The morning light felt different—thinner, as though the world itself had grown fragile overnight. Lucien sat at the kitchen table, his hands wrapped around a cup of tea that had long since gone cold. Yuva moved through the room like a sleepwalker, her bare feet making no sound on the wooden floor. She paused at the window, her fingers tracing patterns on the glass that only she could see.
"The birds are quiet today," she murmured, her voice carrying the hollow quality of an echo.
Lucien looked up, following her gaze to the empty branches outside. She was right—not a single song broke the silence. Even the sparrows that nested in the eaves had vanished, leaving behind only the weight of absence.
"Perhaps they've flown south early," he offered, though the words felt like ash in his mouth.
Yuva turned to him, and for a moment her eyes held a flicker of the woman he had loved. "Do you think they know?" she asked. "Do you think they can sense when death is coming?"
The question struck him like a physical blow. He set down his cup with trembling hands, tea sloshing over the rim. "What do you mean?"
But she had already turned away, her attention caught by something beyond the window—something he could not see.
The shadow fell across the window at precisely noon.
Lucien looked up from his cold tea to see the crow perched on the sill, its midnight feathers gleaming like oil in the pale light. Those crimson eyes—the same eyes that had watched him in the chapel ruins—fixed upon him with terrible intelligence. Yuva showed no reaction to the creature's presence, as though she inhabited a world where such harbingers could not reach her.
The crow tilted its head, and when it spoke, its voice came not as sound but as sensation—cold fingers of thought that wrapped around his mind like chains.
The first condition.
Lucien's knees nearly buckled. He gripped the doorframe, his knuckles white against the wood. "No," he whispered. "Not yet."
Did you think your lover's breath came without a price? That death could be cheated with mere words?
The world around him began to shift. The familiar street wavered like a reflection in disturbed water. The houses remained, but they felt hollow now, as though they were merely facades concealing something vast and hungry.
Every day at sunset, one soul must join the void. You may choose the vessel, or I shall choose for you.
"I won't," Lucien said, his voice cracking. "I can't—"
Then I shall begin with the child.
The image that flooded his mind was so vivid he could smell the dust of the road, feel the warmth of the afternoon sun. Little Mira Saton, the baker's daughter, was no more than seven years old. She sat on her doorstep, braiding dandelions into crowns, her laughter bright as silver bells. In the vision, she looked up at him with trusting eyes, unaware that death had already marked her.
She will be first. Her small heart will simply... stop. Such a gentle passing for one so young.
"Stop." The word tore from his throat like a prayer. "Please."
Choose, then. The baker who beats his wife? The merchant who waters his wine? The priest who takes coins from the poorhouse? So many deserving souls, and you must select but one.
Lucien pressed his back against the door, sliding down until he sat on the threshold. His hands shook as he buried his face in his palms. How could he choose? How could he weigh one life against another, decide who deserved to draw breath and who should surrender it?
The sun moves quickly today. Perhaps the blacksmith's widow? She has been lonely since her husband passed. It would be a mercy, would it not?
Images cascaded through his mind—faces of everyone he had ever known, every soul in the village. He saw them at their work, their meals, and their quiet moments of joy. The grocer's son taking his first steps. The seamstress humming as she worked. The old man who fed stray cats behind the tavern.
How could he choose?
Or perhaps, the voice continued with silken malice, you would prefer I select at random? A roll of cosmic dice, letting fate decide who shall feed the void? There is a certain poetry in chaos, don't you think?
"There has to be another way," Lucien whispered. "Some other price—"
The compact is sealed. One life for one life, every day until the stars burn cold. This is your burden, Cursed One. This is the weight of your desperate love.
The sun tracked across the sky with merciless precision. Lucien found himself calculating time like a man awaiting execution. Four hours until sunset. Three. Two.
He walked through the village in a daze, seeing everyone with new eyes. The baker's wife, who always smiled when she saw him, bore fresh bruises on her arms. The wine merchant's children wore clothes too thin for the cooling weather. The priest's coffers grew fat while families went hungry.
But knowledge of their sins did not make the choice easier. It only made it more damning.
As the sun touched the horizon, painting the sky in shades of blood and gold, Lucien stood at the crossroads in the village centre. His mind was blank, his heart a hollow drum. He had not chosen. He could not choose.
The voice whispered one final time: Then I choose for you.
In the distance, a child's laughter cut through the evening air. Little Mira, playing with her dandelion crowns.
"Wait." The word scraped from his throat like broken glass.
Yes?
Lucien closed his eyes, feeling the weight of damnation settle around his shoulders like a shroud. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper.
"Thomas Crawley."
The village drunk. The man who had beaten his horse to death in a rage. Who had stolen bread from children and pissed on the church steps. If anyone deserved—
Excellent choice.
The words felt like acid in his mouth. Somewhere in the village, a man's heart stopped beating. Thomas Crawley, for all his sins, would never see another sunrise. And Lucien—Lucien was a murderer.
He returned home to find Yuva waiting in the doorway, her face serene in the dying light. She looked at him with something that might have been understanding, or might have been pity.
"The birds came back," she said softly. "Just now, as the sun was setting. They're singing again."
Lucien could hear them—a chorus of evening songs, as though the world itself was celebrating. The sound made him want to weep.
"Did you hear them?" Yuva asked, tilting her head like a curious child.
"Yes," he whispered. "I heard them."
She smiled then, the first genuine smile he had seen from her since her return. But in her eyes, he caught a glimmer of something that chilled him to the bone—a flicker of crimson that was there and gone in an instant.
"They're beautiful," she said. "Don't you think they're beautiful?"
Lucien nodded, unable to speak. In the growing darkness, he felt the weight of tomorrow pressing down upon him. Another day. Another choice. Another soul to sacrifice for the woman he loved.
The first condition had claimed its due. Three more remained.
And he wondered, as night fell around them like a closing fist, whether the man who had loved Yuva so desperately had died along with Thomas Crawley. Whether the creature who now wore his face was anything more than a hollow vessel for Valek's will.
The birds sang on, oblivious to the darkness that had taken root in the world. And in their song, Lucien heard the echo of his own damnation.
The next morning brought no peace. Lucien sat at the same table, staring at the same cold tea, when the sound came—three sharp raps at the door, measured and deliberate.
His blood turned to ice.
With trembling hands, he rose and walked to the door. Each step felt like walking to his own execution. When he pulled it open, the sight that greeted him drove him to his knees.
Thomas Crawley's widow stood on his threshold, her face ravaged by grief, her eyes red with tears that had not yet stopped flowing. In her arms, she cradled a bundle of her husband's belongings—his pipe, his worn coat, a small wooden carving he had made in his youth.
"Please," she whispered, her voice breaking. "Please tell me you know what happened to him. The physician says his heart simply... stopped. But Thomas was strong. He was getting better, trying to change. The baker said that you were there when he collapsed."
Lucien's throat closed around a sob. The woman's words cut through him like knives, each one a reminder of the choice he had made, the life he had stolen. He had known Thomas as the village drunk, the man who had committed terrible acts. But he had not known about the carving, about the wife who still loved him, about the man who had been trying to change.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, tears streaming down his face. "I'm so sorry."
The first condition had claimed its due. Three more remained.
And as Thomas Crawley's widow walked away, her shoulders shaking with grief, Lucien understood with perfect clarity that his damnation was not a single act—it was a daily choice, a slow drowning in the blood of innocents.
The crow watched from the window, its crimson eyes holding neither judgment nor mercy.
Only patience.