The moon hung pale and high, casting a sickly light over the palace gardens. The two remaining assassins, cloaked in black and bound to protect, stood like sentinels beside the princess. They didn’t speak. Trained to kill. Conditioned to detect danger.

  But they didn’t see it coming.

  A ripple stirred beneath one of their shadows. A second later, Lucian stepped out, his form silent, eyes gleaming red beneath a hood stitched with darkness. There was no warning. No mercy.

  The first assassin was dead before he could exhale. His skull crushed between Lucian’s palm and the marble wall, his blood painting a grotesque halo behind him.

  The second turned, blades drawn. Fear in his eyes — not of failure, but of Lucian.

  He didn’t get far. A spike of pure shadow speared upward, straight through his chest, lifting him off the ground like a broken doll. Lucian twisted his wrist. The man didn’t just die — he unraveled, soul pulled screaming from flesh in a mist of agony.

  The princess dropped to her knees, pale as death, her veil slipping.

  She had never seen such horror. And yet… he looked at her, not with cruelty, but with something else. Something worse.

  Possession.

  Lucian stepped forward. His presence swallowed the air. She trembled as he knelt before her, one gloved hand gently brushing her cheek.

  It wasn't tenderness. It was claiming.

  > [SYSTEM UPDATE – SPECIAL EVENT TRIGGERED]

  Target: Princess Selene Ashwynn

  Emotional State: Shattered / Disoriented / Vulnerable

  New Trait Available: Obsession Link (Locked)

  Requirement: Target must willingly surrender identity and autonomy

  She looked at him with wide, glassy eyes. “W-What do you want from me?” she whispered, her voice paper-thin.

  Lucian smiled — calm, composed, terrifying. “I want an audience with Lydia,” he said. “Private. No guards. No eyes. You will arrange it.”

  She stared at him, trying to understand, trying to resist.

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  But her soul was already cracking.

  “And if they refuse me?” she asked, the last sliver of her courage flickering.

  Lucian stood. “Then I’ll come anyway.”

  He turned and began to walk away, his figure already fading into the shadows. “And when I do,” he said without looking back, “I’ll bring her three children’s screams with me.”

  Selene clutched her chest, gasping.

  She wanted to cry, to scream — but nothing came out.

  Only silence.

  And the slow, gnawing realization that she would do exactly as he asked.

  Because some monsters don’t need to force loyalty.

  They make you believe you were theirs all along.

  The princess had done as commanded.

  After he slew her guards, after he bent her mind with that strange, whispering power that made her see only him, she obeyed. Her once-proud eyes were now dazed with affection, her voice trembling with purpose. She told her chamberlain to request an urgent private audience between her and Lydia. No guards. No observers. A “family matter,” she had said.

  Lydia had accepted, unaware of what walked behind her niece’s words.

  Now, in the throne chamber, as Lydia trembled beneath the weight of Lucian’s gaze, he continued his slow, predatory Lucian walked around the chamber and asked her with a calm but terrifying tone “all of this wow you've really made a name for yourself that's great really great ohh wait it's not because all of this is because of me my skin,my blood and you had no right to do what you did you and your boys and here I thought you were the only friend I had guess I was wrong did you know I actually had a crush on you but that faded the day you sacrificed me for fame,money and glory but it wasn't all bad because if you hadn't done that I wouldn't be here with this overwhelming power and to show my thanks I'm gonna make you suffer and wish you hadn't met me”

  He leaned closer, his voice a poisonous lullaby.

  “Tell me, Lydia… how are your children?”

  She flinched at the mention, breath hitching.

  “I’ve watched them, you know. Lovely things. So full of life. Innocent little laughs. It’s almost beautiful their souls are ripe for harvest I'll take one after the other and you will do nothing because you can do nothing just the way I couldn't do anything when you offered me up to your god or demon or whatever you worship to get all of this” He smiled, the expression wrong. Hollow. “But do you know what I wonder most, Lydia?”

  He leaned forward. She shook her head, tears welling.

  “I wonder,” he whispered, “how their screams will sound… when I take their souls.”

  His eyes blazed like twin abysses.

  “They’re ripe. So ripe. And I’m hungry.”

  Lydia gasped, stumbling back from her throne and falling to her knees. “No, Lucian—please—I’ll do anything! Take me instead, I’ll suffer! Just don’t touch them!”

  Lucian tilted his head slightly.

  “Oh, I will take you,” he murmured. “But last. When there’s nothing left of your world but the echo of your guilt.”

  The shadows around the chamber hissed like wind through bone.

  Then, as if the darkness itself swallowed him, Lucian vanished.

  Moments later, he appeared before Princess Selene at the garden gate. She stood waiting with that obedient calm he had carved into her spirit. Her gaze met his, not with fear—but with a soft reverence.

  “It’s time,” he said. “We’re done here.”

  She nodded, taking his hand.

  And together, they disappeared into the night—leaving behind a crumbling palace, a woman paralyzed by guilt, and the promise of horror yet to come.