Chapter 126: Chapter 126

KAIST:

I threw Count Jeteris’ beaten body on the floor.

“The hell with your lies, count! After beating up my sister, you dare lie to me about my father? Do you want me to cut off your head,” I growled, my eyes turning into a wolf as my hatred of this evil man intensified.

I wanted to see him cower in fear. Instead, he had the nerve to laugh at me mockingly.

“You heard it right. Dear prince, do you really think you are a true descendant of the Lyons? Are you kidding me?”

He looked at me as if I were a pest that should be crushed under his booth. “You are nothing but a piece of trash! Your blood and Livia’s blood - they aren’t the blood that belonged to Talandor! Especially you – an usurper to the throne! You and your sister are even worst that dogs!”

My hands that had earlier tightened at the count’s collar lost their grip.

What was he saying? Is he telling me the absolute truth?...

“Don’t you realize it yet? You are a Shadow Rune wolf! How can you be a son of Maurus, you fool?!”

I staggered backwards from the detestable man before me. “Lies! You are lying!”

“Seek the truth for yourself, young pup. Why do you think I had to bury your mother in secret? It was to keep the truth about your heritage a secret too… You aren’t a White Fang wolf! You aren’t even related to the king!”

“No, you are lying! Those words are nothing but mere lies!”

Count Jeteris smirked. “It’s not a lie, Prince Kaist. You can ask the king yourself if you want to know who your real father was and what his majesty did to him!”

At this point, I had lost all my sense of reason. I turned into Ignis’ form and attacked the malicious scoundrel before me.

I didn’t know how long I had tried to gnaw at his body. I only had a vague recollection of what took place for my mind had blanked out.

The next thing I could only remember was being thrown into the dungeon of Count Jeteris’ home.

As the prison bars were made of silver, I struggle to even stay on my own two feet. I crawled towards the bars, whispering in a feverish state that everything the count said was a lie…

It really was a lie… My father, the only family I had ever known and the person who had raised me by himself after my mother died, he was my real father, right?... He couldn’t be someone else but my real father…

How can I not be his son? Did he not put up with all the messes I have done in the past, all my ramblings and rebellions? Was he not the first person to tell me stories about my wolf, on how he felt when he had found my mother – his fated mate?

Then, were all those stories of our ancestors a lie too? Who was I really? What was I?...

How can I even bear to face him after all of these secrets had been revealed to me?

I was lost in a daze while I was in the dungeon. I didn’t know whether I had been there for days or nights or even weeks. All I know was that I never wanted to see the light of day… No matter how Ignis would curse at me or how Cruz pleaded that I must be strong, I didn’t want to listen anymore…

I just wanted to give up on being alive…

Just then, I heard a rough voice.

“Kaist! Kaist!”

I opened my eyes sluggishly. It was a black wolf with a diamond-shape clump of white fur in the middle of his forehead.

“Kaist, child, wake up!”

Was I dreaming again?... What was Galadian – my father’s wolf… no, King Maurus’ wolf – doing in here?

“Kaist, wake up, I say,” he shouted once more. “Stand up! We need to get out of here!”

“W-What?”

“We need to escape. I shall break the door!”

Yeah, right… As if wolves could break through silver prisons…

‘You’re right… Ordinary wolves can’t, but we are not one damn ordinary wolf,’ Ignis chuckled in my head.

As soon as I realized this, I stirred.

“I shall break it myself,” I told the wolf before me.

Just like what I have said, Ignis broke loose inside our shared minds and took over the reign on our physical body.

Ignis only had to show half of himself as he channeled our lycan form. He clasped the silver bar in his hands and used our power – the power of our golden spirit stone - to melt the metals that kept us in this dark and dingy basement.

I could only look in amazement in our mind’s eye as the bars that were made of silver started to melt like butter in Ignis’ grip.

‘This is our real power, Kaist… So what if we aren’t who we thought we were? We are still alive. We are still capable, and we are still intact. We were never half a wolf just because we didn’t know the secrets of our birth!’

Ignis was right… It didn’t matter if this wolf before me was not my real father or if the mother I thought was dead was alive somewhere…

I am who I am. I am a prince, and I am not someone who would cower down in front of anybody, especially to a scoundrel who had played with my family’s fate for a long, long time…

With the hatred for Count Jeteris burning in my heart, the metals in the prison cell that separated me and my father dissipated into nothing but ashes in no time.

“Good thinking, Kaist, now let’s get you out of here,” Galadian growled back towards me.

Ignis nodded. He followed my father into a secret passageway that led into the dense forest.

Throughout our escape, I and my wolves stayed silent. I could feel Galadian glance at us with sadness in his eyes from time to time.

After a long and tiring walk, we were able to exit the secret passageway and came out of the sunlight at long last.

“How long was I in there?”

“Three days, Kaist… I began to worry when you did not come back after a day without sending word.”

I stopped at my tracks.

“Father… Is it true,” I growled. My heart didn’t want to know of it yet, but I have to ask. “Am I really you’re son?”

I dreaded to hear the answer from his lips.