🎵 Music Suggestions While Reading:
Opening atmosphere: "No Time for Caution" – Hans Zimmer (Interstellar OST)
Emotional climax: "Youth" – Daughter
Kyrell's awakening: "Disfigured" – Zola Jesus
---
Lucian awoke to the stillness of aftershock.
Kyrell lay beside him, chest rising slow, face turned toward the broken window. The storm had passed, but it had left behind a silence too heavy to be peace.
Lucian reached out, fingers brushing Kyrell's wrist.
Not to wake him.
To remind himself that this—this fragile quiet—was real.
But reality had teeth.
And Kyrell was starting to bare his.
---
Earlier that Night
The kiss had left them breathless, but not whole. Kyrell's memories were stitched together with pain and betrayal—and though his body leaned into Lucian's, his soul stood apart.
> "Tell me what I was before you found me," he said, barely above a whisper.
Lucian hesitated.
> "You weren't lost," he said. "You were unleashed."
Kyrell turned his gaze, eyes flickering gold.
> "That's not an answer."
Lucian stepped back, as if retreating would soften the truth.
> "You were one of them," he murmured. "The Firstborn. Not vampire. Not human. Not even beast. Something older. Something forgotten."
> "And you—turned me into this?" Kyrell spat, stepping forward.
> "No," Lucian said, eyes steady. "I chose you when the others feared you. I brought you back when they tried to bury you. I erased your memory because you asked me to—because you were changing into something even you couldn't control."
Kyrell's voice dropped.
> "And what if I want it back?"
Lucian swallowed.
> "Then I'll stand by you when it happens. But you have to know… the council won't."
---
In the High Tower: The Council's Chamber
Renak stood with arms crossed, listening as Mara walked a line between fury and heartbreak.
> "He kissed him," she whispered. "I saw it."
> "You followed him?" Renak raised a brow.
> "He left the gates wide open," she hissed. "He wanted me to see."
Renak didn't flinch. He'd seen Mara unraveling for weeks. But now, she was something else—cold, sharpened.
> "If Kyrell truly is Firstborn," Renak said, "he could wipe us all out."
> "Then let him," Mara said, her voice trembling. "Maybe that's what Lucian wants."
> "Do you?" he asked.
> "No," she answered. "I want to see him burn."
---
Lucian's Private Chamber
Kyrell stood shirtless before the tall mirror—the same one Damien had shattered. What was left now was a jagged reflection, fragmented, warped.
He watched himself.
Eyes glowing.
Veins darkened like ink beneath skin.
A pulse behind his ribs that did not belong to Lucian's blood.
> "Something's waking inside me," he said.
Lucian stepped up behind him.
> "Let it."
Kyrell looked over his shoulder.
> "Aren't you afraid?"
Lucian's answer was quiet.
> "I already lost you once. I won't cage you to keep you safe. I'll stand in the fire if that's where you choose to burn."
A flicker in Kyrell's eyes—shock, sorrow, something like awe.
He turned.
They kissed again, slower this time. Mouths trembling, breath catching, every touch deliberate. No frenzy—only ache.
Their foreheads pressed, lips parted.
> "Lucian…" Kyrell's voice broke. "I think I loved you before I forgot."
> "I know you did," Lucian whispered.
And Kyrell, shaking, leaned into his chest and cried.
---
Far Beyond, Beneath the Crypts
Eline descended the black spiral staircase that led into the tombs of the Firstborn.
At the bottom, she whispered a name etched in bone.
> "Kyrell of the Hollow Flame…"
The ground trembled.
> "Your return was written long before Lucian tasted your blood."
Behind her, Mara followed.
> "What do you want from me?" she asked.
Eline turned, lips curling into something too knowing.
> "I want you to survive. And for that, you must be the one to kill him."