NOVEL WEB Chapter 179: [179] A Puppet with Severed Strings
Xavier felt his breath catch as the tactical brilliance of Calypso's attack unfolded before him. She wasn't operating as a goddess now—she was wielding the memory of the stolen child like a perfectly forged weapon, aimed with devastating accuracy at her father's most vulnerable point. The emotional brutality was surgical, divine intelligence channeled through mortal anguish and delivered with the kind of ruthless understanding that came only from intimate knowledge of human frailty.
The impact on Torval was immediate and catastrophic. The High Burner reeled backward as though struck by an invisible hammer, his hands clutching at his chest as if trying to physically hold the pieces of his breaking heart together. His face—already gaunt from years of guilt and sleepless vigils—seemed to implode, decades of carefully constructed justifications collapsing like ancient stonework under an earthquake's relentless assault.
"No," he whispered, the word barely cutting through the ballroom's horrified hush. "No, she's safe. She's protected. I made certain she was shielded from their reach."
"Protected?" Calypso's voice remained soft as morning mist, but each word carried the terrible weight of cosmic judgment, divine truth spoken into a realm built on necessary lies. "Or trapped in agony that transcends mortal understanding? She reaches toward the light, Uncle, but her fingers pass through it like desperate grasps at smoke. She calls for her father with a voice that weakens with each passing moment, but the sound dies in the void where silence reigns eternal. She remembers the sweetness of honey cakes you baked for her nameday celebrations, the safety of your embrace when winter storms shook the walls, but sensation has abandoned her—leaving only the endless descent through infinite darkness."
The weight of truth drove Torval to his knees. The man who had commanded Hearthome's Sacred Flame for three decades, who had stood against Winter Court raiders and volcanic fury with unwavering resolve, who had served as the bedrock upon which their civilization anchored its hopes, crumpled like ancient parchment meeting flame. His broken sobs reverberated off the volcanic stone, raw and shattered and devastatingly, irreducibly human.
"I believed... I convinced myself she would understand eventually. I thought if I could discover a method to restore her, to repair what was broken..."
"There exists no restoration," Calypso said, her tone growing gentle now, almost maternal, like someone explaining mortality to an innocent child. "Not while another inhabits her stolen flesh. Not while her form serves purposes she never chose. Not while her father constructs elaborate justifications that love can sanctify eternal torment."
The assembled nobility observed in stunned, horrified paralysis as their High Burner—the man who had shepherded their city through its bleakest hours, who had maintained the Sacred Flame when hope itself seemed extinguished—disintegrated before their eyes like a puppet with severed strings. Lady Morwyn's fan had ceased its constant motion, frozen in her shock. Lord Blackwater's battle-scarred hands dangled uselessly at his sides. Even the servants had abandoned their practiced invisibility, staring openly at the unfolding catastrophe that would fundamentally alter their comprehension of power and sacrifice.
Xavier felt something cold and jagged twist in his chest as he witnessed Torval's complete collapse. The man's grief rang genuine, his love for his niece pure and undeniable. But desperation had corrupted that love into something abhorrent, twisted it into justification for the unthinkable. How many parents in this very room would face the same choice when confronted with their child's death? How many would convince themselves that any existence surpassed nonexistence, that suffering was preferable to permanent loss?
The King's Gaze stirred within Xavier's consciousness like a predator detecting fresh blood, offering cold analysis of the emotional carnage, calculating optimal methods to exploit the chaos for maximum strategic advantage. But Xavier rejected the alien presence with deliberate force. This transcended strategy now, moved beyond concepts of victory or defeat or games played with human souls. This was about paternal love becoming a child's chains, about noble intentions constructing a highway straight into damnation.
Duke Haverford had observed the entire exchange with mounting fury that radiated from his form like heat from molten steel. His sun mask reflected the ballroom's chaos like a mirror forged from rage and thwarted ambition. His meticulously crafted plans were dissolving before his eyes—his most crucial ally reduced to a weeping ruin, his political foundation cracking as the nobles processed the horror of what they'd witnessed, what they'd been complicit in enabling.
"Enough of this melodramatic farce!"
Haverford's bellow sliced through the ballroom like a physical blow, like a thunderclap that sent crystal glasses singing and made the very atmosphere shudder. His hand lashed out with serpentine speed, fingers clamping around Calypso's arm with crushing force that spoke of desperation masquerading as dominance. The golden threads woven throughout her gown erupted into brilliant, searing radiance, their suppression enchantments responding to his contact with an intensity that forced several nobles to shield their faces.
"You desire to play games with sentiment?" Haverford's voice had shed all pretense of refinement, exposing the frigid calculation that festered beneath his noble veneer like rot beneath polished marble. "Excellent. Wallow in this pathetic exhibition of weakness. But the ceremony advances regardless of your theatrical performance, regardless of tears and remorse and whatever other frailties you imagine will provide salvation. The binding shall be completed, the power shall be harnessed, and Frostfall will finally possess the strength to transform this frozen wasteland into something worthy of human dominion!"
The golden threads flared brighter, and Calypso's defiant expression flickered for the first time since entering the ballroom. The suppression magic was fighting her divine nature directly now, and even her immense power had limits when channeled through mortal flesh. Xavier could see the strain beginning to show—the slight tremor in her hands, the way her luminous pink eyes dimmed just a fraction as the enchanted bindings tightened their grip.
Haverford noticed too, and his grip on her arm tightened with predatory satisfaction. "Did you truly believe your little emotional manipulation would be enough? That reducing one broken old man to tears would somehow derail years of careful planning?" His laugh was harsh, grating, like metal scraping against stone. "You may be divine, my dear, but you're trapped in mortal form now. And mortal forms have such... limitations."
The duke's free hand began to glow with amber light as he channeled his own Essentia, the power flowing through the golden threads in Calypso's gown like poison through veins. The suppression magic wasn't just containing her abilities now—it was actively draining them, feeding her divine essence back into Haverford's reserves like some sort of vampiric enhancement technique.
Around the ballroom, the other nobles began to stir from their shocked paralysis as they realized the duke was reasserting control. Some looked relieved that the uncomfortable truth-telling was ending. Others appeared horrified by the casual cruelty of what they were witnessing. But none moved to intervene, none spoke in protest. They were trapped by their own complicity, their own desperate need for the power and stability that Haverford promised.
Only Xavier remained free to act, and the King's Gaze whispered urgent suggestions about optimal timing, about exploiting the chaos, about striking while the duke was distracted. Whatever he did next would reshape not just this evening, but the entire trajectory of events that followed.
The stakes had just become impossibly, devastatingly clear.