Chapter 282: 282. Reunion – 1

Anastasia sat silently in the corner of her prison cell, her legs folded beneath her in a meditative posture, and her palms rested gently on her knees. Her breathing remained steady and calm, but the peace in her posture was only an illusion, because beneath that still exterior, her heart had not known rest for many years.

She had been informed that in two days she would be taken to the central plaza and executed during the Founder’s Festival, a public death arranged as a celebration for the empire and a warning for anyone who dared oppose the church.

The thought of such an end no longer frightened her, because fear had long ago been burned out of her by grief, loss, and years of captivity. What remained now was exhaustion, regret, and a quiet resolve that had grown stronger with every passing hour inside this prison.

For the past two days, Anastasia had done little except sit in silence and think about the life she had lived and the choices that had brought her to this point.

In the stillness of the cell, with no distractions left to pull her mind away, memories had risen one after another like waves she could no longer hold back. She found herself returning again and again to the same thought, wondering whether everything could have been different if she had made a different choice the day she met William again.

She often asked herself whether she should have stopped him that day and whether she should have revealed everything to him instead of hiding the truth. At the time, she had believed she was making the only choice a mother could make.

William was still young, and although he had grown far stronger after all, entering the prison was no small feat; he was still stepping into a world filled with enemies who were far more ruthless than he yet understood.

She had believed that if she revealed herself fully, he would never allow her to stay in the prison; she hadn’t raised him, but she knew that someone who carried the blood of Rudra Solaris would never walk away from saving his kin.

That his love for his mother would push him into a battle that would destroy him before he had the chance to truly live.

That had been the reason she stayed silent. It was not because she lacked the courage to face him, nor because she doubted his strength, but because she could not bear the thought of becoming the reason her son walked toward death.

A mother could live with loneliness. A mother could carry pain. A mother could even endure being misunderstood by her own child. But she could never live with herself if her child died because of her selfish desire to hold him close for one more moment.

Even now, Anastasia did not regret protecting him from the truth. What she regretted was that fate had been so merciless that it had not even given her enough time to be his mother.

That wound remained the deepest of all.

She had carried William in her womb for months and dreamed about the life she would build with him long before he was born.

She had imagined his first smile, his first laugh, the first time he would hold her hand, and the first time he would call out to her. She had imagined watching him grow beneath the sunlight and hearing him laugh in a home that was meant to be safe.

Not one full day. She had only held William for a few minutes after his birth before he was thrown away from several feet above the ground in front of her eyes.

That truth had never stopped hurting, no matter how much time passed. The church had taken many things from her, but what hurt most was that they had stolen something that could never be recovered.

They had stolen time. They had stolen years she should have spent watching her son grow. They had stolen ordinary moments that she would have treasured more than anything else in this world.

As Anastasia sat there in the cold darkness of the prison, she slowly opened her eyes and looked at the stone walls around her. The smell of burning lava and metal had become too familiar in these past years.

Over the past two days, she had come to a decision, and once she made it, her heart had become strangely calm.

If death was truly waiting for her in two days, then she would not allow that death to be meaningless.

She had already made a vow in the name of the heavens that she would not leave this land until she saw the church burn with her own eyes.

Annasthasia had made that vow years ago when she watched the pope’s men tear her child away from her. That day, something inside her had changed forever. The grief of a mother had become a fire that never truly died, no matter how deeply she buried it.

If she had known back then that William would survive, perhaps she would have chosen differently. Perhaps she would have tried to escape. Perhaps she would have clung to life longer for the chance of seeing him again. But now, standing this close to death, there was no room left for hesitation.

Her path had already been chosen.

If the church wanted her execution to become a spectacle for the world, then she would make sure the world remembered it for something else entirely.

Core detonation.

Even the thought of such a thing was enough to terrify most cultivators.

It was not merely death, but destruction. To detonate one’s core meant destroying the very foundation of one’s existence. The body would perish first, then the mind would collapse under unbearable pain, and finally, the soul itself would burn away until nothing remained.

There would be no afterlife. There would be no peace waiting on the other side. A person who chose such a path was choosing to vanish completely.

That was why even gods rarely chose such an end.

Every living being wanted to exist even after death. The hope of another life, another chance, another peace beyond suffering was one of the few comforts death offered. No one wanted to dissolve into nothingness. No one wanted to disappear forever.

But Anastasia had reached a point where the fear of disappearing no longer mattered to her as much as the need to make her death count.

Long ago, she had witnessed the Nether God destroy himself rather than allow his enemies to take him alive. She still remembered the sight of the sky splitting apart and mountains trembling under the force of his final act. What remained after that explosion had become an ancient ruin that very few still understood.

“The Prison of Gods.”

More like a cemetery of gods. That place had been born from the last act of defiance of a being who had refused to kneel.

Anastasia intended to do the same.

In two days, when the whole world watched her die, she would remind them that she was not merely a prisoner waiting to be executed.

She would remind them of her true name, of the blood she carried. She would not allow her son, her sisters, or her father to watch her die as a helpless woman led to execution.

She would rise one last time and make the church regret forever as Anastasia, daughter of the moon, a woman who had lost everything and still refused to bow before the world that had taken it from her.

For the detonation, she needed access to her mana, but she did not worry; she had someone in mind who would help her.

clink*

The metallic sound of a gate opening suddenly echoed through the prison corridors and pulled her out of her thoughts. Anastasia’s eyes opened at once, and her attention shifted toward the dark tunnel beyond her cell.

At first, she saw only shadows moving near the entrance, but then voices slowly reached her through the corridor.

“My lord, you do not need to trouble yourself with such menial tasks. Let me handle it.”

“Do not take away the opportunity of imprisoning heretics from me.”

The moment Anastasia heard that word, the calm she had spent two days building cracked.

Heretics.

A cold dread spread through her chest almost instantly. She did not need anyone to explain who they were talking about. It was not difficult to understand what had happened.

Tamasya must have surrendered to negotiate her death.

The fear she had been able to suppress for herself suddenly became unbearable when it turned toward the people she loved. She had already accepted her own death, but the thought that they had walked willingly into the church’s trap made her chest tighten with helpless anger.

She had warned her father. She had told him not to let Tamasya come here.

When Winston had taken Elion away earlier, there had been no time for proper words, but the glance she had shared with her father had been enough. In that one look, she had begged him to leave and protect the others.

Yet they had still come.

Anastasia’s fingers slowly dug into the rocky floor beneath her until her nails bit into the stone. Small cracks spread outward from her hand as frustration and fear rose inside her.

Why had they come?

Why would they risk everything now?

Before she could sink deeper into dread, the voices outside shifted again.

“Thank you. Now you can leave.”

Nicholas’s voice sounded through the cavern, but Anastasia frowned the moment she heard it clearly. Something about the voice felt wrong. There was something beneath Nicholas’s tone. Another voice.

Before she could understand what it meant, a heavy splash echoed through the cavern, followed almost immediately by terrified cries.

“My lord!”

Anastasia’s breath caught. Then, cutting through the chaos like a blade, a single voice sounded through the stone corridors.

“Run.”

Her heart froze. She knew that voice. There was no mistaking it.

No matter how many years passed, no matter how many memories faded, a mother could never fail to recognize the voice of her own child.

It was William.

Her son.

Her hands began to tremble, and the breath she had been holding escaped her in a broken shiver.

William was here.

He had come for her.

For a moment, Anastasia could not bring herself to stand. She was afraid; she feared that if she moved too quickly, the moment would disappear like a dream. She had spent too many years longing for this. She had spent too many nights imagining what it would feel like to hear his voice again.

What if this was only her mind giving her comfort before death?

What if she stepped forward and found only silence waiting for her?

The fear of losing hope again kept her frozen where she sat.

So she remained still and listened.

The screams that followed were filled with terror. Several men shouted.

The sound of slaughter moved through the prison like a storm, and Anastasia sat there with tears slowly gathering in her eyes, not from fear, but from the unbearable weight of hope returning to her heart.

At last, the screams began to fade. One by one, the sounds of struggle died until silence returned to the prison.

Anastasia finally lifted her gaze fully toward the entrance and saw a dragonkin warrior approaching. He stepped forward without a word and unlocked the mithril gate of her cell.

The door slowly swung open.

Anastasia saw Tamasya standing there at the entrance.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Tamasya stood frozen at the entrance because the sight before her was far worse than anything she had imagined during the journey here.

Anastasia’s white robe was stained with blood and dirt. Her blue hair, once soft and beautiful, was now tangled with sweat, dust, and dried blood. Her face looked thinner, and the years of suffering were carved into her features with a cruelty that words could not soften.

Tamasya felt something inside her break.

She had prepared herself for many things before coming here. She had prepared for battle, for bloodshed, and for death if necessary. But she had not prepared herself for the pain of seeing someone she loved reduced to this.

She took one slow step forward, then another, but with every step the pain inside her chest grew heavier. By the time she reached Anastasia, her strength had already left her.

She dropped to her knees before Anne.

Anne looked at Tamasya with pain-filled eyes.

The last time the two of them had said goodbye, neither of them could have imagined meeting again like this.

Neither had realized that when they met again, they would both be carrying scars this deep.

The youthful warmth they had once seen in each other’s eyes was gone.

What remained now was someone who had suffered too much, yet still refused to rest in death’s embrace.

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