Chapter 47: Chasing the Apple: Cassius’s Darkest Hour

The air went completely dead.

There were no iron cages. There was no dignified, quiet suffering. What Vilucious had left behind in the mouth of the eastern path was a spectacle of pure, animalistic degradation.

Two figures, a man and a woman, were bound together from shoulders to ankles in a heavy, rusted web of chains. Their bodies were emaciated, their ash-grey skin bruised and caked in filth. But they weren’t sitting still. They were moving in a frantic, desperate circle, their bare feet tearing against the stone as they lunged forward in unison.

Suspended a few meters ahead of them, dangling from a long iron rod fixed to the front of their bindings, was a single, bruised red apple. It bounced and swayed in the air, perfectly synchronized with their movements. Every time they scrambled forward to reach it, their momentum pushed the rod further away, keeping the fruit perpetually out of reach. They were running a race they could never win, chasing a meal that mocked their hunger with every stride.

The woman’s jaw snapped at the empty air, her teeth clicking together with a hollow, desperate sound. The man stumbled, his shoulder slamming into her side as the chains rattled violently, but he scrambled right back up, his eyes fixed entirely on the bobbing red shape with a vacant, ravenous intensity.

Cassius’s heart didn’t just skip; it felt as though it had been violently torn from his chest.

The pitch-black void in his eyes snapped back to normal. The dark, predatory fog of his ancient pride cleared away in a single, agonizing instant, leaving his human irises wide, trembling, and completely exposed.

The two mindless, starving creatures running in circles for a piece of fruit were his mother and father.

The grand, theatrical king hadn’t just captured his lineage. He had stripped the very architects of Cassius’s bloodline of their minds, their dignity, and their humanity, turning them into a grotesque carnival side-show. The mocking words Vilucious had whispered on his shoulder echoed back into his ears, each syllable now tasting like hot poison: I do hope you find their company agreeable.

"No," Cassius breathed.

The word barely left his throat, a tiny, fractured sound that didn’t sound like him at all. The dangerous smirk was completely gone, his face turning as pale as death as his hands dropped from the splintered wood of the fruit cart. His knees buckled slightly under the sheer, suffocating weight of the horror before him.

The lingering restraint in his legs snapped completely. Cassius threw himself forward, sprinting toward the eastern path with a desperate, frantic speed that left no room for caution or pride. The world around him faded into a gray, featureless blur; the royal guards, the ruined plaza, and the threat of the crown vanished entirely.

Inside the heavy white carriage, Florianthum’s eyes widened behind the narrow slit of her metal visor. Watching him break rank and run blindly toward the trap sent a sharp, agonizing spike of terror through her chest. The pain behind her armor doubled, crushing her lungs. Every instinct screamed at her to throw open the carriage door, to shout, to draw her blade and shield him from the inevitable slaughter. But the cold, heavy weight of Vilucious’s presence sat right beside her.

She knew the brutal math of this court. If she flinched, if she showed even a fraction of a second of rebellion, she wouldn’t just sign her own death warrant: she would dig a deadly, inescapable hole for herself and for Cassius at the same time. She forced her hands to remain locked in her lap, her silver knuckles turning white as she watched him run toward his ruin.

Cassius slid to a halt right in front of the circling, chained figures. His breath hitched, a ragged, choking sound tearing from his chest as he threw his hands out, trying to intercept their frantic momentum without hurting them.

"Wait... Mom- Dad... I am here," he shouted, his voice cracking into a trembling, terrified panic. He blocked their path, his tall frame trembling violently as he tried to catch their downcast eyes.

"See Mom! Cass, me... look here!"

He reached for the heavy iron rod holding the apple, his fingers desperate to rip it away, to end the sickening game. But as he stepped closer, neither of them slowed down. They didn’t blink. They didn’t register the voice of the son they had raised.

The woman’s shoulder collided heavily with Cassius’s chest, shoving past him with an unnatural, mechanical strength as her bare feet kept churning against the stone. The man followed instantly, his vacant, clouded eyes staring right through Cassius as if he were nothing but a ghost in the square. They kept running, lunging in perfect, horrifying rhythm to chase the bobbing red food that was never going to come into their mouths. They were entirely hollowed out, performing the loop like clockwork robots trapped in a loop of eternal starvation.

The realization hit him like a physical blow to the face. The hot, heavy tears he had held back for years finally burst from his eyes, tracking hot lines down his ash-grey skin. He was standing right in front of them, screaming his name into the cold air, and he meant absolutely nothing to them.

Before Cassius could take another step toward the endless, mechanical circle of his parents’ torment, a heavy hand grabbed the fabric of his T-shirt. Fukuro lunged forward, throwing his entire weight into Cassius’s side to violently anchor him to the spot, his bare feet skidding hard across the grit of the stones.

"You cannot sprint like that in front of our lord; are you out of your mind?" Fukuro hissed, his voice a sharp, terrified whisper right against Cassius’s ear. He didn’t look at the two hollowed-out shapes running for the apple. He kept his eyes locked firmly on the ground and the distant silhouette of the carriage, his knuckles white as he dragged the sorcerer back toward the shadow of the fruit carts.

"Look at the perimeter. Look at the guards. You are walking straight into a line of spears, Cassius!"

Cassius didn’t even seem to feel the grip on his shoulder. His chest heaved, his eyes still locked on the rhythmic, maddening clack-clack of the heavy iron chains dragging across the marble.

With a violent, convulsive jerk of his shoulders, Cassius tore his T-shirt out of Fukuro’s grip. He shoved the scholar backward with enough raw force to send him stumbling across the slick cobblestones.

"THEY ARE MY MOM AND DAD!" Cassius roared, the words ripping from his throat in a raw, unhinged scream that shattered whatever silence remained in the plaza. The desperate smirk, the aristocratic mockery, the calculated patience, everything burned away in a heartbeat. He turned his face toward the distant royal carriage, his violet eyes flashing with a blind, murderous heat.

"I don’t care about any bastard’s rule!"

The outburst echoed off the high marble walls like a thunderclap.

Down in the dirt, Fukuro’s face went entirely bloodless. He scrambled to his feet, his eyes darting toward the perimeter guards. The line of royal soldiers immediately shifted, their iron halberds clicking against the stone in unison as they turned their blank, helmeted faces directly toward the commotion.