Chapter 3 · The Most Devoted Puppy in Three Realms (2)

"You don't buy it." Kael finally lifted his eyes, and the candlelight swam in the crimson, two burning lakes. "But you hurt for me. I saw your eyes go red."

"It's the candle smoke."

"Ah." He nodded seriously. "I'll put out the candles, then—"

"Sit down!" She glared. "Eat."

"Yes."

He sat up straight, obedient as a schoolboy called to order. The sovereign who made three realms tremble now radiated the energy of a child at kindergarten graduation. Liora looked down at her steak and fought to keep the laugh in her chest.

The dinner ended in strange, warm quiet. Kael rose to clear the plates, and the black veins crawled up his neck—he froze, yanked his collar up, and turned with perfect composure. "Sleep well. I'll drive you to work."

"Kael."

He stopped.

Liora set down her cutlery. Her voice was level. "When you grabbed your chest just now, I saw it. What are the black veins?"

He was silent long enough that she thought he wouldn't answer. Then he turned, and the candlelight caught his face in profile, and he said, one word at a time:

"A price."

"For what?"

"For loving you." He said it simply, like a tax he'd filed for twelve thousand years. "Noctharin are born without love. The moment we feel it, our souls tear, our power burns back on us, and we live forever with our hearts on fire. Every life, this is how I've survived—by wanting you, by hurting, by knowing who I'm hurting for."

He looked at her, and smiled. The smile was too light, too brief, and it stopped Liora's breath.

"My throne, my darkness, my eternity—all yours. Even if the price is that every time I think of you, it feels like my world is grinding me to powder."

She stood in the candlelight, looking at him, unable to speak.

Deep in her body, in a place older than memory, something was cracking open. She didn't know why she said the words. Her voice was hoarse, and wet, like an echo that had waited twelve thousand years for a mouth:

"I'd burn the whole world down just to keep you."

They both froze.

"…What did you say?" Kael's voice was raw.

"I don't know." Liora stepped back, hands shaking. "I—I didn't mean to say that. I don't know why—"

She watched the crimson flood his eyes, then slowly recede. He stood there for a long, long time. When he spoke, his voice was a whisper:

"That's what you said to me… the first life. On our wedding night."

Her mind went white.

Her phone erupted. Marcus: "Liora! Another body! Fresh one, just died! But he spoke before he went—he spoke in YOUR voice! Same two lines—'He lies. He always lies. Trust the blade.'—Liora, do you know a blade?!"

Liora gripped the phone, blood running cold.

She turned to the window. Rain was starting again. On the star chart behind the throne, a single star was dying.

Kael stood three steps away, looking at her, and for the first time something like fear crossed his face—thin, almost invisible. "Little star. Whatever you see tonight—don't believe it."

"Believe what?"

He didn't answer.

Late that night, Liora lay in the "guest room"—a bed large enough for five people, unable to sleep. The pillow smelled of cedar and ash. His smell. She closed her eyes, and all she could see was his face when he'd said price, and his voice when he'd said our wedding night.

She opened her eyes.

On the nightstand was a knife.

She hadn't brought it. She'd arrived with one bag, and the bag had no knife. But there it was: a short silver dagger in the moonlight, inverted star on the sheath, identical to the Voss badge. Identical to Iris's promise: Tomorrow, it will appear at your bedside.

She reached out. Her fingers closed around the hilt.

The world changed.

Memory flooded in—fire. A burning manor. A woman in a Victorian gown kneeling in the flames, a swaddled infant in her arms, and in front of her, Kael. Sword in hand, blade dripping. Dozens of bodies at his feet. The fire dragged his shadow long and black.

"You killed them!" the woman screamed. "You killed them all!"

Kael didn't speak. He lifted his hand, wiped the blood from his face, drove the sword into the earth, and knelt. Knelt before the woman, voice wrecked:

"Give me the child. I'll carry every curse for you. You survive."

"Get away!" The woman clutched the infant. "Don't touch him! Monster!"

The vision shattered.

Liora gasped awake, drenched in sweat, heart pounding, hand shaking on the hilt. She couldn't tell if it was a vision or a memory, but her body remembered the pain—the pain of being called monster by the person you loved most. It hurt so much she couldn't breathe.

She looked down at the dagger. The fine lines on the blade were glowing, pulsing like veins. And a voice rose out of it—a woman's voice, worn by twelve thousand years of exhaustion and regret:

"Don't. You'll regret it. I did—for a thousand years."

Liora's head snapped up.

Outside, the rain had returned. The entire block went dark at once—streetlights, neon, apartment windows, all dead. The lit window at the top of Ashveil Tower went dark too.

Then she heard it. Kael's voice, from impossibly far away, through the rain and the dark and twelve thousand years of distance, landing in her ear like a wire pulled to its breaking point: