2025-12-15 20:32:19The whole hall went dead quiet.
Every eye wide in surprise.
Cassian’s cold face slowly turned into a dark smile as unclenched his fist and folded his arm.
‘What is happening…I…don't understand,why isn't the crystal ball glowing, what does it mean?’
Asta Xavier muttered to himself, his face building up sweats as his hands began to tremble.
The students began to murmur.
“What is happening?”
One female student asked.
“I don't actually know, but I think the crystal ball might be broken or something, right?”
Another female student asked.
“Asta, are you sure you laid your hands as I instructed you to do?”
The teacher asked, her tone thick with curiosity as she stepped closer to Asta.
“Uhmm, yes ma'am, I placed my palms on the crystal ball as you instructed and…”
“Teacher!”
The Empress voice cut in, attracting the attention of everyone in the hall, Asta stood frozen and trembling as his sweats began to drip down to his clothes and hands.
The Empress got up from his seat and then walked towards Asta and the teacher. She then stood right in front of the teacher and gazed at her, giving her sign to step away.
“Okay, Xavier, right?”
“Yes, Empress.”
Asta responded with a gathered courage.
“Place your palm again on the crystal ball.”
She spoke, her tone thick with order.
“O-okay ma'am Empress.”
He then turned and swallowed hard.
‘Please glow! Please glow, please glow!! You stupid crystal ball!’
He muttered to himself as he closed his eyes and placed his palm, but the result was still the same, the crystal didn't glow nor did it spark a light.
‘What…does this mean?’
He muttered to himself.
“What does this actually mean?”
A male student from another school asked.
“It seems that Asta Xavier isn't feeling the family heat.”
Lucien Pyre spoke out, his tone thick with sarcasm as everyone in the hall burst out in laughter.
The Empress then raised her staff and everyone kept calm. She then gazed at Asta, whose gaze was now gazing at the floor.
“It seems that you didn't inherit any flame from your family, not your clan, you disgusting little worm.”
She spat, her voice dripping venom.
A girl from the crowd then spoke, breaking the silence.
“Look at him. Completely useless.”
The whispers slithered around the hall as dozens of students crowded behind Asta. He stood alone in front of the sacred crystal ball, his palms open, waiting for even the tiniest spark of his family’s flame, but nothing came.
“He didn’t inherit a single ember.”
Someone sneered.
“Not even rookie-level fire. What a joke.”
Another laughed, loud and cruel.
“I heard he killed his own mother. Ate his way out of her stomach like some monster.”
“Yeah, who even is this freak?”
Asta’s shoulders shook. His voice barely escaped his throat, cracked and trembling.
‘It’s not true… none of it. I saw him. That man in the black cloak… he was at the hospital that night. He cut her open himself. I remember the knife. I remember the smell of the blood.’
He muttered to himself.
“No flame, no worth, Get out of my sight before you taint the air I breathe.”
Head bowed, fists clenched so hard his nails drew blood, Asta turned and walked. Past the laughing students in their sleek crimson-and-gold uniforms. Past the crystal ball that had rejected him. All the way to the back of the academy.
He slowly gazed up in search of Elara, his eyes widened as he fell on her as she was now with Lucien Pyre.
‘What is she doing with him?’
He asked as he walked over to her.
“Hey, Elara,what is going on here?”
Asta asked, his tone low and laced with curiosity.
“Ohh, it is the flameless Asta Xavier, Elara babe, please I think you should tell him the truth.”
Lucien Pyre spoke as he held Elara’s hands and kissed it right in front of Asta, whose fist immediately clenched on his side.
“Tell me what, Elara, what is he talking about?”
Asta asked.
“Are you blind, Asta, can't you see I have moved on, you don't have any flame meaning that you are not going to be the head of the Xavier clan, I can't stay with a dead weight like you, If I do, you will be a stai
n on my beautiful future.”
Her words hit so hard that Asta stood frozen z his eyes now dripping with tears as the moment that he shared with her flash past his memory…
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Chapter 449
One clean cut, diagonal, across the binding that held the basket sealed and the flame solid material split along the cut line with a sharp crack that echoed through the trees."Jabber!"From below, almost before the word had finished leaving his mouth. "Already on it."The flame shield came up from the ground,wide, cupped, angled perfectly and the basket fell into it, not crashing, just settling, the broken seal falling away as Jabber brought it steady and slow and set it down beside him on the ground with the careful hands of someone carrying something that couldn't afford to be dropped.Asta dropped from the branch and landed beside him.They looked at each other for one second.Then Mira was there, already reaching for the broken seam of the basket, pulling the edges apart, the flame material dissolving at her hands as she worked it open.The basket opened.Fifteen children.Pressed together in the center of it, some sitting, some curled against each other, all of them in the cond
Chapter 448
Then the side of her mouth moved. Just slightly."I won't kill you." She said. "You're too useful to me." She looked at him for one more beat. "Don't do it again."Gull exhaled.The exhale was quiet and controlled and the relief in it was absolutely genuine.He stepped back to his position.Dero looked at the men still kneeling on the ground."Is there a bed somewhere in this place?" She said. Not specifically to anyone. "Somewhere I can rest and recover my strength."Two or three of the kneeling figures began to speak at the same time.She held up one hand.They stopped.She looked at the competing voices, then at the ceiling, then back down."You know what.”She said. "Never mind. I'll find it myself."She turned.And then she looked at Web.The look she gave him was different from anything else she had produced in the last hour. It was slower. And warmer. In a way that was not entirely comfortable."Web.” she said.Web looked at her."Would you mind accompanying me?" She s
Chapter 447
"I genuinely didn't think he would die from that." She looked around at all of them with something approaching mild surprise. "Anyone else? Don't be shy. Come on. You can say it out loud or you can mutter it to yourself,your choice. Either way I'll hear it."Complete silence.Not one person moved.Not one person appeared to even be breathing in a way that could be considered voluntary.Dero looked at them all for one more moment, then straightened up.……………………."She can hear human thought."Kyx said it quietly, from just behind Dero's right shoulder. Not alarmed, Kyx didn't really do alarmed. Just stating it, the way you state a fact that you want on record."Yes." Gull said immediately, from the left.Web turned and looked at Gull. "How?"Gull looked at Web with the specific expression of someone who has been asked to explain something technical to someone they are not sure will fully appreciate the explanation."She has a built-in flame technique." He said. "Passive. Always ac
Chapter 446:Hear Every Whisper
The men in black cloaks were still on their knees.Every single one of them, heads bowed, hands flat on the ground, not one of them willing to be the next person to look up. The silence in the space had that particular quality of a room where something bad just happened and everyone is very focused on not being the reason something bad happens again.Dero stood above them. Unhurried. Looking across the tops of their bowed heads the way someone looks across a field,with no urgency, just observation.Then, from the second row of kneeling figures, something started.A trembling.One man. His shoulders were moving, small and fast, the involuntary shake of someone whose body was doing something his brain was trying very hard to stop. His head was down but his lips were moving, the faintest murmur, barely sound at all.‘’’Oh God.’’’He wasn't saying it to anyone. He was saying it to himself, or to the ground, or to whatever part of his brain was still processing the last two minutes.‘’’It
Chapter 445
He said."From that point." Asta said.Jabber nodded. Then, after a beat… "He is significantly more annoying than I expected a best friend to be, just so you know.""He is the most annoying person I have met in my life.” Asta said pleasantly. "I say that with genuine affection.""Likewise." Jabber said."Truly.""Deeply."Wabash laughed, a real one, short and warm, that moved his whole face. He shook his head."It's good." He said. “What you two have. It's, it's a good thing."Neither of them said anything for a moment.Then Jabber looked at his cup."This tea is actually really good." He said."Glad you like it." Wabash said."What is it?""Old forest blend. The cook makes it before any mission night. He says it helps you sleep when your mind won't stop."Jabber took another slow sip."Smart cook." He said.……………………..Deep in the forest, behind a wall of flame camouflage so thick it swallowed all light and sound, the children were crying.Not all of them, some had gone past
Chapter 444
Asta took his and sat cross-legged across from the prince. Jabber sat beside him, wrapping both hands around his cup.A comfortable quiet settled over the three of them for a moment.Then Wabash looked at Asta."You were about to tell me.”He said.“Before Yuki called the stop. How did you find out."Asta looked at his cup. Then up."Right." He said. "Yeah."He took a short breath."It was my first day in the academy mine pit.” He said. "The underground labour section,first-year students, grey uniforms, pickaxes. Clank clank clank in the dark for hours." He looked at his hands briefly. "I had blisters within the first hour. Didn't stop. Just kept going."Wabash listened without interrupting."There were two older students." Asta said. "Crimson uniforms, proper rank. They had a girl pinned against the tunnel wall." He said it simply, no drama in it, just the shape of what happened. "I put my pickaxe down and walked over and told them to let her go.""Just like that?" Wabash
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