Page 33 of Revert (The Royal Chronicles #4)

I braced myself for the familiar pain to pierce my heart, as it had once before…but it never came. A sudden blur of motion, a sharp clash of steel as the assassin’s blade was blocked mid-strike by a sword that moved faster than my eyes could follow.

Castiel. He’d arrived without a sound, as if summoned by the silent, desperate plea for rescue my heart hadn’t been able to voice.

His face was thunderous, eyes blazing with a fury I had never seen before as his blade met the assassin’s. “You dare try to harm her?” he growled.

“I act under orders,” the assassin responded coldly, uncowed by Castiel’s anger. “I won’t let anyone stand in the way, least of all a meddling prince who doesn’t understand what’s good for the kingdom.”

“The king gave no command against the princess,” Castiel snarled. “Your orders are treason.”

“You claim to know of every working beyond the shadows?” The assassin twisted the dagger in an attempt to find an opening, but Castiel’s blade pushed harder, forcing his opponent back a step.

“There is so much more that goes on in the background than you know. Perhaps protecting her is the real betrayal?”

“Then I’ll betray and commit treason as many times as it takes…until my last breath.”

What followed was not a fight, but an execution in motion disguised as a dance.

Castiel’s swordsmanship was unlike anything I had ever seen—fluid and elegant, a ruthless waltz with the blade, every strike calculated and lethal.

His blade flashed like silver fire in the dim corridor, a blur of motion that commanded the air around him with terrifying precision.

The assassin met Castiel’s blade with surprising steadiness, and their blades locked in a tense shiver of steel. The assassin’s eyes gleamed behind the mask. “What good will come from trying to protect her? She’s too much of a threat to forever evade those who want her gone.”

Castiel’s voice dropped, lethal and unyielding. “Let them try. They will learn what happens when they threaten what I’ve vowed to protect.”

“You’re making a mistake.” The hooded figure’s taunt was breathless, but still composed. “Keep protecting her like this, and the next dagger will be through your own heart.”

The deadly knife lunged towards him, but Castiel effortlessly blocked the strike in another lethal artistic motion; tension rippled through the air as their blades locked once more.

Castiel’s eyes narrowed. “If that’s the cost, so be it.

But I must warn you: no one in Thorndale surpasses my skill.

And when that skill is wielded for her sake, it becomes unstoppable. ”

The assassin scoffed. “You’re not untouchable.”

Castiel surged forward, blade blazing, forcing the assassin to stagger back. “No,” he said coldly. “But neither are you. Nor do you understand the lengths I will go to win. This is one battle I cannot lose.”

The assassin tried to land another blow, but Castiel turned it aside with ease, countering with terrifying elegance. The masked figure stumbled, defense faltering. Their parries grew slower, more desperate—no longer dancing, only surviving.

Castiel disarmed them in three more strikes; a final clash of steel and his blade was at the assassin’s throat. The masked figure gave a strained laugh. “Don’t be so quick to assume whose orders I follow. There are other games at play, Your Highness. And she’s just as much a pawn as you are.”

Castiel’s grip faltered—only for a heartbeat—before lifting his sword. “A dead man carries no threats.”

Steel flashed, and it was over.

The assassin collapsed at his feet, the sound of the fall swallowed by deathly stillness. Blood slowly pooled across the stone, creeping towards my frozen form.

Castiel stood over the corpse, chest rising and falling in slow, measured breaths, his sword still clutched in hand…and for a terrible heartbeat, he looked exactly as I’d imagined he did after killing me. He had ended a life without hesitation or mercy…just as he’d done before.

The memory rose unbidden, transporting me back to my own death—a figure carved from fury, the blade, the pain, the darkness closing in. For a split second, it wasn’t the assassin crumpled at his feet.

It was me.

Time fractured. My vision lurched. The world tilted. I couldn’t breathe.

A raw scream tore from my throat, voicing the horror that terror had momentarily suppressed—both from the murder that almost happened…and the one that already had.

He turned and his expression shifted in an instant—wrath melting to worry, ruthless power to something achingly human. He stepped towards me with the slow caution of approaching a wounded animal.

“ No! ” I choked out, scrambling back until my spine hit the wall, leaving me nowhere else to go. “No—don’t?—”

He immediately stilled, eyes widening in horror. He dropped his sword and kicked it away, hands lifted in a gesture of assurance and surrender. “I’m not going to hurt you, Bernice.”

But that wasn’t true—he already had, and would again. His crime haunted me, reaching through time until past, present, and the inevitable future pressed against me from all sides, forcing me to relive my death in an endless loop I couldn’t escape.

No matter how the details changed or whatever deviation I encountered, the outcome remained the same: Castiel standing over me, sword in hand. If not him, then the king, just like my nightmare.

The future was closing in, with no way for me to stop it.

My temples throbbed, my mind torn between contradictions.

Images collided—Castiel lifting the blade to strike me down, him blocking one aimed at my heart.

His hand that had once ended my life, only to now save it.

The memories spiraled in a dizzying loop of what was and what might be, making it impossible to separate truth from fear, past from present.

Yet even through the oppressive fear twisting inside me, I couldn’t let go of the fragile hope that this divergence might lead to an ending far different than the one I remembered.

I didn’t move as Castiel slowly crouched before me. He looked like he wanted to pull me into his arms, but he remained still —offering no threat, only quiet presence, as if waiting for the memory he had no reason to know about to pass.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Bernice,” he repeated earnestly. “I had no reason to lie to a man I was about to kill. I am sincere in my determination to protect you.”

For once I detected no manipulation, just the echo of something real. And still, he didn’t touch me, waiting for me to come to him. That restraint undid me.

“No, stay away.” Though I pleaded for distance, my words and actions seemed to be at a disconnect. The moment he drew closer I reached for him. For in the end, Castiel had protected me. Even when I had doubted him, or had tried not to care.

My fingers trembled as they seized the front of his tunic, clutching the fabric in aching confusion and the desperate need to anchor myself. Even though part of me still screamed to flee, I folded into him. At this silent invitation, he carefully gathered me into his embrace.

Sense tried to convince me that his arms were the last place I wanted to be, yet for all my resistance before, I didn’t want to leave.

I allowed those same arms that had once ended my life to hold me. I nestled closer, burrowing myself in the protection he offered, a rare pocket of safety and security.

What was happening to me?

Gradually the haunting tendrils entangling my thoughts and stoking my confusion subsided, enough for me to realize he was stroking my back.

I instinctively pressed closer, relishing the feel of the firm contours of his chest against my cheek, finding solace from the echo of my murder in the only place that had ever felt like shelter.

“Please don’t kill me,” I whispered. “I don’t want to die.”

He stiffened, as if my words had struck him somewhere deeply. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I swear on my life, Bernice.”

“Liar. You’re a murderer.” Even so, my hold tightened around him with no intention of ever letting go.

He didn’t deny it, but after a moment’s hesitation—as if he feared he was unworthy to touch me after what he’d done—he tentatively stroked my hair, with such aching gentleness it was hard to believe that very hand had once been stained with blood.

“I don’t kill lightly,” he murmured. “But sometimes…I have no choice.”

No choice? Had he been bound that night in the dungeon as well? My mind felt too fractured to sort out this complicated riddle.

A sudden noise broke the stillness. I tensed. Castiel’s hand shot beneath his cloak, fingers closing around the hilt of a concealed dagger. His eyes scanned the shadows, sharp and wild as he hunted for movement, another threat lying in wait to strike.

My grip on him tightened. “Is it…another assassin?” I whispered.

He didn’t answer immediately, every muscle in his body drawn taut, poised to strike or shield. “No,” he said at last, though his voice was low and wary. “But we’re too exposed. The guards could return at any moment.”

His hand slowly released the dagger, slipping it back into its sheath with practiced ease, before picking up the sword he’d dropped earlier. Guilt filled his eyes as they met mine, as if he feared I’d recoil now that I knew he’d been secretly armed while comforting me.

Even with fear still threading through my thoughts, there was no moment I’d been more defenseless than enfolded in the comfort of the man I should fear most. But I didn’t pull away.

Even amid blood and death and the lingering weight of everything he’d done, the trust I had lost in the face of fear was somehow beginning to return.

A sharp pain lanced through my shoulder as he helped me to my feet. I gasped, staggering against him. His eyes dropped to the dark stain spreading through the fabric of my gown, also smeared across his tunic from when he held me.

Distress twisted his expression. “You’re hurt.”