Chained Hearts: From Slavery to Sovereignty-Chapter 175: Cassian’s Wait in the Demon Realm

Six months had slipped away in the demon realm, but to Cassian, it felt as though centuries had stretched before his eyes. Time here was strange, every passing day carrying the weight of eternity.

And still, there was no news of the Supreme Lord. No shadow of his presence to ease the restless ache inside Cassian’s chest.

At first, Cassian had thought he could endure the wait. He had told himself that patience was a virtue, that sooner or later, the man for whom he had given up everything would surely return.

But now... now the silence was unbearable. Every corner of the palace seemed haunted by his absence. Every hallway Cassian walked through, every balcony where the wind curled around his hair, every chamber filled with gilded emptiness. He searched, always searched, imagining how it would feel when he finally caught sight of him again.

Most of all, he returned to that place by the great lake—the place where Dorian had first summoned him to the demon realm. The memory of that moment lingered in Cassian’s mind like an unhealed wound, pulling him back again and again.

It had become his ritual. Each evening, when the skies burned crimson with the light of two setting suns, Cassian would sit upon the jagged rock by the lake’s edge and stare into the distance. His gaze stretched beyond the mist, beyond the horizon, as though by sheer will alone he could call the Supreme Lord back to him.

But Cassian had not spent the past two months idly waiting. He had thrown himself into every test, every challenge, every cruel little game of survival the court demanded. He pushed himself to the edge of exhaustion, determined to rise above the others.

If the Supreme Lord would not return, then Cassian would at least ensure that when he did, he would find him already standing at the peak. Already ready to claim the place closest to his side.

A month ago, their lessons had ended—the endless hours of etiquette and courtly grace that had tested even his iron patience. With the final ceremony, all four of them were declared official concubines of the Supreme Lord. As a mark of their new standing, each had been granted dominion over their own state within the vast demon realm.

Cassian’s dominion was Crackstone Ridge.

The land was not the largest, nor the most glamorous, but it was one of the most fiercely contested territories in the entire realm. Smaller demons dwelled there—strange, reclusive creatures with bodies wrapped in abundant magic.

They rarely mingled with the larger demon kingdoms, preferring to keep to their secretive lives. Yet beneath the ridges and cliffs, the land is filled with treasures—ores that shimmered with light, herbs that bled power into the hands that touched them, and above all, Crackstone Ridge lay nearest to the Ashen Spiral.

The Ashen Spiral.

Cassian had never seen it with his own eyes, but the stories were endless. They said the Spiral was a colossal staircase carved of obsidian stone, stretching upward until it pierced the heavens themselves.

A path so long, so dizzying, it seemed endless—rising into a place where the stars themselves bowed low. Few demons dared approach it. Fewer still were able to step inside. But those who did... the rumors claimed they returned no more. Either they perished within its depths, or they ascended to immortality.

Demons, after all, already lived long lives, longer than most races. But immortality... immortality was the one treasure even the most powerful craved with desperate hunger.

Cassian could not deny it stirred something inside him too. But he forced himself to focus on this current situation; he does not care for immortality at all.

He had not spent his days sitting quietly, waiting to be chosen like some fragile flower among thorns. No—Cassian understood from the very beginning that the hall was not a place of safety.

It was a den of hungry wolves, a place where ambition dripped thicker than blood, where every smile hid a knife. Those who lingered too long in the background were swallowed whole, forgotten before they even had a chance to breathe.

Cassian refused to be forgotten.

He played the game with a precision that unsettled even the most seasoned concubines. Every move he made was deliberate—when to speak, when to remain silent, when to bend his knee, and when to let the steel of his tongue cut deeper than any blade.

He gathered influence in shadows, not by brute force, but by wit and subtle maneuvering. One by one, those who had underestimated him found their allies drifting away, their carefully built power slipping quietly into Cassian’s hands.

It was dangerous, of course. The concubine hall was nothing short of a battlefield. Envy simmered beneath every glance. Hatred burned behind every polite greeting. But Cassian endured, rising higher each day, carving out his place with the patience of a serpent coiled in the dark.

And he was no longer alone in this.

The Third Demon Lord, reckless and unreliable in reputation, had somehow become Cassian’s most dependable shield. Whether he meant to or not, the man’s shadow stretched over Cassian, lending him the kind of authority no human should have carried in this realm.

Whispers spread like wildfire—that Cassian was not someone to be toyed with, that anyone who tried to strike at him would earn more than they could handle.

That reputation saved him more times than he could count, though Cassian knew better than to place blind trust in anyone, even an ally. Still, the Demon King’s presence had helped him cement the truth in everyone’s mind: Cassian was not prey.

He was a contender.

And that changed everything.

Now, in the eyes of the others, he was no longer just another face among them. He was a rival, a threat. Every step Cassian took upward meant another step they fell behind. Every victory he claimed burned like salt in their wounds.

And when whispers began to circulate that Cassian was not content with simply being a concubine, that he was preparing to challenge for the position of consort, the hostility turned into something far more dangerous.