To His Hell and Back
Chapter 87: Nest In Your Ribs

Chapter 87: Nest In Your Ribs

Cassius’s landed his eyes on Arabella that was looking at the forest. She seemed to like the bundle of green tree that had filled across the ground. So much so that he wondered if bringing this forest for her would allow for a more fun time.

"You’re smiling, Your Highness," Aunt Eve spoke beside him which took his attention.

He had turned to his Aunt, a smile on his lips as his gaze softened when it reached her, "Things were getting interesting," he turned before touching the corner of his lips, questioning how wide he had smile and whether this was something he had done without thinking again because of his birdie.

"Indeed," Aunt Eve said before glancing at Arabella, "That young miss of yours."

"My birdie?" Cassius hummed, "Isn’t she lively?"

Aunt Eve was quiet as she studied his face. He could already tell what his aunt was going to say. As the King had excused himself to leave and Princess Marissa had left their side, this allowed the two to have a time for their own, allowing for Aunt Eve to say what she had been keeping in her mind.

"Is she your entertainment, dear?" Aunt Eve spoke up as she stared at Arabella and then furrowed her eyebrows.

"She is. Why the frown? Are you going to say the same things as my father auntie? That I am distracted by her presence?" He noted at how his aunt was frowning but the older woman turned back at him and shook her head. Her hair pinned clean into a bun shook along her head.

She pointed to Arabella and let out a hum toward him, "I feel as if I had seen that girl before."

Cassius’s red eyes blinked, "There’s no way, surely. Have you gone to her village before? But we know you despise entering the village."

Aunt Eve’s frown deepened. "No, not the village. But something about her... it’s familiar. Is it the green eyes? Or that reddish brown hair, I wonder. I feel as though I have seen someone so similar to her in the past."

Cassius tilted his head slightly, amusement glinting in his crimson eyes. "How intriguing. Have I unknowingly picked up a lost princess?" His tone was light, teasing, but his gaze was sharp as he studied his aunt’s expression. "Or perhaps, a forgotten ghost from the past?"

Aunt Eve sighed, shaking her head. "You jest too much, Cassius."

"And you frown too much, Auntie." He smirked, his fingers grazing his lower lip absentmindedly. "But do continue. I adore a good mystery."

Aunt Eve glanced at Arabella again before turning her eyes back to him, unreadable. "You don’t usually get attached to things, dear."

"Attachment is such a strong word," Cassius murmured, leaning lazily against the carved railing. His gaze flickered back to Arabella, who was still staring at the forest, lost in thought. "Is it truly attachment if you enjoy something simply because it sings for you?" His smile deepened, wicked yet thoughtful. "I am merely, hm, indulging in my amusement. But it does annoy me that everyone seems to think I have came to grown very attached to her."

Aunt Eve let out a soft hum, unconvinced. "Yet your amusement has teeth this time."

Cassius laughed, low and velvet smooth. "Ah, so you have noticed."

"You can call her ’birdie’ all you like," Aunt Eve murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. "But I wonder... are you the one keeping her caged, or is she the one who has made a nest in your ribs without you realizing?"

Cassius’s smirk faltered for the briefest second. Then, with an easy shrug, he turned his attention back to Arabella, watching the way the wind toyed with her hair.

"If that is the case," he mused, "then I will simply have to clip her wings before she flies too deep into my bones."

Aunt Eve said nothing, but Cassius did not miss the way she exhaled, like someone who knew a storm was coming and yet could do nothing to stop it.

"Either way, Aunt," he then turned when he saw Lucien who had walked away from his sister and Arabella. Taking the lead, he walked toward the side of the lake, the water glimmering like a transparent mirror, allowing for everyone to look at their own reflection and Cassius stared at the reflection of himself in quietness. "If you had seen my birdie before, that would mean she’s older than she looks."

Crossing her arms, Aunt Eve nodded, "She looks exactly like how I remembered I have seen her before but that couldn’t be. It could be her mother who I had seen before," added Aunt Eve. "Though it is worrying, if she proves that she could not age, that would mean that you have unknowingly taken someting odd under your wings Cassius."

"Isn’t that very much appropriate of me?" Cassius tugged his lips into a grin. He leaned down, placing his hand on the water, causing ripples that echoed until it had shooed off the swan that had lovingly placed its head on its partner, like a child. "I like to collect any odd things around me, the broken and the wounded, they are more fascinating."

Aunt Eve saw and learned that Cassius meant every of his words. The human girl who he had taken fancy wasn’t only a human girl to him, she had meant something more. There was a time when Cassius was still very young and he had taken a liking to a sparrow but that sparrow had died and out of love the young Cassius had always kept the sparrow’s little body all around him even though it’s been weeks since its death.

Her sister, Cassius’s mother, knowing that realized that there was a fatal weakness of Cassius, the fact that he couldn’t stop himself from getting enchanted by the one thing he had taken a fond of. It was something Cassius’s mother worried and had always done everything in her power to stop her son from making such mistake.

Since then Cassius had never been allowed to have a pet and even if he did, those pets would die, whether poisoned by his own mother or killed in an accident.

Those dead birds, how many were they?

And how many times have Cassius done everything in his power for those birds?

But even then Cassius had always respected his mother’s wishes before his own beloved pets.

Though this time, Genevieve could feel that it wouldn’t stop. That he would put that bird before his own late mother’s wish for him to become the King.

Aunt Eve, Genevieve, studied her nephew’s face, the lazy smirk that draped his lips, the half-lidded amusement in his eyes. To anyone else, Cassius looked unbothered, indulgent, merely toying with the girl for his own entertainment.

But Genevieve had seen this before.

She had seen it in the way he used to cup the broken bodies of sparrows in his small hands, stroking their lifeless feathers, whispering to them as if his will alone could call them back to life. She had seen it in the quiet reverence with which he had buried them when his mother had finally pried them away, her voice cold, unyielding: You must not love what is so easily destroyed.

And so, he had learned. He had never allowed himself another pet. No more birds, no more fondness. And yet—

Genevieve watched the way Cassius’s gaze lingered on Arabella, his fingers twitching at his side as if resisting the urge to reach for her.

It was the same. The same quiet hunger. The same fatal fascination but far more intense, far more obsessive.

But unlike the sparrows, Arabella was not so easily crushed beneath his mother’s will.

And this time... this time, Genevieve did not think Cassius would let go.

Would he clip this bird’s wings before she could fly too deep into his ribs, as he had so casually claimed? Or would he, despite himself, clutch her close until her delicate bones snapped under the weight of his love?

Genevieve exhaled, slow and quiet.

Perhaps Cassius had always been a monster. A beautiful, terrifying thing, raised on cruelty and power.

But even monsters had weaknesses.

And Arabella was his.

"I know what I am doing, Aunt Eve," Cassius answered as he didn’t look up to check on his Aunt’s face. He could simply tell by the way she had stop speaking, by the quake of her breaths. He turned toward his aunt and promised, "The throne will be mine no matter what. I have not forgotten what I have to do."

Aunt Eve sighed, resigning, "I trust you my dear," she placed her hand on his shoulders then changed the conversation, "However I wonder if that girl was sent by someone dangerous."

To this Cassius raised his eyebrows, "What would you mean?"

"The girl, as I said, reminded me of someone so similar to her. Then it rings in my head that the people who were behind the potion of turning vampires into the vulture-like creatures called Remnant, it appears that they are human once but they were born with an odd supernatural power. That power seems to be inherited by blood and allow them to live a little longer than human, keeping their youth by potions."