The stench of damp stone and rusted iron clung heavily to the prison, the air thick with the echoes of dripping water. Torchlight flickered against the walls with casting long, uneasy shadows that swayed across the cells. Then Magnus descended the narrow stairway with his aide, Lucas, at his side.
Behind them, armored knights marched in step with their boots thundering against the stone floor. The guards stationed by the cells stood at attention as the heir approached and their presence was a silent reminder that no prisoner here was above the law—
not even the mother and grandfather of Magnus himself.
After seeing Magnus, Maliah clung to the bars like a woman who's being possessed with her once delicate hands now filthy and a gown that's nothing but rags.
"How dare you! How dare you do this to me? Without me, you're nothing!" she shrieked, her voice cutting through the prison like broken glass.
Lucas flinched at her fury but said nothing while his sharp eyes scanning the prisoners as if they were strangers to be judged, not kin to his lord.
"You brought this upon yourself, Mother," Magnus replied coldly with tone calm but edged with finality.
"I gave you countless chances to stop but you never did."
The torches hissed as if in agreement with the flames twisting with every word.
Then Maliah's swollen eyes glared at him. "Ungrateful child! If I had known you would betray me like this, I never should have given birth to you!"
But Magnus did not flinch and his face was as unreadable as stone. Her shrill words rang through the prison but to him they were just hollow echoes—things he had heard all his life until they lost all meaning.
Never once in his youth had his mother's voice carried warmth or praise; only demands, hunger and endless gnaw of her greed. Now, watching her thrash and rage against the bars, he felt nothing but the cold certainty that she had become the architect of her own ruin.
Meanwhile, Lord Ardan, hunched in the corner lifted his head at last. His once-proud frame was now slumped beneath shabby clothes, hair unkempt as his face was pale with rage. Then his eyes locked on Magnus with a fury that made even the guards stiffen.
"How dare you cast aside your family? Do you even know what you've done?" Lord Ardan's voice thundered through the dungeon with his fury echoing off the damp stone walls.
Magnus only lowered his gaze toward him then shifted briefly to his mother. Maliah had collapsed to her knees, her hands covering her face with her sobs muffled and pitiful that she looked utterly broken and even pathetic.
"That's amusing, Grandfather," Magnus said coldly. "Are you certain you're hearing yourself right now?"
For a heartbeat, the prison seemed to tighten around him with his mother's shrill cries, his grandfather's burning fury and the weight of the knights' watchful silence pressing in on him.
Yet he did not falter. "You used me as a pawn for your hunger for power but that ends today."
Pity stirred in him though fragile, fleeting and unwanted. But he forced it down as though crushing a spark before it could grow. Turning away, he lifted a hand, signaling for Lucas to follow.
Just before stepping into the dark corridor, he cast one last glance at his mother over his shoulder.
"Tomorrow, I will beg the king for your exile, not the gallows. That is the last mercy I can give you."
After that, his boots struck against the stone floor, steady and unyielding that each step carrying him further from the blood betrayed him. Behind him, the prison erupted into chaos where Maliah's wails tearing with grief and rage with Ardan's curses scorching the air with hatred.
Though the knights at their posts shifted uneasily, no one dared to speak.
And in the flickering torchlight, Magnus's shadow stretched long and thin across the dungeon walls—a son who had cut the final thread to his bloodline.
Meanwhile, somewhere around the Evadene Kingdom, when Rowan finally stirred awake, the first thing he noticed was that the ceiling above him that didn't belong to any place he recognized. Blinking against the dim candlelight, he shifted and froze when his gaze caught the figure of Zalyric, seated in a chair, head tilted back in sleep and arms folded across his chest.
Then Rowan's stomach twisted with shame.
He was supposed to be the one guarding the king and yet here he was, tucked into bed like some wounded child while His Majesty kept watch.
"Argh… shit, this is so embarrassing," he muttered under his breath, shoving the blanket aside as quietly as he could.
He rose carefully, tiptoeing toward the door but the floor betrayed him with a sharp creak splitting the silence.
"Leaving without showing gratitude?" Zalyric's voice cut through the air, calm yet edged. "How shameless can you be?"
Slowly, he turned back while forcing an awkward smile as he rubbed the back of his neck.
"A-ahem… Thank you for the bandage, sir. I mean—Your Majesty." He thrust out his arm while awkwardly gesturing to the cast as if it were proof of his appreciation.
Then Zalyric unfolded from the chair, rising to his full height as he strode toward him. There, the dim candlelight painted sharp shadows across his face and Rowan found himself instinctively leaning back as the king loomed over him.
"Woah… how tall—" The words slipped out before he could realize it and so, he slapped a hand over his mouth, mortified and stumbled a step backward.
When Zalyric said nothing and simply stared at him, Rowan noticed two things at once—his hood and the bottle of his inhibitor was missing. Then panic stirred in his chest and with a flimsy excuse, he scrambled back to the bed, eyes darting to every corner as if searching for a lifeline.
"Looking for this?"
Rowan froze hearing that behind him.
Turning his head, he saw Zalyric holding the bottle between his fingers, tilting it slightly with sharp gaze and unreadable expression in the candlelight.
"Oh no. Shit. If this jerk finds out I'm actually an omega. If he knows…" Rowan swallowed hard while his instinct was flaring like a storm in his chest.
"You…"
Rowan's breath stuttered as he lowered his gaze while trying to steady his nervous breaths.
"You have insomnia? But you were shamelessly asleep in my presence."
"…Eh?" Rowan blinked and dumbfounded before realizing what the king meant.
"O–oh, yes, Your Majesty. I… sometimes struggle with sleep. That's why I carry sleeping pills with me." His words tumbled out awkwardly as he shuffled forward, extending his palm stiffly toward Zalyric while waiting or maybe hoping for the bottle to be returned.
Thank goodness. Seriously, thank every god out there that the grand duke made damn sure these capsules don't have those stupid omega symbols printed on them or I'm doomed!