Kairan materialized inside his office with a muted thrum.
The room glowed in soft daylight. White walls kissed with gold detailing, tall windows draped in ivory, the sunlight pooling over marble floors. His desk sat at the center like a throne of dark polished wood, carved with ancient sigils.
Everything in the space was clean, ordered and dignified which made the sight before him instantly offensive.
Ancillin was sitting in his chair.
Kairan rolled his eyes with the weary grace of a man accustomed to divine punishments. He peeled off his shirt in one effortless motion, broad chest, sculpted arms, every line carved like a challenge to the gods, before folding the fabric and placing it on the side table.
Then he walked toward his desk, voice low and elegant. "Get out of my chair."
"I have told you countless times not to intrude upon my office without invitation."
Ancillin pressed a hand to his chest. "Good morning to you too."
Kairan didn't bother answering. He simply reached down, lifted the entire chair with Ancillin still on it, and tilted it until the younger prince slid off and hit the floor with an undignified thud.
"Ow," Ancillin complained, sprawled on the marble.
Kairan set the chair aside calmly.
"You know the rules. Don't sit there."
Ancillin stood, dusting himself dramatically as if he'd survived a near-death experience. He walked around to the other seat and flopped into it instead.
"So," he said, crossing his legs, "where exactly do you disappear to every morning? And some nights? Should I be worried? Or excited?"
Kairan didn't even look at him while arranging a stack of documents. "My whereabouts are not yours to question."
Ancillin smirked like he'd found a crack in armor.
"Mhm. So she is special then. The Duke's daughter."
Kairan froze for a fraction of a breath.
Then he inhaled slowly.
"Ancillin," he said quietly, "find another topic."
"Oh, I know." Ancillin's grin widened. "You weren't even this evasive with Princess Artemisia and she practically wrote poetry about you."
For a fleeting heartbeat, Kairan stilled. His jaw barely tightened so slight one could miss it if they blinked. Then he exhaled through his nose.
"Leave," he said. "While I am still feeling generous."
Ancillin laughed. "You've tried to assassinate me twenty times in the last few months, brother. Your 'generosity' is questionable at best."
"And yet," Kairan replied, adjusting his cuff, "you continue breathing. Do not make me analyze why."
Ancillin leaned back in the chair, swinging one leg lazily. " You know," he drawled, "I've noticed something fascinating lately."
Kairan didn't look up from the documents he was flipping through. "And that would be?"
"You smell different."
That made Kairan pause.
The younger prince grinned like a fox.
"Lilies. Sometimes jasmine. Very faint and very feminine." He wiggled his eyebrows. "Tell me, brother… who exactly are you letting that close?"
Kairan set the papers down with a soft controlled click that meant danger, not patience.
"I would advise you," he said in that calm, velvet-deep tone, "to stop talking."
"Why? Because I'm right?" Ancillin smirked. "It's her, isn't it? Lady Meredia." He tapped his chin. "Past few weeks, you've been oddly… gentle and utterly distracted. And I've noticed the guards flinching when you walk by . apparently you disappear randomly and reappear just as randomly. Very mysterious and romantic."
Kairan gave him a hollow look.
"I am not interested in discussing my personal affairs with a creature who breaks into my office like a stray cat."
Ancillin gasped dramatically. "I am an Ashbourne prince, not a stray cat—"
"You behave like one."
"Well," Ancillin said, undeterred, "even if I were a cat, I would still have eyes. And those eyes noticed that yesterday you cut meeting short by nine minutes."
Kairan's jaw flexed. "I did no such thing."
"You did. I checked the sundial."
Ancillin leaned forward. "Nine minutes early. Unheard of. Do you know when you last ended something early?"
Kairan rubbed his temple. "Ancillin—"
"When you almost killed that ambassador five years ago!"
Kairan exhaled slowly, like controlling an internal storm.
"If your goal is to provoke me into throwing you out the window, you are achieving it with remarkable consistency."
Ancillin waved a hand. "Relax. I'm not criticizing." Then he smirked. "I'm simply saying… you seem infatuated."
Silence.
Kairan lifted his gaze, eyes narrowing with that quiet, lethal precision he was famous for.
"Careful," he said. "Your conclusions are becoming embarrassingly foolish."
Ancillin grinned wider. "Foolish? Perhaps. But not wrong."
Kairan leaned back in his chair. "If you ever suggest I am 'infatuated' again," he said, the threat woven like silk, "I will personally handle the twenty-first assassination attempt."
Ancillin burst out laughing.
"Oh, Kairan… you Are becoming dramatic.
"Get. Out."
Ancillin stood, still laughing.
"Fine, fine. I'll leave." He reached the doorway, paused, and glanced back with a devilish grin. "By the way, you should tell her the next time she calls you a bastard."
A beat.
"She mutters it cutely."
Kairan's head snapped up.
Ancillin cackled and vanished down the hall like the menace he was.
Left alone, Kairan closed his eyes and exhaled the kind of breath one takes when dangerously close to losing composure.
He lifted his arm, paused, then brought it closer without thinking.
The faint floral scent hit him immediately. It was not like the sharp incense of the palace, not the metallic tang of steel or ink. This was… different and familiar in a way that made his chest tighten before his mind could stop it.
He frowned at his sleeve like it had personally betrayed him.
A moment passed. Then another.
"…I require a bath."
••••••••••
[Sia's POV]
I had nothing to do after training, and my mind, unfortunately, refused to cooperate. It kept replaying moments from the training ground with Kairan, over and over, without my permission. The thoughts were intrusive and exhausting, and no matter how hard I tried to shove them away, they slipped right back in.
With a quiet groan, I slid my legs off the desk and reached for the book resting beside me. The library had always been my refuge, my quiet harbor when everything else felt overwhelming. Yet, only two days into training with Kairan, even this place felt strangely dull.
My fingers traced the title embossed on the cover. The Witches.
I had found it after rummaging through the darkest, dustiest corner of the library. There were surprisingly few books on witches here, which felt almost ironic considering how deeply their existence was woven into Valkathra's history.
Twelve years ago, witches had been little more than wanderers in the kingdom. They were feared and distrusted, nearly driven out altogether because the nobles believed their power was too dangerous to tolerate.
Everything changed with the former High Lunarch, Tiberius. He intervened and allowed one witch bloodline into the royal court. The Evander witches. That single decision altered the course of the kingdom. Today, several witch bloodlines held noble titles of their own.
My my eyes fell on index. Neatly written names lined the page, each followed by a number.
Nyxarëal.
My fingers stilled.
That was the name Kairan had spoken.
Below it followed others: Thaldons, Dravyr, Lysaera, Evander, Valandis, Isoln, Vilyar and finally, Zerane.
Zerane.
Cessalie's husband bore that name. So he was a witch too. I frowned, unease curling in my chest. Were marriages between witches and non-witches permitted here? No one ever spoke of it openly.
Turning the page, I reached the introduction.
According to the text, witches were disciples of a single woman whose power had no recorded origin.
Her name was Elara'thia.
She had not been worshipped. She had been feared. Humans had always possessed mana, but mana demanded discipline, training, and restraint. Elara'thia's magic required none of that. It existed as naturally as breath itself.
It was stronger and more complex than mana . Something that did not obey the same rules.
Most people could not even approach her without trembling. Yet a handful of children had stepped forward without fear, drawn to her power rather than repelled by it. Those children became her disciples.
And when Elara'thia died, she divided her power among them.
Ten disciples.
But the bloodlines were nine, not ten.
Two of Elara'thia's disciples, Alareil and Nyxarëa, had fallen in love and married each other. Their union became a new bloodline. But their descendants, obsessed with preserving power and purity, made a far more disturbing choice. They turned inward, marrying within their own family.
I grimaced.
Ew. Gross.
Kairan's words echoed uncomfortably in my head. Even Meredia, he had said, was the result of such a union. A child born from the Duchess's brother and sister.
My chest tightened. How had Duchess Elowen escaped that fate herself? And more importantly, how had she hidden something so monstrous from almost the entire kingdom? Noble courts thrived on rumors. Secrets like that should have bled through stone walls.
A yawn crept up on me. The book was fascinating, horrifying, and heavy all at once, and exhaustion finally began to tug at my limbs. Still, I forced myself to turn the page.
That was when I froze.
A detailed illustration filled the parchment. A white dragon hovered in the air, massive and terrifying, its form curling through clouds. Below it stood dozens of figures in red cloaks, arranged in a wide circle. They were chanting, hands raised, faces tilted upward.
At the center of the circle was something.
My breath hitched as I leaned closer.
A infant was in the center of circle.
Beneath the illustration, text had been carefully inscribed.
When the White Dragon lost control, the Fifth King was gravely injured and ninety percent of his forces perished. Hope was all but lost. The dragon claimed the shattered royal palace as its perch, reigning over the ruins.
Only the Nyxarëal witches possessed the power to stop it. The elders convened and resolved to contain the dragon within a living vessel. Such a vessel required pure mana and a mind untouched by greed, for the dragon tempted its host with illusions of power.
The Fifth King chose his two-year-old son.
After prolonged chanting and at the cost of the elders' lives, the dragon was sealed within the young prince.
My fingers curled against the page.
What a dick of a father.
I stared at the drawing again, at the tiny child encircled by power far beyond his comprehension. Whatever that prince had grown into, whatever the dragon became within him, none of it had been his choice.
And suddenly, a cold realization settled deep in my chest.
White dragon.
Nyxarëal witches.
A sealed vessel.
Kairan.
The book felt heavier in my hands now, like it had shifted from history into something dangerously close to the present.
He needed my help.
Could it be because of this?
Nyxarëal blood ran in me, or at least in this body. And the Nyxarëals were the ones who had sealed the dragon in the first place. The thought made my stomach tighten. It was too precise to be a coincidence.
I read on.
The text grew heavier with every line.
The young prince survived and ascended the throne, yet his life was shortened. The constant chantings required to keep the dragon sealed drained both his mana and his vitality.
To dull the pain, he turned to gambling and drink. His body weakened, his mind frayed, and he died at the age of thirty-one. Before his death, he bore heirs.
With his passing, the dragon perished as well.
My eyes lingered on the last line.
The dragon perished.
I swallowed.
That meant the seal was not eternal. It meant the vessel was not meant to survive it. The dragon did not simply sit quietly inside its host. It consumed them, slowly and mercilessly, until there was nothing left to burn.
Just then, the door opened.
I looked up instinctively. Mother stepped inside. When her eyes landed on me, she smiled.
"Eri," she said gently, "what are you reading today?"
"Nothing important," I replied a little too quickly, closing the book and sliding my hand over the cover. "Just… something about witches."
Her gaze dropped to the book anyway. For a brief moment, so quick it could have been imagined, her smile faltered. Then it returned smoothly.
"Oh," she said lightly. "Witches. You never cared for such things before."
"I do now."
She moved closer and cupped my chin, tilting my face up. Her lips curved into a fond pout. "I miss my little Eri. The one who spent all day dressing up and worrying about nothing else."
And that version of Meredia died because everyone thought she was foolish.
I swallowed the thought and smiled instead. "I've grown up, Mother. I have responsibilities now."
"You don't have to carry all of them alone," she said softly. She reached down and lifted the book from beneath my hand. "You're still my little girl. Don't burden yourself so much."
"Mother—" I reached for it instinctively. "I was reading that."
"You can read later," she replied, already turning away with the book tucked under her arm. "It's time for dinner."
"So soon?" I asked, startled.
She nodded. "All you do these days is train and study. You barely notice how time passes."
I scratched the back of my head, a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry."
She smiled again, warm and affectionate, but something in my chest stayed tight as I followed her out.