He moved towards the door, a force of nature in white and gold, already halfway into the corridor's shadows.
"You have to agree he is free!" Camilla called after him, her voice thin against the stone.
He didn't turn. "Guards."
Two armored figures materialized from the dimness. "Yes, my king."
"Release Tiberius."
He kept walking.
Magnus appeared from an archway, his face a mask of bewildered protocol. "Your Majesty—you are about to be wed! The archbishop is waiting, the entire court—"
Tenebrarum didn't break stride. "You always wanted her, Magnus. Consider her yours."
Before another word could be uttered, he turned sharply, pressed a nearly invisible seam in the stone wall, and vanished through a hidden door that sighed shut behind him.
The secret passage was narrow, dark, and cold. With one efficient, violent motion, he tore the golden-edged mask from his face and let it fall. It did not clatter, but landed with a soft, final sigh on the damp stone, a discarded sliver of false daylight.
His face, now uncovered, was a shock in the gloom—too beautiful, too severe, carved from pale marble and shadow. In the darkness, his irises glowed like banked coals, a deep, burning red that seemed to cast their own hellish light. They were captivating, not with warmth, but with the terrifying allure of a predator's gaze in total blackness.
His mind was a focused blade, honed to a single, sharp truth.
Where is Aurelia. Where is my child.
He did not know where she was. But he knew what would.
Potens.
The wolf knew her scent, her fear, the very salt of her skin. It had tasted her blood in the rain, had felt her terror vibrate in the air. A hound could track a fugitive. But Potens… Potens could track a memory. A feeling. A ghost.
A grim, possessive certainty hardened in his chest.
This was not a search born of hope, but of claiming.
She was his. The child was his. And he would tear the world apart to repossess them.
The low whisper hung in the damp air of the passage, a pact sealed with the dark. "Lead me to her, Potens… and you will have your freedom."
Tenebrarum rode at first light, a stark figure astride a horse the color of wet slate. Beside him, Potens moved—a ripple of focused shadow, nose tracing the earth, then lifting to test the dawn air, following a thread of scent only it could perceive.
The king had expected the trail to strike out, east or north, toward the wilds beyond the border. That was the logic of a fugitive: run away.
But the wolf did not turn outward.
It led him deeper. Deeper into the waking heart of his own kingdom. Past farmsteads where morning fires smoked, down cart-tracks still soft with dew.
The familiar landscape, gilded by the pale sun, twisted into something sinister. Each known landmark—the mill with its turning wheel, the ancient oak, the bridge he'd crossed a thousand times—became a quiet taunt.
Where are you?
The question beat in time with the horse's steady gait. A cold, sharp disbelief cut through his purpose. This was not the path of a desperate flight. This was the path of a deliberate hiding.
---
"Velmara, you came."
Isabella sat perched on a small stool, her gown a spotless cascade of white, the gold thread in her veil glinting with a cold fire. Her face, still uncovered, was a mask of serene anticipation.
"Leave. All of you," Velmara commanded, her voice like dry parchment. The maidens scattered without a sound. When the door shut, the old woman approached. "Isabella, you performed beautifully. Your act as the blushing Matrona was masterful. You will be greatly rewarded."
The smile on Isabella's lips remained, but it grew brittle at the edges. "Does he have to die, Velmara? I've already planned how I would control him. A living king is more useful than a dead one."
"Control him? With what?" Velmara's laugh was a dry, cruel rustle. "You cannot even secure an heir. Have you forgotten? You are wombless. I will not argue this. He dies today."
Wombless.
The word did not just hit Isabella—it pierced. It found the secret, shameful hollow at her core and twisted. For a heartbeat, her perfect composure shattered; her breath caught, her eyes flashed with a pain so raw it was almost animal.
But years of practice smoothed her features back into placid royalty in an instant. The smile she gave was thin, cold, and utterly devoid of warmth.
"Wombless. Wombless. Wombless," she repeated, each iteration softer, more deliberate, as if tasting the poison on her own tongue and deciding to make an antidote of it. She rose from the stool, her spotless gown pooling around her. "I think you should leave now, Velmara. Do not trouble your ancient head with details. I will have everything… my own way."
The air in the room shifted, growing thin and charged. The pupil had just dismissed the master.
"Isabella," Velmara said, the name a low, dangerous whisper. "Are you asking me to leave? You do not know what you are doing."
Without another word, Velmara turned. Her exit was not a retreat, but a severance. The door did not close—it was slammed with a force that shook the frame.
THUD!
The very wood seemed to feel the final, furious vibration of her will. The sound echoed down the hall, a promise of consequences yet to come.
Alone, the silence rushed back in, louder than before. The defiance drained from Isabella's posture as if the slam had knocked it out of her. Her legs gave way, not to the stool, but to the floor beside her grand, gilded mirror.
She stared at her reflection—the perfect bride, the spotless gown, the gold-veiled hair. Then, a tremor began at her chin. A single, traitorous tear broke free, carving a glistening path through the carefully applied rouge on her cheek. Once it started, it could not be stopped.
Tears fell in a silent, relentless torrent, washing away the painted face of the queen-to-be, revealing the raw, wounded girl beneath. The word echoed in the quiet, not from Velmara's lips now, but from the hollowed-out face in the glass.
Wombless.
Yes, she was. It had been called an accident—a fall, something palatable for the her mind to whisper about.
But the truth, and the word, still cut as deep as the first time she'd heard it. It was a hollow that never filled, a silence where a laugh or a cry should have been.
The pain of it now was a fresh wound, but it bled an old grief.
It dragged her back, through the anger and the ambition, to him.
Her late husband. The only man who had ever looked at her, knowing she could give him no child, and loved her still. His eyes had held no calculation, no disappointment—only a quiet, steadfast devotion.
He had been her shelter. And his loss had left her exposed to every chilling wind, including Velmara's calculated whispers.
He was the reason, the first and deepest reason, she had ever agreed to the old woman's schemes. Not for a throne at first, but for a purpose. For a way to reshape a world that had taken everything from her.
A sob broke free, harsh and ragged in the silent room. She wasn't just crying for the insult, or for the shattered wedding. She was crying for the love that had once made her whole, and for the hollow, vengeful thing she had agreed to become in its absence.
-----------------------
To be continued...