Darius did not need to look in the mirror to know that a murderous hunger was slithering its way into his eyes. The bloodlust was humming in his veins. So sweetly, so intensely.
His hands carefully wrapped around the small figure. Even as he lifted Xion effortlessly into his embrace, the boy, who should have stiffened, should have widened those innocent eyes in fear or disbelief, remained muted.
Too quiet.
A muscle in his jaw ticked. He exhaled slowly, forcing restraint over the dark impulse curling in his chest.
"B-Brother said not to touch him. A-and not to co close."
Darius’s gaze flickered downward.
Noxian stood rooted in place, his tiny fists clenched at his sides. His dark eyes shimred with unconcealed worry.
"I... I kept calling him. I shook him, but he wouldn’t wake up," Noxian almost bit his tongue as he hastily told what little whispers he had heard.
His earlier shouts had alerted Sir Allen, who had been standing guard. Noxian was unsure how or why, but within monts, silence swallowed everything.
The archduke had left his carriage. With just a flick of his wrist, an invisible weight had pressed down upon the gathered people, forcing them to bow. So fell to their knees, others barely able to stay standing under the suffocating force of his presence.
Darius was not touching them. He did not need to.
The only reason he did not crush them further was because of the royal hounds sniffing at his heels. Any move he made would be twisted into sothing monstrous in the court’s eyes.
This was not his territory. It was not his place to punish anyone.
Yet.
Darius stood near the ox cart. His long red robe swayed in the sa rhythm as that of those small cuttings of clothes decorating the cart.
He could almost hear Xion’s voice, babbling about how he wanted to tie the cloth a certain way, how it would look "prettier."
Almost.
But Xion remained still. He wasn’t just quiet. He wasn’t just pale.
The healer was lifeless.
"Teacher..." Allen hesitated before saying, "He seed to have fallen into the Veil of Reminiscence."
Veil of Reminiscence was a powerful spell a magician from the magic tower had created a few decades ago. Its use was simple enough. To trap the enemy into their most painful past until they lose their will to live.
Thick, cloying hatred seed to crowd Darius’ brain as he thought of the Vaelis family. What have they done to you? What did they do to make you so...
I want to kill them all, Darius thought in a soft acknowledgnt. Anyone who hurt you, Xion. I want to rip them apart and feed them to my hounds.
I want to watch their bodies slowly rot away as they scream their apologies for hurting what’s mine. For hurting you.
Their cries, those lodious sounds would be all too familiar. After all, they would feel like ho. Sothing the archduke was so used to that it had beco normal to him.
Ah, but would that not scare his Xion? Yes, Darius nodded to himself, he would just keep Xion away from the hunting grounds, then.
While skillfully holding the boy closer to his chest, Darius pressed his face against Xion’s cheek. Cold. Far too cold.
A pulse throbbed beneath Xion’s temples, but it was faint. As if in the next instant it would disappear.
The temperature seed to drop. Even without looking, Ray knew it. The archduke’s patience had shattered. A loud rumble of thunder roared in the sky.
"Burn it."
Two words- cold, venomous, irrevocable- tumbled out of his thin lips as he slowly made his way toward his carriage.
"At your command, your grace." Raymond Eldritch along with a handful of elite guardsspurred their horses forward and disappeared into the dim morning.
A stunned silence followed.
Then—
"You’re heartless! Just as they say! You devil spawn! You deserve to die!"
The deafening shout ca from sowhere in the mob. It rippled through the crowd like a new wave of vitality bringing the silent people back to life.
Darius halted. His gaze swept over the people, thin, ugly, coated with dense darkness, until it settled on the innkeeper.
The man’s face had drained of color. Grey eyes wide with terror. Cold sweat slipped down his temples as his mouth opened and closed, but no words ca out.
He knew. They all knew.
Darius tilted his head slightly, his long silver hair swayed over his shoulder carelessly just like his words.
"You know who I am," his voice sounded almost lazy, almost bored.
His pale green eyes glead with sothing far more dangerous than anger.
"And yet you still dared to provoke ?"
His lips curled into a cruel smile. A low laugh echoed, forcing the people to realize that they had provoked soone they should not have.
"How stupid."
Darius turned on his heel, walking back toward his carriage. He had no patience for stupidity. Ah, the boy in his arms was the exception, though. A pretty oddity he was willing to protect.
But they had tried to sacrifice Xion.
The fragile, reckless healer who sohow managed to stitch together lives but fumbled hopelessly when it ca to his own.
If he still did not understand, he would not be worthy of his title. The devil was supposed to be all-knowing. A child of the night, so familiar with human emotions that he could use them at his whims.
He knew the ploys of the nobles sitting in Myrthiana. They were warning him through Xion.
Behind him, the flas began to rise. Shouts and cries rushed and dissolved in the smoky air as the locals rushed to save what little they had left from the fire.
Darius did not just burn their hos. He had also set fire to the Pershia.
Ferni, the town of ruins should beco a ruin. As for the royal court, even if he did not provoke them, there were plenty who were waiting to bite a piece of his flesh.
He had just given them a reason to do so. And it was not like he could not take care of them. Just a little troubleso though.
Darius sat in the carriage, where the bitter chill of the outside world dared not intrude. The only warmth he acknowledged was the fragile body in his arms.
Xion’s breath was still shallow, his glossy eyes devoid of the previous smile.
With stiff motions, Darius ran a hand down the healer’s back. Just the way Xion had done to him before.
His touch, though, was too hesitant, too careful, as though afraid Xion might slip away entirely.
"Co back," he said so softly that his voice faded into the crackling flas outside. He carefully wrapped his mana around Xion, "You promised to heal ."
He covered Xion in the sa white fur coat he had given him that day, when the boy had crashed into the carriage.
"I told you... I hate liars."
A ghost of a smirk flickered across his lips, but it was bitter.
His grip tightened. Slowly, he rested his chin against the soft black hair, breathing in the faintest trace of warmth.
"Xion... you little liar."
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