Chapter 124 Endil

Chapter 124 Endil
Seraph’s POV

“Why did you come back?”

The question lingered in the air like something alive and impatient.

For a moment I simply looked at him, feeling the weight of it pressing against my ribs. Then I turned away.

If he wanted answers, he could choke on the silence. I stepped past him.

Or at least, I tried to. My body refused to move.
Not completely. My foot lifted, but the moment I tried to take a full step forward, the air around me tightened like invisible threads had been pulled taut across my limbs. It was not a physical grip. No hands. No rope. Just a quiet, suffocating resistance that wrapped itself around my movement.

My jaw tightened.

Of course. Classic monsters of Lydians.

“What is this?” I demanded, spinning back toward him. “I already told you. I’m here for Anzel.”

His expression shifted almost imperceptibly.

“You’re here for Anzel,” he repeated slowly.

“Yes.”

The word came out sharp enough to cut.
For a moment he simply studied me. Then he sighed softly, almost thoughtfully, as though the answer confirmed something he had already suspected.

“I will give you the chance to leave,” he said. My brows drew together.

“But if you do not take it,” he continued calmly, “then I will personally take you to the castle. To Anzel’s castle.”

The words settled strangely in the air.

“And you should know,” he added, his tone lowering just slightly, “that what you find there will be very different from what you think.”

I felt irritation spark under my skin.

“You’re speaking in riddles again.”

He ignored that, and I can't help but roll my eyes.

“Things have changed since you left.”

A strange unease stirred in my stomach. I hated the way he said it, with that quiet certainty that suggested he was not exaggerating.

“Let me go,” I snapped.
He had not touched me, yet I knew without question that the invisible hold wrapped around my body was his doing. The air itself seemed to answer to him, tightening whenever I tried to move away.

His gaze drifted lazily over me, almost amused.

“I will let you go,” he said. Then the pressure vanished.
Just like that.

I blinked in surprise, my body swaying slightly as the tension disappeared. My muscles had already braced for resistance, for another game, for the inevitable moment where he would decide my freedom was inconvenient.
But nothing happened. I took a cautious step.
Then another.

The forest remained silent. He had actually released me.

Suspicion curled through my thoughts as I narrowed my eyes.

This was not like him.

“And if you also want me to leave you,” he added lightly, “I will do that too.”

That caught me off guard.

“Yes,” I said quickly. “Do that. Leave me alone.”
“Alright.”

He turned without hesitation. Just like that.
No threat. No lingering smirk. No final remark meant to unsettle me.

He simply began walking in the opposite direction.

I stared after him for a few seconds before the unease growing in my chest became unbearable.

“Wait.”
He stopped. Slowly, he turned his head. This was really needed to me, his obedience, almost as if I had come back to Lydian with an ability to control monsters.

But I have a feeling that even if I had, Endil will not be one of the ones I can tame.

“Tell me something,” I said, frowning slightly. “Why are you doing this? Why are you being like this?”

The words came out before I could stop them.
Even as I asked the question, another thought slid quietly into my mind, unwelcome and persistent.

Why is he listening to me? Like at all?
This was the same man who had nearly killed me more than once.

The same man who had cornered me, threatened me, forced me into situations I never asked to be part of.

Yet now he was… letting me go. Obeying my request. It made no sense.

Unless.
A memory surfaced uninvited.
The Shadow Queen’s palace.

The night everything had almost gone terribly wrong. Back then I had been certain he meant to kill me. I was ready for him to kill me when I first heard of Riko; I was out of my mind.

But now that I replayed it in my mind, the details felt… different. He had pushed me away.
Thrown me through that strange burst of magic before the Shadow Queen could see me.
He could have killed me. Instead he had sent me away. However questionable his methods were, he had… saved me.

The realization slid slowly through my thoughts.
Had he been trying to protect me? But why?
My mind raced through every other encounter we had shared.

Every moment where he had seemed cruel and had threatened me. Was I wrong about those too?

Had he been trying to tell me something all along?

Or had I simply been too blind to see it?
Endil watched me quietly as these thoughts flickered across my expression.

Then he smiled faintly.

“I do not know,” he said. My brows furrowed. That was not the answer I expected and surely not what I needed.

“I do not know what I am doing,” he repeated calmly. “But I am not trying to justify anything either.”

His voice remained steady, almost indifferent.
“I did whatever I could to save someone I cared about.” Something about the way he said it sent a strange rush of adrenaline through me.
“Who?” I asked immediately.

He shook his head.

“You should go,” he said instead. “Go to the castle. See for yourself.”

My frustration returned instantly.

“You are not answering my question.”

“I will help you if you need it,” he continued as though I had not spoken. “But you must understand something.”
His gaze sharpened slightly.
“If you intend to do anything, this will be your last chance.”

The words settled heavily between us.
“If you truly claim to love Anzel—”

“I never said I loved—”

I stopped talking because he was looking at me.

With an imprecating expression in his eyes. A quiet, knowing expression that made the rest of my sentence die in my throat.

He raised one brow slightly.
Really?

I exhaled sharply and rubbed my palm against my opposite arm, suddenly aware of the heat creeping into my face.

This was ridiculous. He said nothing, which somehow made it worse.
After a moment he spoke again.

“The Shadow Queen trapped my sister for years,” he said quietly.

The words surprised me enough that I forgot my irritation.

“I have done everything she asked of me,” he continued. “Everything.”

Something dark flickered behind his eyes.

“I believed I only needed help to free her.”
His mouth curved faintly, but there was no humor in it.

“Now I know I need far more than that.”

“Because she is powerful,” he finished.
I stared at him, confused.

“But you are literally like the lord of her castle,” I said. “Why don’t you just… I don’t know. Free your sister?”

For a second he was silent. Then a low, dark chuckle escaped him.

The sound sent a faint chill down my spine.

“Welcome back to Lydian, Seraph,” he says guardedly. “And good luck, you'll need it. Because things are going to be very different from how you remember.”

Before I could ask what that was supposed to mean, he stepped backward.

The air around him shifted slightly, clouds bending just enough to swallow the edges of his form.

He kept walking in reverse, his gaze still fixed on mine.

“You owe me one, Seraphim Kunta.”
Then the mist swallowed him completely.
And he was gone.