Chapter 816: Eluned Wants Lilianel? [Bonus - ]

Chapter 816: Eluned Wants Lilianel? [Bonus Chapter]

Silas stayed on one knee on the cold white marble of the Dawnspire Gateway with both arms braced securely under the limp and surprisingly lightweight form of the golden goddess.

Lupina’s silver ears twitched forward, her amber wolf eyes wide with unfiltered bewilderment as she stared down at the small woman resting in his lap.

Silas looked up from Lilianel’s sleeping face toward the silver-haired wolf-girl, his eyebrows twitching slightly in mild disbelief.

“Apparently yes, Lupina,” Silas sighed, his voice dry as he shifted his grip to keep Lilianel’s head supported against his forearm. “She really did just faint from a single head pat.”

Lupina let out a sharp barking laugh, crossing her arms over her chest while her bushy silver tail gave a quick amused wag behind her hips.

“Look at our mighty Lord,” Lupina teased, flashing a sharp white fang with a wide grin. “Defeats titans with a wave of his sword, breaks records and now a simple tap on the scalp drops a deity straight into a coma… You must have lethal hands, Lord Silas!”

They could all feel she was a goddess… She had the same feeling that Eluned gave after all.

“Perhaps your touch is simply too overwhelming for divine constitutions, Lord Silas,” Kaelia murmured with a quiet, fond giggle, her hands folded neatly over her chef’s apron as her dark eyes sparkled. “Though I must admit, I’ve never seen a fainting victim smile quite so dreamily…”

Aurelia stepped closer, her golden hair catching the silver moonlight as the gentle Saintess smiled down at Lilianel with soft sympathy.

“She was starved of comfort for an eternity, sister,” Aurelia said gently, her voice like warm velvet. “To an emaciated soul, the first drop of genuine affection can be far more intoxicating than wine…”

Silas didn’t reply to the teasing, his gaze dropping back down to the petite goddess nestled against his chest.

Beneath her peaceful, almost comically blissful expression, his heart felt a quiet persistent tightening.

When the summoning rift had first torn open above the quartz platform, the woman who had collapsed onto the stones hadn’t looked like a radiant celestial monarch of the sun.

…She had been a bruised, skeletal husk covered in dried soot and deep scars, her molten-gold mane dimmed to the color of tarnished brass, trembling like a dying candle in a drafty crypt.

Even though the warm golden pillar of the Dawnspire Gateway’s restoration light had washed away her external trauma and restored her divine vitality, Silas knew that centuries of solitary confinement in total lightless isolation didn’t simply vanish from the spirit in five seconds.

’At least that’s what I can guess… She’s really suffered.’

A soft shimmer flared directly to his right as the sweet rich fragrance of Eluned filled the crisp air.

Beside him on the platform, stepping out from a swirl of gentle green motes, was Eluned.

The Goddess of the World Tree stood tall and radiant, her long silver-green hair cascading over her shoulders like a living waterfall of willow leaves, her deep emerald eyes shining with boundless warmth.

She looked down at Silas kneeling on the stone, her lips curving into a soft infinitely knowing smile that seemed to encompass every corner of his mind.

“She carries a very heavy sleep, Hubby,” Eluned whispered, her voice rich with soothing melody as she tilted her head. “A deep, healing slumber that only the dawn can cultivate…”

Silas looked up, his dark blue eyes meeting hers.

“Elu.”

Eluned gracefully lowered herself to one knee beside him, her cool, gentle fingers brushing against Lilianel’s warm, lion-like hair.

“Allow me to carry her up to the guest quarters in the Keep, my love,” Eluned offered softly, her emerald eyes crinkling at the corners. “We’re both goddesses, after all… I know how to nurse a tired spirit back to health far better than rough mortal hands and besides…”

She paused, leaning an inch closer, her eyes flashing with a playful affectionate sparkle.

“…didn’t Hubby want to summon some other people today?”

Silas blinked, his jaw shifting slightly as he looked at her with mild astonishment.

She wasn’t here when he mentioned it.

“Are you reading my thoughts now, Elu…? Or you’re eavesdropping…?” Silas asked with a playful smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “You’re turning into a complete stalker, you know that?”

Eluned did not look even remotely offended.

In fact, she let out a bright chuckle, her eyes dancing with shameless pride as she leaned forward until her forehead nearly touched his cheek.

“Of course I am a stalker, Hubby,” Eluned agreed happily, her tone utterly matter-of-fact. “A devoted wife is always watching her beloved…I listen to your heartbeats across the entire valley, I count your breaths when you sleep, and I know exactly when that clever little mind of yours starts scheming to expand our family, You can’t hide anything from the roots of the World Tree.”

Silas shook his head with an amused long-suffering snort, unable to stay guarded in the face of her overwhelming radiant affection.

“I’ll have to build lead walls in my skull…” Silas muttered.

“Lead is easy to break, they wouldn’t stop me anyway,” Eluned teased with a radiant wink.

She reached down with slender pale arms, sliding her hands under Lilianel’s back and knees with effortless divine grace.

Elu lifted the sleeping sun goddess from his lap, cradling the petite woman against her chest as if she weighed no more than an armful of dried autumn leaves.

“Rest well, little sister of the light,” Eluned murmured softly against Lilianel’s hair then, she turned back to Silas, her emerald eyes flaring with sudden power.

The air around her feet detonated into a blinding vortex of emerald light.

In the next instant, Eluned transformed into a vertical streak of pure luminous green mana, rocketing across the stone courtyard toward the upper balconies of the Keep with such terrifying velocity that the atmospheric backdraft tore through the Dawnspire Gateway like an explosive shockwave.

WHOOSH!

’I haven’t seen Elu move like that before…’

A howling gale of wind ripped across the marble pedestal, catching Silas dead center and violently blowing his dark hair into a wild tangled bird’s nest across his eyes, nose, and forehead.

Silas sat flat on the stone, his hands still held out in the shape of a cradle, staring blankly ahead through a curtain of his own black bangs.

Across the gateway circle, Lupina, Kaelia, Aurelia, and Rowenna burst into a synchronized chorus of delighted, unrestrained laughter.

“Nice hairdo, Lord Silas!” Lupina howled, slapping her knee. “Lady Eluned really knows how to make an exit!”

“It adds a very rugged untamed aesthetic to your profile, Lord Silas,” Rowenna giggled.

Silas let out a slow long-suffering breath, lifting his hands to rake his dark hair back into its usual clean swept-back style.

He stood up from the marble floor, dusting off the knees of his black trousers, his eyes turning toward the wide valley below the terrace.

Around the outer perimeter of the summoning circle, the lingering remnants of Lilianel’s arrival were still strikingly visible.

The thick layers of winter frost that had blanketed the stone balustrades all evening had completely evaporated, replaced by clean steaming granite and tiny stubborn shoots of green grass pushing through the cracks in the masonry.

“She was in a terrible state when she dropped through the rift,” Aurelia murmured quietly, her gentle face turning solemn as she stepped up beside Silas, looking toward the distant Keep. “Her clothes were reduced to charred rags… her skin was pale as ash, and the spiritual flame in her chest was so weak that a single cold draft could have snuffed it out.”

“Aye,” Lupina agreed, her ears drooping slightly in rare, sober reflection. “I could smell the rot and cold iron on her from twenty yards away… Whatever prison held her, it was designed to starve her to death. To see her hair burst back into that roaring molten gold the second the summoning array locked onto her… it was like watching a dead star ignite.”

“The temperature of the entire upper terrace rose by twelve degrees in three seconds,” Solenne said softly, her nine silver tails swaying in gentle warm arcs against the marble. “Even the frost-warding runes that Rowenna told me she put on the courtyard walls deactivated on their own. She is very warm… like a living hearth fire.”

Silas listened in silence, nodding slowly as he looked out over the thriving territory as he reached into his Inventory with a thought.

With a smooth, practiced flick of his wrist, a second rectangular slip of heavy, gold-embossed cardstock materialized between his knuckles.

…It was another Hero Summoning Ticket.

Silas turned the card over in his fingers, feeling the cool, polished edges press against his calloused skin.

’Why don’t we summon the second one…?’ Silas thought, a slow, dangerous, eager spark igniting deep within his dark blue pupils as the golden ring began to hum with quiet anticipation. ’Let’s see who else the world is hiding…’

High above the central courtyard, deep within the quiet eastern wing of the Keep, the air was warm and scented with fresh lavender.

Eluned stepped through the carved mahogany double doors of a spacious guest suite, the green motes around her feet fading into the thick, hand-woven wool rugs.

She walked softly across the floorboards toward the grand four-poster bed nestled beneath the tall bay windows, where pale moonlight poured across the crisp linen sheets in soft silver pools.

Eluned lowered her arms with gentle care, laying Lilianel down onto the plush feather mattress.

She pulled the thick down comforter up over the petite woman’s shoulders, tucking the embroidered edges snugly around her collarbones to shield her from the mountain draft.

Lilianel didn’t stir.

Her wild voluminous mane of molten-gold hair spilled across the white pillows like an ocean of liquid sunlight as a contented smile still curved across her full lips.

Eluned stood by the bedside, her emerald eyes softening with tenderness as she reached down with a pale cool hand, gently brushing a stray lock of golden hair away from Lilianel’s sleeping forehead.

She turned toward the wide stone windowsill overlooking the terraced gardens below.

Eluned placed her palm flat against the cool gray granite, closing her eyes as an emerald pulse rippled through the stone into an empty clay pot resting in the corner.

From the dark soil within the pot, a pale green shoot erupted, winding upward with rapid vitality.

’Mm… I’ll handle this girl, Silas just has to leave everything to me.’

Leaves unfurled, the stalk thickened into sturdy green fiber, and a single golden-yellow sunflower blossomed open in the moonlight.

As the petals settled, the flower did not face the vast open sky outside the glass.

Slowly, the blossom turned its golden face inward toward the room, tilting its head directly toward the sleeping woman on the bed, basking in the radiant warmth rolling off her divine meridians.

Eluned smiled softly, stepping back to let the quiet room breathe and beneath the down comforter, Lilianel’s eyelashes fluttered.

A sharp sudden gasp tore through her throat as her golden eyes snapped wide open.

“Hah!”

Lilianel bolted upright in the bed, her breath coming in terrified gasps as her hands shot out in defensive claws.

Her golden irises darted across the room in pure panic, searching for the unseen chains, the suffocating black void, and the crushing weight of the lightless dark that had held her for centuries.

“Where… where is the seal?!” she gasped, her voice cracking as her fingers tangled in the soft fabric around her ribs. “Who extinguished the void?! Where is—”

Her voice cut off.

Her fingers tightened, feeling the cloud-soft down comforter clutched against her chest.

She felt the warm lamplight and the soft breeze drifting over her bare shoulders, smelled the rich fragrance of blooming sunflowers, and saw the clean polished timber rafters soaring overhead.

And then, like a tidal wave crashing over a shoreline, the memory struck her brain with concussive clarity.

“A-ah…”

The white marble gateway… The tall, dark-haired Lord with the glowing golden rings in his eyes… The warm calloused hand that had reached down and gently patted the top of her head like she was a precious treasure…

Lilianel’s breath hitched in her throat as a wave of scarlet erupted across her cheeks, rushing straight up her neck to paint her small delicate ears in brilliant, glowing tomato-red.

“E-EEEEEEK!”

Lilianel let out a muffled undignified squeak of mortification, yanked the thick down comforter straight over her head, and curled into a tight blanket-wrapped ball dead center on the mattress.