The silence after gatherings have always felt heavier than the gathering itself.
Lucien noticed it every time.
The estate below had not truly gone quiet yet.
Voices still existed somewhere beneath the floors.
Faint laughter, glasses moving, and servants cleaning what remained of the night.
But distance dulled all of it into something softer.
Far enough to stop mattering.
As the night grew darker, his office remained untouched by the celebration.
Dark wood, tall windows, curtains half-drawn against the night beyond them, a fireplace reduced to embers, shelves lined with records older than most nations still standing, and Lucien himself, seated behind the desk as if the room had simply returned him where he belonged.
A glass rested in his hand. Blood wine, a delicacy among vampires, both sustenance and indulgence. Deep red beneath the dim light, carrying a warmth most of their kind no longer found in ordinary blood.
He stared at it for a moment before taking another slow sip.
Cold.
It had started tasting different years ago. The richness remained, but it no longer reached him the way it once did, as though his body remembered what it should be but could no longer respond to it the same way.
His fingers shifted slightly against the glass.
A small tremor. Gone almost immediately.
Lucien lowered his hand.
Silence returned.
Then—
Another hand around the glass.
Not his.
Older.
The skin darker than his, almost dead. Scars across the knuckles.
The image lasted less than a second before disappearing.
Lucien closed his eyes briefly.
"I know. I know. I'm handling the succession," he murmured under his breath.
The room did not answer him. But the feeling remained.
Layers.
That was the easiest way to describe it.
Not voices.
Not truly.
More like memories sitting too close to the surface.
Some nights were manageable. Others felt crowded and tonight felt crowded.
Lucien leaned back slightly in his chair, eyes drifting toward the ceiling above him. The succession always stirred them. He could feel it in his blood long before the invitations had even been sent.
Restlessness.
Something old inside the D'Arcel lineage was beginning to turn over in its sleep.
Another sip.
The wine touched his tongue—
And suddenly—
Silver.
The smell of burning flesh. Rain against stone. A woman screaming somewhere behind him while something sharp entered his ribs.
Not his memory.
Never his.
Lucien's gaze hardened slightly as the image vanished. His fingers pressed once against his temple.
"…Enough, ancestors."
The pressure eased, lingering faintly beneath the surface.
Outside the office windows, the estate grounds stretched beneath the moonlight.
Still immaculate as ever.
The D'Arcels had always excelled at appearances. Even during their race's collapse. Especially during their race's collapse.
Lucien exhaled slowly.
The disease was something only older vampires ever spoke of, and even then only in passing, like a warning that did not belong to the present.
It did not come from weakness in the usual sense.
It came from time itself, from living long enough that the body could no longer fully hold the weight of what it had become.
For most, it appeared after centuries of standing too close to the lineage they inherited, when the blood had stagnated for so long as they held it for so long.
Lucien had begun showing signs years ago.
Outwardly, nothing changed. He still moved as expected, still spoke as required, still stood as the D'Arcel representative without hesitation. But the strain remained hidden beneath it all, carried quietly whenever he stepped outside these walls.
Only Charlotte had noticed the truth behind it, and only she had been close enough to help ease it when it became unbearable.
With how heretical her thinking was, he was still surprised a witch could ease the pain at all.
It was not a cure or salvation, only relief in small, controlled moments.
And in those moments they shared, something quietly settled between them. Not trust in the simple sense, but a steady familiarity that softened the edges of him. Lucien did not often allow himself to be seen, but with Charlotte, he stopped hiding quite so tightly.
A vampire could die from silver weapons, a stake driven through the heart that disrupted their mana flow, or spells strong enough to tear through most beings. In the end, it was their own blood that became the limit.
Lucien glanced toward the untouched stack of documents sitting near the edge of his desk.
Succession records. Old names. Old endings. Every generation pretending the ritual was tradition instead of a necessity.
Consume. For the betterment of the family.
That was the agreement.
The D'Arcels did not bury their leaders.
They carried them, carrying their memories and now acting as the new leader.
Lucien's gaze lowered toward his own reflection in the wine.
For a brief moment—
It changed.
Not his face but into another one. Then another. Then another.
Centuries layered over each other inside dark red glass.
One smiled.
One looked furious.
One looked exhausted.
Lucien stared until the reflection became his own again.
"…You're impatient," he said quietly, rubbing his temple.
Something brushed the edge of his thoughts.
Expectation.
The old blood in his blood is stagnating. It needs a new successor. An ending to Lucien as he has lived pass his time.
Lucien leaned back deeper into the chair.
His eyes drifted toward the ceiling again, though his focus had already moved elsewhere entirely.
Children.
The thought settled more heavily than expected.
Too many.
Too distant.
Some are ambitious. Some are angry. Some were already pretending they did not care whether they won or lost.
And Theodore—
Lucien's fingers paused slightly against the armrest.
That one remained difficult. Not because Theodore resembled him. Because he didn't. The boy carried too much of her.
Lucien closed his eyes briefly. Not intentionally. The memory came anyway.
Dark hair against white sheets. Weak breathing. A hand in his, colder than it should have been. And eyes looking at him without accusation, even near the end. That had always been the worst part. If she had hated him, it would have been easier.
Instead—
She just smiled towards him as she birthed Theodore in her last of her life.
Lucien opened his eyes again. The office returned around him slowly.
Quiet. Too quiet.
Just as it should be.
His hand lifted toward the glass again, though he stopped halfway.
The chair across from him suddenly carried the impression of someone sitting there.
A large figure. Broad shoulders. Rings across fingers. Gone when Lucien blinked. Another memory. Another predecessor. Another man he had consumed centuries ago.
The Scarlet Floret, the second calamity. He had killed him as he hid among the humans, acting as another hunter during the Great Silver Hunt, an event where supernaturals were still predominant with their huntings on humans, Barebloods and witches.
An ancestor of his, a calamity, he ate him as he should. With that, the supernaturals and witches enter an agreement of peace.
He was then regarded as the most influential among the vampires.
The fire crackled softly behind him.
Lucien finally stood from the desk.
Slowly.
Not because he lacked strength. Because rushing had become unnecessary centuries ago.
He crossed toward the windows overlooking the estate below.
Small figures still moved through the gardens, guests departing, politics continuing and children stepping into roles they barely understood yet.
His gaze lingered there quietly.
Then—
Theodore surfaced in his thoughts again.
Smiling as Charlotte's disciples, her coven daughters, all tease him with a girl that just waved at her.
Lucien's eyes narrowed slightly.
The boy still looked at everything like he expected it to disappear.
Even now.
Especially now.
Another memory surfaced without permission. A much younger Theodore was standing silently as he stare at the portrait of her mother during the winter.
Small hands. Quiet eyes. Watching Lucien leave.
He remembered that look.
Lucien's jaw tightened faintly.
He just stood there, exhaling quietly, disappointment settling in without expression.
The admission disappeared into the empty office.
A little too late to matter.
Behind him, the pressure in the room thickened again.
Restless.
The old blood is turning over once more, it never stopped.
Succession.
Succession.
Succession.
Lucien closed his eyes.
For a moment, dozens of memories pressed against him at once.
Wars, feeding halls, burning villages, silver weapons, hands reaching, and many more.
And it always ended the same way: in the succession ceremony, where the next in line consumed the one before them.
Again and again and again.
Generation after generation swallowing the one before them whole.
Accumulating their strength in every leader they consumed.
By now, Lucien would be regarded as an Arch-Witch in terms of witches. Or worse, he was already beyond it with how much their blood have been. A calamity, a berserker, a politician.
He was a monster to any Bareblood's eyes.
His eyes opened sharply. Silence returned immediately afterward. Only the office remained.
The wine glass in his hand, the moon outside, and the exhaustion was settling deeper into his bones.
Lucien stared out over the estate one last time.
Then quietly—
Almost thoughtfully—
He spoke into the empty room.
"I wonder which of you will end me."