🎵 Music Suggestions While Reading:
Opening scene: "The Sound of Silence" (dark cover) – Hidden Citizens
Mara's unraveling: "No Choir" – Florence + The Machine
Ending tension: "Ashes" – Hanz Zimmer (from X-Men: Dark Phoenix)
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The Taste of Peace
The night was impossibly still.
Lucian lay beside Kyrell, half-asleep, fingers barely grazing the young man's back as if trying to hold on to a dream that never wanted to stay.
> "Your heart," Kyrell whispered, eyes closed, "it sounds like it's afraid."
Lucian blinked.
> "It always does when you're this close."
A faint laugh escaped Kyrell's throat, but it trembled like a dying flame.
He turned to Lucian, brushing hair from his face.
> "If you ever wanted to run... I wouldn't stop you."
Lucian only held him tighter.
> "I did once. But now, I burn."
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Mara's Undoing
Mara stumbled back into the woods, the uncorked vial still clutched in her shaking hand.
She hadn't thrown it.
She hadn't poisoned Kyrell.
And she hadn't saved Lucian either.
> "What did you do?" Renak hissed, appearing from the trees. His eyes glinted like steel wet with blood.
> "I couldn't," she said breathlessly. "I saw them. I—he was gentle with him, Renak. Like he used to be with me."
> "That thing—" he growled, "is not who Lucian was meant to love."
> "And who are you to decide?" she snapped.
Renak looked at her for a long moment, then turned away.
> "There's no time left for softness, Mara. You've made your choice. Pray it doesn't get him killed."
He disappeared into the shadows, and Mara stood alone—tears drying on her cheeks like frost under a cruel dawn.
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The Poison Does Its Work
Kyrell woke in the dark.
But the room was too quiet.
Too still.
And too wrong.
Lucian was nowhere near him. His chest ached—sharp, sudden. As if claws were dragging from within, scraping bone.
He gasped. Pain bloomed across his veins like wildfire.
> "Lucian," he called out, staggering to his feet.
The mirror across the room cracked—this time with no reflection.
Just a figure.
Eyes glowing. Fangs bared.
His true self watching from the other side.
> "No," he whispered. "You're not real."
But the ache grew stronger.
He fell to his knees, arms burning, breath hitching as shadows pulsed beneath his skin.
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Lucian Returns Too Late
Lucian burst through the door, senses alert.
> "Kyrell!"
He found him slumped near the fireplace, convulsing—eyes wide and nearly black.
> "No—no, no, no—"
Lucian knelt, lifting him into his arms. Kyrell's fingers clawed at his chest, as if trying to hold onto something before it slipped completely.
> "I can't breathe—what's happening to me?"
Lucian closed his eyes. He could taste it now—the faint, unnatural bitterness in the air.
> "You've been poisoned."
> "By who?"
Lucian didn't answer. But he knew.
Mara. Or Renak. Or both.
> "Stay with me, Kyrell. Look at me. Just… breathe."
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In the Tower of Elders
A figure stood before Elder Silas, robes wet with midnight rain.
> "It's begun," the figure said.
Silas's fingers drummed against the marble table.
> "Then let it unfold. If the creature burns, Lucian will finally see."
> "And if he doesn't?"
> "Then we'll burn them both."
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