Time became a wound.
Each day bled into the next without meaning. The days stretched long beneath the slave pens—measured only by the thin bowl of porridge, the shifting guards, and the rising stink of human rot. There was no light, no sky, no names.
No Levi.
Elias did not speak. He did not ask questions. He did not scream, or cry, or flinch when the lash cracked across his back.
He merely endured.
He learned to count the seconds between the guard's footsteps. He marked the sound of dripping water overhead and used it to guess the hours. He no longer bothered remembering the faces of those who came and went. Few stayed long.
Children were bought like dogs. Taken by merchants, nobles, and the occasional cloaked figure with strange requests. Sometimes, screams echoed down the halls long after a child left. Sometimes, they didn't scream at all.
Elias remained.
He was not chosen.
Not useful. Not pretty enough. Not docile enough.
Until one day—weeks, maybe months after Levi vanished—a new buyer came.
Not like the others.
The man arrived in silence. No entourage. No barking merchants announcing his presence. The guards didn't speak his name, only bowed their heads slightly as he passed.
He was tall. Impeccably dressed. His coat was the deepest black Elias had ever seen, lined in crimson thread at the cuffs and collar. No insignia. No house crest. Nothing to mark him as important—but everything about him was.
He wore gloves of silver-threaded leather, and a crimson ring gleamed on his left hand—set with a stone darker than blood. His face was pale and clean-shaven, almost too perfect. Hair black and slicked back neatly. Eyes the color of dried wine.
But it was his stillness that unsettled the senses.
He moved without wasted motion. Every step, every turn of his head, every blink—it was too precise. Too deliberate. As if he remembered how to mimic being human, but only just.
He passed the cages slowly.
The merchants followed behind, offering names and measurements and fake smiles.
He ignored them.
Then he stopped.
Before Elias.
He didn't kneel. Didn't ask questions.
He simply looked.
And Elias looked back.
For the first time in weeks, his body reacted—barely. A flicker behind his eyes. A tightening of his jaw.
The man's lips curved slightly.
"Name," he said, voice soft as silk, yet somehow sharp.
Elias hesitated.
Then: "Elias."
The man gave a small nod.
"He'll do."
The merchant blinked. "Ah, of course, my lord. Excellent choice. I'll have the paperwork—"
"No need."
The man tossed a small coin. It gleamed strangely, not gold, not silver—some older metal, heavy and etched with symbols long forgotten.
He unlocked the cage himself.
The guards didn't stop him.
He offered Elias a gloved hand.
Elias stared at it.
Then stood on his own.
He didn't flinch when the man touched his shoulder and led him out.
Above ground, the light burned his eyes. He hadn't seen the sun in so long that it felt like punishment. The nobleman placed a thin black cloak around Elias's shoulders as they walked to the carriage—sleek, black-lacquered wood, drawn by two silent stallions with crimson manes.
Inside, it smelled of strange herbs and cold steel.
Elias sat across from the man.
He said nothing. Asked nothing.
He was tired of questions that didn't matter.
The man studied him quietly.
"You have strong eyes," he said at last. "You see the world as it is. Not as they want you to see it."
Elias said nothing.
The man smiled faintly, as though that was the correct answer.
"You are not a slave," he said, and Elias almost laughed. "You are a gift."
Elias looked up.
"To who?"
The nobleman didn't reply.
Instead, the carriage came to a smooth stop before a tall manor of dark stone and silver iron. The gates bore no sigil. The windows were shuttered tight.
Inside, the air was cold and quiet. No servants greeted them. No fire crackled. It was more tomb than home.
The man led Elias down a hall of shadowed portraits—each face half-erased by time.
And then, at the end, a door.
He knocked once.
It opened on its own.
Inside sat a girl.
No older than six or seven. Pale as snow. Hair the color of burning coals, long and straight. Her eyes—those terrible, beautiful eyes—were a shade of red not found in nature. Deeper than blood. Calmer than death.
She sat on a cushioned chair with her hands folded in her lap, a small porcelain doll resting beside her.
She turned to face them as they entered.
Her gaze moved past her father—
—and locked onto Elias.
The nobleman spoke gently. "My little sun. I've brought you a companion."
The girl said nothing. She rose and stepped forward slowly, studying Elias with unsettling calm.
Her expression never changed.
But she extended her hand.
And for the second time that day, Elias stared at an outstretched hand.
This time, he took it.
The girl turned to her father.
"I like him."
The nobleman nodded, smiling.
And in that moment, something ancient and cruel seemed to settle over the manor.
The chains of coincidence tightened.
And Elias's path, long shattered, began to twist into something darker.
Something inevitable.
* * *
The quiet of the manor deepened as he stepped away from the child's chamber, his boots silent against the cold stone floor. He moved like a shadow given form—measured, unhurried, unseen.
Within the study, he closed the heavy door behind him. The room was bare of clutter, but rich with presence: a single desk of blackwood, shelves lined with ancient tomes, and a tall mirror veiled in dust.
He stood before it.
Then, with a sigh soft as breath, he raised his hand. The silver-threaded glove parted, revealing a pale finger and the crimson ring that adorned it. He touched it gently—just once.
The glamour broke.
His sleek black hair shimmered, rippled, and then drained into its true hue—deep crimson, darker than wine, burning faintly in the dim light like coals buried beneath ash.
The Crimson Emperor gazed at his reflection, expression unreadable.
For a moment, he was not a nobleman. Not a myth. Not a shadow.
Just a man watching fate unfold.