Chapter 489: To Let Go
Cecilia couldn’t contact the gods.
She had gone to the apartment above them and found the door locked. The apartment was empty.
The landlord, a bewildered old werebear who seemed confused by the question when she did ask around, had told her that he didn’t know much about the space owner.
Only that they had paid everything in bulk when they moved in. Months of rent, upfront, in cash. No sign that they had ever been there at all, except for the faint scent of cherry blossom still lingering in the hallway.
Oathran also hadn’t returned. This whole month.
At first, Cecilia had cried every time she was alone. In the bathroom with the water running so no one would hear. In her bed, face pressed into the pillow, shoulders shaking silently while Arkai and Eastiel slept beside her.
Before sleeping, tears would leak from the corners of her eyes and pool in her ears, and she would wake with her face stiff and swollen and pretend it was just pregnancy hormones.
But now, she couldn’t even cry anymore. The tears had simply run out.
He was angry. She understood that. She had known he would be angry. It was the cost.
Maybe this alternate world wasn’t worth it after all.
Or was it?
Was it just proving to her what she had always feared? That Oathran would never survive the thought of having a baby with her? That the Key would win eventually, that fate would drive him away from her forever?
She was cruel. She was so cruel. She was wrong and she was evil—
Especially because she didn’t feel bad about dragging him here without telling him about the pregnancy. That was the worst part.
The guilt was there, but beneath it was something harder. Unrepentant. She would do anything to save him. Anything. And this world could be the answer.
The technology. The knowledge. This world held pieces of a solution she couldn’t yet see, and she would sacrifice anything.
Anything.
Just to put those pieces together.
And just like how her husbands would choose her over the baby if they needed to choose between them, she would also choose her husbands over the baby.
Mourning the child would be her responsibility too. Her burden. Her penance. Because all of this was her fault.
She came here not to get pregnant. She came here to save everyone.
Not to mention, after they left this world, the baby would be gone too. Unless they conceived it in the real world, with their real bodies, in their real timeline.
But here, in this integrated reality, this baby was temporary. A construct of the scenario. A life that existed only within the boundaries of the seed’s concept.
She shouldn’t get attached to it.
She mustn’t.
This baby wasn’t real. It was never real—
She shouldn’t want it to be real.
The only way to atone for it all was to let it go. The only way to take the blame and the responsibility was to not have the baby, ever. To return to the real world without it. To close the door on this dream and never open it again.
Everything was her fau—
"Cecilia?"
She blinked. Eastiel had sat beside her on the sofa. When had he sat beside her? She hadn’t even noticed.
In his hands was a bowl of congee, steam still rising from the surface.
It was one of Oathran’s recipes. The one he had left in his notebook, written in his careful, precise handwriting, with notes in the margins about ingredient substitutions and cooking times.
"Come on. Your due date is in another month. Dr. Lazuardi said it could also be sooner." Arkai entered the living room with a glass of milk. He set the glass on the table beside her, his fingers brushing her shoulder as he straightened. "You know you have to nourish yourself."
"We’ll find him." Eastiel smiled, his lion tail curling gently around her ankle. "I know you’re worried, but he must have his own reasons. He’ll be here for you and the baby..."
Cecilia looked at her two husbands and tried to smile. It felt like stretching a muscle she hadn’t used in weeks.
They didn’t know it was her fault. They were still looking at her with love and concern, still bringing her food and milk and comfort, still believing that Oathran’s disappearance was something that had happened to her rather than something she had caused.
When their memory returned too, they’d surely blame her. They’d see what she had done, the choice she had made, the truth she had hidden, and their love too would curdle into resentment. She would deserve it.
She was evil, after all.
She had decided. If Oathran didn’t return by the last week of her pregnancy, she would find a way to give Eastiel and Arkai their memories back.
She would complete the scenario by killing Arzhen. That would trigger the end of the integration. The seed’s concept would conclude and the world would expel them. They would return to the real world, and the baby—
The baby would never be born.
As it should be.
She had thought it over too. Choosing to stay in this world was impossible, as much as she wanted it.
The System had offered her the option, and she had held it in her hands like a precious gem, turning it over and over, examining every facet.
But the cost was too high. The real world. Frozen in time while she hid in a paradise that wasn’t hers to keep.
And even if she stayed, Oathran would hate her forever. Arzhen’s comeuppance was coming either way and she couldn’t guarantee Eastiel and Arkai wouldn’t get their memories back one way or another, just like Oathran did. The integration was fragile.
She had memorized every paper she could access. She had asked Ivy, Isla and Damon to give her all and any research they could find about the rifts, their formation, their closure, their underlying physics and metaphysics and every theory that had ever been proposed about their origin.
She had devoured everything else too, as mundane as infrastructure technology, as esoteric as dragon biology, as practical as the history of beastman integration into human society.
Knowledge was the one thing she could take with her when she left. Knowledge was the weapon she would wield when she returned.
She must return. She didn’t have much choice otherwise, and she would be forced to return once the task was completed anyway. The System’s offer had been a kindness, but it was not a solution.
It was a dream.
And dreams, by their nature, had to end.
She didn’t know about the rewards and what they could mean for the future. She didn’t want to assume their function now. Hope was dangerous. Hope was what had made her think she could have this. A baby, a family, a world where Oathran didn’t have to die.
She just couldn’t afford hope anymore.
So she must let go.
The baby...
She mustn’t—
Cecilia took a sip of congee from Eastiel’s outstretched spoon. The rice was soft. The broth was savory. It tasted like Oathran’s cooking. Gentle and nourishing and made with care.
She swallowed and nodded at her husbands, trying to project a calm she didn’t feel. "Yeah. I... I’m sorry. It’s my fault."
"It’s not your fault, Cecilia." Eastiel’s brow furrowed, his lion ears flattening with confusion. "How could it be your fault...?"
"You’ll know later." Her smile was tired. She had already made her peace with a future she couldn’t change. "It’s actually completely my fault. Oathran... is just angry at me. Don’t blame him for leaving, alright?"
Arkai frowned. He set the glass of milk down and lowered himself to his knees in front of her, his golden eyes searching her face.
"Cecilia... we are not blaming anyone. Not you, not Oathran. Actually, we believe that whatever this is, it’s just a misunderstanding." He said gently. "Don’t you think so?"
Cecilia shook her head and reached out, her palm settling against his cheek. His skin was warm. His stubble was rough against her fingers. "It’s not."
"You know that we know how much you love Oathran, right?" Eastiel set the congee aside, his voice quieter now. "Maybe more than us?"
Cecilia’s eyes faltered. Arkai shot a sharp, warning glare at his younger brother.
"Cecilia, it’s okay to be mad at him, you know?" Eastiel’s golden eyes blazed with a sudden fury. "He promised you he’d be here. For you, for our baby. He just left, and it’s unfair, and it hurts us. It’s fine to admit it, okay? Even though I know there must be a reason, it’s fine to be mad, alright?"
"Eastiel... that’s not true..." She grasped his hand, her fingers cold against his.
"It’s true." Eastiel didn’t look away. "You love him more than anything. You call his name in your sleep. You look at him like he holds the world and not us—"
"Eastiel, let’s stop." Arkai warned. "We stop now."
"But you feel it too, right?" Eastiel didn’t even raise his voice. He just looked at Arkai with those burning golden eyes. "That we’re jealous?"
Cecilia broke. The tears she thought she had run out of came flooding back. "No, no, you are wrong—I don’t love him more than any of you—it’s just—it’s because—" The words tumbled out of her. "It’s because he... I... because I know I’ll hurt him, that’s all... because he—"
"Cecilia." Eastiel’s voice was cold now. "We were talking about you the night he left. Did you know what he said?"
"Eastiel, that’s enough." Arkai’s voice was final. Absolute.
Eastiel closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling, his lion tail going still. "I’m sorry." He shook his head. "Maybe that is indeed enough. Cecilia, you can imagine the rest."
"EASTIEL!" Arkai spat, his wolf ears pinned flat, his fangs bared.
"BROTHER, I KNOW YOU LIKE OATHRAN MORE THAN YOU LIKE ME, BUT I’LL LET YOU KNOW I LIKE YOU MORE THAN I LIKE HIM JUST BECAUSE I KNOW YOU’LL NEVER LEAVE CECILIA!"
Eastiel exploded.
And just like that, Arkai’s anger crumbled. His dark eyes, which had been blazing with fury a moment before, went soft and wet.
"Ever," Eastiel hissed, his voice shaking. "You’ll never leave Cecilia. Not even death will take you away from her, because I know you. I know the kind of person you are. You’ll fight for it."
"Eastiel..." Arkai shook his head, his face crumpling.
"You are selfish. Just like me." Eastiel’s voice was raw now, scraped clean of anger and left with nothing but truth. "You’ll make a deal with any devil if it means being with her. But Oathran is different. He’s the Dragon Lord. He might never fight destiny, since it was his job to protect it. Look at him at the holy war. His history?"
Arkai was silent. The holy war. The scars Oathran carried from that time were old but deep, etched into the marrow of his bones. He had watched his kin fall one by one, had been forced to make choices that no one should have to make, had learned that duty and sacrifice were the same word in the ancient tongue.
"I wasn’t born yet, but you were. You were young, but you must remember," Eastiel said.
"Being a selfless sovereign is NOT a flaw, Eastiel!" Arkai roared, torn from somewhere deep in his chest.
"BEING A SUICIDAL WHO JUST WANTS TO DIE A MARTYR IS A FLAW, ARKAI!" Eastiel’s voice cracked on the word martyr, splintering and breaking. "WHAT WOULD THIS WORLD DO WITHOUT HIM, HUH? WHAT WILL WE DO WITHOUT HI—"
"STOP IT—YOU TWO—"
Cecilia’s scream cut through the apartment.
She broke into a sob, her whole body shaking, her hands gripping the sofa cushions so hard her knuckles went white. But then, just a breath later, she held everything back.
She forced the tears to stop.
She looked at the two of them. She whispered, trying not to break once more, "Let’s... just go home, alright?"