The world dissolved in blinding jade light. A violent, tearing sensation ripped them from the heart of the slaughter, swallowing the Grove Mother's shriek and the deafening crack of Lyra's final gambit in crushing silence.
Damask and Petunia landed hard on cold stone. The abrupt stillness shocked them more than the chaos they'd escaped.
They were in a cave—or perhaps an ancient shrine, hidden from the world. Moonlight spilled through a ceiling crack, illuminating moss-slick walls and gnarled tree roots that had clawed through the earth above. The air was cool and clean, free of the Grove's cloying poison.
They were safe. They were alone.
The realization brought no relief. Only ruin.
Damask pushed himself to his hands and knees, his breath ragged in the quiet dark. But something was wrong—terrifyingly wrong. For the first time in his life, the world was silent. Not just quiet, but dead. The constant, thrumming hum of his own mana, that psychic vibration as essential as his own heartbeat, was gone.
It was a sensory amputation. Where his power had been, only a screaming, bottomless void remained.
His gaze fixed on the empty air where the portal had vanished. Gone. Kestrel, his shield. Lyra, his reckless blade. Marigold, his gentle heart. Milky, his ambitious thorn—who had sacrificed herself to save him.
He was a king who had lost his kingdom. A Dom who had led his entire world to slaughter.
The weight of failure crushed him like a physical force. He reached for that familiar fire at his core and found only cold emptiness. A choked sob tore from his throat, a sound so raw with agony it seemed to crack the stones around them. His body, already stripped of its powerful muscle, seemed to shrink further. The lean frame caved inward. He collapsed—not with a warrior's grace, but with the boneless surrender of something utterly broken. His face pressed against the unforgiving stone as his mind simply… shut down.
The world dissolved into a grey, soundless fog. He was no one. He had nothing.
For Petunia, the silence that followed was the most terrifying sound he'd ever heard.
He scrambled to his feet, his small body trembling, every instinct screaming for the comforting weight of his Dom's command. He looked at Damask, waiting. For the order to stand, to be brave, to make himself useful. He waited for that familiar pressure of his Dom's will to reassert itself and make sense of the chaos.
But no command came.
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Only the slow drip of water somewhere in darkness and Damask's broken breathing. Petunia's entire world—built on the unshakeable foundation of his Dom's authority—had crumbled to dust. For the first time in his life, no one was telling him what to do.
Panic clawed at his throat. He was a Fem. A courtesan. A creature of silk and perfume, engineered to receive, to please. What was he without a will to obey? He took a shuddering breath. The cool air shocked his lungs, and with it came a new, devastating realization. His Dom's scent—that intoxicating musk of power and command—was gone. In its place was the simple, mortal smell of sweat and fear.
He looked at Damask's still form, at shoulders shaking with silent sobs. He saw not the Heir to the Ivy Court, but a person drowning in grief so deep it was unmaking him. A new thought took root in the darkness: If I do nothing, he will die.
The thought was a spark in the overwhelming shadow. The Bitches were the pride's swords, the Sows its heart... but he was its soul. The emotional glue. And a soul was all they had left. The agony of taking initiative was a physical pain. Every instinct screamed at him to wait, to be passive. But there was no one else.
His purpose became a razor-sharp point of focus: he would not let his Dom break.
Each action from that point was a quiet defiance of their hopeless situation. First, he stilled his trembling legs and scanned the cave for threats. Finding none, he turned back to Damask. His hand shook as he reached out—and for the first time, touched his Dom without being commanded.
The act felt like blasphemy.
Gently, he rolled Damask onto his side, arranging limp limbs on a bed of moss scraped from the cavern corners. His hands, trained for caresses and service, now maneuvered the broken body of his god. The wrongness of it made him want to retch, but he pushed the feeling down.
Hours passed. Shock gave way to gnawing reality. Thirst. Hunger. The encroaching chill. With each new challenge, Petunia found new resolve. He found clean water trickling from a rock formation and, using a large leaf as a cup, patiently coaxed the cool liquid past Damask's lips. He foraged, his delicate hands now digging for edible roots. He stood watch at the cave mouth as dusk fell, his small body a fragile sentinel against the encroaching shadows.
As night deepened, a true cold crept into the cave. Damask began to shiver, his skin clammy to the touch. Petunia's heart clenched with a fierce, protective ache. He stripped off his thin robes and draped them over Damask's larger frame.
It wasn't enough.
Without hesitation, he lay down and curled against Damask's back, pressing into the curve of his spine. His own meager body heat became a desperate, living blanket. The intimacy was complete, yet utterly devoid of sex. Pure, selfless care—a Fem tending his Sovereign's broken soul.
He began to whisper, his voice a constant, soothing presence in the darkness, a fragile thread of hope cast into despair. He spoke of the court, of the warmth of the training yards. Then, his voice grew stronger, his words weaving a future from the brutal truth of their world.
"They'll find us, my Lord," he murmured, his lips brushing the cold skin. "Kestrel is the First Blade. She's too stubborn to die. And Marigold will heal them. They will come for us. We will rebuild. We'll start again… from the beginning. The Filament Stage. I'll be your first tool—your only one. I'll help you pleasure-prick… until you're hard again. I will be your crucible, my Lord. I'll let you seed-plant inside me, and I will be the forge where you remake yourself."
He spoke for hours, his voice growing hoarse, tears falling silently. "We will return to the Ivy Court. You will take your throne. You will be a Queen."
He didn't know if Damask could hear him. It didn't matter. Tonight, he would pour every drop of hope, devotion, and love into his king's shattered soul, praying it would be enough to coax him back from the brink.