The silence between them was no longer comfort—it was fracture.
Lucian watched Kyrell from the far end of the crypt, his posture stiff, as if bracing for another blow. The boy—no, the man he had kissed, held, chosen—was pacing before the throne like a stranger who didn't trust the ground beneath him.
Kyrell's voice was small. "I remember a forest. The snow. Your hand… maybe."
Lucian swallowed. "You remember me."
"I remember pain," Kyrell said quietly, almost ashamed. "And longing… but your face? I don't know it anymore."
Lucian stepped forward, but Kyrell flinched.
It was worse than rejection. This was erasure. Someone—or something—had torn at the threads of their bond, severing memory like a rope in flame.
A spell.
Lucian's thoughts raced. It had Mara's stench all over it.
But there was something deeper, darker… a manipulation not just of mind, but soul. As if the throne itself recoiled from what Kyrell had become—or refused to become.
Lucian raised a hand. Not to touch, not this time, but to show he would wait. "You don't have to remember everything right now. Just stay. That's all I ask."
Kyrell's eyes shimmered, confusion battling the tears. "Why do I feel like my heart was buried here… and you were the one who dug it up?"
Lucian didn't answer. He couldn't.
---
Above them, Mara staggered.
The spell had taken root—but it fought her. The connection between Lucian and Kyrell was not made of delicate threads. It was bone-deep. Ancient. Fated.
She pressed the dagger to her palm, drawing blood. "You will forget him," she whispered again, voice trembling now. "You will forget…"
But the candle nearest her sputtered and died.
Behind her, the shadows laughed.
"You toy with things older than you, witch," a voice hissed from the dark.
Mara turned—and saw not a council elder, not a ghost, but a being without name. Cloaked in black fire, eyes dripping silver.
"You awaken the prophecy by trying to snuff it."
Mara gasped. "You—You're one of them."
The creature tilted its head. "No. I am what comes after them."
And then it vanished.
Leaving Mara with a scar across her soul.
---
Meanwhile, Renak ran through the lower passageways, the letter still clutched in his fingers.
The truth scratched out beside Lucian's name still burned in his mind:
The Blood That Should Never Rise Shall Rise Again.
The Flame That Was Banished Shall Love It.
He stopped when he reached the sealed door.
But someone was already there.
Damien.
Waiting.
Renak's voice was ice. "Move."
Damien didn't flinch. "He's mine."
"You think this is about possession?" Renak hissed. "They're breaking the world to be together."
"And I'll break them," Damien said, smile sharp as a fang. "Before fate does."
---