The throne room of the High Palace was colder than winter steel.
Once, it had been filled with music, laughter, and the chatter of noble courtiers. Now, silence ruled, broken only by the echo of boots against marble and the whimpering of those summoned before the throne.
Damien sat there, draped in black and crimson, a golden crown tilted carelessly upon his brow. His eyes—once warm with mischief and kindness—were hard now, sharp as drawn blades. The boy who had shielded a slave girl from cruelty was gone. What remained was the man who had clawed power with iron fists.
"Your taxes," he said, his voice flat as stone. "They are short."
The trembling baron kneeling before him stammered excuses, but Damien didn't move. He didn't shout. He didn't need to. His silence was heavier than chains.
At last, he lifted one hand and snapped his fingers. Guards moved instantly, dragging the baron away as he pleaded for mercy. Damien did not watch. He no longer cared.
The throne had taught him one lesson: mercy was weakness.
It hadn't always been that way.
In the first months after Victoria vanished, Damien had searched tirelessly. He'd scoured villages, bribed spies, even ventured beyond the borders of the kingdom. Every time he thought he was close, every time he found a hint of her—ashes in a firepit, chains left unlocked—she was already gone.
And with every failure, something in him hardened.
By the second year, his father's council whispered about his "obsession." By the third, he had stopped speaking of her at all. By the fourth, he began to crush those whispers under heel.
Now, eight years later, Damien was no longer the boy who had called her his best friend. He was the Tyrant Prince—the ruler who taxed mercilessly, punished swiftly, and trusted no one.
No one… except the ghost of a girl he could never forget.
That night, Damien sat in his private chambers, staring into the fire. His reflection in the flames looked older, sharper—dark hair falling to his shoulders, jaw set with grimness.
He poured himself wine but didn't drink. He rarely did anymore.
"Eight years," he muttered, his voice a low growl. "And still I see you when I close my eyes."
The wooden collar she had once worn sat on the mantle, preserved like a relic. He had found it in the dungeon the day she escaped. He had told himself, year after year, that keeping it was foolish, but he never cast it away. It was the last piece of her he had.
And it was his curse.
A knock at the door.
"Enter," Damien said, not looking up.
A captain stepped inside, armor clinking, head bowed. "My lord. Reports have reached us from the western forests. Bandits were… annihilated."
"Annihilated?" Damien asked, his tone disinterested.
"Yes, sire. Survivors claim they found a woman living there. She wielded… light. They say she destroyed their weapons, their very will to fight. The cabin they attacked was reduced to ash."
The captain hesitated. "They call her the woman of light."
Damien stilled. His wine glass slipped from his fingers, shattering against the marble floor.
For a long moment, he didn't breathe. His chest felt tight, his blood rushing hot.
"Light," he whispered.
The captain bowed deeper. "Sire, we suspect it is an exaggeration. Perhaps sorcery. But—"
"Where?" Damien cut him off, his voice sharp as a blade.
"My lord?"
"Where." His eyes blazed, his tone low but lethal.
The captain swallowed. "In the northern woodlands, beyond the Blackridge Valley."
Damien rose from his chair in one smooth, commanding motion. The room seemed to shrink under his presence.
Eight years. Eight years of emptiness, of rage, of building walls so high no one could climb them. And now—now rumors whispered of a woman of light, a woman who destroyed men with beauty and power.
A woman who sounded like her.
He clenched his fists. His heart should have been numb, should have dismissed it as lies. But beneath the iron layers he had forged around himself, something stirred. Something dangerous. Something he had buried for too long.
Hope.
He turned to the captain, his voice low and lethal. "Summon my guard. We march at dawn."
The captain blinked. "Sire? For bandits?"
Damien's glare froze him in place. "Do not question me."
The man bowed and fled.
Damien stared once more at the wooden collar on the mantle. His reflection glimmered faintly in its polished surface.
"Victoria," he whispered, the name cracking in his throat for the first time in years.
If she was alive—if she had truly been here all this time—then everything he had become, everything he had done, all the blood he had spilled in her absence…
It didn't matter.
He would find her.
And this time, she would not escape.
Outside, the palace bells tolled midnight. The kingdom slept uneasily under the rule of its heartless prince. But Damien was awake, pacing, restless. His eyes burned with a hunger sharper than any sword.
For eight years, he had ruled without mercy. For eight years, he had been a tyrant.
But now, for the first time, he felt alive.
The woman of light would be his.
Whether she was Victoria or not—whether she came willingly or in chains—did not matter.
Because Damien had decided.
He would never lose her again.