Chapter 143
(Cassiane POV)
The cup nearly slipped from my hands.
I stared at her, my mouth falling open. For once in my life, absolutely nothing came to mind.
Miss Ann simply watched me.
After several seconds, I finally managed to speak.
"How do you know that?"
Her smile returned, but there was something different behind it this time. Something knowing.
"Because you are Cassiane, and you are Amanda."
I stared at her in confusion, but she remained entirely too calm.
"I know Theo sent you to retrieve the Heartforge. Can you tell me what happened after you left Benny's cottage?"
I told her everything that had happened: the encounter with the dragon, the retrieval of the fragments, finding the Heartforge, and the attack by the Veiled Thorn.
I did leave out the moments involving Rhaevan. Those were mine, and I had no intention of sharing them with anyone else.
When I finished, Miss Ann walked past me and stopped beside the window. She drew the curtain aside, allowing the afternoon light to spill into the room, and for a moment, she simply stood there looking outside.
I watched her back.
"Who are you?" I asked again.
She remained silent for several seconds before finally speaking.
"Let me tell you a story, child. A story about a kingdom once known for its magic, its virtue, and its justice."
Her voice was quiet, almost distant.
"But even a kingdom built on such ideals can fail to see the betrayal growing within its own walls. By the time they realized what was happening, it was too late. The kingdom fell, its power was stripped away,
and its people were forbidden from speaking of their bloodline or the magic they once guarded."
She paused, her fingers tightening slightly around the curtain.
"But some refused to abandon their duty. Those who were proud of their bloodline and had sworn an oath to protect magic from falling into the wrong hands continued their work in secret. They guarded the very magic that kept the balance of this realm."
Her gaze remained fixed outside.
"Over the years, their numbers dwindled until only one remained."
Something in my chest tightened.
"She was proud, intelligent, and strong. She devoted her life to the values her ancestors had entrusted to her while keeping the nature of what she guarded hidden from the outside world. A small group remained loyal to her, bound by their own covenant,
and they worked alongside her to protect the secrets passed down through generations."
Miss Ann's voice softened.
"Then, during one of her battles, she found a young king lying injured."
I listened without moving.
"She took him in and cared for him. He knew nothing about her identity or the burden she carried. All he knew was that she had saved his life, and he became captivated by her."
A faint sadness entered her voice.
"He pursued her. She resisted at first, but eventually, she fell in love with him too."
Miss Ann lowered her gaze.
"Then he discovered the truth about her lineage."
The words seemed to weigh heavily on her.
"He was afraid. Not enough to stop loving her, but enough to let that fear dictate what he wanted from her. He already had a queen and a daughter, so he could not acknowledge her publicly. Instead, he offered her a place as his mistress."
My hands curled into the fabric of my clothes.
"On one condition."
Miss Ann finally turned away from the window.
"She had to abandon her lineage."
My stomach twisted.
"She refused."
There was quiet pride in Miss Ann's voice.
"She was proud of who she was and of the duty entrusted to her. She would not trade her name, her blood, or her oath for a place at the king's side."
She looked away again.
"She rejected his offer and continued to fulfill her duties. Before leaving him, she vowed never to meet him again."
The room seemed strangely quiet.
"But by then, the danger surrounding the relics she was sworn to protect had grown far more serious. The forces seeking them were becoming stronger, and eventually, she found herself fighting a war she could no longer avoid."
Miss Ann's voice faltered slightly.
"During one such battle, she realized that a relic was about to fall into the wrong hands. There was only one way to prevent it."
She took a slow breath.
"She destroyed it."
A chill ran through me.
"The act saved the relic from being taken, but the destruction came at a terrible cost. Its ancient magic wounded her, and her health began to deteriorate. She knew that whatever time she had left would be limited."
Miss Ann lowered her eyes.
"Then she discovered that she was pregnant."
My breath caught.
"She was carrying the king's child."
Tears glistened in Miss Ann's eyes.
"She also realized that the destruction of the relic had affected the child. She didn't know how badly or what the consequences would be. All she knew was that an innocent life had been caught in the consequences of her choice."
Her voice grew quieter.
"Guilt consumed her."
"She withdrew from the world, disbanded her covenant, and bound those who had served her to an oath of secrecy. She could not allow anyone to discover the truth, not even those closest to her."
Miss Ann wiped beneath one eye before continuing.
"For the remainder of her pregnancy, she devoted herself to protecting the child with whatever magic she had left. She searched for a way to undo the damage caused by the relic, refusing to accept that her child would have to suffer for something she had done."
She swallowed.
"Eventually, she found an answer."
My heart began beating faster.
"She gave birth to a baby girl."
Miss Ann's voice trembled.
"By then, she was already fragile, and she knew her days were numbered. But she had discovered what needed to be done. She knew how to undo the damage, even if she would not live long enough to see it."
She turned fully toward me.
"So she called for the people she trusted most among her former covenant."
Her eyes filled with tears.
"She gave them one final task. If the child ever came seeking something, they were to follow the instructions she had left behind, no matter where those instructions led them."
I could barely breathe.
"Then she approached the king."
Miss Ann's expression hardened with sadness.
"She asked him to keep the child within the kingdom and protect her."
A bitter smile touched her lips.
"But the king was terrified. He feared what would happen to his reputation if the truth became known. He feared his connection to the woman he had once loved and the child she had given him."
"So he buried the truth."
"He created story after story to explain the child's existence without revealing where she had truly come from. He buried her mother's name, her bloodline, and everything connected to the relics."
Miss Ann's voice broke slightly.
"And the child grew up in the silence of the palace, never knowing the truth about the woman who had given her life."
She fell silent.
I stared at her, struggling to process everything she had just told me. There was something painfully familiar about the story, something I had been searching for without even knowing what I was looking for.
Miss Ann took a slow breath and looked directly at me.
"That woman," she said softly, "was Rosaline Valerith Ardentia."
My heart stopped.
"Your mother."
I couldn't move.
Miss Ann's eyes filled with tears as she spoke the final revelation.
"And the relic she destroyed was the twin of the Heartforge."
The room seemed to tilt around me.
"Theo, Benedict, and I were the surviving members of her covenant. Annabeth Helios," she added softly, "that was my name before I became Miss Ann."
I said nothing.
"We were bound by the oath until you found your purpose. Rosaline entrusted us with helping you, believing that when the time came, seeking the Heartforge would be the only way to help you. Your mother discovered that you carried the power of the destroyed Heartforge.
And reuniting with its twin was the only way to save you."
She paused before continuing.
"After your birth, the relics went dormant. We didn't know how to help you or what would happen to you."
Miss Ann's gaze drifted toward the window.
"We kept you under the care of a trusted maid and watched you grow within the kingdom. But we could never approach you, tell you the truth, or interfere with your life. Our oath prevented us from doing so until the time was right."
"But how does any of this connect me to Cassiane?" I asked.
Miss Ann looked back at me.
"I am sometimes gifted with visions child, more like the projections to the possible future. It may not be accurate.. But I had a vision and I sensed a familiar kind of magic, similar to the magic within Cassiane. It was unstable. Broken."
My brow furrowed.
"But surprisingly, it wasn't in this realm. It was far away, on Earth."
She drew a slow breath.
"That was when I contacted Theo and Benedict. We could only guess what had happened to your soul."
She hesitated.
"Perhaps your mother's magic prevented its complete destruction. Perhaps the twin of the Heartforge fractured your soul into two, and the relic went dormant when the other half disappeared. Perhaps its power resided in you, far away from here,
and reuniting it with its other part would have been a way to mend your fractured soul. We couldn't know for certain."
Miss Ann continued, "I couldn't cross over. I couldn't speak to you, and I couldn't show you this world directly. Your magic prevented my interference. But I wanted you to familiarise with this world. I wanted to find out whether you would remember something about this world,
if I gave you a glimpse of it."
She smiled faintly.
"So I found someone there. Somewhere in that other world was a person with a strange imagination. An author who had a habit of turning impossible things into stories."
My heart began to pound.
"I found a way to reach her through her dreams. I gave her fragments of this world-images, places, people, events. Enough for her to dream about a world that didn't exist in hers."
I stared at Miss Ann.
"And she wrote it down. You eventually found that story."
My heartbeat quickened. Its true, the moment I had read the story, I felt some sort of familiarity with it, as if I was reading something to which I belonged.
"So... the novel was based on this world. But the story itself didn't exist. She made it up. All those pages, all those characters, everything I had once believed was fiction?"
Miss Ann watched me quietly.
"You read the story and became familiar with this world without ever knowing why some of it felt strangely real to you."
She turned toward the window again.
"And the moment you returned, the things that had been dormant for years began to wake. The relics and the Heartforge."
I slowly lowered my gaze to my hands.
For the first time, I understood that perhaps my arrival hadn't changed this world.
Maybe my arrival had simply awakened it.
I sat there for a long moment, staring at the floor.
There were too many pieces in my head, yet somehow, they were finally beginning to fit together.
My mother had known about the Heartforge. She had destroyed its twin and paid the price for it. Fearing that the same magic had affected me before I was even born, she had entrusted Benedict, Theo, and Miss Ann with protecting me and finding the Heartforge when the time came.
Then the magic went dormant.
Years passed.
And somewhere in another world, a girl named Amanda picked up a novel about a woman named Cassiane.
Only now did I realize that the story I had once believed to be fiction had been a fragment of the truth all along.
I finally looked back at Miss Ann.
There was one question still bothering me.
"Of all the people who existed on Earth, of all the people you could have reached, you chose an eccentric author and gave her fragments of this world so she could turn them into that pathetic, shitty story?"
Miss Ann stared at me.
I stared back.
For the first time since she had begun telling me the story, she looked as though she wasn't entirely sure how to answer.