Lucian's POV
I lay flat on the cold floor of my chambers, arms at my sides, eyes closed, the silence of the morning pressing down on me like a weight. Meditation had long become my only ritual of peace. When the chaos of the curse grew too loud inside me, when the hunger clawed and tore at the edges of my sanity, I turned to stillness. The stillness never freed me, not fully, but it kept me from unraveling.
And today, I was unraveling.
Because of her.
The girl. The human. Evelyn.
The one who bore her face. Aveline's face.
I clenched my jaw, forcing my chest to rise and fall evenly. That old goddess had played many tricks on me over the centuries, but this? This was crueler than all the others. To give me a shadow of what I lost, to dangle a memory I could never reclaim, it was her way of mocking me, reminding me that I was nothing but a beast, cursed to walk this world forever.
But I will not fall for it.
