CHAPTER 219: CHAPTER 214: THE STUPIDITY OF NOBLE BLOOD

"Who helped you with Gabriel’s detailing?" he asked softly, almost conversationally, as if they were exchanging ideas over wine instead of standing in a prison reeking of fear.

She shook her head violently, jaw clenched, trying to push the image away—his skin, the scar, the shape of his shoulders. The illusion had been too perfect. Too close. Someone had seen him that intimately. Someone had described him in detail.

Damian’s eyes narrowed. "It wasn’t guesswork. You knew the exact placement of his scar. The way he leans when he breathes in deeply. You even got the shade of his skin under ether light—how it flushes."

He crouched down to her level, his voice now a whisper of wrath.

"Who gave you that knowledge?"

Patricia’s breath caught, panic flickering through her eyes like a flame starved of air.

A name fluttered to the edge of her thoughts, unspoken, buried beneath layers of caution and fear. But Damian didn’t need her to say it.

He saw it.

He reached into her mind again—gentler this time, almost curious.

The memory came unbidden, fragile and traitorous: a glass of wine passed between hands in a drawing room, laughter barely masking the edge of resentment. The fire in the hearth crackled, perfumed smoke curling into the silk-curtained air. There had been music in the background. Easy, forgettable. The kind that played while betrayal slipped between words.

And then—

A voice.

Bitter. Male.

Low and tense beneath a thin veil of charm.

"Linnea gave us a description of Gabriel. I didn’t want to use it for this, but anything will do if I can break him. Make him mine."

The image stilled.

Patricia tried to bury it, to block it out—but Damian had already seen. Felt it. The memory rippled across the ether like blood in water.

His expression darkened. Not with rage—rage was for those still human.

This was sovereign fury.

He straightened slowly, his shadow stretching long behind him, cast by the glow of the still-humming ether along the embroidery at his sleeves.

"Linnea," he echoed, softly. Coldly. "Of course."

Then, quieter still, as if speaking to the room itself: "I forgot about her." He was remembering now; Gabriel told him about her claims that she and Gabriel had a relationship before the rebellion, before he left the Capital.

Damian’s fists clenched at his sides, the golden embroidery on his sleeves flaring briefly as his control slipped—just for a second. Just long enough to remember that he had heard that detail. That he’d known the profile matched Elliot. And still... he’d ignored it.

Because Elliot, back then, had been irrelevant. A splinter in the Empire’s side. A failed heir. A nuisance set to be disposed of in due time.

He hadn’t seen the rot spreading beneath the floorboards.

He hadn’t thought Elliot capable of playing a long game.

"Huh... That’s interesting."

Damian’s voice was a murmur, but the kind that could freeze the spine.

He let the words roll off his tongue like he was turning over a chess piece that had sat forgotten at the edge of the board. A pawn. Worthless, until it wasn’t.

"Elliot," he said again, quieter, with a cold edge of amusement. "You finally found your teeth."

The corners of his mouth twitched—not in a smile, not really. More the flicker of someone deeply, darkly impressed in the way one might admire the artistry of a trap... just before dismantling it

"Gregoris."

His voice carried like a summons, low and absolute; no need to shout.

From the far end of the corridor, the shadows moved—coalescing into the form of a man. Broad-shouldered, cloaked in deep gray, with eyes that glinted like steel drawn under moonlight. He had been waiting, of course. The Shadows always were.

Gregoris stepped forward without question, without a bow, only the silence of absolute obedience. The air shifted with him, like the walls themselves knew something was about to be unmade.

"Take care of Patricia. There are... interesting things in her mind."

Gregoris gave a single nod, already assessing. Already calculating how deep he could go before the subject snapped.

"No need to be careful about not breaking her," Damian added, tone even. "Let the edges tear. If she shatters, let her. I’ve seen what I needed."

A ghost of a smile touched Gregoris’s mouth—not amusement. Anticipation.

"And tell Charles," Damian continued, now turning slightly, his voice quiet but laced with iron, "to bring me the maid. The one who entered over Gabriel in the bathroom. He knows which one."

Gregoris paused, then nodded again. "Understood."

Behind him, the cell door groaned softly as it reopened—not by command, but by will. Ether flared at the edges, casting long shadows as the cold air of the prison rolled in.

And then—

"What are you doing to me?!"

Patricia’s voice cracked through the silence like shattered glass.

Desperate. Raw. Breaking.

"Kill me if you must!"

Gregoris turned, just slightly. Not startled. Not rushed. Like a man examining a familiar scene—one that had played out before, too many times to count.

He stepped into the threshold, boots clicking softly against stone, then stood above her where she trembled on the floor. Her arms hugged her ribs, her lips split from the earlier fall, eyes wide and wild—fear finally winning over fury.

Gregoris regarded her without pity.

"You know something?" he said calmly, crouching down to her level with all the gentleness of a blade being drawn. His voice was low, unhurried, as if this were a conversation over wine instead of torment. "I never understood why any of you provoked him."

Patricia’s breath caught.

"Damian," Gregoris continued, his voice low and razor-sharp, "was chosen. Not by birth. Not by politics. By Ether itself."

He straightened just a little, hands clasped behind his back now, the embroidered shadows of his uniform catching the faint flicker of the ward lights. His gaze never left her crumpled form on the floor.

"You see his gold eyes," he said with quiet disdain, "and still do stupid things."

A beat.

Then he scoffed, the sound devoid of humor.

"Ah, the stupidity of noble blood."

Patricia flinched—not from offense, but because the truth in his words hit too close. There was no venom in it. Just an observation. Cold. Clinical.

"You think names protect you. You think titles make you untouchable. But eventually..." He crouched again, slower this time, closer. "You all get in my hands."

She couldn’t look away.

Gregoris smiled faintly, the kind of smile one might give to a thing already buried.

"And when you do," he whispered, "you stop being names. You become files. Evidence. Weak points."

He tapped the side of his head lightly. "You become memory."

Then he stood and turned without further ceremony, motioning once toward the guards outside.

"Take her. Mind first. Break nothing vital—yet. And don’t let her bite her tongue."

The Shadows moved without a sound, like wolves fading into dark woods.

And Patricia, once a lady of titles and secrets, was left trembling on the cold floor, realizing—

She got a fate worse than death.