Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 212: Made Choices

The afternoon light filtered through the curtains in soft, golden stripes, falling across the young figure on the bed.

Rinne was asleep for the first time since the courtyard. His small chest rose and fell in the slow, steady rhythm of exhaustion, the kind that came only after a body had simply given up on staying awake. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Dark circles shadowed his closed eyes, and even in sleep, his brow was faintly furrowed, as if the nightmares had followed him under.

Cecilia stood near the half-open door, watching. Arkai stood beside her, equally silent. They simply watched, as if the act of witnessing his rest could somehow undo the damage of the night before.

Outside, beyond these walls, the capital was ablaze. War news spread like wildfire through every street and market, shouted by porter boys and whispered by nobles. The Lion King had declared. The world was shifting. Everything was in motion.

But here, in this quiet corridor of Arkai’s capital mansion, there was only stillness. Only the soft sound of a child breathing.

Cecilia turned.

Arkai reached for the door, pulling it closed with a gentleness that seemed impossible for hands that had bent iron bars just moments ago. The latch clicked into place, soft.

He followed her.

They walked in silence for a while, their footsteps muffled by the thick runners that lined the corridor. The mansion hummed with distant activity. Servants moving, guards changing shifts, but here, in this private wing, they might have been the only two people in the world.

"You didn’t kill him," Cecilia said.

Her voice was quiet. And Arkai didn’t answer.

Perhaps without saying a thing, Cecilia already knew that he couldn’t. Roarke Raul still breathed in that cell.

"Did you go south before Mount Saede because you were looking for him?"

Cecilia asked this time.

Arkai stopped walking.

His feet froze mid-step, as if the words themselves had turned to stone beneath him. The corridor stretched ahead, empty and silent, and he stood in the middle of it like a man who had suddenly forgotten how to move.

She knew.

"Your left the north because of the southern lords’ assassinations." Cecilia didn’t turn to look at him. Her voice carried back over her shoulder. "One of the things I mentioned in the predictions I publicized last year."

"It never left my mind, wondering why you were so interested in it."

Arkai stood frozen. How could he even defend himself now? What words could possibly bridge the distance between what he had done and what she was learning?

Cecilia turned. She looked up at him.

"All this time," she said softly, "I’ve been wondering why you, someone from the north who had nothing to do with the southern lords, would care so much about the series of assassinations there."

Arkai’s eyes faltered.

"I wanted..." His voice was rough, barely above a whisper. "I wanted to stop him."

Cecilia nodded.

"I will believe you."

She turned and walked away.

Arkai watched her go. His hand lifted, reaching—"Cecilia..."—but the name died on his lips. He tried to go after her, his body lurching forward one step, then another.

Then he stopped.

His feet wouldn’t move anymore. Something held him there, rooted to the stone floor, watching the pale yellow of her skirt disappear around a corner.

He wondered, standing there in the empty corridor, whether he couldn’t explain... or didn’t want to.

Cecilia knew.

That was why she had walked away.

The series of assassinations in the south had caught his eye last year.

Cecilia, still a saintess then, had predicted them. Each death, each target, each carefully orchestrated strike. Her warnings had been clear, publicized through the usual channels, reaching the ears of those who needed to hear.

And they had happened anyway.

The southern lords died, despite her predictions, despite their attempts to avoid fate. One by one, they fell to an assassin who moved like smoke and struck like death itself.

After it happened, Cecilia had done what she always did. She analyzed. Deduced. Pieced together the fragments left behind.

Whoever had done it, or whoever was paid to do it, was a beast. Capable of transforming into near-perfect humanoid form. And from the wounds, from the telltale signs left in flesh and bone, she could see it.

Canids.

Wolf. Or something like it.

Of course, with only that many clues, she had been unable to narrow it down further. The canid families were numerous, scattered across the continent, their members too many to count. The trail had gone cold.

But perhaps, after hearing that Arkai had taken such an interest in it, she had begun to wonder. To connect dots that weren’t meant to be connected.

He had investigated personally. Brought his elite force. Spent months away from his territory, chasing shadows.

Now she knew about Roarke. His right-hand man. Someone strong enough, capable of transforming into near-perfect humanoid form. A werewolf. Someone who had been kicked out of the pack—

Of course she found out.

Her question earlier, his reaction, it hadn’t been an accusation. It had been confirmation. She had already known. She had only needed him to show her that she was right.

Arkai had been so distracted by it that he had left his territory. Forgotten about Saede’s eruption warning. Ignored the signs because he was too busy running after his criminal outcast of a beta.

He should have killed Roarke from the start.

Should have ended it before it ever came to this. Before the assassinations. Before the volcano. Before the boy in that room, sleeping off the exhaustion of a shattered childhood.

It was over.

She had every right to be angry. Everything—everything—even if he explained, she would still—

"You didn’t kill him," she had said earlier.

She hadn’t meant now.

She had meant then. Long ago. Before Rinne was even born. Before everything that followed had been set in motion.

When he found out what Roarke had done to his sister.

He should have killed him then. Should have ended it with his own hands, in the moment of discovery, when rage was fresh and justice was simple. Banishment had been mercy. Banishment had been weakness.

But he couldn’t.

Even now, standing in the aftermath of everything, he couldn’t.

He couldn’t because Roarke had been his best friend. The man who had saved his life as many times as Arkai had saved his. The brother of his heart, bound not by blood but by years of fighting side by side, bleeding together, trusting each other with everything.

He couldn’t because he knew—

He knew that Roarke loved Sienna with all his heart. Had loved her for years, silently, hopelessly, in a way that consumed him from the inside. Knew that what happened that night was not simple assault, but something more tangled. More tragic. More human.

He couldn’t because he knew the rut Sienna had subjected him to, the uncontrollable instinct, the way her voice alone could drive him to the edge of madness, was the same he himself had endured for years. The same biological imperative that made him disgusted at his own body, his own blood, his own existence.

And while Arkai would never wish that torture upon his enemies, how could he wish it upon his brother?

So he had chosen banishment. Chosen mercy.

He sat on a chair at the edge of the corridor, his face buried in his palms. The weight of everything pressed down on him, the years, the secrets, the boy sleeping in that room, the woman who had just walked away.

Everything... had been his fault.

Because if he had known—

"Why didn’t you follow me?"

Arkai’s eyes opened.

Cecilia knelt in front of him, looking up at him with those impossible sea-glass eyes.

She... returned...

"You haven’t slept." Her voice was soft. "Let’s go sleep. You’re tired."

"Cecilia..."

"We will talk about this again later, when Rinne wakes up." She held his gaze. "I assume now you know what to tell him, right?"