Chapter 78 A New Attack
"What if the Link had chosen wrong?"
"How many truths can a kingdom endure before it crumbles?"
I wondered as I looked out from the balcony of my room. There were still some people camped in front of the castle. The people didn't hate me yet, but it was clear they feared me.
All the mess and fear plaguing the kingdom was blamed on me. I was guilty only of having survived.
"Don't think about it. Soon everyone will see the truth." Conrad hugs me from behind and I snuggle against him.
"The thing I feared most was not being accepted by the people, and now I find myself in the place I feared so much." I confess, letting out a sigh of exhaustion.
"What's happening is something big, beyond your or my control. Being a leader also means understanding people's fragility and understanding that fear can transform any magical being."
His words hang in the air, full of meaning.
Conrad's words echoed within me even after the silence returned.
I knew he was right. I knew it from the trail, from the Link, from the first time I felt the Rift react to my presence. Still, understanding didn't make it any easier to bear.
I watched the people below again. A few makeshift campfires still burned. It wasn't shouts reaching me anymore, but murmurs. People whispering, pointing to the towers, to the walls, to me—even without seeing me.
"Fear changes the way stories are told," I murmured.
Conrad tightened his arms around me. "And it's up to us to prevent the lie from being the version that survives."
I closed my eyes for a moment. The mark on my chest pulsed slightly, almost wearily. There was no urgency now. Only... weight. As if the Link were also waiting, observing every choice of the kingdom.
"They see me as a threat," I said softly. "Not because I want to rule. But because I can no longer pretend not to see."
"And that's frightening," Conrad replied. "Especially for those who have built power on silence."
I stepped back a little and looked at his face. There was weariness there. Guilt too. Guilt for loving me in a kingdom that was beginning to question my existence.
"If this gets worse..." I began, but he interrupted me.
"Don't finish that sentence." His voice was firm, almost harsh. "You're not going away. You're not going to hide. You're not going to carry this alone."
I took a deep breath.
A movement in the hallway caught my attention. Hurried footsteps. Agitated energy. Before anyone knocked on the door, I felt it.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
The fragment of Moon, resting on the table, darkened for a second—as if a shadow had passed through it.
I put my hand to my chest. Conrad followed my gaze to the fragment.
"What does this mean?"
I didn't answer.
There wasn't time.
The first scream cut through the night like a blade.
It didn't come from the castle, nor from the inner corridors. It came from below—from the camp.
My body reacted before my mind. The mark on my chest burned violently, like a belated warning. I ran to the balcony and saw the darkness moving between the extinguished campfires. It wasn't an ordinary shadow. It was thick, alive. It slid across the ground like hungry smoke, seeping between the people.
"Conrad..." I whispered, already retreating.
He had seen it too. His face lost its color instantly.
"Extinguishers," he said dryly. "They came for the people."
Chaos spread quickly. Screams. Children being pulled away. People tripping over each other. The shadow touched bodies and, where it touched, the light seemed to go out from within. "They're not the target," I said, feeling my stomach churn. "They're the warning."
Before Conrad could stop me, I was already running. I descended the stairs as if the castle had no weight, as if the path opened up beneath my feet. Guards shouted my name. No one could stop me.
When I crossed the gates, the air was wrong. Dense. Laden with despair.
A woman fell to her knees before me, her eyes too empty for someone still alive. The shadow detached itself from her like black smoke.
"Enough." My voice wasn't loud. It was firm.
The erasers reacted.
Not with words, but with hunger.
They turned to me, drawn as always. Elyrion energy pulsed beneath my exposed, open skin. The Moon fragment appeared in my hand without me realizing when I summoned it.
"You want energy?" I stepped forward. "Then look at me."
The shadow advanced.
When it touched me, it didn't hurt.
It burned.
But not like before.
This time, I didn't resist. I absorbed.
I felt the cold. The emptiness. The broken voices. Interrupted lives. Everything tried to pass through me—and stayed. The mark on my chest glowed, silvery and dark at the same time. The erasers began to writhe, as if something were wrong.
They were never meant to be consumed.
One by one, they crumbled into black ashes, sucked into me and dissipated by the Link. Where there had been shadow, only damp ground and fallen, yet alive, people remained.
Silence.
I staggered.
Conrad reached me in time to catch me before I fell. His face was pure terror.
"What did you do?" he asked, shocked.
I breathed heavily, feeling my body tremble.
"What needed to be done." I looked around at the people who were now watching me—not with hatred. Not with screams.
With fear.
And with something new.
Doubt.
Because, that night, I wasn't the threat.
I was the one who saved them.
"Maybe this was a good thing." Kael broke the deafening silence of the room.
I was in bed while Conrad wiped the sweat from my forehead with a damp cloth. My whole body ached, and I could feel the dark magic of the erasers inside me. "This will show them we're not lying. And after today, I doubt they'll call for Selena again."
Kael explained, making me exchange glances with Conrad. There was no certainty. I may have managed to destroy the erasers, but this could end up causing more problems.
"I manipulate dark magic, and only the pure ones were chosen by the moon to rule. What I did today could make the situation even worse."
I sighed, feeling sleepy.
"Sleep, I'll call you as soon as the doctor arrives," Conrad said affectionately.
I nodded, unable to control the urge to close my eyes.
Would the world still be standing when I woke up?