For forty-eight hours, she had not stopped thrashing.

  Not for a second.

  The containment sphere remained intact, but only barely. The seals had flickered on the first night, forcing Zanac to assist in reinforcing them while Tenebrae sat motionless, watching.

  He had not left her side.

  Not because he had to. Not because it was useful.

  But because he was responsible.

  The Undine’s movements were erratic—wild, mindless bursts of speed, testing the magic’s limitations, but finding nothing to break against. The water churned, shifting between clarity and storming opacity. She was drowning in her own panic, suffocating on a truth she could not accept.

  The sound of heavy tin footsteps echoed down the dungeon corridor.

  Zanac approached, his weight clicking against the stone. “How are things progressing, sir?”

  Tenebrae didn’t take his gaze off the sphere. His voice was quiet, but even in his exhaustion, it carried its usual dry amusement. “She’s calming down now. But not because she’s running out of power. No… I suspect she’s merely testing how long we’ll let this go on.”

  Zanac nodded, stepping closer.

  “Perhaps we should bring Lady Opal down.”

  No.

  The word came instantly, sharper than Ten intended.

  Zanac merely nodded again. “I understand.”

  Tenebrae exhaled, watching as the Undine’s movements slowed, only slightly. She was still fighting—still denying—but the storm within her was losing momentum, the weight of realization pressing in on all sides.

  The butler studied his young master. There was something off. Something wrong.

  He lifted his mechanical hand and, with a smooth, practiced motion, cast a minor rest spell over the Undine woman. The air pulsed softly. Her body twitched—but for the first time in two days, she stopped moving.

  Tenebrae’s glowing eyes narrowed.

  “I did not ask you to do that, Zanac.”

  Zanac, ever composed, dipped his head slightly. “Sir, you do not ask me to do a great many things. It is my job to get them done regardless.”

  Ten said nothing.

  “Your well-being is part of that.”

  Silence stretched between them.

  Then, Tenebrae clicked his tongue, looking away. “I am fine.”

  Zanac let out a small, knowing sigh. He was no fool. He had served the prince before undeath had claimed him, and now he served him again. And this? This was not fine.

  So, he did what any butler worth his station would do.

  He sat beside him.

  The sound of shifting tin and fabric filled the chamber.

  “Sir,” Zanac said, “would you like to explain what is wrong?”

  For a long time, Tenebrae did not respond. He stared forward, watching the water in the sphere ripple, watching the dim glow of the dungeon torches flicker against the stone.

  Then, he spoke.

  His voice was different now. Not sarcastic. Not cold. Not detached.

  Just tired.

  “…It has been many years since I have been gone,” he admitted, his fingers twitching at his sides. “Even more since I have had flesh as I am now.” He swallowed, his voice growing quieter. “Even more since I have dreamed.”

  Zanac didn’t move. He simply listened.

  Tenebrae exhaled, shaking his head. “Even more since I have had nightmares. And even more since those nightmares have… frightened me.”

  For the first time in centuries, he looked ashamed.

  He swallowed hard, his jaw tightening. “Sleep… is an enemy of mine now.”

  His fingers curled slightly against his knee.

  “…And my dreams are becoming a dangerous place.”

  “Is it because of the Crown, sir?”

  Tenebrae shook his head. He sighed, long and slow, as if even answering required effort.

  “Zanac... will you be honest with me, please?”

  The tin butler’s senses sharpened.

  Please.

  A word he had only heard from his young master a handful of times—each one preceding a conversation of gravity, a conversation that dug into the bones of what Tenebrae was beneath the titles, the necromancy, the legend.

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  Zanac stiffened, his metal frame groaning slightly as he squared his shoulders. “Ohhh, sir... I am always honest. I would never lie to you, nor would I ever abandon you to die. It is my sworn duty—my honor—ohhhh yesss... what, what!”

  Tenebrae exhaled sharply, tilting his head to the side, considering the flickering candlelight reflecting in Zanac’s dark, glassy eyes.

  “Am I a good man?”

  Zanac stopped.

  Of all the questions the prince had ever asked, this was not one he had expected.

  The butler slowly turned his head, looking at his master with an expression unreadable beneath his tin visage.

  Then, with measured care, he sat down, leveling himself to Tenebrae’s eye line.

  “Do you remember what you told me you wanted to be when you were a child?”

  Tenebrae’s brow furrowed slightly, irritation flickering in his glowing eyes.

  Zanac leaned forward. ”Before you knew what this kingdom was, before you knew what you had been adopted into... before you knew what all of this truly was?”

  Tenebrae blinked.

  No.

  He didn’t remember.

  Or rather—he had spent a long, long time trying to forget.

  “Do not answer my question with a question,” he muttered.

  Zanac inhaled as if he could still breathe. “Then I am unable to answer you, sir. Not until you remember.”

  Tenebrae frowned. “I do not. What does that have to do with anything?”

  Zanac’s voice softened—not out of weakness, but out of something far deeper.

  “When you were a child, you wanted to be an adventurer.”

  Tenebrae blinked.

  “You wanted to be a knight for the humans. You became a priest first, clinging to your faith, to your ideals...” Zanac tilted his head, observing him closely. “And then you figured out the truth.”

  Tenebrae’s hands twitched.

  Zanac’s voice dropped lower, the weight of years pressing into every syllable.

  “And then... you became this.”

  Tenebrae’s fingers curled against his knee.

  “So if you want my honesty, my prince…” Zanac tilted his head. “Then let me tell you this: A good man died when you were born as the prince you are now."

  Silence.

  A deep, suffocating silence.

  Zanac’s glass eyes did not waver as he continued.

  “You—who became the Destroyer of the Southern Continent of Red Grass... You—who coiled around the realm of Succubi like a snake, constricting it until it ruined you...”

  Tenebrae’s jaw tightened.

  “You—who was once called The Prince of Hell, The Beast at the End of the Book, The Butcher of Southern Liberty...”

  The weight of those names pressed into Tenebrae like stones stacked upon his chest, each heavier than the last.

  Once, they had meant power. Once, they had meant pride.

  Now, they were reminders.

  Reminders that at one point in time, Tenebrae had been the very thing he told Eliza he wasn’t.

  At one point...

  He was a monster.

  Zanac listed more. A dozen more. Each a nail in a coffin he had spent centuries trying to bury.

  And then, finally—

  "The Son of Murder."

  Tenebrae took a slow, measured breath.

  Zanac’s voice, once steady, cracked—not in fear, but in something else. Something wounded.

  “And knowing all of this about yourself, sir...” Zanac whispered. “You still ask me if you are a good man?”

  The butler’s tin fingers curled ever so slightly.

  Tenebrae did not know.

  He did not know.

  Zanac stared at him for a long moment, the metal of his frame reflecting flickers of candlelight.

  Then, his voice came softer now.

  “No... sir. You are not a good man.”

  Tenebrae inhaled sharply.

  “No... not in the slightest,” Zanac continued. “You are a man who is tired of losing. And that, my prince...” His voice grew heavier. “That makes you the most dangerous man in all of creation—regardless of whether you are good or bad.”

  A cold silence.

  Zanac didn’t let it linger.

  “Do you know what happened when you left?”

  Tenebrae said nothing.

  Zanac did not wait for an answer.

  "Some stayed loyal."

  "Some ran."

  "Some joined your enemies."

  The words cut.

  Zanac’s fingers tapped idly against the stone floor.

  “But do you know what the worst was?” he asked softly.

  Tenebrae still did not answer.

  Zanac’s voice lowered to a whisper.

  “A large… large number of them... forgot you entirely.”

  The words struck harder than any accusation.

  “They forgot your stories. Your legends. They forgot the things that made them fear you, and they saw a better deal.”

  Tenebrae remained motionless.

  “In the end, what you have now... what remains of a bad man... is what you see.”

  Zanac gestured around the ruined chamber.

  “This broken kingdom.”

  He gestured toward the containment sphere.

  “This broken yet hopeful family.”

  Then, softer—

  “I cannot say if, as a good man, you wouldn’t have still lost everything you never knew you loved.”

  The words sat between them like ghosts.

  Zanac exhaled slowly, his tin voice quieter now.

  “Because before you were taken to that place…” Zanac hesitated, his voice uncharacteristically soft.

  “That… other human realm. The one Lady Eliza came from.”

  His tin fingers curled slightly, a subtle tell of the emotion bleeding into his voice.

  “You were nothing like the man you are now.”

  The words pressed against the silence, a truth heavier than the dungeon walls surrounding them.

  “You ruled by fear, not by loyalty. As so many before you have.”

  A pause.

  “And now…”

  Zanac studied him, seeing the way Tenebrae’s shoulders stiffened, the way his skeletal fingers twitched against his lap.

  “Now, we all see a change in you.”

  The tin butler sighed, tilting his head slightly.

  “But this change, my prince…” His voice dropped lower. “This change will not allow this realm to remain as it was. The ways of old—” he exhaled, “—they are dying. And so, too, must the man who once clung to them.”

  The words sat between them, unspoken yet undeniable.

  “You will have to make a choice.”

  A pause.

  “Many choices.”

  His gaze darkened slightly.

  “And one day, I may be among them.”

  Tenebrae did not react.

  Or rather, he did—just not visibly.

  Something within him stilled.

  Zanac watched him for a long moment, then exhaled, voice softer now.

  “And despite what you have done here…”

  His fingers tightened against his kneeplate, a tell of something deeper—something he had never said aloud before.

  “I know the pain of those who remove their Crown for the first time.”

  The admission lingered, the weight of it pressing into the cold air.

  Then, quieter—

  “Your sins, sir… are forgiven.”

  The words hung in the air, neither accepted nor denied.

  “Just go forth…”

  A pause.

  “And make a difference with the second chance you have.”

  Silence.

  Tenebrae said nothing.

  But the pain in his eyes was undeniable.

  Zanac looked at him then—truly looked at him.

  And in the dull reflection of his tin face, he did not see a prince.

  Not a ruler.

  Not a Lich.

  Only a lost child grasping at the remnants of what he once was.

  Zanac’s voice lowered, breaking slightly—not with weakness, but with something raw.

  “Sir…”

  He hesitated.

  “We never really spoke… about your time there.”

  The words pressed into the silence like a blade against glass.

  “We never have talked like we did in the old times.”

  Tenebrae’s gaze remained distant. Hollow.

  Zanac swallowed.

  “...What happened to you there, sir?”

  A long pause.

  Tenebrae finally looked at him.

  The weight of his past.

  The ghosts of his sins.

  The truth of what he had become.

  He took a breath.

  And finally, he spoke.

  “...A lot.”