At first, they thought he was late.
Cael always came to bed last, always fussing — smoothing their hair, scolding them for kicking off blankets. Sometimes he brought a little dish of fruit for them to share under the covers, or a candle to whisper stories by.
So they waited.
Waited until the candle on the bedside table burned low.
Waited until moonlight spilled silver across empty sheets.
⸻
"Where is he?" Viel whispered finally, voice cracking.
Eryx didn't answer. Just threw back the covers, feet hitting the cold stone floor.
Barefoot, half-dressed, they tore through the halls.
"Where's Cael?" Viel finally asked, voice light — too light, like a boy afraid to break something delicate.
A servant blinked. Shifted nervously.
"I—I don't know, your highness. Perhaps the gardens—"
They checked the greenhouse — because sometimes Cael fell asleep there, curled in the soft dirt.
Nothing.
A knight offered with awkward confidence, "Last I saw, he was headed to the kitchens."
They checked the kitchens.
Nothing.
The library?
The music room?
The small pond where he sometimes fed the ducks?
Nothing.
There's no presence of him at all,in this entire dukedom.At that moment,they knew something is wrong.They immediately ordered all the knights to find Cael and they also didn't stop looking for him.but there's nothing,there is no Cael.
By the time they stumbled back to the main hall, their feet were cut and raw from stone and stray shards of glass. Viel was sobbing openly, breath hiccuping.
"He left us," Viel choked out. "Eryx—he left. Because we're wrong. Because we're—"
"Shut up!" Eryx snapped. But even his voice cracked at the edges, ragged. His hand trembled where it clutched the back of a chair so hard it splintered.
"He promised," Eryx growled, softer now, almost begging. "He said he'd always stay. Always... with us."
But the more the silence stretched, the heavier the room became.
What if Cael finally realized they weren't sweet boys to be loved?
What if he saw the truth — how their hearts gnawed with something dark, something that would happily tear open anyone who got too close?
What if he decided he didn't want to be smothered by claws that called themselves love?
⸻
Viel pressed a fist to his mouth to stop a sob, shoulders shaking so violently his knees almost gave out.They are in pain,the feeling of being abandoned by the only person who give them warmth and comfort.Are they being abandoned?...By Cael.Did he really sick of them and leave...How could he?
Eryx slammed his fist into the wall hard enough that a painting crashed to the ground. He didn't even flinch at the splinters buried in his skin.
Then came the breathless shout of a knight.
"My lords— we found something. In the kitchens."
The twins moved so fast it was less like running and more like hunting. Servants flattened against the walls, too terrified to breathe.
In the kitchens, a half-drunk cup sat on the counter. Its rim dark with residue that caught moonlight like dirty frost. Another cup was clean, abandoned beside it.
Knights whispered of sedatives.Show the twins,who were on an inch away from the madness,the thing they had discovered after hours of searching for Cael.
They also discovered that at the same moment of Cael's disappearance,the gardener and his brother also disappeared.
"the gardener?" Viel rasped. His voice sounded wrong, raw — almost an animal's.
"Gone, your highness. Him and his sick brother both. Packed and vanished."
Eryx's eyes went wide. Then he laughed — a sharp, brittle sound that cracked at the end. Relief and something savage.
"He didn't leave us. He was taken."
Viel's knees buckled. He let out a thin, broken giggle — tears streaking down his face.
"He didn't abandon us. We didn't drive him away. He didn't stop loving us."
⸻
But that fragile comfort twisted quickly.
Because someone thought they could steal Cael.
Someone touched what was theirs.
The last thread that held their monstrous love to anything gentle snapped.
Viel's hands curled so tight into his arms that his nails broke skin. Blood dripped over his knuckles.
Eryx smiled — too wide, too calm — his eyes glittering with a joy that was anything but kind.
"We'll find him," Eryx whispered, voice tender, almost sweet — the way one might whisper to a child before cutting their throat.
The staff who peeked out from hiding would whisper later that they'd never seen the young princes look so horrifyingly alive — like something beautiful finally broke, spilling rot and hunger across the marble floors.
The dukedom, which had begun to grow soft under Cael's tender care, would remember what it meant to host monsters.
Because the only thing that ever kept claws sheathed and teeth hidden — the only person who ever made their nightmare hearts beat gently — was gone.
The twins had gone crazy because their most treasured possession ,Cael, their Cael has taken away.
_________
The gardener's hands were slick with sweat. His heart hammered so loud he was sure it would wake the sleeping man he carried.
But Cael stayed limp, his head tucked against the crook of Nico's shoulder, breath shallow, lashes brushing pale cheeks. Still under the drug's heavy pull.
"Quick," Nico hissed to his younger brother, who hovered by the door to the servants' hall, wringing his hands. "The hidden tunnel. It's the only way."
They slipped through a narrow servants' passage, ducking around crates and old tools. Even here, it was risky — the dukedom was filled with guards. Worse, it was filled with loyalists, men who would drag them by the scruffs of their necks to the twins if they caught so much as a whisper of betrayal.
As they neared the outer storeroom, Nico's brother paused, breath catching.
"What is that shouting?"
Voices rose outside — urgent, fearful.
"Find him now!" a knight's voice bellowed.
"Search every hall, every damn window ledge — if we fail them, they'll gut us alive!"
The younger brother's face went white. "They're already looking for him?! It's only been— what— two hours?"
Nico's stomach twisted.
Two hours.
Normally, someone could vanish for half a day — even a whole day — before it was noticed. People took breaks. Took naps. Vanished into books or errands.
But Cael was different.
They realized with a bone-deep chill just how obsessive those young monsters truly were.
Even a few hours without him had set off alarms that turned the entire estate inside out.
⸻
"Move!" Nico rasped. They ducked out of the storeroom, skirts of their simple servant tunics brushing the ground. The hidden tunnel yawned open in the earth nearby — an old escape path from the days of border wars.
They shoved inside, the younger brother helping steady Cael's legs.
Above them, the shouting grew louder. Metal clanged — torches bobbed through the trees.
"Please don't wake up yet, Cael," Nico whispered under his breath, eyes flicking down to Cael's peaceful, drugged face. "For both our sakes."
When they emerged at the forest edge, Nico finally allowed himself a shaky breath of relief. They hefted Cael into the back of a small covered cart — already packed with supplies and barrels to hide him.
The younger brother stood there trembling, then gave a weak laugh.
"Imagine if they'd waited even half an hour more. We'd have been caught. They'd have... gods, they'd have torn us apart."
Nico didn't answer.
Instead, he looked down at the unconscious man, delicate under layers of cloaks and straw, lashes still damp at the edges from the last tears he'd shed before collapsing.
Then Nico swallowed hard.
And without quite meaning to, he brushed a thumb against Cael's cheek.
"So gentle," he whispered. "So warm. It's no wonder they lost their minds for you."
Then he snapped the reins, heart racing.
Because if the twins ever found out how close he'd come to being discovered — or worse, failed to deliver this precious cargo — he knew there wouldn't be enough left of him to bury.