Read Novel Full Chapter 512: Leaving For Iron Height [III]
Chapter 512: Leaving For Iron Height [III]
I let the chilly night air fill my lungs before meeting Lily’s anxious gaze.
She genuinely seemed worried.
I flashed her my most dazzling grin. “I see. So what you’re saying is that I’m basically the main character now? Unfair odds working against me? Fate constantly trying to orchestrate my tragic demise? Unfortunate coincidences following me everywhere? Baby, that’s just a regular Tuesday for someone as legendary as me.”
And the worry disappeared.
Instead, Lily was facepalming, not sure how to deal with me anymore. “Just please, please tell me you’ll be careful. Please.”
“Don’t fret,” I assured, chuckling. “I’m just going to deliver our army to my brother. He’ll be the one handling the rest. I doubt I’ll ever even see the front lines.”
Looking back, I’m not sure whether I want to laugh at my past self or extend some pity. How stupid was I?
Sure, one could argue that I wasn’t stupid. I was simply being optimistic. But hopeless optimism is rarely indiscernible from stupidity.
Lily let go of a shuddering breath, realizing that arguing with me was about as effective as trying to nail jelly to a wall.
“Just… don’t die again, Sam. I don’t think any of our hearts are ready for a sequel,” she muttered while reaching into her coat pocket and handing something over to me. “And here, take this. Happy birthday in advance.”
I stared down at the small, leather-bound box she had pressed into my palm. It was tied off with a plain red ribbon. Very minimalist, but classy.
Flipping it open, I found a brooch inside — a sprawling black pin in the shape of a raven’s wing. Embedded along the length of the wing were several tear-shaped rubies.
Those tiny gems caught the ambient light on the tarmac and sparkled like twinkling red stars in a pitch-black night sky.
A soft smile bloomed on my face, and I pinned the brooch on my chest, right next to a silver-rimmed sapphire one.
Lily noticed that other brooch. “Is that Alexia’s?”
I answered with a nod.
“Damn it,” she tsked. “How come a blind girl has better aesthetic sense than me? Blue complements gold better than red.”
I laughed. She did too.
Then I remembered something. “Oh, did you see our villa, by the way? I swear you have to visit that place at least once.”
My seer friend was immediately uncomfortable. “I… I want to, but… I don’t know if—”
“Understandable,” I said, taking out my phone, pulling up some photos on it and showing them off to her. “But look at this pool! And this lounge! And this basement!”
I kept swiping, and Lily looked genuinely impressed. Until, out of nowhere, once I got to the seventh photo, she blanched.
I’m not exaggerating. Her eyes went wide, frozen on the screen, the color literally draining from her face in real time.
I fought to keep a smile off my face and innocently glanced down at the screen. “What is it— Oh… Oh no~! I didn’t mean for you to see this.”
It wasn’t a photo of our villa anymore. It was a photo of Michael kissing a random girl in that club we visited back in Luxara.
I pretended to panic and swipe away, only to accidentally open another photo of a senior girl throwing herself on Michael, her face buried in his neck.
“Whoops! Wrong album!” I gasped, barely keeping the grin off my face. Lily looked like she had seen something so horrifying that she was shook to her core. I quickly pocketed my phone. “Please forget whatever you saw! It was stupid boy stuff. We visited some clubs and… well, you know how famous Michael is now. Seeing he’s single, girls are obviously going to be all over him.”
There was no response. Lily stayed silent, just aimlessly staring at my pocket where my phone was now tucked away.
From what I could tell, she was stuck somewhere between being heartbroken and ice-cold furious.
“SAMAEL!”
I winced, looking up toward the top of the boarding stairs. Vereshia was leaning over the railing.
“If your feet are not on this aircraft in five seconds, I promise I’ll throw you out of the jet without a parachute!” she yelled and went back inside the cabin.
So that was a fucking lie.
She threw me out of the jet without a parachute anyway. But we’ll get to that later.
“Duty calls,” I sighed, turning back to Lily.
Her expression had become unreadable now. Her mind was clearly a million miles away, probably replaying those photos over and over.
I reached out and gently patted her head. “Take care of yourself. And thank you for the gift. Really. It looks great on me. But then again, everything does.”
An imperceptible twitch of a smile tugged the corner of her lips before it vanished. “Yeah. Just… be careful out there.”
“Always am.” I waved and turned around, taking the stairs two at a time.
And when I reached the cabin door… I couldn’t help but glance back down at the tarmac one last time.
The quiet breeze of the Ascent Isles felt almost deceiving.
Out here, under the soft glow of the airfield lights, everything seemed peaceful.
But somewhere across the sky and across the seas, on the treacherous grounds of Iron Height, chaos was waiting.
I wasn’t scared, however. Not one bit.
Yet, as I was about to leave, there was… a strange, nagging feeling clinging to the back of my neck.
I pulled out my phone again and checked the screen.
Still no message back from my sister.
I frowned slightly, my thumb hovering over the call icon.
She’s probably just sulking, I told myself.
She’ll call me herself if she is ready to talk, I told myself.
Still, the pit in my stomach didn’t disappear.
Call it an instinct or call it a sixth sense, but it was as though some small part of me just knew that if I left without seeing my sister tonight, I wouldn’t like the consequences.
I would regret it forever.
It sounds stupid. How could I have possibly known? Right?
Yeah. You’re right.
Maybe I didn’t know for sure. Maybe, because I’m telling you this story with the clarity of hindsight, my memory is playing tricks on me.
And yet, I’m sure that there was this cold prickle on the back of my neck that really refused to go away.
“Samael! Get inside!” Vereshia’s voice snapped me out of it, sharper this time as the heavy hydraulic door of the jet began to groan shut.
I sucked in a breath, shoved my phone back into my pocket, and finally stepped inside the cabin.
But I wished I hadn’t.
Because I was right.
To this day, I really do regret leaving that Island without seeing Thalia one last time.
How ironic is that, huh? The same sister I spent so much of my life hating, and who spent much of her own life hating me, was someone whose absence I was going to miss forever.