*Ana*
The silence presses in like walls shifting closer, each heartbeat loud in the hush like footsteps echoing down a crypt. The fire has burned down to its last few embers, casting skeletal shadows that twitch and stretch across the marble floor like arthritic fingers trying to escape the room before the inevitable begins. The dying flames hiss and crackle, sending sparks spiraling upward into the chimney's black throat.
My throat is dry—so dry it aches to swallow, the sides collapsing in on itself like a house of cards finally breaking—but I force the word out anyway, smaller than I mean it to be. Soft. Frayed at the edges. Almost childlike in the vast, tense quiet.
"Cousin?"
The word falls between us and disappears into the room like a stone dropped in still water, making no splash, only ripples of silence that seem to expand and contract with my racing pulse.
Mykhol doesn't move. Doesn't blink. Doesn't breathe—or if he does, it's so shallow I can't hear it over the thundering of my own heart. He stands like marble cast in amber, frozen in the center of the room, shoulders drawn so tightly together I can see the fabric of his coat strain over his back,, the expensive silk pulled taut across muscles wound like steel cables. His fists hang at his sides, clenched so tightly the tips of his fingers have gone white as bone, knuckles sharp as mountain peaks beneath skin that seems almost translucent in the firelight.
The air is thick with the weight of things unspoken, heavy as winter velvet and clinging like spider silk. A breeze slips through the cracked window, carrying with it the faint scent of rain beginning to fall—soaked stone and roses from the gardens below, earth turned rich and dark. The perfume of spring that should smell like hope now feels sour in the back of my throat, like honey left too long on the tongue until it turns bitter.
In the distance, a clock tolls the hour. The chime rolls through the corridors like a funeral bell, each note hanging in the air before dissolving into the vast silence of the sleeping castle.
Still, he says nothing. The quiet stretches between us like a rope pulled to its breaking point.
I take a step closer, my silk slippers whispering against the marble, cautious as a hunter approaching a wounded wolf—not because I fear him, no, why would I fear Mykhol? But because I can feel it radiating from him like heat from a forge: something brittle just beneath his porcelain skin, stretched too tight, ready to snap. One wrong move, one careless word, and it will all shatter.
"Mykhol," I try again, more gently this time, my voice a thread spun from nerves and something heavier—something that tastes like copper and regret. "Are you... upset?"
At last, he moves.
His head turns with the slow, mechanical grace of something ancient and broken, like a clockwork doll whose springs have begun to rust. When his vermilion eyes meet mine, the breath catches in my lungs like a bird trapped in a cage. There's no fury there. No fire. Only something colder—deeper. Like looking down into a well that has no bottom, where the water reflects nothing but darkness. A grief too dense for sound, too heavy for tears.
"Upset?" he repeats, his voice so low it barely disturbs the air between us, like wind through dead leaves. It isn't a question. It's a wound laid bare.
A bitter smile ghosts across his face, sharp and fleeting as a blade's edge catching light. "Does it matter?" He tilts his head slightly, watching me the way a dying man might watch the light leave the sky—with terrible, quiet acceptance. "You've made your choice."
The words carry no anger, no accusation. Just a terrible, hollow acceptance that somehow hurts worse than rage would have. They settle in my chest like stones, each one finding its mark with devastating precision.
"Cousin, I don't want to fight." I close my hands into fists, nails digging crescents into my palms as I take another moment to muster the courage, to find the words that will make this right. My stomach churns with the effort of staying composed.
If I just explain things clearly, he won't be upset. I'm sure if I explain myself properly, lay out my reasoning with the logic he's always admired, Mykhol will understand. He has to understand.
He will understand.
"I want to explain myself." I close my hands tighter, feeling the bite of my nails, and take another moment to muster the courage. "From a practical standpoint, you going back to school will be—"
"Always so practical, aren't you?" He takes a step toward me, and I notice his hands are shaking again—fine tremors that run through his fingers like earthquake aftershocks, like leaves in a windstorm. The firelight catches the movement, making his pale skin seem to flicker and dance. "Almost to the point of being heartless."
His voice breaks slightly on the last word, a hairline fracture in his composure, and I see him struggle to regain control. The mask of courtly perfection he's worn all his life—polished and flawless as a mirror—is crumbling at the edges, revealing something raw and desperate underneath, something that makes my chest constrict with recognition.
His vermilion eyes blaze like coals in a dying fire. They burn and hurt as they stare down at me, and I feel the heat of them against my skin like a brand.
"But I'm sure you've heard that one before, right?"
"Heartless?" I repeat, and the awful memory resurfaces unbidden—that cold, bleak day at Maddie's execution, the whispers following me like ravens, the jarring stares that felt like physical blows. Heartless. Cold. Unfeeling.
I swallow hard, forcing the memory down like bitter medicine, but I can still taste its poison on my tongue. I must stand my ground. I am the Empress. I cannot falter.
"You don't understand," I whisper, my own voice thick with emotion I'm trying to suppress, trying to keep locked away where it can't betray me. "This isn't about punishment, or preference, or... or anything like that. Father is right—you need to complete your education. It will make you stronger, more capable, better able to help me when you return."
"When I return?" He laughs, but there's no humor in it—just bitter disbelief that cuts through the air like breaking glass. "Ana, do you truly believe that's what this is about? You don't think this is just about sending me away for education, do you? It's about removing a threat."
"A threat?" The word comes out sharper than I intended, like a sword drawn without thought. "Mykhol, you're my cousin, my family—"
"Am I?" His eyes flash with something dangerous, something that makes the air between us crackle with electricity. The question hangs in the air like smoke, heavy with implications I don't want to examine too closely.
Because part of me—a small, uncomfortable part that lives in the corners of my mind I don't let the light touch—has thought it too.
Not in words. Not directly.
But in how I never seem to let myself be alone with him anymore, how my pulse quickens when he enters a room. I know where he is in a room the way a flame knows where the oxygen is. I feel him before I see him, his presence like a magnetic pull I have to consciously resist. I sense him watching even when my back is turned, feel his gaze like a physical touch across my skin.
And when he touches me—
Surely that's just instinct. A ruler's caution. Protective awareness. I am the Empress. I must be aware of everything. Everyone. Especially him.
That's all it is. It has to be.
"You're overthinking this," I say—but my voice is thin, uncertain, too brittle to carry the weight of reassurance. It sounds like I'm trying to convince myself more than him.
"You even said it yourself, that you are—"
"Inexperienced?" His voice drips with heat and disdain, each syllable sharp as a blade's edge.
He steps closer.
Too close.
Close enough that I can see every fleck of gold in his vermilion eyes, like stars scattered across a sunset sky. Close enough to see the subtle twitch at the corner of his mouth, the way his nostrils flare slightly with each breath. His breath hits my cheek, warm and steady, laced with wine and something darker beneath it—something that smells like smoke and longing and secrets whispered in the dark. The air between us tightens, electric with possibility and danger.
"You really think I don't know what I'm doing?" he murmurs, his tone low and intimate, like confessing a secret. "Every touch. Every time we're alone. How I can hear your heartbeat…"
His voice dips lower, nearly a growl that rumbles through his chest.
"Like I can hear it now."
He's right—my pulse is pounding. Louder than my thoughts, louder than reason. Thudding in my ears, my throat, the hollow beneath my ribs where something fragile is trying to take flight. The sound fills the space between us until it seems to echo off the walls.
I have no answer. At least, not one I can bear to say aloud. My mouth opens, but my voice has gone soft and foreign, trapped beneath the weight of something ancient and primal that has no place in an empress's heart.
Because this—whatever this is—
The truth is, I don't fully understand the undercurrents in this room tonight. I don't understand the loaded glances between Father and Johan, or the satisfied malice in Nugen's laughter, or the way everyone seems to know something about Mykhol that I don't. But I can feel the weight of their expectations pressing down on me like a physical force.
I do, however, understand logic. I understand duty. I understand that sending him to complete his education is the right choice for the Empire, regardless of whatever personal complications swirl beneath the surface like dangerous currents.
"It was a mistake on your part, I don't question that," I say finally, straightening my shoulders and trying to project the authority I'm still learning to wield like an ill-fitting crown. "But going back to school will benefit not just you but—"
"Is this really what you want?" His voice drops to barely above a whisper, but somehow it cuts through all my rational arguments like a blade. The words hit me like physical blows, each one finding its mark with devastating accuracy. My chest tightens, and for a moment I can't breathe properly, can't think past the sudden roaring in my ears.
My breath stutters. My hands go cold as winter stones. The question rings in my ears.
What do I want?
"Cousin," I begin, the title slipping off my tongue like a safety rope I'm gripping too tight, "I don't think that matters."But the words falter as they leave me. They sound… wrong. Thin. Weak.
He steps forward again, and I should move back, I should create distance, I should—but I don't. My feet stay planted. Frozen. Rooted to the marble floor as if I've grown there.
"Does it not affect you?" His hand lifts, hesitant for only a second, then hovers between us. "To go a day without seeing me? The tightness in your chest. The ache when I'm not near. The way your skin hums when I touch you—"
"Cousin, that's—"
His fingers close the last bit of distance, brushing against my cheek with the lightness of a feather, of a prayer, of something too precious to hold tightly.
Heat lances through me like lightning. I shiver—not from cold. Not entirely. The touch sends electricity racing along my nerves, pooling in places I don't want to acknowledge.
"Are you really going to tell me you don't feel anything between us?" he whispers, fingers drifting—no, tracing—along my jawline to my lips with deliberate slowness. "Have been for a while."
I can't breathe. Can't think. Can't lie.
"Cousin, I—"
I meet his eyes and forget the rest of my sentence. Forget everything but the heat in his gaze, the way he's looking at me like I'm the only thing in the world that exists.
The look on his face makes something inside me ache, something I thought I'd buried deep enough to forget. It's not anger. Not entirely. It's grief and need and hunger all wound into one, twisted together like rope strong enough to hang us both. Together.
But no, I can't be swayed. I must stay focused. I blink fast, trying to recover, to remember who I am. Empress. Not just a girl with a racing heart and trembling hands.
"I am doing this for the Empire," I say, as gently as I can, and press my palm to his chest—meaning to push him away, but not pushing hard enough. My hand stays there too long, feeling the rapid beat of his heart through the silk of his shirt, the warmth of his skin beneath.
"That's all?" His face darkens, something unreadable flickering across it—rage barely smothered under desperation, resistance and something wrapped in silk that I can't see that smolders.
"I don't understand your question." I take a half step back, but it's not enough. Not nearly enough. "It's obvious that you must—"
"The least you can do is call me Mykhol."
He grabs my chin—not rough, but firm, his fingers cool against my flushed skin. His thumb presses along my jaw, holding me steady in his gaze, forcing me to look at him. His eyes blaze with something that looks too much like hate—and not nearly enough like hate.
"Or do I mean nothing to you?"
"Mykhol, that—why are you saying these things?" My chest tightens until I feel like I might tear apart from the inside, like something vital is being slowly ripped away. "You do mean more to me."
His voice sharpens, slicing through that fragile moment. "As a piece on your chessboard, you mean?"
"That's not—" I try to defend myself, but the words are shaking too much to land, too fragile to carry weight.
And then it comes. Quiet, honest. Irrefutable. The truth torn from some deep place I didn't know existed.
"I do. I need you."
Silence falls like a curtain, heavy and complete.
Mykhol draws me in like a storm closing in on a lone torch, inevitable and consuming.
"Then let me stay at your side," he says, voice like thunder without the noise, like power held in check.
"Mykhol, that is—"
I can't finish. The words get lost somewhere between my heart and my mouth. My throat closes, tight as a fist.
I feel like crying. But I don't know why. I don't even understand what this ache is, this hollow feeling spreading through my chest like spilled wine through silk. It should be simple. This whole thing should be simple.
But nothing about this moment is.
His presence coils around me like smoke—warm and thick and impossible to escape. I want to scream. I want to stay. I want to run. I want to touch him again, to feel that electric connection that makes everything else fade away.
"You understand what it will mean if I go back, don't you?" His voice is low, almost gentle—but there's a weight in it, like something heavy being set on a fragile surface that might crack under the pressure.
He leans in, and I can smell his cologne, something expensive and dark with notes of tobacco and pepper.
"Mykhol—" I try to pull away, but my limbs don't obey. My breath hitches as he catches my wrist, his grip not tight, but firm enough to guide me—turning me, facing me again, making me meet his eyes.
"Mykhol, please—"
"I won't be back for years, Ana." His breath brushes my lips—warm, unyielding—and I shudder at the heat of him. "Years without seeing you. Without hearing your voice. Without..."
"It won't be that long—" I whisper, voice trembling like leaves in a storm. But Mykhol's hand rises to my cheek, fingertips grazing skin that suddenly feels fever-hot.
"I don't want to leave you." His words slip out like a confession he hadn't meant to speak aloud, aching and raw and beautiful in their honesty. His thumb strokes my cheekbone, in the way his other hand finds mine and brings it—slowly, deliberately—to the center of his chest.
"Feel that?" Mykhol presses my palm over his heart. It's racing, matching the frantic rhythm of my own, creating a synchrony that seems to echo through my bones.
Dozens of things flood my mind—duty, propriety, titles, blood, the weight of crowns and the burden of thrones—but none of them make it to my tongue. My skin tingles where it touches his, humming with possibility.
"Do you know..." he murmurs, dipping his head so close I can feel the warmth of each word against my skin, "...that it's exactly the same as yours right now?"
My lips part, but no sound comes. I'm drowning in sensation, in the heat of his proximity, in the way he's looking at me.
"I know you feel it," he breathes, his voice dropping to something darker, softer still. "Every time I touch you. Every time we're alone."
His voice darkens, intimate as a secret. "You pretend it's nothing. But it isn't."
He kisses me.
Not hesitant. Not soft. It's slow—deliberate—gentle. It's not the kind of kiss goodnight like he's done before. Or a kiss of affection between family.It's the kind of kiss that speaks words I've yet to learn. Understand. But can't escape.It presses into every breath I didn't realize I was holding, stealing them away and replacing them with something warmer, something that tastes like wine and possibility and the edge of something dangerous.
For one suspended, fragile moment, I don't pull away. Don't stop him. My mind falls into a blankness I can't recognize, a place where there are no empires or courts or consequences, and I forget everything else. The empire. The court. Even the guilt, which waits just outside the door like a patient predator.
His lips are warm, familiar in a way that frightens me. His hand presses against the back of my neck, holding me there like he's terrified I'll vanish if he lets go, like I'm something precious he's afraid to lose.
And then, just as suddenly, he pulls away. But he doesn't step back.
He hovers—still too close—watching me with eyes that burn. Studying me. Like he's looking for something in my face, some sign, some permission. Something that will let him stay.
"You feel it too," he whispers, lips just inches from mine, close enough that I can feel his breath. "I know you do."
I blink. The room lurches like I've just stepped off a ship onto unsteady ground. My blood is too loud in my ears, drowning out everything else.
I take a breath. It barely fills my lungs.
"Mykhol..." I try again, but my voice is a ribbon of air. Thin. Slipping through my fingers like water.
"You love me," he says. It's not a question. Not really. It's a statement of fact, delivered with the quiet confidence that has no other answers but one.
"I—" Something flutters wildly in my chest, a bird trying to escape its cage. My body reacts before my mind can catch up—heat blooming in my cheeks, my throat, low in my belly where something warm and liquid is pooling. My mouth opens.
Then closes.
I look into his eyes. That amber glow. Bright. Burning like stars.
He's waiting.
So close I can still taste the kiss on my lips, can still feel the ghost of his touch.
And gods help me, I almost say it. I almost give him what he wants, what part of me wants too.
But somewhere—underneath the haze of sensations—something cold knocks in my chest. A warning. A voice that sounds like duty and responsibility and the weight of crowns.
This isn't right.
This isn't safe.
I tear myself away with a sudden gasp, wrenching back like I've just touched a flame, like I've just realized I'm standing at the edge of a precipice.
"I do," I say, desperate for clarity, for air, for the solid ground of certainty. "I love you."
His eyes go wide, victorious, blazing with triumph.
"You do?" There's something childlike in his voice now—hopeful, cracked wide open like an egg. He reaches for me again, his hands trembling slightly. "Then, Ana, let's—"
"Because we are family," I cut him off, the word sharp enough to draw blood, sharp enough to shatter whatever fragile thing was building between us.
His face freezes. The light in his eyes dims like a candle suddenly starved of air.
That's when I see it—that flicker of something in his gaze, shifting like a storm on the verge of thunder.
"Ana," Mykhol furrows his brows, looking from the space between us to me with dawning understanding. "I'm not talking about family. I love you like a man loves—"
But I take another step back, putting distance between us like armor. I can't bring myself to be touched again. I'm afraid of what I might do. Afraid of what I might say.
Take control of yourself, Ana. I scream at myself silently. You can't let him sway you. Not again. You're the Empress. Act like it.
"And because you are family," I repeat, my voice gaining strength from repetition, from the familiar weight of the very crown on my head even now. "I need you at your best. So you must—"
"Send me away because I'm useless, right?" Mykhol stops where he is and pulls his arms back, crossing them over his chest like a shield. His voice is flat now, empty of the warmth that was there moments before.
"You can be better," I admit, the words tasting like ash. "So can I."
I take a shaky breath, trying to find the right words to explain something I barely understand myself. But it's been building like a pressure that at last is breaking though.
"I've become so accustomed to having you handle things, to having you speak for me and think for me and protect me, that I don't know who I am without you. And that's not your fault—it's mine. But if I'm going to be Empress, truly be Empress, I need to find my own strength."
He stares at me for a long moment, his face cycling through a dozen different emotions—hurt, understanding, anger, resignation, and something else I can't quite identify. Something slow to grow but heavy as it settles.
"And you think sending me away is the answer?" he asks finally, his voice carefully neutral.
"I think," I say carefully, ""It's for the empire. Not me." I find more strength in such an obvious fact, letting it anchor me. "I am empress. The empire comes first."
It's the most honest thing I've said all night, and also the most painful. Because somewhere under the iron resolve, a softer part of me begins to fracture. That part—the quiet, secret place where I still want to keep him near, keep him safe, keep him mine—screams in protest.
But I silence it. I have to.
The rational part of me—the ruler—knows this is right. Knows we've grown too entangled, too dependent. His presence has begun to drown my judgment, shadow my steps, blur the line between protective family and slipping into control.
This isn't just for the Empire.
It's survival.
The silence that follows is suffocating. Thick. Alive with tension and unspoken words.
Mykhol is quiet for a long time. His eyes are lowered now, vermilion dimmed beneath the weight of my words. Shoulders no longer coiled with tension, but loose. Defeated. Unreadable.
And when he finally looks up, I flinch. Because something fundamental has shifted in his expression. The desperate panic is gone, replaced by something colder and more distant and something that sharpens each word like a blade being whetted. Not quite anger. Too controlled for that. Too starved.
"But what do you want, Ana?" His voice is soft—deceptively soft. A slow poison rather than a blade. "If you could choose. Not for the Empire. For you."
"Mykhol..." My voice tightens, becomes smaller. "Why are you asking such things? Why can't you just—understand?"
"It's a simple question."
His gaze pins me where I stand, and suddenly I feel transported back to being seven years old again. Clinging to him as he carried me back inside from the party, weak and crying and dependent. His warm arms holding me, protecting me, but now suddenly feeling...too tight. Too possessive.
"Do you really want me gone?"
His tone cuts through the air like a whip. I brace against it, but my stomach still turns, acid rising in my throat.
"Answer the question, Ana."
The challenge in his voice slaps the air between us. He's daring me now. Daring me to say it aloud and own it, to take responsibility for this choice. Or to back down like every time before. Cave. Give in to what seems to be a never-ending demands and tantrums. Familiar pushback…that at last has met a wall within myself.
"Fine." I lift my chin, willing the tremble in my limbs to stay hidden beneath the silk of my gown. "Yes."
I meet his eyes, forcing myself to hold his gaze even as it feels like looking into a fire. "Yes, I would still send you away."
A silence falls between us that doesn't feel empty. It feels shattered.
Mykhol doesn't speak.
But the light in his face drains away by degrees. The flush in his cheeks, the tension in his jaw, the heat behind his eyes—all of it evaporates like morning mist.
Only the mask remains. Beautiful and terrible and empty.
He looks at me the way a man looks at a stranger across a battlefield. No affection. No forgiveness. Only the distance between us, stretched taut and dangerous.
"You—" he starts, but I cut him off.
Because I know if I let him speak, I'll falter. I'll break. I'll take it all back and damn the consequences.
He can't keep having his way. It's time I finally put my foot down. I won't be swayed anymore.
"You will leave tomorrow," I say, turning so he can't see my face twist with the effort of staying strong. "You'll complete your education, learn what you need to learn, and then you'll come back. Things will be different, but... but they don't have to be worse."
"Ana—" I feel his hand reach, fingertips brushing the back of my arm like a ghost—but I twist away.
"Listen to me." His voice is tightening now, fraying around the edges like old rope. "If you send me away—"
"I will not argue with you on this." My voice sharpens, hoarse and breaking but laced with finality. "It's not a request. It's an order."
Something in the air snaps. Invisible, but felt. A shift in the very fabric of the room.
Mykhol goes very still. Statue-still. Predator-still.
"As your Empress," I continue, forcing each word out past the tremble in my chest, past the part of me that's screaming to take it back, "you will obey me. Or I will see fit that you are punished for disobedience."
He doesn't move. Doesn't speak. Just watches me like I've become someone else entirely. Someone he doesn't recognize.
"Ana?" The way he says it now—soft, small, stunned—nearly undoes me. It sounds like the last thread unraveling, like something precious being broken beyond repair.
"You can go now." I whisper, eyes locked on the dark wood of my desk, afraid to look at him. "I want to be alone."
But I feel him watching me.
That awful, unbearable heat behind my shoulder. Waiting. Measuring. Hoping for something I can't give.
I don't turn.
Because I'm too afraid to see his face. Too afraid of what I'll find—or what I won't.
And maybe that makes me a coward. But tonight, I've had to be Empress before being anything else.
A sound breaks the quiet: a throat clearing, rough and sudden, like a bird hitting glass mid-flight. Words follow, low and dulled with weight, as though pulled from somewhere deeper than breath.
"I should probably start packing, then."
His voice is gentler than I expect. Wounded, yes—but not sharp. Not yet.
I hear the creak of his boots turning toward the door... but then they stop. He lingers in place, and for a moment, I think he might leave without saying anything more.
But he doesn't.
"Ana," he says, and the syllable lands like a stone in water. "I want you to know that everything I did—everything—was because I love you. Not like a subject loves an empress. Not like a cousin loves family."
A beat of silence.
His voice drops to a whisper, the kind you're not supposed to hear unless you're already listening for it.
"Because you're the most important thing in my world."
The confession hangs in the air between us like a bridge I'm afraid to cross. There's something in his voice, something raw and vulnerable and desperate, that makes my chest tighten with emotions I don't know how to name.
"Mykhol..." I begin, but I don't know how to finish. What can I say to that? How do I respond to such naked honesty?
"Goodbye," he says, reading my struggle, understanding my silence. "Your Empress."
And with that, he's gone, slipping out the door with the grace he's never quite lost despite everything. I'm left alone in the flickering candlelight, surrounded by the ghosts of harsh words and difficult truths.
I release the breath I didn't know I'd been holding. It escapes from my lungs like it's been trapped for years, burning on the way out.
"It's for the good of the Empire," I tell the empty room, stumbling toward the desk and gripping the edge with both hands. My fingers are ice. My knees shake like a newborn foal's.
"Mykhol will understand," I say, pressing my palm to my chest as if I can slow the hurt that's digging in deeper with every beat. "If anyone will understand... it'll be him."
But the words are hollow. Empty.
Outside, the spring night sings its quiet, uncaring melody—leaves rustling in the breeze, the distant cry of an owl, the scent of rose threading through the open window like memory. The gentle pitter-patter of rain finding stone and sand. A low rumble, heavy clouds gathering on the horizon. Something approaching that cannot be undone.
I've made the right choice. I know I have. Logic and duty and the good of the Empire all support my decision.
So why does victory taste so much like loss?
And why do I have the terrible feeling that I've just broken something that can never be repaired?
Mykhol
The door closed with a soft, deliberate click.
Mykhol didn't move.
He stood there in the pale hallway, the silence pressing in around him like a tomb.The breathless, white corridor stretched before him, washed in the poor flickering light of candles burned down near to their bases—flickering and fizzing out in soft puffs of smoke that smelled like melted wax and dying dreams. The space felt empty and echoing, as though the entire castle had gone still to bear witness to his humiliation.
Ana's final words rang in his ears, relentless and sharp as broken glass cutting through flesh:
Yes. I would still send you away.
He had imagined many outcomes. Expected resistance. Even anger. But not that. Not the calm finality. Not the certainty that cut through his arguments like a dagger plunged into his back.
His chest rose once—twice—each breath jagged and shallow, like he was trying not to choke on something that had splintered beneath his ribs and was working its way toward his heart.
You really... His lips parted, but the words withered in his throat like flowers touched by frost.
The ache was visceral. A weight he hadn't expected to carry, settling in his chest like a stone dropped into still water.
Then—footsteps. Measured. Confident. The distinctive sound of weathered leather boots against marble.
Mykhol didn't turn. He didn't need to. He knew the scent already—old leather and horse, the faint oil of brass fittings and damp parchment. The smell of someone who spent his days in strategy rooms and his nights of vigilant patrols against shadows and whispers.
"Lord Mykhol," Admiral Nugen's voice practically purred behind him, soaked in honeyed amusement that rubbed between his coarse voice. "Did you enjoy your little conversation with her Empress?"
The earned glee in his voice scraped against Mykhol's nerves like sandpaper against raw skin.
Mykhol drew in a slow breath, tasting the metallic tang of his own blood where he'd bitten his tongue. Straightened his shoulders with deliberate care. Then, like slipping into a second skin, he summoned the smile he had mastered over the years—elegant, unreadable, and razor-thin.
"Yes," he said. The word landed like a coin dropped into a well, echoing in the silence. "It was... enlightening."
Nugen stepped beside him, boots soft against the polished stone. The light caught on the Admiral's smile, bright and sharp like a drawn blade.
"Ah, enlightening," he echoed, savoring the word like fine wine. "So, I assume you'll be leaving at dawn as planned?"
The Admiral's grin glinted like a blade unsheathed. "So sudden. But of course, the Empress must always be obeyed."
The emphasis on always landed with deliberate force, like a hammer blow to already fractured glass.
Mykhol's lips curled in what might have been a smile if not for the coldness behind it, fangs clenched behind the practiced grace of his expression. "Yes," he said, his voice smooth as silk over steel. "I should begin packing."
He glanced down, surprised by what he saw.
His claws had broken skin. Blood slipped in silent ribbons down his palm, dark and viscous in the candlelight. His fist had been clenched so tight, the crescent-shaped cuts shimmered with red against the pale of his skin like small, perfect moons. He opened his hand slowly, watching the wounds close with the peculiar fascination of someone observing their own destruction, muscle and sinew stitching back together with quiet magic that whispered through his bones.
But he knew they would scar.
Good.
Let them.
They would serve as a reminder.
A reminder of my foolishness.
He had been so certain. So sure Ana saw it too. The heat that crackled between them like lightning before a storm. The gravity that pulled them together despite every attempt to maintain distance. The way her breath hitched when he got too close, the way her pulse fluttered like a caged bird beneath his fingertips. The closeness, the shared silence, the unspoken things humming like static between them. She had felt something. He was sure of it. He had staked everything on that certainty.
But this?
This was rejection in its cruelest form. Clean. Final. Absolute.
No place for him in her new world.
She had chosen the Empire.
She had chosen King Alexander's counsel.
She had chosen anyone but him.
He'd been a fool.
But a fool could learn.
"In a way," Mykhol said softly, lifting his chin with renewed purpose, "I should be grateful to you."
"Oh?" Nugen's smile faltered, just for a beat, uncertainty flickering across his features like a candle flame in a draft. "How generous of you."
"You've done me a great service," Mykhol murmured, almost to himself, his voice taking on a dreamy quality that made the Admiral's eyes narrow. "All of you. Even King Alexander."
He brought the bloody hand to his mouth and slowly ran his tongue across the cuts, savoring the metallic tang that burst across his taste buds. A ritual of clarity. The pain grounded him, focused him, reminded him of what was real.
"I'm going to benefit from all of this," he said, his voice gaining strength with each word, becoming something harder, more certain.
Nugen narrowed his eyes, his posture sharpening like a soldier sensing movement in tall grass, instincts honed by years of court intrigue suddenly alert.
"If that's the story you need to tell yourself," he said carefully, "But you may find things have changed when you return."
"Changed?" Mykhol gave a low laugh that had no joy in it, no warmth. "I hope so."
He turned his head slightly, just enough for Nugen to see the glint in his vermilion eyes, the gold catching like flame behind glass, burning with something that hadn't been there moments before.
"Because I will change."
He stepped forward, brushing past the Admiral's shoulder without a glance. The motion was smooth, almost careless—but it was a dismissal. A warning.His footsteps echoed down the hall—measured, deliberate. Absolute.
"When I come back..." His voice trailed like smoke, dangerous and smooth, carrying promises that made the air itself seem to thicken. "You won't recognize the man I become."
He paused at the end of the corridor, his hand resting on the bannister of the great staircase, eyes fixed not just on the stairs before him but far beyond—past the Academy, past the mountains, past every petty delay fate had placed in his path. His vision stretched into a future only he could see, a future where everything would…fit the way it should.
"I won't forget what's important ever again."
He smiled—slowly, wide enough to show his fangs. A smile that spoke of hunger barely held in check.
"I promise."
Then he disappeared into the shadows, the soft sound of his boots swallowed by the silence.The corridor behind him remained white, pristine, and silent.
But the air had changed. It hung heavier. More brittle. Something fractured had been left in his wake.
Something darker than ambition. Something that stained deep into his bones and smelled of sandalwood and broken glass.