Adam's eyes lost focus on the yellowed pages of the grimoire as he slumped on the sofa like a stringless puppet. For a moment, a reluctant silence suffocated the room. But his mind was the opposite; a blaring mess of contradicting thoughts he didn't want to acknowledge, especially not that Gaston had been right all along in his perverse obsession with that game of cards.
No, he wouldn't acknowledge it. At least not the role the lying devil had tried to force upon him.
The fool? Dream on. He had endured solitude, grief, and pain that would have left the bravest man begging on his knees. He had danced along the fine tether of death, negotiating and battling with forgotten or ancient monsters. What he owned—his body, his mastery—he had built with his tears, sweat, and blood.
Not through the whispers of a world core.
