Kaelen's mind raced faster than his feet.
Idiot. Fool. Romantic fool.
Control yourself.
The litany matched his stride, a punishing rhythm that echoed the frantic beat of his heart. He'd hesitated when he should have acted, been captivated when he should have been cold. Now Sorana was bleeding out in his arms, her breath shallow and wet, and Aurelia—perfect, trembling, infuriating Aurelia—was clutching his arm, her purple eyes wide with a trust he felt utterly unworthy of.
He had to get them to safety before anyone would notice.
Especially that barking one, he thought with a surge of protective irritation. His brother, Tenebrarum, had the subtlety of a hurricane and the discretion of a town crier.
If he saw Aurelia in this state—blood-streaked, trembling, with a half-dead guardian in Kaelen's arms—he wouldn't ask questions. He'd simply start a war, shouting down the halls until the entire court boiled over. And then everyone, friend and foe, would know exactly where they were, and how vulnerable they were.
The hallway stretched before him, a gauntlet of shadow and gilt. Every closed door felt like a watching eye.
"Is she breathing?" Aurelia's voice was a frayed thread of sound beside him.
"She is," Kaelen gritted out, adjusting his grip. Sorana was lighter than he expected, a bundle of bones and fading warmth. "But not for long if we don't stop this bleeding."
His own chambers were not far—a sanctuary of stone and silence, stocked with basic field dressings from a lifetime of quieter conflicts. It was a risk, bringing them there. It would draw a line, publicly choosing a side. But the alternative was leaving them in a hallway, or worse, returning them to the vipers' nest of the ladies' wing.
He shouldered his door open, the heavy oak yielding with a familiar groan. The room beyond was stark, masculine, and dimly lit by a single, low-burning hearth.
"Lay her on the bed," Aurelia instructed, her fear momentarily submerged beneath a surge of desperate purpose.
Kaelen did as she said, settling Sorana gently onto the white wool blankets. In the steady firelight, the wounds looked even more vicious—four parallel trenches torn from temple to jaw, welling with dark, sluggish blood.
Aurelia's hands hovered, trembling. She looked from the wounds to Kaelen.
Questions screaming in her silence: What do I do?
He moved to a carved chest against the wall, pulling out a clean linen shirt and a bottle of clear, sharp-smelling spirits.
"Here," he said, his voice softening despite himself. He couldn't bear the helplessness in her eyes. "Press this firmly to the wounds. It will sting her, but it must be done."
As Aurelia knelt beside the bed, applying the makeshift bandage with a tenderness that twisted something in his chest, Kaelen turned to the door. He slid the heavy iron bolt home with a final, resonant thud.
The sound sealed them in. For now, they were safe.
But as he looked at Aurelia's bowed head, her shoulders shaking with silent effort, and Sorana's pale, still form, he knew the true danger was just beginning.
Camilla's words hung in the air of his own mind, clearer than they had been in the chaos of her chamber:
This is not over.
"She's too cold," she said, not looking up. "Her skin… it's going grey."
Kaelen moved closer. She was right.
Even beyond the blood, a pallor was settling into Sorana's skin, a creeping, unnatural chill that had nothing to do with the room's temperature. This wasn't just a wound. This was a poison—a corruption only a creature like Camilla could leave behind.
"The bleeding's slowing," Aurelia whispered, and now, he heard the dawning horror in her tone. "But she's not getting better."
Kaelen's jaw tightened. The instinct to keep her safe warred with the duty to tell her the truth.
Sorana may not survive unless a strong healer is called now.
"I'll call a healer."
Kaelen rushed to the door, hand outstretched for the bolt.
Then—
Tharsk.
The door exploded a second before he touched it.
A blast of splintered wood and furious energy hurled him backwards. Kaelen hit the floor hard, shielding his face as shards of oak hissed through the air.
And as he'd feared, it was Tenebrarum.
He filled the ruined doorway, a tower of sculpted shadow and cold rage. His mask was firmly in place, its polished surface reflecting the chaotic scene in distorted fragments.
His gaze—felt more than seen behind the mask's slits—swept the room. It dismissed Kaelen struggling to rise. It lingered for a cold moment on Sorana's still form. Then it locked onto Aurelia.
"So you came to his chamber?"
His question hit the air like a physical blow, sharp and cold, striking Aurelia full in the face. He did not raise his voice. He did not need to.
Aurelia's lips parted, but no sound came. A cold, quiet paralysis had sealed her throat shut. She could only stare into the polished void of his mask, seeing her own fractured reflection staring back—pale, streaked with blood, and utterly speechless.
Kaelen shoved himself up from the floor, one hand braced against the stone. "Do not touch her," he gritted out, his voice raw with impact and rising fury. "This is your fault. All of it. She's entangled in this mess because of you."
Tenebrarum's masked head turned, slow and deliberate, toward his brother. The silence that followed was heavier than the splintered door.
"Fool. I would advise you to remain silent."
Tenebrarum's voice was not just loud—it was layered, deepening into something that vibrated in the marrow. Kaelen felt the change in the air before he saw it: a thickening pressure, the scent of ozone and cold stone.
Fuck.
Was Tenebrarum shifting?
The beast form of him was rising beneath the skin, stretching the seams of his human form. The mask seemed to fuse more tightly to his face, and the shadows around him grew denser, alive with a contained violence.
Kaelen froze.
A memory struck him like a blade to the gut: the last time he had seen Tenebrarum shed the last vestige of his control. The first time he saw him shift. The air had been thick like this, too—charged and suffocating.
It had been filled with screams. Wet, tearing sounds. He remembered running, the corridors as fast as he could, only to skid to a halt in a chamber drenched in silence.
A silence broken only by the steady drip… drip… drip… of blood on marble.
Blood everywhere.
Almost everyone present that night had been killed.
In the hushed, terrified whispers of the court, they called it the Devil's Fate.
And now, the air was curdling with that same metallic charge, that same predatory stillness that came before the slaughter.
Tenebrarum took one heavy, deliberate step forward. The floor seemed to groan beneath his weight—or perhaps that was the beast, testing its cage.
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To be continued...