Chapter 62: What You Must Protect

Daemon walked beside Queen Morwenna through the quiet palace corridor, but the silence between them no longer felt simple.

Her earlier words still pressed against his chest, heavy and unfinished.

At last, he spoke.

"Your Majesty... I still don’t understand what you are trying to say to me."

Morwenna stopped walking.

For a moment, she simply looked at him. The crystal light along the living walls reflected faintly in her silver eyes, and the composure she always wore seemed thinner than usual.

"You have to remember the past," she said quietly. "Your true identity. Before everything turns to ashes."

Daemon’s brows furrowed.

Morwenna’s gaze did not leave his.

"All I can tell you is this. If you want to know more, you must find yourself. But you do not have enough time to waste."

The corridor felt colder under those words.

Daemon studied her face carefully.

"Your Majesty... when I opened the Solitary Gate and returned to Earth, you said you had been waiting for me."

Morwenna’s fingers curled slightly at her side.

"Why did you say that?" he asked.

She did not answer immediately.

For the first time since he met her, the calm around Morwenna felt fragile. When she finally spoke, her voice was softer than before.

"Because I was."

Daemon frowned.

"Waiting for me? We had never met before that day."

Morwenna turned fully toward him.

"Do not say that so easily."

The weight in her eyes made it difficult to look away. ℯ

"There are people who meet for the first time," she continued, "and there are people who find each other again after being separated by something far crueler than distance."

Daemon’s chest tightened without a clear reason.

"You looked at me that day as if you already knew me," he said.

Morwenna’s lips trembled for half a second before she forced them still.

"And you looked at me as if something inside you was trying to reach out... but could not remember why."

Her voice nearly broke on the last word.

Daemon felt a strange pressure rise in his chest. It was not logic.

It was not a clear memory. It was something rawer an emotion that existed without a name.

Morwenna took one step closer.

"I waited," she said quietly. "Through years longer than you can imagine.

Through silence. Through uncertainty. Through nights where I wondered whether the person I was waiting for still existed anywhere at all."

Daemon’s breath caught.

"Your Majesty..."

"I am not telling you this so you will understand everything," she interrupted softly. "You can’t. Not yet."

Her gaze burned with restrained longing.

"I am telling you this because when I finally saw you again, standing there alive... I needed you to know that your return was not a coincidence to me."

For one fragile moment, her hand lifted halfway toward him then stopped in the air, trembling slightly before she lowered it again.

"I cannot claim what you do not remember," she said. "I will not force a truth onto a heart that is not ready to carry it."

Her eyes shone, but no tears fell.

"But do not ask me why I waited if you are not prepared to feel the weight of the answer."

Daemon stood frozen.

He still did not understand who she truly was to him.

But the emotion in her voice left no doubt of one thing whatever existed between them was not small, not simple, and not born from this meeting alone.

Then, almost against his will, a thought surfaced.

If I push my bloodline to twenty-five percent... I can open Memory Capsule 1.

The System reward returned to his mind with sudden clarity.

A sealed fragment of his previous-life memories. If answers existed anywhere, they might be there.

His thoughts drifted for a moment toward the capsule, toward the strange familiarity in Morwenna’s eyes, toward the growing sense that too many roads in his life were leading back to a past he could not see.

Morwenna’s voice pulled him back.

"You have to go now," she said more gently. "Help the girl you wanted to save. After that... we will talk more."

Daemon looked at her for a long second, then nodded.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

He turned and left the corridor.

Morwenna did not move.

She remained standing by the open archway, watching the view of her kingdom beyond the silver leaves.

Wind brushed against her hair as her thoughts drifted far from the present toward a happier life buried in the past, toward laughter that no longer existed in this era, toward a man who once stood beside her without forgotten memories between them.

Meanwhile, Daemon walked back through the palace halls, but his mind remained caught on her words.

Remember the past.

Your true identity.

Before everything turns to ashes.

Protect what you must.

None of it formed a full picture. Yet every phrase settled deeper inside him.

As he turned a corner near one of the open corridors, he noticed two familiar figures ahead.

Princess Zephyra stood with Sana near the railing, both of them facing the distant canopy. Their voices were low, but not low enough to escape him completely.

"...You still haven’t awakened," Zephyra said.

Sana’s arms were lightly crossed.

"I know."

There was no teasing in her voice this time. Only restrained frustration.

"I trained under you for months," Sana continued. "I improved. My body got stronger. My techniques got sharper.

But my bloodline still won’t move. On Earth, I was already the only one in the elite team without an awakening. And here... it’s the same."

Zephyra studied her for a moment.

"It may not be a matter of talent."

Sana turned her head slightly.

"Your mana feels unstable," Zephyra continued. "Not weak unstable. As if your energy pathways are still shifting and have not settled into a complete structure.

Some bloodlines refuse to awaken until the vessel is stable enough to hold them."

Sana’s brows furrowed.

"So I’m incomplete?"

"No," Zephyra replied. "You are unfinished. There is a difference."

Daemon’s steps slowed.

He had only intended to pass by, but the weight in Sana’s voice stopped him. After a brief hesitation, he walked toward them.

Both women looked up as he approached.

"Am I interrupting?" Daemon asked.

Zephyra shook her head slightly.

"No."

Sana forced a small smile.

"It’s nothing important."

Daemon did not accept that answer.

He stepped closer and looked at her directly.

"It is important if it’s weighing on you."

Sana’s smile faded.

For a second, she seemed ready to brush it off again. Then her shoulders lowered slightly.

"...I just hate feeling like I’m falling behind," she admitted. "Everyone around me keeps moving forward. Victoria. Roxanna. Even the people who used to stand on the same line as me.

And I’m still waiting for something inside me to wake up."

Daemon was silent for a moment.

Then he reached out and pulled her into a steady hug.

Sana stiffened in surprise.

Zephyra’s eyes flickered slightly, but she said nothing.

Daemon’s voice was low near Sana’s ear.

"You are not behind."

Sana’s fingers slowly curled into the fabric of his clothes.

"You trained. You endured. You stayed standing even when nothing answered you back," Daemon continued.

"A bloodline does not decide your worth. It only decides one of the ways you can grow."

Sana’s throat tightened.

"...You always make it sound so simple."

"It’s not simple," Daemon replied. "But you don’t have to carry it alone."

While holding her, Daemon quietly focused inward.

Through the bond and the authority of his System, he guided a thin stream of carefully controlled energy into her body not forceful, not obvious, just enough to touch the unstable structure Zephyra had sensed.

Deep within Sana’s bloodline, something long dormant received the final condition it needed.

The change was subtle.

Sana only felt a faint warmth spread through her chest, so soft she almost mistook it for emotion.

She closed her eyes and rested her forehead lightly against him.

"...Thank you."

Daemon held her for another second before letting go.

On the surface, nothing dramatic had happened.

But inside Sana’s body, the first true shift had already begun.

Her bloodline had not fully erupted yet

yet it had finally started to move.

Zephyra’s eyes suddenly sharpened.

For a brief instant, her senses caught it a faint, newly formed pulse of bloodline energy rising from Sana’s body where only unstable mana had existed before.

Her composition broke for the first time.

"...Impossible."