Page 49 of Revert
CHAPTER 14
Ibraced myself for the familiar pain to pierce my heart, as it had once before…but it never came. A sudden blur of motion, a sharp clash of steel as the assassin’s blade was blocked mid-strike by a sword that moved faster than my eyes could follow.
Castiel. He’d arrived without a sound, as if summoned by the silent, desperate plea for rescue my heart hadn’t been able to voice.
His face was thunderous, eyes blazing with a fury I had never seen before as his blade met the assassin’s. “You dare try to harm her?” he growled.
“I act under orders,” the assassin responded coldly, uncowed by Castiel’s anger. “I won’t let anyone stand in the way, least of all a meddling prince who doesn’t understand what’s good for the kingdom.”
“The king gave no command against the princess,” Castiel snarled. “Your orders are treason.”
“You claim to know of every working beyond the shadows?” The assassin twisted the dagger in an attempt to find an opening, but Castiel’s blade pushed harder, forcing his opponent back astep. “There is so much more that goes on in the background than you know. Perhaps protecting her is the real betrayal?”
“Then I’ll betray and commit treason as many times as it takes…until my last breath.”
What followed was not a fight, but an execution in motion disguised as a dance. Castiel’s swordsmanship was unlike anything I had ever seen—fluid and elegant, a ruthless waltz with the blade, every strike calculated and lethal. His blade flashed like silver fire in the dim corridor, a blur of motion that commanded the air around him with terrifying precision.
The assassin met Castiel’s blade with surprising steadiness, and their blades locked in a tense shiver of steel. The assassin’s eyes gleamed behind the mask. “What good will come from trying to protect her? She’s too much of a threat to forever evade those who want her gone.”
Castiel’s voice dropped, lethal and unyielding. “Let them try. They will learn what happens when they threaten what I’ve vowed to protect.”
“You’re making a mistake.” The hooded figure’s taunt was breathless, but still composed. “Keep protecting her like this, and the next dagger will be through your own heart.”
The deadly knife lunged towards him, but Castiel effortlessly blocked the strike in another lethal artistic motion; tension rippled through the air as their blades locked once more. Castiel’s eyes narrowed. “If that’s the cost, so be it. But I must warn you: no one in Thorndale surpasses my skill. And when that skill is wielded forhersake, it becomes unstoppable.”
The assassin scoffed. “You’re not untouchable.”
Castiel surged forward, blade blazing, forcing the assassin to stagger back. “No,” he said coldly. “But neither are you. Nor do you understand the lengths I will go to win. This is one battle I cannot lose.”
The assassin tried to land another blow, but Castiel turned it aside with ease, countering with terrifying elegance. The masked figure stumbled, defense faltering. Their parries grew slower, more desperate—no longer dancing, only surviving.
Castiel disarmed them in three more strikes; a final clash of steel and his blade was at the assassin’s throat. The masked figure gave a strained laugh. “Don’t be so quick to assume whose orders I follow. There are other games at play, Your Highness. And she’s just as much a pawn as you are.”
Castiel’s grip faltered—only for a heartbeat—before lifting his sword. “A dead man carries no threats.”
Steel flashed, and it was over.
The assassin collapsed at his feet, the sound of the fall swallowed by deathly stillness. Blood slowly pooled across the stone, creeping towards my frozen form.
Castiel stood over the corpse, chest rising and falling in slow, measured breaths, his sword still clutched in hand…and for a terrible heartbeat, he looked exactly as I’d imagined he did after killing me. He had ended a life without hesitation or mercy…just as he’d done before.
The memory rose unbidden, transporting me back to my own death—a figure carved from fury, the blade, the pain, the darkness closing in. For a split second, it wasn’t the assassin crumpled at his feet.
It was me.
Time fractured. My vision lurched. The world tilted. I couldn’t breathe.
A raw scream tore from my throat, voicing the horror that terror had momentarily suppressed—both from the murder that almost happened…and the one that already had.
He turned and his expression shifted in an instant—wrath melting to worry, ruthless power to something achingly human.He stepped towards me with the slow caution of approaching a wounded animal.
“No!” I choked out, scrambling back until my spine hit the wall, leaving me nowhere else to go. “No—don’t?—”
He immediately stilled, eyes widening in horror. He dropped his sword and kicked it away, hands lifted in a gesture of assurance and surrender. “I’m not going to hurt you, Bernice.”
But that wasn’t true—he already had, and would again. His crime haunted me, reaching through time until past, present, and the inevitable future pressed against me from all sides, forcing me to relive my death in an endless loop I couldn’t escape.
No matter how the details changed or whatever deviation I encountered, the outcome remained the same: Castiel standing over me, sword in hand. If not him, then the king, just like my nightmare.
