Chapter 517 Where She Stands

Chapter 517 Where She Stands
(Apollo) 

"I will kill you." 
The words emerged quietly. There was no rage in them. No shouting. Only certainty. 
"I will kill every last one of you." 
His eyes never blinked. 
"I will pull your kingdom apart stone by stone until there is nothing left standing above the mountain but ash." 
The silence that followed was profound. Not one soul inside the Citadel moved. Not one servant, soldier or general dared draw breath. Apollo had made many promises throughout his reign. None had ever been empty. 
Arkael regarded him for a long moment before the faintest smile touched his lips. 
"I know." 
There was no mockery in the answer, only stone-cold acceptance. 
"As I said..." He folded his hands loosely before him. "...you haven't changed." 
Apollo no longer cared. The threats. The revelation. Cael. All of it had become secondary to the single question burning through every thought he possessed. 
His voice became lower still. Each word separated with deliberate precision. 
"Where." 
The projection seemed to grow colder. 
"Is." 
Even the bond had fallen strangely quiet, as though whatever lay at the other end had begun waiting alongside him. 
"Adelaide." 
Arkael held his gaze for several long heartbeats. Then... A quiet chuckle escaped him. Not triumphant. Not cruel. Almost... sympathetic. 
"My poor boy." 
He shook his head slowly. 
"Even now..." His eyes softened with something that might almost have been pity. "...you ask the wrong question." 
Apollo didn't answer. Didn't move. Didn't blink. The projection held his attention with the absolute focus of a predator waiting for the instant before it struck. 
Arkael sighed almost imperceptibly. 
"Very well." 
He turned away from the throne, the long dark robes whispering softly across the polished volcanic stone as he began walking through the great hall. 
"Come." 
He did not look back to see whether Apollo watched. He already knew. 
Cael fell silently into step behind him, neither hesitating nor protesting, following his father deeper into the mountain with the same quiet discipline he had once reserved for the Devil. 
The projection obeyed them both, gliding silently after the two Emberborn as the throne room slowly disappeared behind them, carrying Apollo ever deeper into the heart of the mountain... toward the place where Adelaide waited. 
The projection drifted silently through the palace. The throne room's grandeur gave way to quieter corridors where the pale volcanic stone grew older beneath the mountain's embrace. The crystal walls disappeared, replaced by rough-hewn passages veined with dull crimson light that pulsed somewhere deep within the rock like the slow beat of an ancient heart. The further the image travelled, the less welcoming the palace became, until warmth surrendered to silence and silence gave way to something infinitely worse.
Absence. There were no servants here. No laughter. No voices. Only the measured echo of Arkael's footsteps as the projection followed behind him. 
Apollo scarcely noticed the journey. His entire body had become rigid with anticipation, every instinct screaming that whatever waited ahead was the answer to the agony that had hollowed him out over the past two days. 
Another pulse travelled through the bond. Not sharp. Not sudden. A deep, relentless ache that settled inside his own ribs until he found himself unconsciously pressing one hand against his side. He had felt that pain before. Hundreds of times. He understood now why it had never faded. It had never belonged to him. 
The corridor ended before a great door forged from black Netherstone. Unlike every other doorway within the palace, this one bore no carvings celebrating Emberborn history, no crystal inlays, no artistry whatsoever. Only function. Only imprisonment. 
Arkael rested one hand against the cold metal. 
"You wished to know where she was." 
His voice carried no triumph. Only certainty. 
He pushed the door inward. The hinges groaned. Darkness greeted them first. Then... The cell emerged from the shadows. 
Apollo forgot how to breathe. 
She was standing. He didn't know how. Every instinct told him she should have collapsed long before now. Her bare feet rested upon cold volcanic stone stained dark in places where old blood had dried into the rock itself. The once beautiful gown she had worn now hung from her in torn strips, scorched in places, stiffened in others by blood that had long since dried. Angry bruises bloomed across every patch of exposed skin, deep violet fading into sickly yellow where older blows had only just begun to heal before newer ones replaced them. One side of her face was swollen, a split along her lower lip crusted with dried crimson, while dark curls, once carefully braided, had fallen loose into tangled waves that could no longer conceal the burns disappearing beneath the torn neckline of her dress. 
The burns. His own skin prickled with phantom heat as his gaze found the raw, blistered flesh climbing one shoulder and disappearing beneath the ruined fabric. Not from fire. Something colder. Something crueller. These burns were deliberate. She had not been caught in battle. Someone had done this to her. Slowly. Carefully. Again... And again.