TIME JUMP ☆ TWO YEARS LATER
The transition from five to seven years old is usually a time of scraped knees and the first loss of baby teeth. But for the children of the Triple Crown, those two years were a slow-motion descent into a fractured reality. The palace, once a playground of laughter and "weird hugs," had become a labyrinth of secrets.
The Rotting Silk
For two years, Lily had played the part of the perfect aunt. She had convinced Arion that Calix's sensitivity required a special, quiet curriculum. But behind the closed doors of the West Wing, she was weaving a web of hypnotic mana. She didn't use pain—she used absence. She taught Calix how to sink his consciousness, effectively putting his true self into a deep, mana induced hibernation so she could mold his exterior into a perfect, obedient weapon.
Kenzo saw it first. Because they were twins, he felt the hollow space where Calix's spark used to be. He watched as Calix's amber eyes grew darker and darker, losing their golden fire and becoming like stagnant pools of ink. Calix stopped drawing. He stopped laughing. He became a doll that moved when Lily spoke and stood still when she left.
☆ Two Years Later: The Status Quo ☆
The triplets had reached the age of seven. Celine had become the academic star of the primary royal academy. She was a genius, skipping grades and burying her nose in logistics and law books. She used her intelligence as a shield, trying to ignore the way the atmosphere in the nursery had curdled. If she was the perfect student, maybe the family wouldn't fall apart.
Aiden, now twelve, had finally entered the Northern Military Academy. But the perfect heir was unraveling. He was constantly in trouble—brawling with older cadets, breaking curfew, and disregarding orders.
Academy Disciplinary Note: Cadet Aiden Blackwood displays exceptional tactical prowess but possesses a volatile temper. He appears distracted, frequently found staring toward the Southern horizon during drills.
Aiden hadn't heard a single word from Lorcan in two years. No letters, no messengers, nothing. The silence from the South was a vacuum that sucked the joy out of his life. He was a twelve year old Alpha with too much power and nowhere to direct his longing, so he directed it at the training dummies and the faces of anyone who looked at him wrong.
It happened on a Tuesday. Calix was sitting at the dinner table, his eyes fixed on a spot an inch above his plate. He hadn't blinked in three minutes.
"Calix, eat your peas," Arion said gently.
Calix picked up his fork with the mechanical precision of a clockwork toy. He didn't look at Arion. He didn't look at Kenzo. He just... existed.
Kenzo's grip on his own fork tightened until the silver bent. He looked at Lily, who was sitting across from them, smiling innocently as she sipped her wine. The burnt sugar scent of Kenzo's Alpha aura suddenly spiked, turning into the smell of scorched earth.
"He's not there," Kenzo whispered.
"What was that, Kenzo?" Kyon asked, looking up from his parchment.
"HE'S NOT THERE!" Kenzo shouted, standing up so fast his chair toppled. He grabbed Calix's arm. "Come on. We're leaving."
"Kenzo, sit down," Arion commanded, but Kenzo was already dragging the limp, unresponsive Calix out of the dining hall.
Lily started to rise. "I should go after them, he's just being—"
"No," Kyon said, his eyes narrowing as he watched the twins disappear. "Let them go. I want to see where this leads."
Kenzo didn't stop at the nursery. He dragged Calix through the servant tunnels, out the side gate, and through the snow dusted woods toward the nearby town of Frost Reach. Calix followed without a word, his feet shuffling through the slush, his dark eyes staring at nothing.
They reached the Black Mirror Lake, a body of water fed by a glacier. It was so cold it steamed in the autumn air.
"Calix, look at me!" Kenzo screamed, shaking his brother by the shoulders. "Say something! Tell me to shut up! Bite me again! Just do something!"
Calix just tilted his head, a faint, empty smile on his face. "Aunt Lily says we must be quiet, Kenzo. Quiet is safe."
"I Hate quiet!" Kenzo roared.
With a surge of Alpha strength, Kenzo hoisted Calix up and threw him directly into the freezing lake.
The splash was violent. The water was a temperature that shocked the heart and paralyzed the lungs. For a second, Calix vanished beneath the black surface. Then, a gasp echoed across the water—a real, raw, human sound of terror.
Calix broke the surface, his hands thrashing. His eyes, for the first time in years, flashed with bright, panicked gold. The mana suppression Lily had placed on him was a delicate weave,it wasn't designed to survive a massive, full body thermal shock. The cold water snapped the hypnotic threads.
Kenzo dove in, grabbing Calix and hauling him back to the muddy shore. They both collapsed on the bank, shivering violently.
"Kenzo?" Calix coughed, spitting out lake water. He looked around, his face twisting in confusion. "Why...why are we at the lake? Why is it so cold?"
"You're back," Kenzo sobbed, throwing his arms around his soaking wet brother. "You've been gone for two years, you idiot!"
As they huddled together, Kenzo wrapped his cloak around both of them. Slowly, the memories began to trickle back into Calix's mind—not as events, but as dreams.
"It felt like I was sleeping, Kenzo," Calix whispered, his teeth chattering. "I could hear you talking, but I couldn't reach my mouth to answer. Lily...she would tell me that the world was too loud. She told me to go into the dark room in my head and stay there so I wouldn't hurt anyone. I thought I was protecting you by being quiet."
"She was brainwashing you," Kenzo hissed, his small face hardening with a lethal, adult like rage. "She turned you into a doll so she could use you."
"I don't remember much," Calix admitted, his eyes tearing up. "Just her voice. Always her voice. And the smell of cold dead flowers . I...I was so lonely in there, Kenzo."
When the twins returned to the palace, they didn't go to their parents. They went straight to the West Wing.
Lily was in the hallway, looking frantic but trying to hide it. When she saw the soaking wet twins, she rushed forward. "Calix! My goodness, what happened? Kenzo, you've gone too far this time—"
She reached out to grab Calix's hand.
Kenzo didn't hesitate. He didn't report her. He didn't yell. He lunged.
The seven year old Alpha attacked his aunt, his small teeth baring as he lunged for her arm, the same way calix had bitten him years before. He tackled her with such ferocity that they both hit the wall.
"DON'T TOUCH HIM!" Kenzo roared, his voice vibrating with a power that shook the tapestries.
Lily pushed him off, her face twisted in a brief, ugly mask of fury before she smoothed it back into innocence. "You little brat! I was trying to help him!"
"You're a liar and worse than a viper," Kenzo spat, standing in front of Calix like a shield. "And if you ever come near him again, I don't care if you're my aunt. I'll kill you!."
Lily opened her mouth to retort, but she stopped. Arion and Kyon were standing at the end of the hall. Arion was looking at the wet, shivering Calix—whose eyes were now bright gold and filled with tears—and then at Lily.
The Serpent's Smile was finally beginning to fail.
While the younger ones were at war, Aiden sat in his barracks at the Academy, miles away. He was nursing a bruised knuckle from a fight he'd had earlier that day.
He pulled out the locket Lorcan had left him—or rather, the locket he had made from the hair he'd found. He hadn't heard from the South in 730 days.
"Six years, Lorc," Aiden whispered. "I'm twelve now. I'm almost a man. Are you even still the same person? Or are you a stranger too?"
He looked at the tactical map of the South on his wall. He didn't care about the Academy rules anymore. If Lorcan wouldn't come to the North, then in four years, Aiden would take the Northern army and go find him himself. He stood up pointing his fist high . " I'll come look for you lorc."