"I heard a rumor that the princess is back. And that she was banished." Veyron began
"Wow! Who is your news carrier? I need to hire them."
There was a half-smirk on his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Behind the cool exterior was a tempest.
"Your Highness! I am not kidding," Veyron snapped. "Did you mark her?"
He hesitated, barely half a second, then lied. "No. But I did go to see Morvakar. He had so interesting things to say."
"Oh?" Veyron’s eyes narrowed, suspicious. He didn’t like the evasion. He knew Damien well enough to know when he was dodging.
"Co on, have a seat," Damien said, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk. "Do you think he should be arrested and tried for his cris?"
Veyron sat down stiffly, back straight.
"He has already been," Veyron said quietly.
"But not for what he did to the werewolf princess."
Damien said it flatly, his mouth twisted in resignation. He crossed one leg over the other. There was sothing so fundantally wrong about hearing that his mate, had been used, manipulated by a disgraced sorcerer, and yet technically it wasn’t enough to bring the man to justice. Not legally. Not politically.
"It has nothing to do with us," Veyron said. "And I’m guessing King Magnus doesn’t want all the publicity that cos with arresting Morvakar. So for now, he hasn’t done anything we need to pick him up for."
Damien was quiet for a mont too long, and then, through gritted teeth, he said, "But the princess is my mate..."
"Yes," Veyron said gently. "But he can claim he didn’t know she was going to be your mate. It’s a waste of effort until he does sothing that requires us to step in. Then we will. You said he had so interesting things to say."
Damien leaned forward, elbows on the desk. "He said he made the princess for because he wanted to be faced with the sa choice his son was faced with before he was sentenced to death."
Veyron’s shoulders dropped as if the very idea exhausted him. "Morvakar has too much ti on his hands."
He stood to leave but Damien’s voice stopped him.
"Sit down, Veyron."
That wasn’t a request. That was the prince in him speaking. He slowly sat back down, eyes narrowing.
Damien’s gaze burned. "Tell exactly what happened with Morvakar. I don’t want the diluted version. I want everything."
Veyron sat down grudgingly, his old joints creaking in protest as if they too disapproved of being dragged back into ancient, painful mories.
"This was still in the ti of the war between werewolves and vampires," he began. "No one can rember the actual reason anymore. Whatever it was, blood was spilled, heads rolled and no one wanted to stop."
Damien tilted his head with a half-bored, half-skeptical look. "Skip to the part I don’t know, Veyron."
The sage gave him a pointed look, but relented. "William—Morvakar’s son—was a genius sorcerer. Young. Reckless. Brilliant. Dangerous. His father, Morvakar, worked in the castle, but back then, access was restricted. Every corridor could be a death trap. So, naturally, father and son didn’t see each other much. In fact, for years... not at all."
Damien’s brow creased.
"On one of Morvakar’s rare visits to William," Veyron continued, leaning slightly forward, "The guard assigned to escort Morvakar turned out to be... William’s mate."
"A few days later," Veyron said softly, "she died in one of the battles. Another aningless death in a long, aningless war."
Damien sat back slowly, feeling the sting of that truth. He didn’t say anything, but his mind imdiately conjured Luna’s face. Her eyes. The tremble in her voice. He imagined losing her—really losing her—and felt his chest tighten.
"William went mad," Veyron said after a pause. "He tried to trap her spirit in people."
Damien’s eyes narrowed. "He turned humans."
"Innocents," Veyron nodded grimly. "Desperate to recreate her soul in a body that could hold it. It was dark. Twisted. He didn’t see it that way. To him, it was love. It was science."
Damien scoffed, a bitter sound. "Love makes monsters of us all."
"That it does," Veyron agreed with a sigh. "Morvakar found out. He... covered for him."
"He covered for him?"
"Yes. Lied to the council. Hid the bodies."
Damien let out a long breath and rubbed his temples.
"So, Morvakar wasn’t the crazy sorcerer. His son was." Damien clarified, though the statent lacked conviction. He was processing it aloud.
"In a way," Veyron replied with a reluctant nod. He leaned back in the chair, folding his hands over his stomach. "Morvakar did what most fathers would do. He protected his son. Lied for him. Dismantled his own reputation for the chance to buy William a few more breaths, a few more experints, a few more ghosts to chase."
)
The room fell into a heavy pause. Outside the large glass windows of Damien’s office, dusk was swallowing the sky, leaving streaks of deep crimson across the horizon—blood-colored and foreboding.
"William still wouldn’t stop," Veyron continued. "Even after the war ended. Your grandfather died in battle, your father fought tooth and fang to end it all. And when peace finally settled—fragile and fresh as a new bloom—bodies kept turning up. Mutilated. Disfigured. Human. And very, very dead."
"Your father took it personally," Veyron added. "He investigated himself. And the trail led right to William’s crypt of horrors. That was the last straw. William was sentenced to death and Morvakar... banished."
"Now if I may ask," Veyron said, tilting his head with the sly, deliberate patience of a man who’d waited long enough for soone to spill, "what is the point of this history lesson?"
Damien swiveled his chair slightly, facing the shadows dancing on the floor as the fire crackled nearby. "Because Morvakar is trying to teach my father a lesson," he saidw. "That’s why he started all this ss."
Veyron blinked. "What’s the lesson?"
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