The chamber trembled under the weight of violence.
Selene pressed herself against the dark crystal platform, breathless, unable to tear her gaze from the massacre unfolding before her.
The intruders — assassins, their faces twisted with fury and terror — barely had time to react.
The being who had risen from the Ruins moved with lethal elegance.No wasted steps.No wasted breath.
One assassin lunged forward with a warblade etched in blood magic — a weapon designed to sever even enchanted flesh.It never touched him.
The air itself seemed to tear apart around the man as he moved, faster than thought, faster than death.
With a flick of his wrist, a ripple of invisible force cracked through the assassin's chest.The man hit the ground, lifeless, his weapon clattering harmlessly beside him.
Selene swallowed a scream.
The second assassin fared no better — a burst of darkness lancing through him so fast Selene barely registered it before the man collapsed, twitching.
Only one remained now — a broad-shouldered brute whose armor pulsed with infernal energy.Desperation twisted his snarl into something feral.
He barked a word of power — a curse meant to bind.
Chains of glowing crimson fire snaked from his hands, racing toward the dark figure.
Selene flinched.
But the chains never reached their target.
In a heartbeat, the being raised his hand — and the chains froze midair, their flames sputtering as if gripped by an unseen will.
With a slow, almost disdainful gesture, he closed his fingers into a fist.
The assassin's own magic turned against him.
The chains lashed back, wrapping around his limbs, neck, and torso, searing through armor and flesh.The man screamed — a terrible, gurgling sound — before collapsing, still bound, at the figure's feet.
For a long, terrible moment, the only sounds were the crackling of dying magic and Selene's ragged breathing.
The figure turned.
Those impossible silver-shadowed eyes locked onto her again.
Selene froze — a rabbit before a wolf.
No — not a wolf.
Something older.
Something worse.
The being approached, each step silent, inevitable.
Selene tried to scramble back — but there was nowhere left to run.
He stopped before her, towering, a silhouette carved from nightmares and dreams alike.
For a moment, he only looked at her.
And then — impossibly — he sank into a crouch.
Closer now, Selene could see details she hadn't dared notice before.
The fine structure of his face — sculpted and devastatingly cruel in its beauty.
The slight curve of his mouth — not a smile, but something darker, more dangerous.
The raw, suffocating power that rolled off him in waves, bending the very air.
He reached out — fingers brushing a lock of blood-matted hair from her face.
Selene flinched — but his touch, while cold, was unbearably gentle.
"You bleed," he said, voice low, almost curious.
Selene's throat tightened.
"I–I was running... I didn't mean to—"
He tilted his head, studying her.
"No one comes here by accident."
Selene shook her head, tears burning her eyes.
"I was chased. I didn't know—"
A long silence.
Then he straightened, rising with a liquid grace that no human could possess.
From the corner of her eye, Selene saw the surviving assassin stir — gasping something, a final curse, a last breath.
The name slipped from his cracked lips.
"Lucien..." he rasped. "The Forsaken King..."
The figure — Lucien — turned, regarding the dying man without pity.
No mercy lived in those silver-shadowed eyes.
With a whisper of motion, the assassin's life winked out — a candle smothered by a hurricane.
Selene shivered.
The chamber felt even colder now.
Lucien.
The name echoed inside her, a drumbeat she couldn't silence.
Lucien.
The Forsaken King.
The monster whispered about in forbidden tales.
The cursed sovereign who had once shaken the very heavens and been cast down for sins too great to name.
And she had awakened him.
Selene's heart pounded violently.
He faced her again — this time with a strange, unreadable expression.
"You," he murmured, almost to himself."You will change everything."
Selene didn't understand.
But somehow — deep in her bones — she knew:
Her life was no longer her own.And neither was her heart.
Not anymore.
Not in the hands of Lucien — the man who should never have been awakened.
The man whose beauty could break worlds.
The man whose darkness could devour them.