The morning sun was a liar. It spilled across the balcony of the Livian manor in a wave of liquid gold, promising a new day, a fresh start. It caught in the pristine white silk of Corbin's robes and glinted off the silver threads embroidered there, making him look like a saint in a painting. He sat perfectly still, his elegant hands resting on the arms of his chair, his long black hair a stark, flowing contrast to the purity of his attire. He was the picture of serene victory.
But his eyes, the color of a twilight sky, were distant. The sun felt cold on his skin.
His mind was not on the dawn. It was trapped in the grey mists of the Ancestry, replaying the moment his magic had flared, not in triumph, but in a desperate, sealing burst. He saw it again: his brother's form, not disintegrating, but freezing, trapped in a prison of Corbin's own making. He saw Macy's horrified face, Dove's shocked gasp, Keith's roar of fury. He saw Silas's eyes—Ash's eyes—in that final second. Not hatred. Not anger. A profound, heartbreaking betrayal. A lifeless body held in stasis, yes, but a death nonetheless.
"Lord Corbin?" a timid voice interrupted from the doorway. A young servant bowed deeply. "Breakfast is served, my lord."
The vision shattered. Corbin blinked, the elegant lord returning to his body. He gave a curt nod and rose, the white robes flowing around him like a shroud of innocence as he walked into the opulent dining room.
At the breakfast table there was a different kind of performance. His grandmother, a formidable woman whose pride was as sharp as her cheekbones, was holding court.
"—and the Ceremony of Honors is being planned for the end of the week ," she was saying, sipping her tea. "The entire Council will be there. Finally, proper recognition for wiping that stain from our family's name." She beamed at Corbin as he took his seat. "My grandson, the savior of the realm."
Corbin's stomach turned. The eggs and smoked fish on his plate suddenly looked like offal. Stain. Wiped. The words were so clean, so final. They bore no relation to the messy, agonizing truth.
"It was a necessary action," he said, his voice neutral, aiming for a tone of somber duty that would satisfy them.
"Necessary? It was glorious!" his grandmother corrected. "You have secured our line for a thousand years."
The chatter continued, a symphony of self-congratulation that pressed in on him from all sides. He couldn't breathe. The walls, adorned with portraits of stern-faced ancestors, felt like they were closing in. He abruptly pushed his chair back, the legs scraping loudly on the marble floor.
"Please, excuse me. I find I have no appetite."
Celeste, who had been observing him with her sharp, knowing eyes, spoke as he turned to leave. "Corbin." Her voice was calm but firm. "Before you lose yourself in your duties today, go to the estate. The one by the Blackwood. Collect anything you… value. The property agents begin their assessment tomorrow. It's time to be rid of the place."
The estate. The place where he and Silas had spent those few, fractured Years as a "family" after his return. The place where it had all begun to unravel.
Dove's father, a pragmatic man with little patience for sentiment, nodded. "Good. Too many memories in that old pile of stone. And death. Bad for the property value."
The words were a physical blow. Memories and death. They were selling the last physical remnant of his brother's brief return. Erasing him, again.
Corbin didn't trust himself to speak. He merely inclined his head in a gesture of obedience and left the room, the sound of their cheerful breakfast conversation feeling like a mockery. He walked away, the hero in white, his victory tasting of ash, drawn to the one place that held the ghost of the boy he had destroyed.
---
The wrought-iron gates of the Livian manor were less an entrance and more a barrier, cold and implacable. Davina, small and stubborn in her worn orphanage clothes, had been arguing with a stone-faced guard for what felt like an hour.
"Please, I just need a moment with Lord Corbin! Just to ask him a question!" she pleaded, her voice straining.
"Lord Corbin does not receive unscheduled visitors, especially not gutter-born urchins from the charity homes what are you anyways wench a thieving siphoner or a peasant weaver,"the guard droned, not even looking at her. "Be on your way before I have you removed."
Tears of frustration welled in Davina's eyes. She was about to turn away, defeated, when a movement in the courtyard caught her eye. A figure in stark white robes, his long black hair flowing, was walking toward the gates with a purposeful stride. Corbin.
Hope flared in her chest. As the gates swung open to let him pass, she darted forward, ignoring the guard's shout.
"Lord Corbin! Please!"
He stopped, his expression one of distant irritation. He looked like a statue brought to life, beautiful and utterly untouchable. "What is it?" he asked, his voice as cold as marble.
Davina swallowed, her heart hammering. She had practiced this. "I… I just wanted to ask… about the day you defeated Silas." She forced a look of admiring awe onto her face. "Everyone says you were so brave. I just… I care about your heroism. What was it like?"
Corbin's eyes, the color of a winter sky, flickered over her. He saw the calculation behind the admiration, the orphanage grit beneath the feigned reverence. He was surrounded by sycophants; he knew the look.
"It was a duty performed for the good of the realm," he said, his tone flat and authoritarian. "The details are a matter of state security and not for public discussion. Now, if you'll excuse me."
He made to move past her, but Davina's desperation broke through her act. "Was he scared?!" she yelled, the words tearing from her. "Did he say anything? Did he look like… like himself?"
Corbin froze. He turned back, really looking at her now. He saw the genuine pain in her eyes, the grief that was not for the hero, but for the boy he had killed. He saw the girl who had loved his brother when he was just Ash.
The cold mask on his face cracked, just for a second. He saw the hurt his useless, official answers had caused, and a wave of self-loathing washed over him. He was so tired of lies.
His voice was quieter when he spoke again, losing its edge. "You're from the orphanage. Nun Coventry."
Davina nodded, wiping her eyes angrily.
Corbin looked at her for a long moment, an idea forming. A reckless, lonely idea. "I am going to the Blackwood Estate. Silas's former residence." He gestured to his waiting carriage. "If you wish, you may accompany me. There might be something there… a trinket… that you would value. To remember him by."
The guard spluttered. "My Lord, surely that's not—"
"It is my decision," Corbin cut him off, his tone leaving no room for argument. He held out a hand to help Davina into the carriage, an act of startling grace.
It was a pretense, of course. He had no intention of giving her a "trinket." He was taking her because she was the only person in the world who had known Silas without the politics, the power, or the hate. She was a living link to the brother he had lost, and in that moment, Corbin, the legendary hero, was desperately, achingly lonely. He yearned for a connection to something real, even if it was shared grief with a girl from the gutter. As the carriage pulled away, the weight of his crown felt heavier than ever.
---
The air in the underground cistern—their current "war room"—was thick with the smell of stale beer, unwashed bodies, and pure fucking despair. The rebellion wasn't just losing; it was being systematically dismantled.
"This is bullshit!" roared a hulking werewolf named Rikke, slamming a fist on the rickety table so hard it splintered. "Another safe house gone! Three more people, snatched right off the fucking street!"
"What's the brilliant plan now, Michael?" spat a vampire woman named Anya, her eyes glowing with fury. She gestured wildly at the man standing at the head of the table. "You and your brother talked a big game after Silas fell. 'We will lead.' 'We have the strength.' Well, where the fuck is it?"
Michael, the head of the First Vampire Family, stood with his arms crossed, his aristocratic features looking out of place and utterly defeated. Beside him, his brother Johan, broader and more warrior-like, glowered at the angry mob that was once their army.
"We are doing everything we can," Michael said, his voice trying for authority but cracking with strain. "The Witch Government's surveillance has increased tenfold. They are hunting us like animals."
"That's because we're acting like prey!" yelled a wiry siphon thief named Cutpin, pointing a dirty finger. "Under Silas, we were hitting them where it hurt! Now we're just hiding in this shithole, waiting to get flushed out!"
The crowd erupted in agreement, a chorus of curses and shouts. They were a miserable collection—pale vampires, haggard werewolves, gaunt peasant weavers, and siphoners who looked like they hadn't tasted real magic in weeks. The alliance Silas had built was fracturing into its base components of fear and hunger.
"Silas had a plan! He had that… that power!" a weaver witch cried out.
"And now he's dead, thanks to his pretty-boy brother," Johan snarled, finally losing his temper. "So we have to deal with the reality we're in!"
"The reality is you two don't know what the fuck you're doing!" Rikke shot back.
The door to the cistern creaked open, and a young woman slipped inside. Hope. At eighteen, she had her vampire father's sharp, intelligent features and a wildness in her eyes that came from her werewolf mother. She was still dressed in the dark, practical clothes of a scout, dust from the rooftops coating her shoulders.
She took in the scene—her father and uncle being verbally torn apart by the very people they were supposed to lead. The hope that had once defined her name had long since curdled into a hard, cold resolve.
"Arguing about who's to blame won't stop the shadow -hunters from kicking this door in," she said, her voice quiet but cutting through the noise. Everyone turned to look at her.
"Then what will, Hope?" Anya asked, the bitterness momentarily replaced by a sliver of expectation. Many here had fought alongside Hope; they knew her worth. She had been one of Silas's closest confidantes.
Hope looked from the desperate faces of the rebels to the shamed faces of her father and uncle. "I don't know yet," she admitted, her jaw tight. "But I know that the second we start turning on each other, Corbin Livian has already won. And Silas died for nothing."
She didn't have an answer. But in that crumbling cistern, her calm defiance was the only thing that felt like a leader. The yelling stopped, replaced by a heavy, hopeless silence, broken only by the distant drip of water and the sound of a world closing in on them.
---
The Blackwood Estate was a tomb of what might have been. The carriage ride had been silent, and as they stepped into the grand, dusty foyer, the weight of the place seemed to suck the air from the room.
"I… I'll just look around," Davina said softly, her voice echoing in the cavernous space. She needed to be away from his suffocating grief, to find some trace of the boy she knew in this cold, opulent prison.
Corbin gave a curt nod, barely noticing as she drifted away down a hallway. He was already lost, pulled into the current of memory.
He walked slowly, his footsteps the only sound. The drawing-room. He paused in the doorway. He could almost see it: Silas, fidgeting with the lace at his cuff, a nervous but excited glint in his eye. "His name is Kael," the memory-ghost of his brother whispered, a confidential, happy smile on his face. "He's a vampire, but he's… different. You'd like him, Corbin. I think." Corbin had merely nodded, too wrapped in his own duties to understand the profound trust being offered.
He moved on, into the conservatory. Here, the memory shifted. They were training. Corbin, precise and powerful, weaving cosmic energy into intricate shields. Silas, struggling, his brow furrowed in frustration. A simple levitation spell flickered and died in his hands for the tenth time. "I don't understand!" Silas had laughed, not in anger, but in genuine bewilderment. "It's like my magic has a mind of its own. It doesn't want to do things, it just… is." Corbin, ever the patient tutor, had missed the ominous truth in those words.
Then, the grand staircase. A clearer, brighter memory flashed. Their mother, Celeste, was lecturing them on some point of etiquette, her voice a sharp, relentless drill. Corbin had caught Silas's eye. A silent understanding passed between them. In a sudden, uncharacteristic burst of rebellion, they had both turned and bolted up the stairs, Celeste's shocked cry echoing behind them. They'd collapsed in a heap of laughter on the landing, breathless and united, just for a moment. It was one of the few times Corbin had felt like he had a brother, not a responsibility.
The pain was a physical ache in his chest. He leaned against the wall, closing his eyes, trying to breathe through it.
Snap.
A silent, magical alarm triggered in his mind. The ward he'd placed on the basement door. Someone had opened it.
All sentiment vanished, replaced by cold, sharp alarm. He moved quickly now, his robes whispering around him as he descended the narrow stone stairs into the cool, dark undercroft of the estate.
The basement was meant for storage, but they had used it as a secret sanctuary. And there, in the center of the empty stone room, stood Davina.
She wasn't looking at the dusty furniture or the old trunks. Her back was to him, and she was staring, transfixed, at a small, stone altar tucked into an alcove.
On it sat a single, fat candle made of black wax. It was a memorial candle, the kind lit to honor the dead. But this was no ordinary candle. It was a sacred, magical construct, a perpetual flame that would only go out when the mourner's heart truly released the departed.
And it was still burning.
A faint, golden flame flickered steadily, casting dancing shadows on the wall. It had been burning since the day Silas was trapped in the Ancestry.
Davina heard his footsteps and turned. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with a confusion that was rapidly turning into a devastating understanding. She wasn't looking at the hero who had slain the monster. She was looking at a brother keeping a vigil.
Her voice was a hushed, broken thing in the silent basement.
"You never turned it off?"