack. The first strike tore through the air—and through her words. The sound echoed through the throne room like a judgment passed by the gods. She screamed. Again. And again. But Cassius remained seated on that throne, unmoving. Unflinching. The emperor—his father—watched from the floor, paralyzed in terror and shame, as the woman he once called empress was reduced to little more than blood and broken flesh. Until her screams stopped. Until her body no longer twitched. Until silence returned to the room, thick and suffocating. Cassius sat there, still as stone. Expressionless. Even Regis and I stood beside him, unmoving. Not because we weren’t horrified—we were. But we understood. What they did to him—this was the price. And that night... The boy I met when I was fifteen—The one who never smiled, who bled in silence— He died. And in his place, an emperor was born.