A heavy silence pressed in on us, thick and suffocating. The only sound was the hiss and crackle of the fire, its warmth a fragile shield against the chill that had nothing to do with the air. I watched Cassius, and I felt Seraphiel watching him, too. The weight of centuries settled on his shoulders, a burden he had carried in utter solitude. He wrung his hands, a fine tremor betraying the calm he fought to project.

When he finally spoke, his voice was a low, gravelly rasp, as if torn from a place of deep rust and disuse. “His name was Ederan.” He began not at the beginning, but at the heart of the wound. “Ederan Allbontell. We grew up together, closer than brothers.” He drew a shaky breath, the memory already costing him. “He was the one who’d convince you to scale the palace walls after midnight just to see the stars without the glare of the torches. For a prince drowning in duty, he was my air.”

A ghost of a smile touched Cassius’s lips, fleeting and painful. “We trained together, sparred until we were bruised and breathless. It was the only time I wasn’t a prince, just–Cassius.” He closed his eyes, the memory turning sharp. “My father was a hard man. Stern, demanding. Ederan was my anchor in that storm. I believed he always would be.”

His gaze drifted to the fire, the flames dancing in his haunted eyes. “One night, we slipped away from my guard detail—his idea, of course—to patrol the kingdom’s edge. That’s where we found him. A human, young and terrified, scrambling for his life from a bear maddened. He had no mana of his own, so I intervened. Shielded him.”

Cassius’s expression soured, his voice curdling around the name. “Phronius.” He nearly spat the word into the fire. “We learned later he was the crown prince of Tirilla. We took him in, healed his wounds… and befriended him.”

He fell silent, the tremor in his hands worsening. “Time passed. A shadow fell over them. Ederan and Phronius… they grew secretive, whispering in corners, their eyes sliding away from mine. They were stealing people from the villages.” His voice dropped, raw with shame and fury. “Draining their mana for experiments. When I confronted them, they laughed. Called me paranoid, told me the pressures of the crown were making me see ghosts.”

My own heart ached with a fresh pang of sympathy.

“They became more careful after that,” he continued, his voice barely a whisper. “But I wasn’t a fool. I found their new meeting place, an ancient ruin deep in the woods. I tracked them for days, waiting to catch them in the act.” The memory twisted his features into a mask of self-loathing. 

“It was a trap. I was so focused on the two of them, on the horror of what they were doing to a captive villager, that I never sensed the third. Everything went black.”

A bitter, ancient rage hardened his voice. He stared into the fireplace, reliving it. “I awoke to the cold kiss of mana-suppressing iron on my skin. I was chained to the center of a forbidden circle carved into the stone floor. They had planned it all. The friends I had known were gone. Replaced by… monsters.”

His breath hitched. The silence stretched, taut and agonizing, before he forced himself to go on. “Ederan approached me. The moment he stepped into the circle, the air frosted over, a deathly cold that bypassed flesh and sank straight into my soul. His core… the warm, vibrant magic I had known my entire life… it was gone. In its place was a roiling abyss. A chilling emptiness stared back at me from his eyes.”

Cassius flinched, his own hands clenching as if to ward off a phantom touch. “He grabbed my wrists. I fought, I thrashed, but in those chains, powerless… it was useless.” He looked from his hands to me, his eyes pleading for me to understand the depth of the violation. “He loomed over me, pressing one cold hand to mine and the other flat against my chest, right over my heart. He began to chant.”

His voice broke. “It was a language I didn’t know, or one my mind has since refused to remember. The world began to spin, the edges blurring into a vortex of nauseating color. And the pain… It was a fire ignited in my veins, a searing agony that felt like my very essence was being unwritten. I remember my body convulsing, and then… nothing. Only the mercy of darkness.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath. “When I awoke again, I was in the deepest dungeon of Tirilla’s castle, chained to the walls just as you found me.”

A chasm of time separated that broken prince from the man before me now. How had he bridged it? 

He finally tore his gaze from the past and looked at Seraphiel, who had listened with an unnerving, absolute stillness. “That is all I know,” he finished, his voice raw.

Seraphiel rose, gliding toward him with the silent grace of a forest creature. “From your story and the lingering scent of the magic,” she said, her voice a low hum, “I have a theory. Let me see.”

When Cassius held out his arm, she leaned close, her green eyes tracing the faint, sickly orange glow of the curse markings under his skin. “This is ancient,” she murmured, more to herself than to us. “A fusion of corrupted elven ritual and something… older. Darker. How could your friend have possibly known such a thing?”

She straightened, backing away toward a towering bookshelf that dominated her living space. “A curse of this nature is a parasite. It is designed to feed until its host is consumed. It does not stop.” She paused, her long, elegant fingers hovering over the spine of a heavy, leather-bound tome. “But… there may be a way to starve it.” She looked at Cassius. “A very, very small chance.”

She pulled the book from the shelf with a soft grunt of effort and returned, settling onto her stool. Her expression was intensely grave. “Understand this, Cassius. The curse is a death sentence. That is a certainty. This ritual is merely a chance to choose a different death, with the slimmest hope of survival. Are you willing to risk an immediate end for that hope?”

My heart seized in my chest. My gaze flew to Cassius. Worry tightened the lines around his eyes, but beneath it, I saw a flicker of the stubborn hope that was the bedrock of his soul. We have to try, I pleaded silently, holding my breath.

“I am,” Cassius said, his voice unwavering. “My people have been without their king for long enough.”

A faint, weary smile touched Seraphiel’s lips. “Very well.” Her gaze shifted to me, sharp and penetrating. “And you, Thalia? Are you prepared to do what is necessary?”

“Yes,” I said, my voice firm despite the tremor running through me.

“Good. You will need that resolve. The most dangerous parts of this crucible fall to you.” She flipped the book open. On the page, written in elegant, archaic script, was a single word: ‘Oakhaven.’ A jolt went through me—the name from the library. “You must travel to this forgotten sanctuary,” she said. “I do not know its location.”

“Neither do we,” Cassius and I said in unison. The spark of hope flickered.

“But,” Seraphiel added, her eyes glinting, “the Master of the Mage’s Tower will.”

An image flashed in my mind: a map I had studied, a vast, empty field, and in its heart, a shimmering tower hidden from the mundane world. “I know where that is,” I breathed, renewed purpose cutting through the gloom.

“Then you must go. Quickly,” she instructed. “In Oakhaven, you must find the site of their ancient Awakening Ceremonies. Thalia,”—her eyes locked onto mine, pinning me with their intensity—“you will draw upon the immense ambient magic of that place, weaving it with your own. You must use this amplified power to carefully, precisely, slow Cassius’s heart. The curse is anchored to his life force; as his heart slows, the curse will be drawn to that final, flickering ember of life.”

She paused, letting the weight of her words settle before delivering the final blow.

“Then… you must stop his heart completely.”

The blood drained from my face. My own heart hammered against my ribs as if trying to beat for both of us. My head snapped toward Cassius. His gaze met mine, not with terror, but with a profound and steady trust that both fortified and shattered me.

“He cannot survive more than three minutes without a heartbeat,” Seraphiel warned, her voice devoid of all warmth. “You will have to time it to the second. While his heart is still, you have another task: you must shield his mind with your mana, protect it from being snuffed out. You will know the curse is broken when the markings have vanished from his skin. Only then can you restart his heart. It is, as I said, extraordinarily dangerous.” Her gaze softened as she looked at Cassius. “There is no guarantee you will return.”

The air grew heavy again, thick with the unspoken fear of failure. My hands began to tremble. I grabbed them tight to still them.

Cassius was the first to break the silence, rising slowly to his feet. “Thank you, Seraphiel.” I stood as well, my limbs feeling stiff and clumsy. I bowed my head. “Thank you.”

She rose to see us to the door. “It is I who should thank you. I had resigned myself to a world of shadows.” She reached for Cassius’s hand—not in familiarity, but in a gesture of deep, formal respect. She pressed her forehead to his knuckles. “Your willingness to face the abyss for your people proves you are worthy of the title. King Cassius.” She stepped back, a final, graceful bow. “May you be safe on your journey.”