Raising Beast Cubs to Find a Husband-Chapter 93: The Cracking of the Star-Iron

Two Days Before the Ball.

The calm before the storm was deceptively domestic.

Outside, the capital was buzzing with preparations for the Debutante Ball. Inside the daycare, the air smelled of roasted chicken and rosemary. It was dinner time, the one hour of the day when the chaos settled into a rhythmic clinking of silverware against ceramic.

Primrose moved around the table, topping up water glasses. She felt a temporary sense of peace. Ellia’s dress was fixed. The Warlords were ready. The invitations were sent. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"More potatoes, please!" Arjun (Tiger) roared, holding out his plate.

"Say the magic word," Luna (Bunny) chided gently from the head of the table.

"NOW!" Arjun tried.

"Close," Luna giggled, scooping mash onto his plate. "But no."

King Caspian sat at his usual spot next to his son, Orion. He looked regal even when eating mashed potatoes. He was using a fork and knife with precise, elegant movements, but Primrose noticed he was quieter than usual.

He had been working hard. For the past week, he had been helping Archduke Cassian analyze the ancient texts found in the archives, pouring his mana into translation spells, pushing his limits to help Primrose find a lead.

"Father?" Orion asked, tilting his head. "Your consumption rate is suboptimal. You have only eaten three peas."

Caspian looked down at his son. For a split second, his teal eyes were glazed, unfocused.

"I am... contemplating," Caspian said slowly. "Orion, remind me... the small one. The one with the hat."

Caspian pointed vaguely across the table.

Orion frowned, his gills fluttering with concern. "That is Finn. He has been part of this unit for six months. Father, are your ocular sensors malfunctioning?"

"Finn," Caspian repeated, testing the word on his tongue as if it were foreign. "Right. Of course. Finn."

He rubbed his temple, looking distressed.

"And the... the orange one?"

Primrose froze. The pitcher of water in her hand shook.

"Arjun," she whispered, stepping closer. "The Tiger. He’s climbed on your back every day for a month."

"Arjun," Caspian nodded, forcing a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. "Yes. My apologies. The surface air makes my mind... foggy."

He reached for his glass of water.

CRACK.

The sound was sharp, like a bone snapping.

"Father!" Orion screamed.

It wasn’t his usual monotone observation. It was a cry of pure panic. Orion dropped his fork and grabbed Caspian’s arm.

"Your energy signature! It is destabilizing!"

Caspian gasped, the glass slipping from his hand. SMASH. Water soaked the rug. His hand flew to his chest.

Underneath his linen shirt, a bright white light flared and died.

Primrose lunged forward, grabbing the collar of Caspian’s shirt and pulling it down.

The Star-Iron Pendant—the indestructible relic meant to dam the Void—was damaged.

A hairline fracture ran right down the center of the white stone.

And beneath it, on Caspian’s skin, the grey veins were pulsing. They had jumped the barrier. They were no longer just on his shoulder; a thin, grey tendril was creeping up the side of his neck, toward his ear.

"It broke," Vali (Wolf) whispered, his ears drooping. "Why did the King break?"

Caspian gripped the table, his knuckles turning white. He was breathing hard, sweating cold beads of moisture. He looked at Orion, then at Primrose, terror flashing in his eyes.

"It is fine," Caspian lied, his voice strained. "Just... a minor structural failure."

"It’s not fine," Primrose said, her voice trembling.

She looked at his eyes. They were clear now, but for a second... for a second, he hadn’t known Finn. He had hesitated on Arjun.

The Mind. The Body. The Soul.

The Void wasn’t just killing him anymore. It was erasing him.

"Jax," Primrose barked, turning to the Fox. "Watch them. Don’t let anyone leave. Orion, stay with him."

"Prim, where are you going?" Jax asked, standing up, his playful demeanor gone.

"I need to see Bastion," she said, grabbing her coat. "Now."

---

Primrose didn’t take a carriage. She took Rurik, who had been patrolling nearby. The Wolf Warlord carried her on his back, running through the streets and the Blackwood Forest faster than any horse.

She burst into Bastion’s study, looking wild.

"He’s forgetting!" Primrose shouted.

Bastion looked up from his desk. He looked alarmed. "Tutor? What happened?"

"The pendant cracked," Primrose panted, sliding off Rurik’s back. "And he... he forgot the names of the cubs. Just for a minute. He struggled to remember Finn."

She grabbed Bastion’s arm.

"Is this part of it? Does the Void take memories?"

Bastion’s face fell. The hope he had built up over the last few weeks vanished, replaced by the old, familiar sorrow.

"Yes," Bastion whispered. "It is the final stage. Before the body fails... the mind unravels."

He walked over to the fireplace, staring into the flames.

"Seraphina... in the last week..." His voice broke. "She stopped calling me ’my love’. She called me ’Lord’. And then... the day she died... she looked at me and asked who I was."

Primrose felt like the floor had dropped out from under her.

"She forgot you?"

"She forgot everything," Bastion said, tears glistening in his eyes. "She forgot her name. She forgot she was a mother. She became a hollow vessel. The Void does not just kill, Primrose. It unmaking. It erases the self until there is nothing left but cold."

Primrose leaned against the wall, covering her mouth.

Caspian. The proud King. The father. The man who learned to make coffee.

He was going to forget them. He was going to forget her.

"How long?" Primrose asked. "Once the memory loss starts... how long do we have?"

Bastion looked at her.

"If the Star-Iron is cracking... weeks. Maybe days if he uses magic."

Primrose straightened up. Her fear hardened into something cold and sharp.

"Thank you, Bastion."

She turned to leave.

"Tutor," Bastion called out.

She stopped.

"Do not let him die a stranger," Bastion said softly. "It is... a cruel way to go."

"He isn’t going to die," Primrose said, her voice fierce. "I won’t let him."

---

When Primrose returned to the daycare, the cubs were asleep. Jax was keeping watch in the hall, flipping his coin in silence.

She entered her small apartment connected to the main room.

Caspian was sitting on the edge of the bed. He wasn’t sleeping. He was holding the cracked pendant in his hand, staring at the wall.

He looked up when she entered. He looked tired. Not sleepy-tired. Soul-tired.

"Did Bastion confirm it?" Caspian asked quietly.

Primrose closed the door. She didn’t lie. She sat down next to him on the bed.

"Yes," she said. "He said it takes the memories last."

Caspian nodded slowly. He looked down at his hands—hands that could crush stone, hands that had wielded a trident against gods.

"I am a King, Primrose," Caspian said, his voice low and steady. "I have fought in the trenches of the deep. I have bled. I do not fear death. Death is just returning to the ocean."

He turned to look at her. His teal eyes were shimmering with a vulnerability she had never seen before.

"But this..." He touched his temple. "This terrifies me."

"I know," Primrose whispered.

"I do not care if I forget the Sunless City," Caspian confessed. "I do not care if I forget the politics, or the wars, or the crown."

He leaned closer, his voice cracking.

"But I do not want to forget Orion," he whispered, the name coming out like a prayer. "He is my legacy. He is my heart. If I look at my son and do not know him... I am already dead."

He took a shaky breath.

"I do not want to forget Arjun’s laugh. I do not want to forget the smell of Luna’s cookies. I do not want to forget how Ellia looked when she smiled today."

He paused, his gaze locking onto hers, intense and desperate.

"And I am terrified... that I will wake up tomorrow, look at you, and not know why my heart beats faster when you are near."

Primrose felt her chest tighten, a physical ache that stole her breath.

He’s scared of losing us. He’s scared of losing me.

She didn’t speak. Words weren’t enough.

Instead, she moved.

She wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and pulled him into her.

It wasn’t a polite hug. It was a collision. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, holding onto him with everything she had, her fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt.

Caspian froze for a millisecond, and then he crumbled.

His arms came around her, wrapping her up, pulling her so close it felt like he was trying to merge their souls. He buried his face in her hair, letting out a long, shuddering breath that shook his entire frame.

They sat there on the edge of the bed, the Leviathan King and the Human Nanny, clinging to each other in the dark.

"I won’t let you forget," Primrose whispered fiercely into his skin. "I don’t care what the Boss said. I don’t care about the balance of the world."

She pulled back just enough to look him in the eyes, her hands framing his face, her thumbs brushing against his cheekbones.

"I am stubborn, Caspian. You know that. I nagged a Warlord into eating vegetables. I taught a feral princess to say please."

She leaned her forehead against his.

"If your memory starts to fade, I will tell you the stories again. I will tell you about Orion. I will tell you who you are every single morning until we find the cure. I will not let you go."

Caspian closed his eyes, leaning into her touch as if she were the only solid thing in a dissolving world.

"You promise?" he whispered, his voice rough.

"I promise," Primrose vowed. "Two days. We get through the Ball. And then we save you."

Caspian exhaled, the tension slowly draining from his body. He didn’t let go of her. He held her tighter, the cracked stone against his chest humming a warning, but his heart beating a steady, defiant rhythm against hers.

"Two days," he agreed into the silence. "I will hold on."

For a long time, they didn’t move. In the face of the Void, in the face of ancient gods and revolutionary villains, this was their anchor.

Just a hug. But it was strong enough to hold back the dark.