-1.30 PM Domino; Helia Palace; Lily's Room-
The hour was half past one, and a heavy, expectant silence pressed against the gilded walls of Lily's chamber. Sunlight, filtered through the stained-glass windows, painted fractured rainbows across the marble floor, but the beauty of the palace was lost on its inhabitants. The air was thick, almost suffocating, with the scent of rosewater and the metallic tang of resentment.
Lily stood at the center of the room, her posture rigid, every muscle coiled with fury. Her hand clamped around Rowan's wrist, her knuckles white, as if she could anchor herself to sanity through sheer force. Behind her, Isabella cowered, her small fingers clutching desperately at the folds of Lily's silk dress, eyes wide with terror. The girl's breath came in shallow, anxious bursts, barely audible over the brewing storm of words.
Across from them, Roxana stood in the doorway, her presence as cold and regal as the winter moon. Her gown, a cascade of midnight velvet and sapphires, seemed to drink in the light, casting her in shadow. Her eyes, sharp and unyielding, flickered with disdain, her lips curled in a sneer that barely concealed the venom behind her words.
Lily's voice, when it came, was low and trembling with wrath, each syllable honed to a razor's edge."Oh, so now I'm the scapegoat for all your failings? That's rich. Hilarious, really-coming from a woman who abandoned her own flesh and blood. You want to call me a fool, Roxana? Maybe I play the simpleton, but at least I have a mind. Something you traded away for that hollow, tarnished crown you cling to. Listen carefully: if Luxana ever finds her way back to this palace, it'll be me she runs to. Me she'll call mother. Never you. Never again."
Rowan winced at Lily's tightening grip, but said nothing. Isabella shrank further behind Lily, her eyes darting between the two women, sensing the danger in the air.
Roxana's attendant stepped forward, her voice trembling with the weight of protocol."Mind your tongue before Her Majesty-"
But Roxana cut her off with a single, imperious gesture."That's Queen Roxana to you, Lily," she spat, her words like ice splinters.
Lily's laugh was a brittle, bitter thing, echoing off the high, ornate ceiling."Queen? Spare me your theatrics. You're no queen. You're a witch, a usurper, a poison that's seeped into every stone of this palace. And Luxana? You know what you've done to her. You've twisted her into something monstrous with your own hands. When she learns her loveless mother has stolen everything she fought for, she won't rest. She'll hunt you down, and she'll make you pay. She's probably already plotting your demise, even as we speak."
Roxana's face twisted, her eyes narrowing to slits, fury radiating from her in waves."Have you finally lost your mind?" she hissed, her voice trembling with contained rage.
Lily's reply was venomous, her words flung like daggers."Lost my mind? No, Roxanne-the only one who's lost anything here is you. You lost your soul the moment you put on that crown."
The forbidden name hung in the air like a curse. For a heartbeat, Roxana's composure faltered, her eyes widening in shock. She turned sharply, her gown swirling around her like a storm cloud, and stalked towards the door. Her attendant hurried to her side, but Roxana brushed her off, her hand trembling as it gripped the brass handle.
She paused, the door half-open, and cast a final, baleful glance back into the room. Only one eye, cold and glittering with malice, was visible through the gap."Just wait until His Majesty returns. Then you'll be on your knees, begging for forgiveness."
The door slammed with a thunderous finality, the sound reverberating through the chamber like the closing of a tomb.
Lily stood motionless for a moment, her chest heaving with the force of her anger. Then, with an exasperated sigh, she raised her left hand and extended her middle finger at the closed door-a silent, defiant curse.
The room fell into a brittle silence. Isabella clung tighter to Lily, her fragile frame trembling. The sunlight, once warm and golden, now seemed pale and cold, casting long, accusatory shadows across the floor. In that moment, the palace felt less like a home and more like a battlefield-each word, each gesture, a weapon drawn in a war of hate and heartbreak.
-2.45PM; Domino; Helia Palace; Roxana's Study-
At 2:45 PM, the opulence of Helia Palace pressed in on Roxana as she sat alone in her study-a chamber lined with gilded shelves and crowned by a ceiling of painted cherubs and storm-lit skies. The heavy velvet drapes were drawn just enough to let in a slant of afternoon light, dust motes swirling in the golden beam like restless spirits. Ornate glass inkwells and a stack of parchment crowded her polished mahogany desk, but her attention had long since drifted from the affairs of state.
She set her pen down with a delicate clink, the silence in the room deepening as she cupped her face in her hands, elbows resting atop the cool, hard wood. Her gaze wandered to the tall window, its panes reflecting the manicured gardens below and the distant, cloud-streaked horizon beyond the palace walls.
Where is Helios? The thought gnawed at her, each repetition a new pang of unease. He had vanished with the first blush of dawn, his absence stretching across the day like a shadow. Had she driven him away with a careless word, a glance too cold? Or had another's whisper poisoned his mind against her? Each possibility flickered through her mind, sharp and unwelcome.
The grandeur of the study-its carved moldings, the subtle scent of old books and lavender polish-felt suddenly oppressive, a gilded cage echoing with her doubts. Roxana's reflection shimmered faintly in the window glass, her regal composure slipping as worry creased her brow. Outside, the world continued in tranquil order, but within these walls, uncertainty reigned.
She lingered in that uneasy stillness, the ticking of a distant clock counting out her questions, each second heavy with the weight of what might have been said, or left unsaid.
In the blackened veins of Elmir's ancient throne, where shadows bleed and silence screams, the Demons of Elmir wove their curses like venomous lullabies-soft, sweet, and deadly. Each noble house was marked by a torment carved not in stone, but in blood and bone. Yet none bore a curse so cruel, so exquisitely monstrous, as the Archduchy of Valentine.
Children born not as singular souls, but as fractured echoes-twins, triplets, quadriplets-each a mirror cracked and bleeding, reflections caught in a nightmare of flesh. But the true horror was never their likeness. It was the mirror.
To gaze upon their own image was to stare into a shattered abyss. The glass betrayed them, fracturing their identity into a thousand accusing eyes-faces of siblings, lost and living, pressed like drowned ghosts behind the fragile silver veil. Their mouths moved in silent screams, their eyes hollow wells of hunger and despair.
Only one may reign. Only one may survive.
The curse was a ravenous beast, gnawing at the marrow of their minds, twisting love into a cannibal's hunger. Madness blossomed like black roses in the Valentine bloodline, a poison that whispered to kill, to consume, to become the last reflection in the world's broken glass.
For centuries, the curse slumbered beneath the dust of forgotten tombs.
Until the birth of the quadriplets.
Cillias. Cilliax. Cilliar. And Cillian-whose eyes were not the silver of his kin, but the frozen blue of a winter grave, cold and merciless. Fate, a cruel artist, painted death upon his siblings' faces, one by one, until only Cillian remained-a lone soul adrift in a house haunted by the laughter of the dead.
Now, when Cillian stands before a mirror, the glass roils and bleeds with the faces of his lost brothers. Their mouths split wide, tearing flesh in silent howls, their hands clawing from the other side, nails scraping at the fragile boundary between worlds. The air thickens with the scent of rust and rot, a cold that seeps into bone and soul.
Madness claws at Cillian's mind, a beast awakened. The mirror shatters with a scream that echoes through empty halls, shards raining down like the teeth of some ancient leviathan. In a frenzy born of terror and desperation, he devours the glass-chewing cold, jagged fragments, tasting blood and broken dreams-trying to consume the ghosts, to silence the endless chorus of their torment.
His father, Lucian, hollow-eyed and broken, forbade mirrors in Cillian's presence, but the curse is a shadow that cannot be locked away. The haunted blue of Cillian's eyes betrays the storm inside-a tempest of madness and hunger no Valentine before him ever knew.
Banished from innocence, forced to graduate the academy at fifteen, Cillian is a prince crowned not in gold, but in shattered reflections and whispered madness.
In Elmir, the Valentine curse is no mere affliction-it is a living nightmare, a demon that crawls beneath the skin and through the glass, whispering that to survive, one must devour their own soul until only a single, monstrous reflection remains.
Beware the mirrors of Elmir.
For in their depths, the dead do not rest.
Sometimes, when the moon dies behind a veil of storm clouds, and the palace sleeps in a silence thick as blood, you can still hear the sound of glass breaking-
A lullaby for the damned.
Cillian didn't hesitate-he ripped the glass from the floor, hands already flayed and leaking, clutching the shards with a hunger that mocked reason. No flinch, no pause. Just the wet, meaty crunch as he jammed a splinter between his teeth and bit down. The sound-a brittle, splintering pop-echoed through his skull, fragments ricocheting off enamel, slicing gums, grinding into pulp. Blood flooded his mouth, thick and metallic, sluicing down his chin in hot, arterial ribbons, painting his chest in streaks that steamed against his skin.
He surged upright, body twitching, muscles coiled in grotesque tension. The noise that broke from his throat was neither scream nor growl, but something raw and animal, vibrating with a frequency that made the air shudder. His eyes-twin furnaces, red and bottomless-burned with a hunger that devoured sanity.
He hurled himself at the mirror with a violence that shattered more than glass. The impact detonated through the room like a thunderclap, sending shards scattering in a glittering storm. Brilliant splinters embedded themselves mercilessly into his forehead, cheeks, and scalp. Blood welled up instantly, coursing in rivulets that blurred his vision into a swirling red haze. Yet through the pain and chaos, he grinned-a grim, skeletal smile stretched far too wide, teeth slicked with fresh crimson. It was not a smile of triumph or joy, but the twisted grin of a man unraveling at the seams.
His hand closed around a long shard, cold and jagged. Without hesitation, he clenched it until the points tore through palm and tendon, bone and flesh alike. Blood hissed as it dripped onto the floor-thick, dark, and corrupted. His veins throbbed with something older than rage, something primal and blacker than pain itself. He licked the blood from his fingers, then smeared the remainder across his cheek in a crude, ritualistic sigil-a mark of desecration and defiance.
With breathless, intimate violence, he plunged the jagged glass into his own shoulder. The sound was dull, wet, and final. No scream escaped his lips. Not even a wince. This was no tantrum. This was ceremony-a communion with agony.
He tore open his flesh, stoking the inferno that raged beneath his skin. Blood sprayed in thick arcs, his body trembling with spasms, but he remained upright. No-he rose. Like a storm given form, glass embedded in his skin like sacred relics, blood draping him like royal robes.
A myth was being born in that hollow chamber, and all around him, the mirrors bore silent witness. Countless reflections captured the moment of his becoming-each one a distorted echo, more monstrous, more magnificent than the last.
Nearby, Jasper hovered, cocking his head with a mocking grin painted across his face.
"Bravo, Cillian. You planning to bleed out, or is this just your idea of performance art?" Jasper drawled, arms folded as he floated lazily above the carnage. "Because I've seen more convincing death wishes from a goldfish."
Xerxes, half-solid, half-smoke, didn't avert his gaze. "You'd know all about theatrics, wouldn't you, Jasper?" he replied, voice low and razor-sharp. "But at least he's got the guts to make a statement."
Jasper's eyes flickered, unimpressed. "A statement? Please. He's painting the floor with his insides and calling it a revolution. I've seen toddlers with better impulse control."
A new voice sliced through the tension, cool and disdainful.
"Touching. Really. I always thought Roxana was the family disaster, but her brother's making her look positively well-adjusted," Helios called out from above, his tone dripping with contempt.
Jasper and Xerxes turned, their expressions shifting from boredom to irritation.
"Oh, look who finally decided to show up," Xerxes muttered, rolling his eyes.
Jasper smirked. "Helios, if you're here to save the day, you're about a hundred pints of blood too late."
They exchanged a glance, both bracing for whatever came next.
Jasper's grin sharpened. "Honestly, I'd stick around for the fireworks, but I've got better things to do than watch a family therapy session go up in flames."
With a snap of his fingers, everything vanished.
The mirrors, the ornate carvings, even the platform beneath their feet dissolved into dust. The illusions peeled away like dead skin, revealing bare, cold stone walls. No glamour. No distractions.
Just the three of them.
Silence reigned-for a heartbeat.
Then Cillian moved.
Not with rage-no wild, flailing fury. Not with desperation-no frantic, clumsy scramble for survival. He moved with purpose, every muscle taut with intent, his body a weapon honed by agony and resolve.
One blink-a single, infinitesimal shutter of the world-and he was upon Xerxes. Each stride was seismic, thunder reverberating through the marrow of the chamber. The ancient stones beneath his boots shuddered, fissures spiderwebbing outward in a silent, spreading panic. Dust rose in trembling halos around his feet, disturbed by the violence of his momentum, the air itself recoiling from the force of his will.
To be Continued...