Chapter 28: In the Eye of the Storm
Dawn came quietly—soft light spilling through the curtains, brushing against the silk sheets where Lucien lay.
For a moment, he didn't move.
The steady rise and fall of breath beside him felt unreal, too fragile to disturb.
Eiran slept with one arm draped over his side, fingers unconsciously curled against Lucien's waist. His golden hair was tousled, and the faintest furrow lingered between his brows even in sleep.
Lucien watched him in silence.
This should've felt like a victory.
Like comfort.
But all he could think of was the letter from the night before, and the mirrored vision the Obsidian Court must have seen—his life, his bond with Eiran, now a threat to them.
He was no longer just rewriting fate.
He was defying it.
And fate, Lucien knew, didn't like to be defied.
---
By midday, Lucien was back in the war library, poring over maps and intelligence scrolls. Eiran had gone to the northern barracks for inspections, and the castle felt quieter without his presence—less like a home and more like a fortress again.
Lady Seraphina entered with her usual grace, but her expression was grim.
"There's movement beyond the western border," she said.
Lucien didn't look up. "Troops?"
"Worse," she said, dropping a scroll onto the desk. "Summoners."
Lucien's fingers froze mid-note.
"Necromancers?"
"They're raising the Deadwood Legion. The Obsidian Court isn't planning a political strike anymore—they're preparing for war."
Lucien leaned back in his chair, exhaustion pressing against his bones.
"They'll use everything. Prophecy. Monsters. Shadows." Seraphina's voice was low, almost reverent. "You've become unpredictable, Lucien. That terrifies them."
"Good," he murmured. "Let them be afraid."
---
That evening, Lucien stood in the palace chapel, staring up at the stained-glass ceiling. The light filtered down in shades of crimson and indigo, bathing him in soft color.
Footsteps echoed behind him.
"I was wondering where you went," Eiran said.
Lucien didn't turn. "I needed silence."
Eiran stepped beside him. "We're at war now, aren't we?"
"Yes," Lucien said, voice barely a whisper. "And I started it by refusing to play their game."
Eiran turned to him fully, his hand brushing Lucien's sleeve. "I'd rather fight beside the man who changed everything than kneel to the people who never wanted anything to change."
Lucien looked at him, eyes shadowed.
"I'm scared," he admitted. "Not of dying. Of losing you."
Eiran stepped closer, voice rough. "Then don't lose me. Stay with me. Fight beside me."
Lucien hesitated.
Then slowly, he reached out, lacing their fingers together.
It was not a grand confession.
Not a kiss beneath the stars.
But it was something real—something grounding in the face of all the chaos to come.
---
Far beyond the castle walls, deep within the catacombs of the fallen city of Velharrow, the hooded figure from before knelt before a burning pool of blood and smoke.
They whispered a name.
> "Ravencroft."
The smoke trembled.
From the depths rose a monstrous, skeletal creature—its eyes glowing with green fire, its body etched with runes carved from suffering.
"The false Duke lives," the hooded figure whispered. "But not for long."
> "Then let us rip the crown from his head… and the heart from his chest."
---
The rain began at twilight.
Not a storm—just a steady, whispering drizzle that seemed to soak into the castle walls and set everyone on edge. Lucien stood alone in the war tower, eyes fixed on the dark clouds rolling across the sky.
He hadn't slept.
The visions hadn't let him.
He'd seen fire. Screams. Eiran bleeding beneath shattered marble. A hand reaching for him, only to vanish into shadows.
And above it all, a voice—feminine, velvet-soft—had whispered a name he thought buried:
> "Amaranth."
He whispered the name now, as if testing its weight.
It tasted like old betrayal and blood.
---
In the inner sanctum, Eiran studied the ancient maps sprawled across the marble table. Seraphina stood beside him, lips pressed into a thin line.
"Four Obsidian summoners are confirmed. Two more possibly en route through the mountain pass," she said.
Eiran traced the route with a gloved finger. "And the mercenary band we sent?"
"Slaughtered. Only one survived. He said… he said they walked into a nightmare."
Eiran glanced toward the doorway as Lucien entered, dripping from the rain.
He looked paler than usual, his eyes rimmed with the weight of too many secrets.
"I know where they'll strike," Lucien said without greeting. "But you're not going to like it."
---
In the war chamber, the flame of strategy burned low. Lucien unrolled a forbidden scroll—one he had sworn to never touch again.
It was black as night, inked with blood.
The map of the Obsidian Court's hidden sanctuaries.
"You kept that?" Seraphina asked, her voice sharp with disbelief.
Lucien didn't answer. His finger hovered over one mark—an old fortress long thought destroyed.
> Velharrow.
"They've rebuilt it," he said. "In the ruins. Beneath the catacombs."
Eiran's face darkened. "That's suicide. No army can breach Velharrow."
Lucien met his gaze. "We're not sending an army."
Seraphina stiffened. "You're going yourself?"
"I have to. They're calling for me."
---
Later that night, Lucien stood alone in the training yard. He drew his sword, running a hand along the rune-carved blade.
The steel shimmered faintly.
He'd reforged it weeks ago—but something in it had changed since then. Like it remembered its original master. Like it was waiting.
Eiran joined him without a word, holding his own blade.
They trained together in silence. Movement, breath, strike—again and again, until sweat glistened and silence became comfort.
Finally, Lucien broke the quiet. "If I die in Velharrow—"
"You won't," Eiran said instantly.
"But if I do—"
Eiran stepped close, cutting him off. "Then I'll follow you into the darkness and drag you back myself."
Lucien closed his eyes.
That, more than anything, was what terrified him.
---
Hours later, Seraphina paced the hallway outside the chamber of mirrors, frowning. A message had arrived.
Unsigned. Unsealed.
Inside, a single phrase:
> "He is not what you think he is."
At the bottom: a mark—three crescent moons interlocked.
Her heart froze.
The Amaranth Order.
She thought them extinct. Lost in the blood wars decades ago.
She thought Lucien had destroyed them.
She was wrong.
---
In the Obsidian Court's sanctuary, the hooded figure knelt again.
But this time, they removed the hood.
And underneath, her face gleamed with cruel satisfaction.
Eyes like Lucien's.
Hair as dark as his own.
But the smile—oh, the smile—was pure madness.
"My dear brother," she whispered. "You thought you buried me. You thought fate forgot me."
Her hands dripped with black flame.
"But I am the fire beneath your throne. And I am coming home."
---
To be continued…