Suggested listening: "Nox Aeterna" – Audiomachine
They were back to Lucian's chamber...
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The fire hadn't gone out.
It had merely shifted.
Lucian could feel it coiling beneath his skin as the night dragged its velvet shawl across the palace. The council chambers were silent now—too silent. The kind of quiet that came after something ancient had stirred and then gone still again, pretending to slumber.
Kyrell from exhaustion went straight to the bed they now shared, bare-chested, his skin kissed by the faint moonlight filtering through the latticed balcony. His breathing was calm, unaware of the crackling darkness rising at the edges of Lucian's awareness.
But Lucian wasn't calm.
Not anymore.
He approached Kyrell slowly, fingers brushing over the mark he had left at the curve of Kyrell's throat—the bond was sealed, their fates intertwined in flesh and soul. And yet... something crawled through his mind like ash returning to a dead hearth.
Something burned that shouldn't have.
Lucian rose and walked to the edge of the chamber, staring into the courtyard below. The shadows gathered unnaturally there. Like a fog born of things long buried. Things that had smiled when the world bled.
He whispered, almost to himself. "It should have ended…"
But something answered.
"You should have killed me properly."
Lucian turned. The temperature dropped like a blade of ice against the spine.
There he was.
Silas.
Not in flesh, not entirely—his form shimmered, half real, half nightmare. Skin peeled and seared from the flames Lucian had bathed him in, but his eyes—those serpentine green eyes—still glowed with intent.
"You died." Lucian's voice didn't tremble, but rage coiled around it.
"I survived," Silas said. "The blood remembers what it's owed, Lucian. Even when the flesh forgets. You didn't destroy me. You marked me."
Lucian stepped forward, his nails lengthening without thought, fangs grazing his lower lip. "You want a second death? I'll make it last."
But Silas didn't flinch.
He smiled.
"You gave yourself to him," Silas said, head tilting toward the slumbering Kyrell. "How precious. The Heir and the Curse. Together in a bed of silk and sin. But fate doesn't end in a kiss, Lucian."
Silas took a step forward, the floor beneath his ghost-form freezing.
"Your love will ruin you. It already has."
Lucian surged forward, his hands glowing now with something deeper than rage—something sacred and blood-bound. "You won't touch him."
"I don't have to," Silas whispered. "You already have."
And just like that—he vanished.
The shadows dissipated. The chamber warmed again.
Lucian stood in place, breath caught in his chest, the scent of death still lingering faintly on the air.
Behind him, Kyrell stirred and walked up to him.
"Lucian?" His voice was soft, laced with the remnants of dream. "You're cold…"
Lucian turned,held him slipped back into the bed, pulling him close. His fingers sank into Kyrell's hair, his lips pressing against the place he had marked. He didn't speak of what he saw. Not yet.
But as Kyrell fell back into sleep against his chest, Lucian stared at the ceiling, eyes wide open.
The past wasn't done.
And neither was Silas.
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