Chapter 260 – Flashback Translator: Atlas / Editor: Regan Leah departed, leaving Cerdina alone to stare at the tea leaves in the glass bottle on the table in silence. With a sudden burst of laughter, Cerdina slapped at the bottle, shattering it on the floor in an explosion of tea leaves and glass shards. That bitch was in the palm of her hand. With a single spell, Cerdina could have Leah on the floor, begging for her life. She wanted to chase after her and drag her back by her hair. But she couldn’t do the things she wanted to do. She had to overlook this insolence because of Blain. Cerdina rose from the couch. “......” A night with white moonlight came to her memory, and Cerdina sighed deeply at the vision of dozens of decapitated heads, strewn on a bedroom floor. Blain was right. She needed more power. She felt an instinctive revulsion when he brought her her own people to devour, sacrificed alive, but it was the only way. She would accumulate more power first, and once she had defeated her enemies, then she would worry about controlling it. The whole world would be in her hands once she was reborn. A perfect god... Gradually, her fury subsided. Instead of chasing after Leah, she returned to her room, which still reeked of blood. But as soon as she saw her magic pattern in her room, her eyes widened. The Tomaris she had left lying on the pattern was gone. *** Leah’s ladies-in-waiting followed her back from Cerdina’s palace. As soon as they reached the gardens of the Princess Palace, she stopped and turned back. “I want to walk alone for a while,” she said. “You may go inside.” As she watched them go, she walked slowly through the garden, only speeding her steps when she was certain they were gone. Faster and faster she went, until she was running.She had asked Ishakan to wait to save the Toma until after they had been taken to Cerdina’s palace, and hoped he had succeeded. There was a good reason for not rescuing them earlier. She wanted them to see what Cerdina was doing. There were still many Tomaris that supported her, but all of the Toma would be horrified to learn that Cerdina was eating her own people. Hopefully, it would persuade them to stop supporting her. At that moment, the Kurkans were probably carrying the Tomaris away from Cerdina’s rooms. They had said they knew all of the secret passages in the palace. “How do you know about secret passages I don’t even know about?” She had asked Ishakan. He had smiled slightly. “Because you told me.” What kind of person had she been, to know all the secret passages in the palace? Leah flew through the garden, running as fast as she could go, wondering about herself and too impatient to pretend otherwise. And impatient to see Ishakan. They had agreed to meet after her encounter with Cerdina, to tell each other what had happened, but she was more interested in seeing Ishakan than anything else. Just exchanging a few words with him would help her endure another day in the palace. “......!” Leah lurched to a stop as her vision suddenly blurred and sent her suddenly sprawling onto the grass. She gasped, trying to catch her breath, and squeezed her eyes shut against a sudden headache. The fragment of memory was like a splinter in her mind. She was running in her memory, too. Running desperately through darkened corridors, but in her memory, she was not alone. Behind her was a thin, battered boy, laboriously trying to keep up with her until he suddenly stumbled and fell with a thump. She turned back instantly to help him, but he got up, refusing her hand. I can keep going, he said, his cold golden eyes glowing in the darkness as he looked at her. I am not a burden. Run. She was not strong enough to carry him while she ran, anyway. There was no choice but to go, leading the way, with the boy behind her enduring his pain in silence. That was where the memory ended. “...Ah.” Unconsciously, she sighed with regret. That memory was completely different from the others. She had seemed much younger. As she waited for the excruciating headache to fade, Leah suddenly wondered. Did I ever meet Ishakan when I was young?