Imagine ever loving soone so fiercely, so completely that they beca the very air you needed to breathe. That their existence alone kept you tethered to the world, kept your heart from hollowing into an empty, lifeless drum. That was the kind of love Cassius had co to know, not all at once, but slowly, agonizingly, like dawn creeping across a long night that had forgotten how to end.
Before her, before Arabella, there had been only darkness.
He had never loved himself. Not his crown, not his power, not the na "Cassius," which had once rung across the kingdom like the promise of ruin. Confidence— yes, he had that in abundance, the kind born of arrogance and fearlessness. But love? Love for himself? That was a stranger he had never t. For years, he had lived only because death hadn’t co soon enough, because the world hadn’t yet decided to crush him under its boot.
But then she ca. And suddenly, life wasn’t sothing to endure. It was sothing he wanted.
Because of Arabella, he had learned to look forward to mornings— the sa mornings that once reeked of blood and ash. He had learned to find solace in the quiet hours of winter nights.
He rembered her as she was. How sunlight and laughter and softness in a world that had forgotten gentleness. He could still see her— hair tousled against the pillow, her body curling against his beneath the warm sheets. She would giggle at his gruffness, press her nose against his neck and whisper sothing teasing, her laughter bright enough to sha the morning birds.
That was what ho had felt like.
When death had taken those he had once called dear, Cassius hadn’t shed a single tear. His heart was an empty cathedral where grief echoed without sound. But Arabella— she wept for him. She cried when he could not, mourned when he refused to feel, loved when he was incapable of it.
She had beco the part of him he thought long dead— the soul he had buried under years of cruelty and violence.
And now she was gone.
Or worse— she was still here, but the her that rembered him, the her that loved him, had been ripped away.
All because of Morpheus.
That cursed sorcerer had dared to reach into her mind and twist it until every trace of Cassius was erased— their laughter, their mories, their nights together beneath the dim candlelight. Everything they had built, stolen, suffered for... wiped clean.
She no longer looked at him with that quiet tenderness, that defiant love that had once disard him. Her gaze was uncertain now, cautious— and empty of recognition.
How could he bear to breathe knowing she no longer rembered his na?
But forcing her mories back was not sothing that could be done with a re spell. It was dangerous— too dangerous. The bond between them might be strong, but tampering with a mind already under Morpheus’s enchantnt could destroy her completely.
When he had heard her question— "Who are you?" — sothing inside him broke. His hands trembled, the ache in his chest tightening until he could hardly breathe. She had looked up then, eyes gleaming green under the candlelight, and for one fleeting second, he thought she might see him— that so hidden thread of mory would stir.
But before she could, before he could bear the weight of her confusion, he vanished —lting into the shadowed wall, leaving nothing but silence behind.
She stared after him, her brows knitted in faint doubt. And then, softly, she touched her lips — the sa lips he had silenced with his trembling hand monts ago— her fingers lingering there as if so ghostly warmth remained. There was sadness in her eyes, and perhaps... a flicker of sothing else.
Recognition, maybe. Or longing.
Morpheus’s spell hadn’t taken full root, that much Cassius could sense. Sothing within her resisted— perhaps her power as a witch, or perhaps their bond ran too deep for even magic to unmake.
Still, it wasn’t enough. Not yet.
And Cassius feared what Morpheus would do next if he discovered that Arabella’s mories lingered. The sorcerer was the sort of man who would rather destroy his possession than see it reclaid by another. He would burn her soul before letting her love soone else.
That, Cassius could not allow.
So tonight, he decided, he would act. After all he’d seen this afternoon— Arabella defying Morpheus, demanding her three tests before she would agree to marriage— he knew there was still fire in her. There was still her within that cage of spells.
He would find a way to awaken it.
When the castle fell into its nightly stillness, Cassius moved. Isaac, ever loyal, had fallen asleep by Arabella’s door, slumped against the fra, his head bowed in exhaustion. The guards posted nearby were yawning, their eyes glazed from long hours of idleness.
Perfect.
Without a sound, Cassius dissolved into shadow, his body shifting into a slick, inky form— a black liquid that slithered silently across the marble floor. He seeped through the narrow gap beneath her door, reforming on the other side.
The room was dark and silent. So still without a hint of anyone’s presence. It seems that there was magic being placed here but it shouldn’t alert either Morpheus or Arabella who as deeply asleep as she turned on her bed, eyes closed.
And there she was— sleeping softly beneath the silken canopy, her chest rising and falling, her face bathed in the silver glow of moonlight.
Cassius stood there for a long mont, frozen, every muscle tense as the storm inside him threatened to break loose.
He had co here to inspect the magic on her. But standing there, all he wanted was to touch her hand and whisper her na— to remind her of everything she’d forgotten.
Walking closer, he admired her sleeping face. Being so close after so many days of being apart brought him so peace but not enough when he recalled how inside of her heart there was no longer "him" there was no longer "them".
His hands hovered over her face and gently, he lowered his fingertips.
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