Chapter 484. A Loan Taken From His Very Marrow

Chapter 484: 484. A Loan Taken From His Very Marrow

Catherine reached them moments later. She didn’t speak; she couldn’t.

Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face pale with the shock of what she had just witnessed, but when she saw them together, she simply collapsed into them. She wrapped her arms around both William and Kaela, creating a fragile circle of three amidst the wreckage.

For several long minutes, they simply stood there. A small, trembling island of humanity in a sea of crimson-stained marble and broken steel.

Around them, the courtyard remained a testament to violence: the wet slap of rainwater hitting pools of blood, the distant, pained whimpering of the wounded, and the eerie silence of the witnesses who watched from afar.

This was a moment that would be whispered about in taverns and royal courts across two kingdoms for decades the day a single man dismantled an empire’s finest guard.

William allowed himself to lean into them. He let his guard down more than any sane man should in front of a courtyard full of traumatized soldiers and watching nobles.

The last flickers of the golden radiance finally died away beneath his skin, leaving behind something hollow and raw. Only now, with the adrenaline receding like an ebbing tide, did the true cost of the power reveal itself.

The ’boost’ hadn’t been a gift; it was a loan taken from his very marrow. A heavy, dragging exhaustion settled into his bones, each muscle feeling as though it had been replaced with molten lead.

He felt terrifyingly mortal again. In their arms, he was gentle, warm, and vulnerable—a jarring, almost impossible contrast to the controlled, divine storm that had just leveled dozens of elite soldiers with the clinical brutality of a hurricane.

Neither Catherine nor Kaela seemed inclined to break the embrace; they held him as if he might dissolve into ash if they loosened their grip.

"You’re shaking," Kaela murmured.

She pulled back just enough to cup his face, her fingers brushing against his cheekbone. Her earlier terror had sharpened into something else now that the immediate threat had passed: a fierce, protective concern.

Her eyes searched his, looking for cracks in his composure.

"A little," William admitted, his voice rougher than intended. "The boost... it isn’t free, Kaela."

"I told you that." His inner thoughts were a haze of static, his mind struggling to process how quickly the world had shifted from lethal violence to this fragile quiet.

"Sit down before you fall down," Catherine commanded.

Her voice cut through the emotional haze with the particular, unyielding firmness of someone who had decided that this particular conversation and William’s stubbornness were not up for negotiation.

She already had her hand firmly around his elbow, guiding him with surprising strength toward a relatively dry stretch of the colonnade.

"I’m fine, Catherine... Really." William tried to straighten his spine, to reclaim some semblance of the warrior who had just stood defiant against a prince, but his knees buckled slightly as he moved.

The world tilted dangerously for a heartbeat.

"You will be once you sit down," Catherine countered without breaking stride.

Her grip tightened slightly, not in aggression, but as an anchor. "Don’t you dare try to play the hero with us now."

"The hero work is done."

William looked at her, really looked at her, and saw the exhaustion in her own eyes, the way her hands trembled despite her stern tone. He realized then that he didn’t need to carry the weight of the world alone.

Too tired to fight her and too drained to maintain the illusion of invulnerability, he let his head drop slightly and allowed himself to be led.

Kaela dropped down beside him a moment later, sinking onto the cold stone with a soft exhale. She didn’t ask permission; she simply leaned in, pressing her forehead against his shoulder.

She said nothing. She didn’t need to.

Her silence was a physical weight, a desperate, quiet reassurance that she was simply content to feel the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath her temple, confirming he was still here, still breathing, still alive after disappearing into that terrifying ring of steel and magic.

Around them, the courtyard began to wake from its stunned paralysis. Palace staff emerged cautiously from darkened doorways and side corridors like ghosts retreating from a haunting.

Their hushed murmurs rose in waves as they took in the carnage, the shattered marble, the scorched earth, and the scattered wreckage of Delmore’s finest.

Near the courtyard gates, the sounds of movement grew louder; Roan’s guards were already moving among the fallen Delmore soldiers with grim efficiency.

Crunch. Thud. Groan.

The sounds of boots on gravel and the wet slap of hands checking for pulses echoed through the space. The guards moved methodically, checking wounds, confirming that every single one of the enemy soldiers would wake tomorrow scarred, broken in spirit, and aching in every joint but alive.

They would carry with them stories that would haunt their sleep for years, tales of a man who moved like lightning and struck like God.

"All clear, Your Majesty," a guard called out hoarsely, his voice carrying across the courtyard. "They’re all breathing... broken, but breathing."

It was then that King Theron approached. He moved slowly, his regal bearing uncharacteristically hesitant.

His face was a complicated knot of emotions: gratitude warring with awe and a new, sharp edge of wariness that hadn’t existed in any of their previous encounters.

He had watched the entire spectacle from the safety of the colonnade, his eyes never wavering from the golden storm that had torn through his courtyard.

William watched him approach, noting the way Theron’s eyes flickered to the blood-stained stone before settling on William’s face.

The king was clearly struggling to reconcile two irreconcilable images: the quiet, sharp-tongued instructor who shared easy jokes with his daughter in the training yards and the primordial force of nature that had just dismantled an elite military unit without needing to kill a single soul.

Theron stopped at what could only be described as a respectful distance close enough to speak, but far enough as if his instincts were still warning him that he was standing near something dangerous.

"Instructor Wade," Theron said quietly.

The title sounded strange coming from him now, almost like an understatement. "I entrusted you with my daughter’s training because Albert recommended you as capable."

"I have spent many years hearing that word used in court."

"I don’t believe I ever fully understood what it meant when speaking of you."

William didn’t rise. He didn’t have the strength to perform the formalities of royalty.

"I only did what needed doing, Your Majesty."

"What you did was unprecedented," Theron corrected, his gaze drifting once more across the ruined courtyard.

He looked at the cracked marble, the smoldering scorch marks, and the distant, retreating shape of Prince Alden, a prince who had arrived weeks ago promising a golden alliance and was now fleeing with nothing but his tattered dignity.

"You could have done a great deal more than ’what needed doing.’ You could have ended this conflict in five minutes."

"You could have killed every Delmore soldier in this courtyard before they could blink."

Theron’s eyes snapped back to William’s, sharp and searching. "But you chose not to."

"You held back... You exercised a restraint that bordered on the divine."

"I noticed that, William... I want you to know that I noticed."

William looked up at the king, his expression unreadable despite the exhaustion weighing down his features.

"They were following orders, Sire," he said simply. "They were soldiers doing their duty."

"My anger was never with them."