Aelric had lost all sense of time. Night after night, he immersed himself in scrolls so ancient that their ink seeped and oozed like deep-set bruises on weathered parchment. Dust motes danced on the windowsill, illuminated intermittently by moonlight that waned and waxed behind tempestuous, storm-brewing clouds, yet still he searched relentlessly. Desperation clung to the air like damp, heavy velvet, suffocating any hint of solace. The whispers he heard—were they but echoes in the labyrinth of his mind, or the fragmented remnants of spells he had labored to decipher, only to watch them crumble into oblivion?
Her name. Her face. Mei Ling.
It was etched, indelibly, into the very marrow of his soul.
In his consuming obsession, he had forgotten even the need to eat—again. A tarnished flagon of water, untouched and long since turned stale, rested by his elbow. The only warmth in the room came from a scattering of candles, their flames flickering low, casting trembling shadows as molten wax dripped onto meticulous stacks of open tomes. When his royal duties concluded, he would return to this forsaken chamber, a sanctuary of lost hope, chasing phantasms of a love that seemed ever more distant and wrapped in potent sorcery. Yet every promising lead would, in the end, turn to nothing but ashen remnants.
With a bitter twist of his jaw, Aelric slammed a brittle scroll shut; the sudden motion sent a sudden swirling cyclone of dust into the stagnant air. His head crumpled into his hands as the cumulative weight of grief, love, and crushing failure bore down upon him like an insurmountable mountain pressing into his very spine.
A knock then shattered his solitude.
"Leave it," he muttered in a tone that vibrated with exhaustion and barely concealed urgency.
Despite his command, the door creaked open nonetheless, and soft, cautious footsteps approached like shadows drawn to moonlight. "I said—" His gaze flickered upward ever so briefly, catching sight only of the faint edge of a cream-colored gown and a tray adorned with modest, yet inviting, food, before his eyes slid back to the tangled manuscripts. "I want to be alone."
Aurelina delicately set the tray on the farthest corner of his cluttered desk. Her movements were quiet, each one imbued with a deliberate grace, while the gentle aroma of warm tea and freshly baked bread attempted to weave a net of comfort between them.
"You haven't eaten in days," she observed softly, her voice steady yet tremulous as if her hands were betraying the tumult of her inner emotions. "You have locked yourself away in here, night after endless night, scouring scrolls that yield nothing but elusive mysteries."
"I don't need this, Aurelina."
"Don't you?" she pressed, drawing closer so that the distance between them shrank to nothing. "She's gone, Aelric. Mei Ling isn't coming back."
A silence, as brutal and unyielding as a cold, metal blade, descended upon them. Aelric's eyes remained fixed on his work; he did not look at her, nor did he allow himself even the slightest flicker of a reaction.
Aurelina drew in a sharp, ragged breath. "You promised you'd marry me. When we were children, full of dreams and innocence."
"That was a dream," he replied, his voice hollowed by despair. "A childish fantasy, not true love. Not like—"
"Not like what you felt for her?" Aurelina's voice cracked, the raw pain of betrayal trembling in every syllable. "You never even gave me a chance."
"It was never the same, Aurelina. It never was." His tone cut sharper now, yet he still refused to meet her pleading eyes. "You're like a sister to me."
"No." The reply was a sharp whisper, her hands clenching by her sides as if to physically restrain her burgeoning fury. "Don't lie. You would have loved me—you should have loved me—if she hadn't existed."
"You shall not speak her name in vain," Aelric snapped, meeting her gaze with eyes burning—not with anger, but with a warning as fierce as a drawn blade.
And in that charged moment, something shifted imperceptibly.
Aurelina's sorrow twisted into a darker, venom-laced rage. Her lips contorted into a bitter, unsmiling twist, as though tasting all the cruelty of unspoken vengeance. The light in her once-verdant eyes now shimmered with a spectral red intensity, like coals glowing amidst dying embers.
"Then let her be forgotten."
From within the flowing folds of her gown, she revealed a small glass vial, inside of which swirled an eerie, violet mist that pulsed with an unnatural, hypnotic light. The very air in the room thickened as if complicit in an arcane ritual.
"Aurelina, what have you done—?" Aelric's voice barely rose above a whisper, dread creeping into every syllable.
"I warned you," she intoned, her voice morphing into something eerie and layered, echoing as if from the depths of time itself. "I will not let her steal what is rightfully mine."
In one swift, fluid motion, she hurled the vial to the ground. It shattered with a hissing sound like a serpent's warning, unleashing a burst of dark purple mist that exploded into the chamber, devouring the fragile candlelight. The room seemed to convulse; scrolls were wrenched from their timeworn shelves, inky inkpots exploded like shattered dreams, and books danced wildly through the air as if caught within a supernatural hurricane.
Aelric attempted to rise, but unseen, spectral hands gripped him. His limbs stiffened as if carved from stone, his mind buckled under the weight of invisible chains, and his heart cried out in silent, desperate agony.
Raising her arms with an air of grim determination, Aurelina began to chant. Her gown swirled around her like the wing of a dark, ominous storm, and her hair floated about her face as though animated by its own malevolent life. Her voice deepened into a terrible, hypnotic rhythm:
"By flame undone, by time rewound,
Let love be lost and never found.
Erase her name from heart and head,
Let Mei-Ling's memory be as dead!"
Aelric's hands gripped the edge of his desk with white-knuckled defiance. Deep within, a spark of his soul fought back—he saw, vividly, the ghost of Mei Ling's smile, the luminous glimmer of her eyes, and the last tender moment of her embrace. Yet that vision was fading, dissolving like mist in the morning sun. His once glacial blue eyes flickered, igniting briefly into a deep crimson.
"Aelric—" Aurelina's voice softened into a dark, seductive purr as she stepped forward, her hand resting against his chest in a gesture that promised both dominance and intimacy. "You'll see. You'll remember only me. I will be your queen. You promised once, didn't you?"
Aelric's lips parted in a silent whisper, a single word captured in the void between hope and despair. But no sound emerged.
With a smile that was both wicked and triumphant, Aurelina watched as the swirling magic consumed the last remnants of Mei Ling's name from his lips. And in the tumultuous silence that followed, Aelric stood immobilized, eyes blazing red as embers, his heart stripped away from his very being, captive to a fate he could neither escape nor comprehend.