The world didn't end with fire.
It ended with dirt in Lucien's mouth.
He lay flat on his back, staring at the gray sky.
Cold wind pressed into his ribs.
Mud clung to his skin.
Somewhere nearby, a raven made that horrible laughing sound they do when something's about to die.
Lucien wasn't dead yet.
Just mostly humiliated.
"Get up, whore-son."
That voice again.
Sir Kaelen.
Polished boots.
Shining white armor..
Sword too big for someone with that little soul.
Lucien spat blood into the grass.
"I'm thinking."
Kaelen kicked him in the ribs.
The sound was sharp.
Not the crunch of bone, but close.
"Think faster. Her father wants your head. I'm being generous."
Lucien smiled with pink teeth. "That's new."
Kaelen's face twitched.
He had that look noble, angry, entitled.
The kind of man who thought gods gave him a woman like Elira just for existing.
Lucien had kissed her once.
Nothing more.
Well.
Maybe he'd whispered a few things too.
She'd said, I wish I'd met you before him.
That was apparently enough for execution.
"You're lucky I don't kill you here," Kaelen said.
Lucien coughed. "You say that a lot."
Kaelen's sword clanged as he turned. "Drop him in the Hollow."
Two guards grabbed Lucien by the arms.
One of them reeked of onions.
"You could've just married her," Lucien muttered. "She wasn't that loyal."
They threw him down the slope.
He rolled.
Mud filled his mouth again.
It tasted better than regret.
The Weeping Hollow was named for the way the trees creaked when the wind passed through.
Like women crying.
Or maybe like gods who had stopped listening.
No one came here.
The ground was cursed.
The air was colder than it should be.
And sometimes, people heard voices.
Lucien landed in a shallow pool of gray water.
His back hurt.
His hands shook.
The curse sigil still burned on his chest.
He stared at the twisted trees.
At the stone faces carved into a nearby wall, cracked with age.
Old gods.
Forgotten.
"Great," Lucien said. "Banished to rot where no one will remember me."
The trees didn't answer.
But something else did.
A whisper.
Not loud.
Not in the air.
In his chest.
You remember them.
Don't you?
Lucien sat up.
"I'm hearing things."
Good.
That means you're ready.
He squinted at the stone wall.
The faces were wrong.
They looked… newer.
Or maybe they were looking back now.
You've been tossed aside.
Good.
They always start with pride.
Then betrayal. Then nothing.
Lucien rubbed his temples. "Definitely dying."
No. Not yet.
That's the problem.
You're still breathing, and that makes you dangerous.
Lucien blinked. "Who the hell are you?"
The whisper chuckled.
The first thing they buried when love was invented.
"That's not helpful."
Neither is begging. You've tried that already.
Lucien leaned against the wall.
He was shivering.
The sigil on his chest glowed faint red.
The pain was spreading to his spine.
"I didn't even sleep with her."
You wanted to.
Lucien frowned. "Well… yeah. Obviously."
And that's enough. Wanting. They hate want. They call it evil. Call it sin. Call it yours.
The wall cracked.
Lucien jumped.
A thin line split the face of one old stone god.
Behind it, something darker waited.
"Alright," Lucien said. "This is officially the weirdest part of my week."
The stone opened.
Inside was black.
Not dark.
Black.
Like ink that swallowed sound.
Lucien should've run.
Instead, he stepped forward.
He didn't remember falling.
He just woke up in a room that wasn't there a second ago.
Stone.
Cold.
Smelling like ash and incense.
A hall with no end.
Candles burning with purple flames.
A figure sitting on a throne of cracked mirrors.
Not a man.
Not a demon.
Just… desire, shaped like memory.
Vel'Zheron, the whisper said.
The figure smiled without a mouth.
You came.
Lucien looked around.
"I was thrown."
Same thing.
Lucien crossed his arms. "You live under a crypt?"
I live under broken promises.
"Well, you'll love the nobility then."
Vel'Zheron stood.
His form shifted with every step tall, short, male, female, old, young.
Everything Lucien had ever wanted and lost.
Do you know what makes you interesting, little bastard?
"I have good cheekbones."
You've been discarded, and you still smile. You've lost love, and still flirt.
You've been beaten… and you mock them.
Lucien grinned. "It's either that or cry."
Most cry.
Lucien looked down.
His hands were shaking again.
Vel'Zheron raised one hand.
The sigil on Lucien's chest ignited.
But this time it wasn't pain.
It was heat.
Burning.
But right.
Let me rewrite the mark.
Not a curse.
A gift.
Lucien fell to one knee.
I give you eyes that see what others deny. Hearts bound by thread. Words that cut deeper than blades. A soul that feeds not on flesh… but on betrayal.
Lucien gasped. "What do I have to do?"
Make them fall. Not in love. In ruin. Break their hearts, and feed me the pieces.
Lucien looked up.
"That's it?"
That's everything.
The flames roared.
The sigil vanished.
Something new bloomed in its place.
A second heart.
Made of shadows.
Lucien woke up gasping in the mud again.
But it felt different.
He stood.
The pain was gone.
The cold didn't bite anymore.
The trees weren't creaking.
They were whispering.
He touched his chest.
The old curse sigil was gone.
In its place was something black, spiraled, like a rose with thorns.
He smiled.
"I'm not dead."
The raven landed on a branch nearby.
It laughed.
Lucien waved. "You'll see me again."
He walked out of the Hollow.
No one stopped him.
Next day Lucien sat on a barrel outside a tavern in the border town of Grimhollow.
He stole a bite of someone's bread.
A drunk mercenary stumbled past.
A priest preached on the corner about virtue.
Lucien didn't care.
He was watching a girl across the street.
Blonde.
Wide-eyed.
Laughing at a boy with a wooden sword.
The boy looked proud.
She looked impressed.
Lucien tilted his head.
A thin, red thread connected them.
He could see it now.
Right through the air.
He reached out.
Just a little.
The thread… twitched.
Not snapped.
Not yet.
But it responded.
Lucien leaned back.
Bit into the bread again.
It was stale.
"I'm going to ruin everything," he said softly.
The wind carried it away.
Back in the Weeping Hollow, a candle lit itself beneath the crypt.
Vel'Zheron whispered.
One thread pulled. A thousand more to go.
And far away, in the Ivory Tower of Eronthia, a noblewoman woke from a dream with a name on her lips she didn't remember knowing.
"Lucien…"