I Loved You Like the Sun

Lucien couldn't breathe.

Not truly. Not deeply.

The air was there—thick with incense and sunlight—but it refused to enter his lungs. His chest rose, fell, hitched, stopped. His throat clenched like a vice, as if invisible hands were around it, squeezing. He was drowning in open air.

Roselyn was saying something—he could see her lips moving—but the sound didn't reach him. Her voice might as well have been coming from underwater, warbled and distant, as if the world itself had submerged.

The golden light pouring in through the window fractured, twisted. It wasn't warm anymore. It burned, glaring like divine judgment cast through stained glass.

His skin prickled as sweat drenched his back. Every muscle buzzed with fire ants. His heartbeat stuttered—raced—stopped—raced again, a chaotic drum beneath his ribs that refused rhythm or reason.

She's here. She's real. She's alive.

"Roselyn…" he croaked, but the name scraped out of his throat like broken glass, raw and jagged.

He laughed.

Too loud.

Too sharp.

It echoed against the stone walls like a crack in his soul.

"Of course. Of course it's you."

His fingers trembled uncontrollably as he stared at her. He couldn't tell if he wanted to embrace her or choke the life out of her. His hands—those same hands that once held her under moonlight—now itched for violence they couldn't justify.

Lucien knew this version of her hadn't done it. She hadn't betrayed him. Not yet. She didn't even know him. Not truly.

Yet for a man already insane—already half-dead and fully haunted—it was hard to draw a line between memory and moment.

A man already shattered into pieces through years of rebellion, of fire and blood, only to end with the love of his life hiding behind the man who ended his own.

Her betrayal replayed in his mind in violent bursts—like blades unsheathed too quickly, each memory slicing open another old wound.

No tears.

No grief.

No explanation.

And now she sat here, like nothing had happened. Like time had never passed. As if history hadn't died screaming in his veins.

"Duke Lucien?" she said again—gently, cautiously.

Too gently.

That voice.

That same, cursed voice.

No.

No.

No no no—

He gripped his temples.

The pressure built—like magma rising.

Then he screamed—a sound torn from the depths of his soul, ragged and animal.

The room twisted.

Walls pulsed. Shadows danced. The air grew loud—buzzing, warping, pressing against his skull with the force of a collapsing world.

His thoughts scattered like shattered glass. Some were sharp. Some were melting. All of them were screaming at once.

"She never cared. She's tricking you. She never loved you. This is a trick. A vision. A curse."

Lucien's breath hitched—shorter, sharper—spiraling into panic.

He stumbled out of the bed, half-naked, only wearing pants, dragging the sheets with him like a discarded skin. His legs buckled beneath him. He hit the wooden floor hard—hands scraping splinters—but didn't feel it.

He laughed again—guttural and manic. There was no joy in it. Just hysteria and ruin.

"Did you crawl out of my grave, Rosie?" he spat, voice cracking. "Did you come to finish the job?"

He swung wildly at the air, striking the empty space between them. She flinched—just barely—but didn't step back.

He hated her for that.

"What are you talking about!? Please, listen!" she pleaded.

"LISTEN?! I listened before! I trusted you before! I DIED for it!" he roared, rising with the ferocity of a storm uncaged.

A vase crashed to the ground behind him as he knocked into the side table. A pitcher shattered. Water, petals, and porcelain scattered across the room. His bare foot landed on a shard. He didn't flinch. Blood bloomed and smeared across the floor like war paint.

He felt invincible.

He felt broken.

"Why are you here!?" he howled, voice raw and breaking. "Wasn't it enough that you already betrayed me once?! Do you plan to do the same in my second life?"

The words tore from his throat like a curse hurled through time.

He knew—somewhere deep inside—that this Roselyn didn't understand.

That she wasn't that Roselyn.

Not yet.

But Lucien's mind was too fractured, too buried beneath the weight of grief and madness to grasp that difference. Logic couldn't reach him anymore.

His crimson eyes burned with fury, pupils swirling with cursed darkness—twisting like a storm barely held back by flesh. They shimmered unnaturally, as if something otherworldly had awoken behind them. Something ancient. Something vengeful.

He looked possessed.

Not by a demon.

But by his own past.

His hands clawed at his chest again, as if trying to dig something out. His breath came faster and faster, faster still, until—

Snap.

Silence.

He dropped to his knees.

His head fell forward, pressing against the bloodstained wood.

He was crying.

No—sobbing.

Choking on it.

He curled into himself like a wounded animal, knuckles white against the floor.

"I loved you," he whispered hoarsely. "I loved you like the sun. And you… you…"

He couldn't finish.

He didn't need to.

He collapsed onto the floor, the afternoon sun spilling over him like judgment, turning the undefeated duke into nothing more than a trembling shadow weeping beneath the sky's indifferent gaze.