Page 11 of Ruin & Desire
He sighs heavily. “Yes.”
His shoulders tremble, as if the weight of those identities threatens to crush him. He does not look at me; his gaze driftsfar beyond the room, chasing ghosts Ican’tsee. Shadows flicker across his face, revealing the torment etched deep into his features.
“My wife, Evangeline…”His breath hitcheswhenhe says her name, and he squeezes his eyes shut.“Her hair burned with the color of flame, like the last blaze of sunset before night swallows the world.She was the most beautiful woman, inside and out.My daughter, Grace,her laughter rang through these halls, bright and pure as a bell at dawn. Theybothwere my compass, guiding me through everystorm, guiding me through life. My kingdom flourished because their light held back the darkness.”
Hiswords falter, tangled in grief. For a moment, the oppressive hush of the castle presses in, urging me to hold my breath lest I shatter the fragile reminiscence. Hisclaws curl slowly intofists,the tips digging deep grooves into the ancient wood of the chair’sarms.The wood creaksbeneath the strain,small, brittle sounds thatmustecho his own breaking.
He shudders, and his voicedropstobarely above a whisper.“Then, in a blink of an eye,they were stolen from me.”Each word lands like a blow, and agony flickersacross his eyes.“A letter arrived,stainedand creased, thewords scrawled like venom. They demanded ransom, apromise that gold could buy their safety. I obeyed. I paid every coinwithout hesitation. I would have torn out my own heart if it meant seeing them safe.”
The air grows colder, thick with the agony of things lost and promises betrayed. The torment in his voice lingers long after the last word fades, leaving the room trembling on the edge of something terrible and true.
He leans forward, the fire in his eyes flaring dangerously, like an infernobarely restrained. Histremblinghandscontinue todig into the armrests.“When I found them, Iwas too late. The cottage was ominously silent, every shadow heavy with dread. I stepped inside, and the air itself seemedto recoil from the horrorwithin.”His words falter, his breath hitching.“Evangeline lay crumpled, her flame-bright hair stained andtangled,her spirit shattered beyond repair. Grace,my sweetpreciousGrace, wassilencedforever. I dropped to my knees, unable to scream, unable even to weep.”
He bows his head,hisvoice splintering with anguish, the room vibrating with the raw agony that pours from him.“In that moment, something in me was torn away,ripped out,and burned to ash.”He hesitates and takes a deep breath.“I died there.What rose from my body was not a man butthis.” He gestures to himself.“Something scarred and monstrous, forged by grief and rage.”
Hisconfession hangs between us thick as fog, and I can see the torment carved into the lines of his face, thetears he refuses to shed glistening in the corners of his molten eyes. He is lost,caught between memory andnightmareandhaunted by the ghosts of all he loved and all he became.
I clutch my arms to steady myself. “Who?” The word scrapes out, my voice hoarse. “Who did this? Who took them? Why?”
His eyes lock onto mine, a flash of anguish sharpening his features. For a heartbeat, I am certain he will refuseto answer me, but at last something inside him breaks. His voiceemerges, dark and trembling.“The letter…It carried no signature, no mercy. Only a mark etched in blackwax,a serpent coiled around a crown of thorns and roses. I traced thesymbol through every kingdom I couldreach, scrawled it into walls until my fingers bled, forced it from the lips of dying men.”He swallows, thememorysearing.“But all I ever found was silence, asilence deeper than any grave.”
My own breath falters, ragged in my throat.“You…You tried to find them?”The question trembles out of me, shattered with hope and horror, though I already know the answer from the haunted look in his eyes.
His laugh erupts,jaggedand bitter. The sound held nothing like joy,more like something torn from a wound that refuses to heal.“Tried?”hespits, his voice trembling witha furythat borders on madness.“I did more than try. I razed villages to the ground for the faintest rumor…set homes ablaze just to chase a whisper through the smoke. I hunted down bandits in the night, cornered barons with trembling hands,andslaughtered knights whose rings bore that cursed serpent winding through thorns and roses. I demandedconfessions,begged for answers. But their lips stayed sealed, their eyes blank.Nobody had answers.Maybethey trulyknew nothing.Maybe Iwas only killing ghosts, chasing shadows,anddestroying the wrong menagain and again.All I knewisthey were sometypeof society,and they wanted me.And they did not think twice to use my family to get to me.”
Hisnails gouge deep, violent furrows into the ancient wood of the chair,sparksspitting from the friction as if even the furnitureis recoilingfrom his pain.Histonedropslower,thickand guttural.“The truth became ash on the wind, Annabel. I chased it with every breath until grief hollowed me out, until vengeance consumedeverythingI was. When nothing remained except broken promises and empty hands, cruelty was all I had left. It was the only thing grief did not devour.And it was exactly what they wanted.”
I swallow, my throat burning as though I’d swallowed embers. “And yet,” I whisper, my voice barely holding together. “You spared me.”
He bows his head,hishorns casting jagged shadows across his blazing eyes.“Did I?”His voice slips outasbarely a whisper, raw and trembling.“Or have I only traded one torment for another,choosinga slower,more cruelruinfor you?”Hiswordshang in the air, brittle and aching, each syllable heavy with regret and self-loathing.
The mark on my wrist erupts, searing like a living coal pressed against my skin,itsblaze answering him as if bound to his agony.The air between us growstaut and barbed, humming with a threat neither of us darestoput into words.Every breath I take feels perilous.
I should retreat. Ishould flee before thecastle’swalls awaken, before the stones and shadows conspire to seal me inside their ancient, shifting maze. My instincts scream for escape. My pulse hammers wild and frantic in my throat.
But I do not move. I am rooted to the spot, my limbs trembling, held fast by something deeper than fear or defiance.
Because in the cavernous silence of his confession, I finally see the echoes of the man the enchanted mirrors revealed,not the monstrous warden but the weary husband, the broken father…the prince hollowed by grief and haunted by loss. The mask of theBeast slips, and for an instant, the flicker of his former self glimmers beneath the ruin,anguished and desperate, everyline of his body carved byasorrow hecan’tescape.
Asthe shadows press closer and his pain threatens to swallow us both, the most dangerous, fragile hope takes root inside me. If hewasonce that man,if even a shred of himhas survived,perhaps hecould find his way back.Perhaps thetorment burning in his eyes is not an ending but the beginning of something neither of us understands yet. The possibility trembles between us, sharp as a blade and just as likely to cut.
And then, he is gone.I was so lost in thought over what he had revealed to me that Ididn’teven see him leave.I can hear his footsteps fading off in the distance.
Chapter nine
The Serpent's Book
Annabel
As soon as Lucien’s footsteps fade, an icy shiver races down my spine. It’s more than a simple chill, a presence brushing close, watching and waiting. The library, vast and ancient, is finally welcoming me into its hallows. The silence thickens as I realize I am completely alone. The air presses down on me, almost suffocating me with the secrets of the library.CouldI find answers here?I wonder.
I look around the room more closely.Shadowed shelves rise above me, sprawling upward so high,the lamplightcan’treach them. Each shelf looms like a silent sentry. The dust here is not simplyneglect;it is a warning, layers undisturbed by time or memory.Idon’tknowwhich. My own breaths sound loud and fragile, swallowed by the library’s hush. I feel theunyieldingancient stone beneath myboots, as if weighing my every move and measuring my worth.
The castle has shown me many rooms since I arrived,some bright and strange,mostshrouded in melancholy. But this room feels different.Itsvery wallsareholding their breath. It feels hidden not by accident but by intent, as though someone meant for this place to fade from thought, to be lost in the architecture of nightmares.Perhaps tohide something?
Yet, drawn by a force Ican’tname, I step forward. My boots whisper across marble worn down by centuries of vanished footsteps. The mark on my wrist tingles,not with pain but with a constant, insistent prickle, as though it senses something Ican’t, beckoning me onward or urging me to flee.I make my owndecisionand continue onward.
A draft winds through the stacks, carrying the scents of ancient leather, dust, and a faint trace of smoke. The torches along the walls flicker alive one by one, their flames quivering, casting restless shadows that jitter and contort as if the room itself is waking up to my presence.
