Vaeronyx's amber eyes, once blazing with possessive certainty, had dulled into something fractured… something unbearably human.
He had lost her again.
And worse, far worse, he had reached for another woman's life, another man's wife, another unborn child's mother, in his desperation to fill the void that centuries of loneliness had carved into him.
Vaeronyx lowered his gaze, unable to bear the sight of the couple before him; their trembling embrace, their whispered vows of existence, their reunion built on love he had nearly severed. Shame coiled in his chest like a serpent made of molten lead, heavy and choking and impossible to escape.
How far he had fallen.
How blind he had been.
The echo of the Swan Oracle's rejection still trembled in the air, lingering like cold incense: Do not show your face to me until you have avenged our descendant. Those words were not a banishment; they were a command drenched in sorrow.
And he had earned every blade of it.
