Season 1: Awakening the Viliness

  Ch 13: The Breaking Point

  The carriage came to a smooth stop at the manor’s rear entrance. The mps outside were already lit, casting flickering light across the stone courtyard, but the air had gone still. The driver stepped down without a word. A footman pulled open the carriage door.

  Mira didn’t move immediately. She looked across the bench.

  Luceran had passed out sometime during the ride.

  Not slumped in drama or colpse, just… asleep. His body had tilted slightly against the side panel, one shoulder braced against the velvet, head bowed at an unnatural angle. His chest rose in shallow breaths, but there was no awareness in it. No tension left to hold him upright.

  She opened her mouth, closed it again.

  He hadn’t made a sound.

  She didn’t trust herself to touch him.

  The guards were waiting outside the carriage, one of them watching with polite detachment, the other slightly younger, visibly uncertain. Mira stepped down and gestured without speaking. The younger one approached, waiting for a word.

  “Carry him to his chamber,” she said, quiet but firm. “Don’t wake him.”

  The guard nodded and climbed inside.

  Luceran didn’t stir as he was lifted. His arms stayed limp at his sides, head resting lightly against the guard’s shoulder. He looked weightless, but only in the way someone completely emptied of themselves could be.

  The halls were quiet, lit by low-burning sconces that cast soft golden light along the polished floors. Mira walked several paces behind, her footsteps muffled by thick rugs, her gloved hands folded tightly in front of her. The guard carried Luceran without strain, but with the kind of careful grip one reserved for something expensive or fragile—or both.

  No one spoke.

  A maid opened the door to Luceran’s chambers ahead of them, bowing low. The room was dark, but not cold. A fire crackled gently in the hearth, casting a soft amber glow across the carved bedframe and high-backed chair set beside it. The walls were hung with pale grey velvet, the windows shuttered for the night. It was a beautiful room. Controlled. Lush. A perfect little prison in silk.

  The guard id Luceran gently on the edge of the bed, then stepped back. He didn’t stir. His arms stayed where they were pced, one leg bent slightly, mouth parted just enough to breathe. His brow remained smooth—no pain, no peace, just absence.

  Mira stood in the doorway, her eyes on him. Then, without a word, she stepped inside.

  “Leave us,” she said.

  The guard hesitated, gnced toward the maid. The woman bowed once and turned to go. The guard followed, closing the door quietly behind them.

  The tch clicked.

  And she was alone with him.

  The firelight flickered against the walls. Outside, the wind shifted through the hedges, too soft to hear. Mira moved toward the edge of the bed and sat down slowly, not touching him. Not yet. Just breathing in the quiet, letting it settle into her.

  Mira stayed where she was for a long while, listening to the crackle of the fire and the soft rhythm of his breathing. The longer she sat, the more she noticed the small signs of strain beneath his stillness. The way his fingers twitched against the covers. The faint crease at the corner of his brow. The breath that caught, then stuttered.

  He was dreaming. And not gently.

  She stood and crossed the room to the washstand. The basin was already filled—someone had prepared it without asking, as they always did. She dipped a cloth into the cool water, wrung it out carefully, and returned to the bed.

  Luceran shifted slightly as she sat beside him again. Not enough to wake. Just a soft turn of his head, a quiet exhale, a line of tension deepening around his mouth. His skin, pale under the firelight, was too warm. Not fevered. But flushed in a way that spoke of restless sleep and something heavier under it—fear, maybe. Memory.

  She pressed the cloth gently to his forehead. He didn’t flinch.

  His skin was soft under the damp fabric. Human. Unarmoured. The man the book had painted in sharp lines—power, desire, rage—wasn’t here. Not in this moment. What y before her was a man who’d held himself still through hours of humiliation and now, unconscious, couldn’t stop shaking.

  She wiped along his temple, down to the hollow of his cheek. A few strands of hair had stuck to his face. She brushed them back, tucking them behind his ear. Her fingers paused there, resting for a moment, her thumb just at the edge of his jaw.

  In the novel, he was always defined by tension—danger simmering under devotion. But here, he was just… tired. A man stripped of his purpose, of his dignity, of his self, and left in a room where no one was watching—except her.

  She dipped the cloth again and wrung it out slowly, watching the ripples fade in the basin before returning to his side. He hadn’t stirred since the st time, but the tension in his shoulders had deepened. His mouth twitched once, a small involuntary movement, and his breath came shorter now—quiet, but no longer even.

  She pressed the cool fabric to his cheek as she wondered, Did the banquet happen in the original?

  She couldn’t remember. The book never lingered on events like this. It was all gloss—bright detail, sharp desire, political tension cquered over trauma. There might have been a line. A passing mention. Nysera dined with the Duke of Vaelen. Her pet waited.

  Waited where?

  Here?

  On this bed?

  Curled on the floor, alone, no one to see him unravel when the mask slipped and he was no longer the symbol of restraint but just a boy trained to kneel?

  Did Nysera know? Did she care?

  Mira looked at him—face sck in sleep, shes damp, his breath catching softly in the back of his throat—and felt a tightness coil in her chest.

  Maybe she never looked. Maybe she never stayed.

  But Mira was here now. And she couldn’t pretend she didn’t see it.

  The change in his breathing was subtle at first. Then it broke.

  Luceran gasped.

  A short, sharp intake of breath like surfacing too fast. His whole body jolted—shoulders snapping tight, legs tensing, his back arching away from her hand as though she'd burned him.

  Mira froze, the cloth still resting against his cheek.

  He jerked upright with a strangled sound, eyes wide, pupils dited, hands braced against the mattress like he didn’t know what was real yet. He looked at her—and the panic nded.

  His gaze locked onto her face.

  And in that split second, she saw the dream still clinging to him.

  Terror. Grief. Recognition.

  Not of her.

  Of Nysera.

  He pulled away from her, too fast, stumbling to the floor on hands and knees, breath ragged. The sound that escaped him wasn’t a cry. It was smaller than that. Cracked. Wordless. His chest rose and fell with shallow rhythm, shoulders shaking, tears already slipping down his cheeks in silence.

  Mira stood but didn’t follow. Not yet.

  She watched him curl in on himself beside the bed, head bowed, arms loose at his sides like he didn’t know what to hold on to.

  He wasn’t sobbing. He wasn’t speaking.

  He was just… weeping.

  And whatever he had seen, it had been real enough to break him open.

  Mira knelt slowly, easing down beside him on the floor, her gown pooling around her knees. She didn’t touch him at first. Just sat there, close but not crowding, close enough to let him feel her presence without mistaking it for pressure. Luceran’s hands were braced against the floor, fingers spyed. His head was down, the darkness of his hair falling across his face in damp strands. The tears still came, silent and unashamed. Not a flood—just enough to mark that something inside had finally cracked in a way that let light in.

  She reached for him, careful, slow. Her hand hovered for a second before she touched his cheek. His skin was warm. Damp. Her thumb brushed along the line where a tear had fallen. He flinched—not from fear, but from surprise. His breath caught. And then, after a moment, he turned his face into her palm. Not fast. Not needy. Just... deliberate.

  Their eyes met. Up close like this, there was nothing left between them. No mask. No leash. No command. Just her hand on his cheek and the question in his gaze, clear and open:

  Who are you?

  She knew the answer mattered. Because he was seeing something he hadn’t before and she wasn’t trying to hide behind her veils or gloves anymore. And whatever he saw now—whatever was breaking open behind his eyes—wasn’t pain. It was relief.

  He leaned into her touch, the weight of him subtle, steady. Like her palm was the only thing in the world that made sense. She didn’t speak. Didn’t try to soothe. She just held him there. And though she hesitated—heart racing, fear cwing up her spine—she didn’t pull away. Not this time. Not after what she’d already denied him.