Music Suggestion:
🎵 "Elegy" by Lisa Gerrard & Patrick Cassidy
(For that aching, spiritual undertone—like a soul remembering what it lost.)
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The scent of Kyrell was fading.
Lucian stood at the balcony of the eastern wing, fingers curled against the cold iron rail, the wind tearing through his robes. The moon hung low, heavy with secrets, but tonight it gave nothing away. Below him, the castle grounds lay silent. Even the shadows dared not move.
He had ripped apart every corridor, summoned old spells to track scent and heartbeat. Nothing. Not even the trail of a wound. Kyrell was simply… gone.
Damien had vanished too.
No broken doors. No signs of struggle. Just absence.
Lucian's jaw twitched. He had warned them all—had bled for Kyrell before the Council, had chosen defiance when obedience would've cost him less. And now…
Now the price of love was turning into loss.
"Your Majesty," came a voice behind him, careful and dry. It was Renak, eyes sunken from lack of sleep. "The Council demands presence by first light. Elder Thalos has returned. With evidence."
Lucian did not turn. "Let them wait. Let them rot."
Renak hesitated. "They believe you are compromised again. That Damien helped him escape. That you—"
"—am losing control?" Lucian's voice dropped, low and raw. "Let them believe it. Their doubt is the only thing keeping me alive."
The wind pressed harder, as though trying to push him forward—toward something, or into nothing. He remembered Kyrell's breath in the hollow of his neck, the warmth of his fear, the trembling softness he had tried to resist. He remembered holding him too long in the darkness and wondering how anything human could feel that necessary.
And now… nothing.
Just air.
Just ghosts.
---
Mara leaned over a basin of cracked silver, her reflection warping with the water's movement. Her nails dug into the stone rim, face red and wet with both fury and shame.
"Why him?" she whispered.
The servant girl said nothing. She knew better.
"I could've understood anyone else… even a rival." Mara's voice broke into laughter. "But that boy? That… pitiful thing that crept in like a dream?"
She hurled the pitcher across the chamber. It shattered.
Mara stood up straight, the golden cuff around her wrist glinting like a wound. "He'll destroy us both. Him and that look in Lucian's eyes."
---
Meanwhile, in the far woods outside the kingdom's reach, beneath a cloak of enchantment woven long before Lucian ever ruled, Damien sat across from Kyrell—who hadn't said a word.
"Do you remember yet?" Damien asked, voice calm, almost tender.
Kyrell looked at the fire but not at him. His wrists were bound, though not tightly. "You didn't need to take me."
"You were slipping away from me. Again." Damien's jaw flexed. "And he was letting you forget who you are. You think that vampire loves you? He's cursed by you."
"I don't believe you."
Damien leaned closer. "You will."
---
Lucian found the old door in the east tower ajar.
His hand trembled as he pushed it open. Inside, the scent of magic lingered—burned herbs, candle wax, and something faintly metallic.
A sigil was scorched into the floor—one Lucian hadn't seen since the First War.
"They moved him through time," he murmured. "Not space."
For the first time in years, the Prince of Shadows felt fear coil around his ribs like a lover.
And for the first time since he had made Kyrell forget him…
He realized someone else might be trying to make him forget too.
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