🎵 Music Suggestion:
"Numb" by Archive
(For love that aches and fire that remembers.)
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The night didn't let go.
Even after Lucian closed the manor gates with his mind and sealed the wind back into its prison, the night still clung to Kyrell's skin like soot—like memory.
They sat across from one another in the inner sanctum. No guards. No council. No Mara. No Damien. Just the soft pulse of candles around the velvet walls and the space between them.
Kyrell was staring at the fire.
Lucian was staring at him.
"You haven't asked what they did to me," Kyrell said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Lucian rested his chin on his hand, eyes cold and unreadable. "I'm not sure I want to know."
"You do. You just know it'll make you angrier."
Lucian smirked faintly. "I'm already angry. I just hide it better than most."
Kyrell didn't flinch. "They didn't torture me. Not in the way people expect. No blades. No chains." He leaned forward, shadows sliding across his face. "They just showed me every life I ever took."
Lucian's gaze sharpened. "What?"
"They opened my mind. Pulled it apart. Laid the bones of my past in front of me. Every scream. Every kill. Every drop of blood I ever spilled when I didn't know what I was." He laughed, soft and bitter. "They made me feel it."
Lucian rose without meaning to. "Who did this to you?"
Kyrell blinked up at him. "Who do you think?"
Lucian didn't ask. He already knew. The Elders. The very same ones who had once claimed to protect balance and justice. They had broken every law of sacred magic and morality in their desperation to control what Kyrell might become.
"And they think I'm dangerous," Lucian muttered, pacing toward the wall.
Kyrell stood too. Quiet, ghostlike. "You are."
Lucian turned sharply.
"You're dangerous because you love something they don't understand," Kyrell said. "Because you'll burn the world to keep it breathing."
Lucian reached him in two strides. "You're not a thing, Kyrell. You're not something to keep breathing. You're the reason I still do."
A pause.
Then: "That's what terrifies them."
Kyrell didn't speak. He just stepped into Lucian's space, the air between them stretching taut with something raw and unspoken.
Lucian looked down at him, voice low. "If they come for you again…"
"They will."
"…I won't show mercy."
"I don't want you to."
Lucian's hands clenched. "Then you need to understand what that means."
"I do." Kyrell stepped closer. "It means letting go of what's left of your soul. And I'm not worth that."
Lucian grabbed his wrist. Firm. Not cruel. "You don't get to decide what you're worth. Not after I watched the world fall apart in your absence."
The fire behind them cracked, flared.
Kyrell's pupils widened. His lips parted.
But before either could act on the scream building behind their ribs, a raven slammed against the glass outside—hard, shattering the silence. It was one of the Council's messengers. Its body twitched, scorched black, wings broken in odd angles.
Lucian strode to the window. Opened it.
Inside the raven's ruined chest was a scrap of blood parchment. Magic still bled from it.
Lucian unfolded it slowly.
> "You've made your choice, Lucian. So have we."
"He dies at dusk."
His hands caught fire the moment he finished reading.
Kyrell touched his shoulder. "What does it say?"
Lucian didn't answer.
He only whispered, "Then I'll burn first."
---.