Aiden's POV
The laughter from the banquet still echoed in the halls long after the feast had ended.
But Aiden couldn't hear it anymore.
He walked through the dim corridors like a ghost, his steps soundless on the polished floors. Guards bowed as he passed. Servants scattered.
He didn't speak. Didn't look at them.
His mind was burning.
Every smile he'd ever seen from his father.
Every speech. Every story. Every polished lie.
He remembered them all now—and every one of them was stained.
The Day of Deliverance was a massacre.
And for twelve years, he had worn its crown.
---
He passed under the west wing arch, toward the sealed section of the palace known only to a handful of scholars and war advisors.
The Imperial Archive.
A place not even the Crown Prince was allowed to enter without written permission.
But Aiden didn't ask.
He waited until the midnight guard changed, then slipped through the back entrance — a narrow stairwell once used by mages during the empire's early wars.
He had found the mention of it in a forgotten journal a year ago. He hadn't thought he'd ever need it.
But tonight, he did.
---
The air inside was thick with dust and silence.
The shelves were packed with ancient tomes, war records, sealed scrolls. A labyrinth of paper and bone.
He moved slowly, running his fingers along the spines.
Demonology. Military Campaigns. Classified Tribunals.
He stopped at a thick black volume, its cover unmarked.
He opened it.
The ink inside was faded, but clear enough.
"The Cleansing of the Abyssal Bloodline."
His chest tightened.
He flipped through pages of sketches. Maps. Orders stamped with his father's seal.
He read names. Villages. Battle formations.
And then he found it.
A single entry.
"Final Siege – Citadel of Noctheia. The Demon King and Queen confirmed terminated. Civilians neutralized. Survivors: None."
There was a sketch of the citadel burning.
Of a figure pierced through the chest.
His horns cracked. His wings falling in flames.
Aiden's stomach turned.
Because he recognized those eyes.
Amber.
The same as hers.
---
He stared at the page, unmoving.
She had told him nothing.
But her presence—her rage—made perfect sense now.
She was not supposed to exist.
Her name had been erased. Her bloodline wiped from record.
She had survived what was meant to be total extinction.
And now she lived inside the palace, under the roof of the man who murdered her family.
And Aiden—he was the one she hated.
He closed the book, slowly, gently.
And sat on the cold stone floor, his hands shaking for the first time in years.
---
He remembered her voice again.
Her eyes.
Her silence.
And finally, her fury.
And for the first time since receiving the Immortal Magic Body, he felt something deeper than guilt.
----
Lyra's POV
Something was wrong with him.
She had watched him for weeks—studied every breath, every blink, every practiced movement of the crown prince.
He was always composed. Detached. Cold in the way only someone raised in gold and blood could be.
But now... he was different.
He didn't flinch anymore.
Didn't look away when her eyes met his.
Didn't pretend not to see the things she did to provoke him.
It was subtle. But she noticed.
He was watching her too closely.
---
She changed her rhythm.
Slight touches to his desk. Letting her fingers linger near his cup a little too long. Dropping folded notes she knew he'd read. None of it dangerous—not yet—but all of it deliberate.
Each one, a test.
He passed all of them with the same maddening silence.
But now, there was something behind it.
Not ignorance. Not arrogance.
Awareness.
Like he knew what she was doing.
And worse… like he understood why.
---
She hated that.
Hated the way he let her stay close.
Hated that he didn't recoil from her glare anymore.
Hated the calm in his eyes when she tried to needle him.
This was not how it was supposed to go.
She was meant to control the narrative.
She was supposed to chip away at his mind and leave cracks behind his perfect mask.
But he wasn't cracking.
He was accepting.
---
When she spilled ink across his scrolls that morning, he didn't scold her.
He just looked at the mess, then at her, and said quietly:
"I wasn't going to read them anyway."
No anger. No sarcasm.
Just resignation.
She froze for half a second.
And that second infuriated her.
---
What was he doing?
Was this a trick? A game? Some twisted royal manipulation?
Or had she finally pushed him past the point of resistance—into apathy?
She couldn't tell anymore.
And that made her uneasy.
Because if she wasn't sure who he was anymore…
then what did that make her?
---
Later, she passed by the throne hall while the Emperor met with his war advisors.
She heard them mention the Citadel of Noctheia.
Her hand clenched so hard around the water pail, it cracked.
She kept walking.
But the pressure in her chest didn't leave.
---
That night, when she entered the prince's chamber, he was already sitting at the window.
Waiting.
He turned when she closed the door behind her.
His eyes met hers—calm, quiet, and unsettlingly clear.
"You know, don't you?" he said.
She didn't answer.
He nodded to himself, as if her silence confirmed it.
"I found the records."
She stayed near the door. Her pulse rose.
"I know what happened to your family."
She took a step forward, jaw tight.
"Then you also know what I came here to do."
His eyes didn't shift.
"Yes."
"And you're not going to stop me?"
"No."
The room was silent.
Even the wind outside had gone still.
She hated the way he said it.
Not like a prince giving mercy.
Not like a martyr.
Like someone who was already dead.
---
"I thought you were proud of what your family did," she said.
He shook his head.
"I never knew what they did."
A pause.
"But I think you did."
That made her chest burn.
She wanted to scream at him. To hit him. To tear the calm off his face and make him feel what she had felt.
But instead… she stepped back.
Because for the first time—
She wasn't sure if he was the one unraveling.
Or if it was her.