The darkness drifted Cassius inside him like a heavy shroud. He is unconscious for months, untethered from reality. Now, like a ship emerging from dense fog. His mind began its slow journey back to awareness from his Mana Shutdown.
In his mind, complete and absolute darkness. Cassius started thinking. Where… where am I?
The thoughts came slowly, like bubbles rising through thick syrup, Cassius floated in the void between Consciousness and oblivion. His mind, dormant for months, was beginning to stir.
So dark… I can't move… can't feel anything
his thoughts were fragmented, each one requiring immense effort to form. The darkness pressed in from all sides, both comforting and terrifying in its completeness. He hears someone crying in desperately but he can't move. Cassius looks at the dark place.
The time held no meaning in this liminal space. Hours could have been minutes: and days could have been seconds. His memories floated just beyond reach like autumn leaves scattered by a wind he couldn't feel. "Where… where am I? and who was the person crying." The question echoed in the chamber of his mind, unanswered.
Cassius forced himself to stand, his legs trembling beneath him, his breath ragged and uneven. The darkness around him was endless, pressing in on all sides, thick as smoke, suffocating. He could barely see, barely move, but through the void, a voice reached him—a soft, broken sound that sent a sharp ache through his chest. Someone was crying. A girl. Her quiet sobs bled into the silence, fragile and raw, a wound left open in the fabric of the depth.
"Hic…Why didn't you save me, why did you leave me."
The words struck him like a blade, slicing through the fog in his mind, cutting him down to something small and helpless. He knew that voice. Even in this empty, godless place, he would know it anywhere. This voice is his sister, his twin sister Elara. He ran chasing the voice continuously in the dark place.
'Why are you crying, Ela?' The thought clawed at his mind, frantic and raw. 'Did someone hurt you? Was it one of the maids again?' His fists clenched as he ran faster, his vision blurring with rage. If they had dared to make her cry, if they had so much as spoken cruelly to her, he would make them pay. He would punish them, no matter what it took.
But beneath the fury, fear crept in, cold and suffocating
"El…ara.."
Her name barely passed his lips, a whisper so shattered it was barely more than breath, breaking apart like shards of a broken mirror. His mind—his very soul—fractured at the sound of her grief, each crack spreading deep into the marrow of his being. Somewhere beyond this crushing darkness, beyond this prison of his own making, he could hear her crying. His sister's sobs pierced through the void, each one another twist of the knife lodged in his incorporeal heart. He wanted to run to her, to wrap her in his arms, to tell her he never meant to leave, never meant to let her suffer. But his feet felt like stone, his body sluggish, as if the weight of his sins had chained him to the very floor beneath him.
The sound of her weeping grew stronger, more desperate, no longer a whisper but a wail of anguish that filled the emptiness, echoing in his skull, bouncing off unseen walls, multiplying until it became an unbearable symphony of sorrow. In her voice, he could hear it all—pain, betrayal, grief so deep it swallowed everything in its path.
"Why didn't you come, Brother? Why did you let me suffer? Why weren't you there when I needed you?"
"You don't have to cry… I'm coming, Ela... I'm here for you." The words echoed in his head, over and over, a desperate mantra. But even as he ran, even as he reached out for her, the distance between them never seemed to close. Her sobs grew softer, fading, slipping away like sand through his fingers.
"You said to me, You always by my side, then why… why…".
Elara's voice buzzed on the place. The accusations were unspoken, yet they wrapped around his throat like a noose, tightening, suffocating. He didn't understand—hadn't he tried? Hadn't he fought? Hadn't he given everything?
Then why… why does it feel like I'm too late?
His heart pounded, aching, heavy with a guilt he couldn't name. He moved, blindly reaching out, his fingers desperate to find her, to hold her, to touch even a strand of her hair—to prove to himself that she was real, that he wasn't too late. If he could just reach her, maybe this time, he could make things right. But just as his fingertips brushed the air where she should have been -She was gone.
The darkness swallowed her whole, ripping her from him as if she had never been there at all.
Cassius stood frozen, his hand still outstretched, his fingers curled around nothing but empty space. He remembered that he was with his sister in the capital and attacked by some magus on the way. His chest ached, his breath shallow, and his heart crumbled under the weight of a loss he could not bear. The image of the scene flashed in his mind. What if that magus captured? The worry about her sister came into his mind. The silence rushed back in, deafening in its finality.
As her sister disappeared his eyes fell tears, as if he was losing her and screamed, his voice was loud.
"Elara..."
Cassius's voice tore through the silence, for a moment, he was still lost in that depth of his mind—screaming out his sister's name, his trapped mind, his mana shutdown broken, the endless void breaking and reality slammed back into him.
The weight of his voice echoed in the room, his breath came in ragged gasps, his chest rising and falling in sharp. He was in his bed, when he suddenly woke up, his body giving him a warning, trembling violently, drenched in sweat, and he lay down on his bed once again. But this time he was awake.
"W-What is this place….? That doesn't matter where is Elara."
Cassius's voice trembling, darkness still clung to Cassius's mind, pressing down like a weight he couldn't shake. His chest rose and fell as he tried to control himself in reality. The room was silent, until a voice cut through his thought. A sharp exhale.
"Fuck, you scared the hell out of me."
Cassius's head jerked up, his vision swimming, but the presence beside him was unmistakable. Orian stood at near the Window, his arms crossed, eyes narrowed as he studied Cassius, he summoned a bird and ordered to send the message. The flickering candlelight cast sharp shadows across his face, making his expression unreadable.
Cassius tried to speak but this time he wouldn't speak, his throat was a row, his voice trapped by the weight of whatever his Mana shut. He swallowed hard, his body still trembling and suffocating void.
Orian clicked his tongue, stepping closer. "You shook the whole damn place. Sounded like someone was ripping your sister apart." He exhaled sharply, shaking his head. "Seriously, if is there weak heart, he might die by now."
"I need to make sure you're okay, otherwise, your scary sister might actually bury me alive."
Orian noticed that Cassius wanted to say something but he failed. Orian smirked and said. "Don't worry, your sister was safe. And soon she we'll come back here."
Cassius nodded and on his face a soft smile came, showing his gratitude to Orian. Elara who crying in his dream, saying weird things was safe. But inside his heart, the feeling of losing Elara didn't disappear in his mind, the terror of the aby still lingered. The moment he closed his eyes and slept, Orian left the room for his medicine.
***
Elara stood frozen, the message Orian sent through the bird was, Awaken of Cassius, Elara couldn't believe that his brother was finally wakened up, and a struggle to awaken her brother was succussed. Elara hugged Lily tightly and cried like a child. For half of the hour, she just cried and never let go of Lily to pack a bag.
Lily consoled her, and both immediately packed their things and left the North. Elara uses her Dark Teleportation magic. Purple and circled magic came in front of the Elara. And enter in a circle.
Just then, Elara and Lily stood in the magic tower's grand hall. Elara rushed immediately towards Cassius's room. At the front door of the Cassius room Elara standing silently. She stared at the door, and finally with a shaking hand she opened the door.
It was just five hours before Cassius regained his consciousness, he lay on the bed, glaring at the ceiling of the tower. He heard the heavy footsteps of someone and just stopped his door. His gaze shifted to the door, he knew who was the person.
Cassius slowly sat on the bed, the exhaustion still pressing on him. His mana shutdown had left him drained, his body was weak, but his mind was sharp enough to process the voice that came outside of the door.
He let out a rough chuckle, his lips curling into a smirk despite the pain. His red eyes flickered toward the doorway just as the familiar figure stepped inside.
"Ah… my sorceress sister has returned," Cassius mused, his voice hoarse but laced with amusement. The story about being a sorceress [Mage] Orian told him, that Elara awakened her power but he had to secret from everyone. Before Elara returned Cassius was worried about Elara and he kept asking Orian if his health was worse then Orian explained to him how they ended up in the tower.
Elara stood frozen for a moment, her breath hitching as she took in the sight of Cassius awake, speaking, alive. Her fingers trembled at her sides before she clenched them into fists, trying to steady herself.
Her vision wavered as her chest tightened painfully. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper, raw and trembling.
"What took you so long?"
Elara took a low step forward, her hand shaking. "Do you have any idea… how long I waited? How many nights I sat by your side, hoping—begging—for you to wake up?" her voice broke, and she sucked in a harp breath.
Her throat tightened, but she forced herself to speak. "I fought, I bled, how many times I lost myself trying to fix what was broken—trying to bring you back." her fit clenched at her sides, her nails digging into her palm. "But you just…just left me there. Alone. And I…"
"….Hey! Ela…" Cassius tries to speak but Elara doesn't listen to him and continues.
"How much…it hurt, watching you slip away, powerless to stop it? And now, after all this time, you wake up and act like it…"
Tears welled p in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall, he took another closer, but this time she couldn't control her tears. She started crying as she stood at Cassius's side.
Cassius watched her in silence, the weight of her words setting over him like a storm he had no defence against. Cassius had expected her usual sharp wit, maybe even ager—but not this. Not the raw, unguarded pain in her voice.
"Ela…" he let her nickname linger as if testing its weight on his tongue. He swallowed, exhaling softly. "I'm sorry…Ela" his voice steady. Cassius' smirk returned, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I made you wait too long, didn't I?
His gaze softened as he looked at her—truly looked at her. He grabbed Elara's hand and sat her on the chair. "I'm here now, Elara." a pause, then with quiet resolve, "And I'm not going to leave you anywhere. So don't cry."
Cassius watched Elara, his smirk as the heavy silence stretched between them. The raw emotion in her eyes, the way she struggled to hold back her tears it was rare to see her like this. Too rare. Then, in Cassius fashion, he titled his head, pretending to scrutinize her face.
With a dramatic sigh, he muttered, "You know… you really are ugly when you cry."
Elara froze. For a moment, just a second, her teary eyes widened in disbelief. Then, in the blink of an eye, the moment shifted.
"Cassius! She napped, marching toward his bedside, Elara hit him.
"Ouch… now smile."
Elara glared at him. He grinned. And just like things felt a little more like home.