> The council chamber reeked of burnt velvet and old magic.
Thalos had been laughing.
A slow, rasping thing—the kind meant to provoke, not amuse.
"You forget yourself, Lucian," he had said, leaning on his cane carved from the spine of a lesser god. "You are not the only one who's ever loved something dangerous."
Lucian didn't speak.
He stepped into the circle of elders, the low red torchlight dancing off his collarbone, his gaze fixed—silent, blade-sharp, and unnatural.
"The vote is cast," Thalos continued. "We bind the boy. For his sake and yours. The Council will erase what should never have existed."
That was when the air began to warp.
Slowly—quietly—it thickened, curling into a heat that shimmered off Lucian's skin. No sigils. No chant.
Just rage.
Thalos raised a hand. "This is not your right—"
Lucian moved in a blink.
The moment his palm touched Thalos' chest, the elder arched back violently. A scream, animal and guttural, ripped through the room as Lucian's hand glowed white-hot—soulfire licking through the elder's insides like lightning through oil.
His bones cracked first.
Then came the skin, blistering and blackening mid-breath. One eye melted. The other bulged, unseeing.
The other elders stood frozen—too horrified to stop it.
Lucian leaned in and whispered into the smoke curling from Thalos' burning mouth.
"Let this be the last time you mistake your power for mine."
And then… he released him.
Thalos crumpled, half-alive and steaming.
Lucian turned, not sparing him another glance, and walked past the others as if stepping over leaves.
"Put him somewhere visible," he said to the guards. "Let the others remember what happens to those who speak Kyrell's name without reverence."
---
The hall was far too quiet for the amount of blood on the walls.
Lucian simply stood there lost in his own thoughts, shoulder cloaked in shadows that curled around him like a serpent. The scent of scorched bone wafted behind him. No guard dared breathe. No elder dared blink. A flicker of silver crossed his eyes—not moonlight, but something older. Hungrier.
Renak, still kneeling beside the half-charred body of Elder Thalos, turned slowly. "You summoned us… for this?"
Lucian stepped forward. His boots crunched on the ash of what had once been robes and flesh.
"This," he said with chilling calm, "is grace."
No one answered. Even the firelight along the marble pillars dimmed.
"He was the last to whisper about cleaving my beloved from me. He voted in favor of breaking the bond. Of sending him away. Of collaring him."
Lucian's lip curled. "I offered him a seat. He used it to spit on my loyalty. Now he's fertilizer."
"Lucian—" one of the younger councilmen began, but flinched when Lucian's eyes snapped toward him.
"There are others," Lucian said, voice low. "I know it. I smell the rot."
And then, for the first time in centuries, Lucian lifted a hand and the chamber trembled—not symbolically, not metaphorically. The very bones of the fortress shook, as though something ancient and ravenous had been stirred from its sleep beneath the stone.
"You think I am weak because I love," Lucian hissed, "but let me remind you: I was carved from nightmares before Kyrell ever walked into mine."
A ripple moved through the room. Shadows slithered across the floor. At the far end of the chamber, Damien watched with unreadable eyes. Even he looked… cautious.
"Is Kyrell safe?" Renak asked, quietly.
Lucian's rage pulled tight like a bowstring. "He's always safe. With me."
A pause. Then:
"He's gone."
Lucian didn't move.
Renak took one careful step forward. "He left. No one saw. Not even the night guard. I think… I think he remembered something. Or someone helped him remember more than he could take."
Lucian's heart, the dark, bitter thing that had only just begun to beat again, cracked.
Not again.
"Find him," he said. "And if you don't—pray I don't find you first."
Then he vanished.
Smoke and shadow. Just like the monster they'd all tried to forget he was.