NOVEL NEXT Chapter 166: [166] The Void Calls to the Displaced
The King's Gaze stirred in Xavier's mind, its alien voice carrying notes of fascination. Elegant solution. The Flameheart patriarch created a metaphysical shell game—consciousness here, soul there, body hosting a third entity entirely. No wonder the girl's power feels wrong. She's channeling abilities that belong to someone else.
"Shut up," Xavier whispered, but his voice carried no heat. The revelation left him hollow, scraping against emotions he didn't want to examine. A cold emptiness spread through his chest like frost across a window pane.
Calypso wasn't just trapped in someone else's body. She was wearing the stolen skin of a child who'd been magically lobotomized to protect her from monsters. A tremor started in his gut, a violent, nauseating shudder that had nothing to do with illness. It was the physical rejection of a truth his body couldn't stomach.
Xavier turned the page with numb fingers, the ancient parchment crackling beneath his touch like autumn leaves underfoot. His purple eyes scanned the flowing script, each word hammering another nail into his chest, each revelation a fresh wound that wouldn't close.
First day of Springrise.
The Winter Court has withdrawn their agents. They believe Selene dead, her power lost with Elara's sacrifice. They do not suspect the truth—that consciousness and soul can be separated, stored, protected. My daughter sleeps in safety while her body lies empty, waiting.
I have sealed the archives, hidden the evidence of what was done. Should the Court return, they will find only a grieving father and an empty grave. The binding ritual's components are destroyed. The scholars who assisted have sworn blood oaths to silence.
But I cannot destroy this record. Someday, someone must know. Someday, the binding may weaken. And when it does, they will need to understand what was sacrificed in love's name.
The entries continued, chronicling Lord Torval's growing obsession with maintaining the displacement field. Years of research into consciousness binding, soul anchoring, the metaphysics of identity itself. Each page revealed deeper layers of the trap they'd fallen into, like a labyrinth designed by a madman who believed his cruelty was kindness. Xavier's fingers traced the words as though they might somehow rewrite themselves under his touch, offering a different truth, a cleaner resolution than the twisted knot of good intentions and terrible consequences that lay before him.
Xavier's fingers trembled as he reached the next significant entry, the ink slightly blurred as though tears had fallen upon it during its writing. The pages felt unnaturally warm beneath his touch, as if Lord Torval's desperation had somehow seared itself permanently into the parchment.
Third year anniversary of the binding.
The displacement field remains stable, but I have discovered something troubling. The void between worlds is not empty. Other consciousnesses drift there—souls torn from their bodies by dimensional trauma, spirits displaced by magical accident. They hunger for form, for flesh, for the chance to live again.
I fear what might happen if the binding weakens. If my Selene's consciousness returns to find her body occupied by strangers.
The heat of the chamber became a distant memory. A profound, internal chill spread from his core outward until even his fingertips felt numb. The chamber's oppressive heat couldn't touch the chill that had settled into his bones.
"Oh, hell." The words escaped his lips as a whisper, but they echoed through the chamber like a scream, bouncing off ancient stone walls that had witnessed centuries of secrets.
The void calls to the displaced. And the displaced answer.
I have seen them in my dreams—seven figures falling through dimensional space, drawn to the resonance of prepared vessels. Young souls, powerful souls, carrying the scent of distant stars.
They come.
The final entry was dated just two months ago. The handwriting had deteriorated, becoming jagged and desperate, like the last testament of a man drowning in his own decisions. The pen had pressed so hard in places that it had torn through the paper, leaving physical wounds in the journal that mirrored the mental anguish of its author.
The binding weakens. I feel it in my bones, see it in the way shadows move wrong in Selene's chambers. The displaced ones have found their targets. Soon they will arrive, and my daughter's body will house a stranger's dreams.
I have prepared contingencies. The archives contain everything needed to reverse the binding, to restore what was stolen. But the process requires willing sacrifice from those who have benefited from the displacement.
They must choose—keep their borrowed lives or return what was never theirs to take.
May the gods grant them wisdom. And may they forgive an old man's love.
Xavier closed the journal, his hands shaking so violently that the ancient binding creaked in protest. The chamber's heat pressed against him like a physical weight, but he felt frozen to his core, as though the revelation had replaced his blood with liquid nitrogen. Everything they'd been through, everything they'd suffered—it was all just the opening movement of a symphony Lord Torval had composed five years ago, each note calculated, each harmony designed to conceal the fundamental discord beneath.
Ashley's broken Covenant. Naomi's missing memories. His own changed appearance. All of it was contamination from wearing bodies that belonged to someone else—children sacrificed on the altar of a father's desperate love.
And Calypso was living in the stolen flesh of a thirteen-year-old girl who'd been magically lobotomized to save her from monsters.
The King's Gaze whispered assessments and probabilities in the back of his mind, its voice like broken glass grinding against stone. The probability of successful extraction without permanent damage to all parties is approximately 12.7%. Acceptable losses might include—
"Shut. Up." This time, Xavier's voice carried enough venom to silence even the ancient entity. For once, the alien intelligence had nothing useful to offer. This wasn't a tactical problem to be solved with violence or manipulation. It was a question of identity, of justice, of what they owed to the children whose lives they'd unknowingly stolen.
Xavier tucked the journal inside his shirt, feeling its unnatural cold against his ribs like a burning accusation. Outside, Ashley was maintaining her interference field at the cost of her sanity, golden fractures spreading across her skin with each passing minute. Margaret and Naomi were risking exposure with each moment they delayed.
And somewhere in the spaces between worlds, seven children waited for someone to make the choice their parents never could.
Return what was stolen, or keep living as thieves.
Clap. Clap. Clap.