Chapter 3

3.

I walked out of the Zenith Court at a slow, measured pace.

I left with nothing, stripped of all worldly possessions, just as I had arrived centuries ago.

Back then, I was only a small caracal cub that had not even shed its baby fur.

Corbin was just an adorable, soft-cheeked boy.

He had crawled beside me, lifting my tufted ears curiously to figure out what kind of creature I was.

Then, he had gently pulled a warm velvet quilt over my shivering body.

Later, the former High Lord was mortally wounded during the celestial wars.

He summoned me to his bedside and gave me his final wish.

"Talia, I saved you back then only to give Corbin a companion. Now my time is short, and I need you to protect him."

Corbin practiced an ancient phoenix-like cultivation technique that required a rebirth cycle.

Until his final breakthrough, his divine powers remained dangerously weak.

Before his passing, the former Lord swept away all potential threats for his son, including Delilah.

To grant me the authority to defend the court, he forced Corbin to take me as his betrothed.

Yet before our wedding ceremony could take place, the old Lord perished.

Our marriage was never formalized.

For hundreds of years, I governed the Zenith Court under the late Lord's decree.

The entire realm laughed at me behind my back, calling me the unacknowledged Lady of the Zenith Court.

Corbin even warned me that he could never love me in this lifetime.

Still, I stubbornly clung to that hollow title.

I had to protect him―for his father's sake, and for my own.

But now, I was done.