Page 268 of The War God’s Favorite

“We have to move him.”

He turned to her, staring at Cassandra as if she was crazy.

“Move him? We will be lucky if we get out of here alive! We can’t move him too!”

“But we have no choice!” she retorted, almost crying. “I can’t heal him here, I can’t. I...I have nothing, and he is...”

Opheus sighed, and knelt down, grabbing Cassandra’s shoulder. He couldn’t look at his father as he tried to contain his own emotions.

“Cassandra, you can’t. I am no physician, but I am not blind either. There is nothing you can do to save my father, dear, not here or anywhere else. It’s just... too late.”

She refused to hear it.

Cassandra wasn’t an unreasonable woman, but this truth was just too bitter for her to swallow. Their entire journey here, she had been looking forward to the moment she could heal the Emperor. She needed his help and to have him set things straight - to make sure Kairen was named as his successor, to make sure her family would be safe from his brother’s madness... to finally put an end to all this. She really thought they had a chance as long as Vrehan wasn’t there.

She hadn’t thought things here would have been so bad so soon. How many people inside this Imperial Palace had rallied to Vrehan’s side already? How long had he been planning this? Maybe she couldn’t see the truth, or just didn’t want to, but there had been clues - like how poorly guarded this place was. There were far fewer soldiers than she had thought there would be because there wasn’t any way left to save the Emperor. Vrehan had deserted the Palace, confident that he had already won this battle. His father was going to die.

What had he used? Poison? The purple lips of the Emperor suggested as much. She wished she could have gotten at least one answer. Maybe then she wouldn’t have felt so powerless.

“Your Highness...”

“White Lily, don’t... worry,” muttered the old man. “Just... the lake...”

Cassandra frowned. The lake? What about the lake? Was he delusional? She tried to get more from him, but the old Emperor was weakening by the minute. Her heart was so heavy, seeing life leave his eyes with no way to help him. She leaned over his bed, trying to make sense of his fractured whispers. Opheus had his hands on her shoulders, but he didn’t dare to get any closer. Though they had never been close, he was somehow affected by the death of his father more than he thought he would be.

“Your Highness, what are you talking about?” she asked, clumsily wiping away her tears.

“What lake?”

Was this a dying man’s wish? Or something he had to confess? Cassandra was at a loss once again.

“And... Kareen... I’m sorry... I’m sorry...”

“Your Highness, you have to hold on, please,” she begged. “Kairen will be here soon. I promise that he is on his way back, with the Imperial Army. We can...”

“Kareen... And the dress...”

None of what he was saying was making any sense to her. Was he reminiscing about old memories of Lady Kareen? She couldn’t tell. Why was he talking about a lake and a dress? Cassandra had no idea. Could she comfort him, or at least find a way to ease his pain? He didn’t look to be in pain, just...

“Father?”

To her surprise, Opheus finally stepped forward, grabbing his father’s hand. He seemed like he was about to say something, but then just his lower lip quivered, and he stayed mute. A veil of emotions covered his face, and Cassandra’s heart broke a little more at witnessing it.

This was the reality of being an Emperor’s child. They hadn’t had a real bond, not the one that should have existed between a Father and his Son. Yet, the bond was present now, manifesting itself at the cruelest moment possible. Cassandra felt his pain resonate through her whole body and she felt even more sad, even more defeated.

Opheus simply held his father’s hand in a long, painful silence. The Emperor turned his head to him and faintly smiled, closing his eyes to help mask some of the pain. Cassandra couldn’t take it anymore. Tears escaped from her eyes, and she bit her lower lip, devastated. He was truly dying, and she was there, powerless.

“How touching.”

Cassandra and Opheus turned around in the same movement, surprised to hear a third voice.

To their left, coming from another door was Prince Lephys, standing in the doorway with an annoyed expression. The Fifth Prince was draped in his purple robe, leaning against the wall with an evil smirk plastered on his face. He was staring at both of them, shaking his head.

“You really had to make a dumb mistake now, Opheus.”

The Fourth Prince placed himself between Lephys and their father, looking furious.

“You fucking knew.”

---