~ALARIC'S POV
The desk smelled wrong.
It didn't smell of ink and stone, not of old parchment or warded metal, and I know because those were the scents that belonged to this chamber, and I've lived among them for centuries.
The scent that filled the air was Alchemical. The kind of order that did not come from habit, but from repetition.
Elixirs.
I did not touch them at first. I let my senses trace their presence, the way the space around them bent and responded. Dozens of glass vials that were perfectly aligned, each one of them pulsed with the same quiet rhythm, as if they had been waiting far longer than they should have.
They had been waiting for Years.
The realization settled slowly, and heavily.
Every month they had been prepared, refined, and adjusted with care meant only for him. I had followed up the process myself, corrected formulas, strengthened bindings, ensured stability.
And still they remained in the Bureau. Unused.
My jaw tightened as my fingers finally came to rest on the edge of the desk. The vials were cold beneath my touch with their seals intact and untouched.
Zephyrus had placed them here without comment. Without his usual irreverence. That silence spoke louder than any accusation he could have made.
I heard footsteps crossed the threshold behind me, but I did not turn.
Lucian's presence did not need sight to be known. He stopped just short of my wards, close enough to be heard, far enough to remain guarded.
"How long?" I asked.
But all I got in return was silence, and that made me lift my head up to stare at where his body was.
"I—"
"How long," I asked evenly, "have you been lying to me?"
He did not answer immediately. I felt the pause in the way his breathing slowed, as if he were choosing the safest truth to offer.
"Years," he said.
The word struck deeper than any raised voice ever could.
I drew in a slow breath and let my hand move across the desk, going from one vial to another, feeling the smooth glass which contained identical composition without errors.
Every month they were to be refined and made better than the previous month. He was supposed to pick them up and consume them, but instead, he ignored them.
"Why," I asked.
Lucian did not step closer. He did not retreat either.
"I didn't need them." The lie was thin. Practiced, but thin.
"They are not optional," I said. "They were made for you."
"I was still functional."
The wards reacted before my temper did. A low heat rolled outward across the stone, and was like a warning drawn from deep beneath my control.
"You decided," I said, turning slightly toward him now, "what I was allowed to know."
I could feel his silence gnawing at him, from the shift in his weight to the tension settling into his shoulders as it always had whenever he was cornered.
"I decided not to become a weakness." He replied carefully.
My fingers curled against the desk, making the glass chime faintly beneath the pressure. The elixirs trembled in response, not from touch, but from me.
"You chose isolation and called it strength," I said. "You chose to bleed quietly rather than trust me."
"I didn't want—"
"To disappoint me?" I cut in, my voice low and controlled which made his breath catch, just once.
"You are not a soldier under my command," I continued. "You are my brother. And you do not get to decide that your suffering is acceptable."
My tone came out sharper than I intended it to, but Lucian did not flinch.
He never did.
"I can explain," He quietly said.
I lifted my chin slightly. My sight did not matter. My attention was fixed on him all the same.
"Then speak," I replied. "Because whatever you say next decides how much damage you have truly done."
He drew a slow breath.
"They stopped working." He started. "They never worked the way you hoped," Lucian continued, his voice steady in a way that made my chest tighten. "Not the way we were promised. Not the way Mother believed."
I hummed. "Explain."
Lucian stepped closer, and I felt him cross the invisible boundary of distance, his presence pressing faintly against the room.
"The elixirs were meant to sharpen my sight," he said. "To untangle it. To make the visions clearer, and useful."
He paused.
"They never did."
I said nothing.
"When Mother was alive," he went on, "I thought if I endured it long enough, something would change. That eventually I would see a warning. A moment that mattered. Something I could act on."
His voice tightened, barely.
"But all I ever saw were fragments. Overlapping images. Voices without direction. Faces without time. Nothing stable. Nothing that could be trusted."
The chamber felt colder.
"When Kaeloth moved against her," Lucian said quietly, "I saw nothing."
The words settled into me slowly, like a blade sliding between ribs.
"No omen. No clarity. If the elixirs had done what they were meant to do, I would have seen her. I would have gone to her. I would have stopped it."
I closed my hand fully around one vial.
"And after," I asked, "what did you do?"
"I kept taking them," he replied without hesitation. "For years. Out of hope. Out of spite. Out of refusal to accept that they had failed."
A breath passed.
"They never changed. The visions stayed broken, so I stopped."
It was not defiance.
It was resignation.
I lowered my hand from the desk, making the elixirs still. "You should have told me," I said.
"I know." He replied in a defeated tone.
The silence stretched between us, and was heavy with everything neither of us had said.
I turned my head toward him again.
"The task," I said. "Outside the realm."
Lucian straightened instinctively, and the shift in his demeanor was immediate. The brother in him receded, and the warrior side of him surfaced.
"It was a trap," he said. "Someone wanted to see if I would come alone. The information came through a shadowed intermediary. Accurate enough to be credible."
"And you followed it."
"Yes. Through the dead seas. Into a cavern saturated with forbidden magic. Five operatives of Shadow Covenant."
I clenched my jaw.
"One survived," he added. "A rogue demon. He has been using prohibited bindings, soul compression, and memory inversion which is dangerous but unstable."
"What did he tell you?"
"That the Covenant will be present at the banquet tonight," Lucian said. "Not openly, but they will observe, listen and wait"
I hummed as I absorbed that information. "You will question him after the banquet."
Lucian inclined his head once.
"I would have sent Zephyrus," I added. "But he would burn the truth out of him before extracting anything useful."
A faint laughter escaped Lucian.
"He lacks patience."
"He lacks restraint," I corrected. "You do not.
I turned slightly away, my fingers brushing the surface of the desk again. This time I did not reach for the elixirs. I touched the stone beneath them instead, grounding myself in something solid.
"You will handle the interrogation later," I said. "For now, you have other responsibilities."
"Yes, brother."
The banquet would proceed. And whatever had been set in motion would not remain hidden for long.
Lucian moved toward the door.
I heard it before he realized I would. The hesitation in his step. The way his breath caught for half a second. His hand hovered near the handle without touching it, fingers suspended as though weighing a choice already made.
He had more to say.
"Tell me," I said.
Lucian stopped.
Then he turned back and crossed the chamber again with a hesitant pace. He did not remain standing. He took the seat opposite me, the chair giving a soft creak beneath his weight.
"Brother," he said.
The word carried weight when Lucian used it like that. Stripped of formality which made me aware that what he was about to say was personal.
"I saw something."
My posture did not change, but my attention sharpened.
"What did you see?"
Lucian drew in a slow breath. "It was nights ago. Before the pursuit."
He chose his words carefully.
"The vision was fragmented as they always are. No clear order. No sound that made sense, just layers of moments that refused to settle."
My fingers tightened once against the armrest.
"And yet," I said quietly, "you recognized it."
"Yes."
His voice lowered. "Her face stood out."
The chamber seemed to shrink at his words.
"Dove," he continued. "I saw her clearly. Clearer than anything else. It was only a glimpse, but unmistakably her."
I waited.
"She was in pain," Lucian said. "Not fear. Not confusion, but real pain that wasn't brief. It lingered as if she had already been enduring it for some time."
Something heavy settled in my chest, and I didn't like it,
"There was blood," he added. "On her skin. On her clothes. I could not identify a single wound, only the evidence that she was close to the edge of her strength."
His hands clasped loosely on the desk.
"I could not hear anything, because the voices were distant and muffled, like sound trapped beneath stone. But her face remained." He sighed. "That was the only thing that stayed."
Silence followed after his words.
I leaned back slightly, the cold stone of the throne pressing against my spine. I turned his words over and over in my mind, testing their weight.
Lucian believed his visions were useless.
I never had.
They had warned us before. Not cleanly, not always in time, but never without meaning.
I hummed once, low and thoughtful.
Lucian looked at me, searching my expression even though he knew it would reveal nothing.
"You will collect your elixirs at the Bureau by the end of the month," I said, with a command that was final and nonnegotiable.
"Yes, brother."
I dismissed him with a slight motion of my hand.
Lucian rose from his seat, and I felt him hesitate for a fraction of a second longer before leaving the chamber. The door closed behind him with a muted click, and the wards settled.
I was alone again, but the silence had changed.
His words echoed in my thoughts, threading themselves into something heavier than strategy or duty.
Dove.
Pain.
Blood.
I exhaled slowly.
Even blind, I could feel the implications pressing down on me. This weight was unfamiliar. It wasn't a weight that belonged to war or governance. I had faced rebellion, betrayal, and annihilation without faltering.
But this was different.
If Lucian had seen her suffering-
I did not allow the thought to finish.
I had always treated his visions with caution, never dismissal. Possibility and probability mattered more, and now a fragile human stood at the center of something I could not yet see, but could already feel drawing closer.
For the first time in my life, I did not know how to interpret what lay ahead.
Nor did I know how to prevent it.
And that uncertainty was what unsettled me most.