The night air in the vampire kingdom always felt heavier than it had any right to. Thick with mist that clung to skin like a second layer, carrying the scent of ancient trees and midnight-blooming flowers that only unfurled their petals when the world was cloaked in shadow. The sky above stretched wide, a canopy of stars scattered like spilled diamonds, but none of them gleamed bright enough to chase away the darkness that settled over the kingdom like a living thing. The darkness here wasn't merely the absence of light — it was a force, a presence, something that whispered in the ears of those foolish enough to be caught alone.
Lucien stood on the highest balcony of the obsidian palace, his crimson cloak catching in the cold wind, snapping around him like a banner of war. Below him stretched the vast expanse of their dying land, forests stripped of their former magic, fields struggling to yield, rivers running slower than they once did. And beyond all that, far past the mortal villages huddled like frightened children and the cursed forests where no man dared linger, lay the kingdom of men. A land that had bled them dry. A land that had stolen everything.
He could see none of it from here, not with mortal eyes, but he didn't need to. He felt it. Like a wound festering beyond the hills, poisoning everything it touched. The bond between their realms had once been delicate but sacred. Now it was severed, and their kingdom had been bleeding out ever since.
Lucien's eyes closed against the pull of exhaustion, the weight pressing down on his shoulders heavier than it had ever been. His mother — their queen, the last great sorceress of their line — was fading. Even from here, even across the leagues that stretched between them, he could feel her magic weakening. The bond they shared by blood was stretched taut like a fraying thread. Every night it grew thinner. Every dawn he wondered if that fragile connection would snap, leaving a hollow place where she had once been.
A quiet knock sounded at the heavy doors behind him, the sound barely carrying over the sigh of the wind. Lucien didn't bother turning. He didn't need to. Only one person approached him with that familiar, infuriating stride.
"You're running from shadows again."
The voice was smooth, mocking, threaded with a smugness Lucien had grown to despise. Dorian.
Lucien's jaw tensed. He didn't speak right away, forcing his hands to unclench at his sides before answering. "I don't have time for your games, cousin."
Dorian stepped into view, his silhouette framed by the glow of flickering torches inside the chamber. He moved with a predator's grace, every inch of him radiating the easy confidence of a man who believed the world was his for the taking. His hair was the same ink-dark shade as Lucien's, but where Lucien's gaze burned with a simmering fire, Dorian's eyes were sharp and cold, gleaming like twin shards of glass, always watching, always searching for the next sign of weakness.
"You say that every time I find you sulking up here," Dorian drawled, leaning his elbows on the balcony's stone railing like a man surveying his kingdom. "And yet, here you are, staring at the human lands like a lovesick poet."
Lucien's hands tightened around the balcony's edge until the stone threatened to crack beneath his grip. "I'm wasting time speaking to you."
"You're wasting time, period," Dorian retorted, his smirk widening. "Chasing after relics and broken promises while our people starve and rot. While our queen," he sneered the title like a curse, "fades away. You should be down there, taking the throne while there's still a kingdom to claim."
Lucien's head snapped toward him, a flicker of danger in his crimson gaze. "I swore an oath."
Dorian let out a soft, humorless laugh. "To a dying woman and a kingdom crumbling under its own decay. You're clinging to old traditions and noble ideals, cousin. But noble ideals won't feed our people. They won't stop the rot creeping through our lands. And they certainly won't stop the humans from driving a blade through your heart the moment they discover who you really are."
Lucien's jaw flexed, the memory of his mother's fading smile, the council's hushed arguments, and the desperate, hollow faces of their people flashing unbidden through his mind. He knew Dorian's words weren't entirely wrong. But that didn't make them right.
"I remember the oath," Lucien said quietly, his voice like the promise of a storm. "And I will keep it. I'll bring the flower home. I'll restore the land. I'll save her."
Dorian's expression darkened, the mocking humor in his eyes replaced by something colder, more calculating. "You think you're doing this for her? For them?" He gestured toward the mist-wreathed horizon. "Don't delude yourself. You think power corrupts? Power reveals. Everyone does it for power eventually, cousin. Even you."
Lucien gave a low, humorless laugh, the sound devoid of warmth. "Not me."
A tense silence stretched between them, filled only by the soft sigh of the wind and the distant, mournful cries of nocturnal beasts. The kingdom mourned with them, the very air heavy with a sorrow none dared name aloud.
Finally, Dorian pushed off from the railing, straightening his shoulders as he turned back toward the doorway. The smirk had returned, thin and cruel, the kind that promised nothing good.
"Well then," Dorian said softly, "I suggest you remember why you're bleeding yourself dry in that human cesspit. Because if you fail, there won't be a kingdom left for you to save."
Without waiting for a response, he strode away, the heavy doors closing behind him with a finality that echoed through the balcony's stillness.
Lucien didn't move. He stayed where he was, his eyes fixed on the distant horizon though he saw nothing of the world beyond. The stars blurred and shifted, the cold seeping deep into his bones. His thoughts spun in a dozen directions, a tangle of duty, desperation, and dread.
And then, against his will, his mind wandered to her.
Aurelia.
The human princess with defiance in her blood and sorrow in her gaze.
She wasn't supposed to matter. Just another spoiled royal to tolerate while he played his part, while he hunted for the relic that would save them all. Yet each day, each hour, she unraveled him a little more.
Her laugh haunted him. The spark in her eyes when she challenged him. The quiet grief she carried like a second skin. The courage that blazed through her every time someone tried to clip her wings.
She reminded him too much of the world before it bled itself dry.
And the worst of it — the part that truly terrified him — was that he didn't want to let go of that flame. It had been so long since anything made him feel alive. So long since he wanted something for himself, beyond duty, beyond blood.
Lucien shook his head, gritting his teeth as if he could force the thought away. He couldn't afford this distraction. Not now. Not when their world teetered on the edge of ruin.
He was the Legacy of Fire. The last hope of a dying kingdom. The heir to a crown drenched in centuries of blood. He had a duty to his mother, to his people, to the land itself. He would find the crystal flower. He would save his mother. He would bury Dorian's ambition beneath the weight of his own success.
And when it was over — when the flower was home, when the throne was secure — he would leave the princess behind.
He had to.
Because the fire consuming his heart was one he could never afford to ignite.
Not when he was already drowning in ash.