CHAPTER 253: DAMIEN’S OFFER

"Heaven save me! Your affection comes armed," said Prince Damian, voice smooth as wine and twice as intoxicating. "Tell me, fair one, do I get a kiss before the next blow?"

The sunlight fell through the high canopy in fractured gold, glancing off Damian’s hair until it gleamed like threads of fire. There was something unbearably radiant about him in the light; all charm and sin stitched together into one dazzling contradiction.

Leroy’s eyebrow twitched. He had a wife at home, and even she did not dare tease him this way. His skin crawled, not from fear, but from the strange discomfort of Damian’s attention. It wasn’t the kind of look a soldier knew how to defend against.

And with Damian, one could never tell where jest ended and danger began.

He turned to leave, jaw tight, but Damian moved faster, his fingers catching lightly beneath Leroy’s chin. Reflex was faster than thought. Leroy’s steel sang from its sheath in a bright, vicious arc.

The blade caught air, but left its mark. A thin line of red appeared across Damian’s knuckles.

"Ow," Damian breathed, then smiled, all teeth and delight. "Feisty."

He raised the injured hand to his lips, tongue brushing the blood as if it were a tasting of wine. The glint in his eyes was wicked; too knowing, too amused.

Leroy took a step back, the urge to strike again battling the urge to flee. His breath came slow and deliberately. He had crossed swords with generals, outwitted diplomats, faced down beasts of the jungle... but this man unsettled him in a way no blade ever had.

Then Damian spoke again, and the teasing lilt in his tone melted into something far colder.

"So... you’re a Dravenholt."

The name fell like a drop of poison into the air between them.

Leroy froze. The grip on his sword faltered by a fraction, and his breath caught in his chest.

"That explains a lot," Damian continued, his eyes narrowing with interest. "That mark on your cheek, the curse of the Dravenholt line. The one branded by the last King of House Aurelthar before he fell."

A hush seemed to fall upon the forest, the kind of silence that carried memory. The wind shifted, heavy with the scent of iron and pine, and the sound of a faraway stream whispered against the edges of thought.

Leroy’s heart beat faster. His fingers brushed unconsciously against his cheek, where the faint, reddish trace of the mark still lingered beneath the skin, glowing under sunlight.

Damian tilted his head, watching him closely. "I grew up in Lystheria, remember? We had records of everything; of your houses, your wars, your forgotten gods. The truth of Vaeloria, Kaltharion... and of Veyrakar." He smiled faintly, though there was no warmth in it. "The true history you’ve all buried under crowns and treaties."

Leroy said nothing. He thought of the half-burned book he had once found in the Arvand library, the one that spoke of a curse sealed by blood and dragonfire, and of a betrayal too great to be forgiven. That one he could accept. But another one... That page of the book that had made him question everything.

Damian’s gaze softened for the first time, voice lowering. "Do you think the Emperor burned Lystheria’s library because it held dangerous knowledge? Or because it held the truth?"

In Vaeloria, not a soul had spoken of the mark, the cursed mark of the Dravenholt, and the lack of it on the current emperor, not even in whispers. That silence alone told Damian enough. The truth had been buried, carefully and deliberately, as all dangerous truths were.

Was it mere coincidence that Lystheria, the cradle of ancient knowledge, the keeper of the old world’s records, had been one of the few to fall under the Emperor’s fire? Or had that been the plan all along? To scorch the past before it could speak?

Damian’s lips curved faintly, though there was no mirth in the gesture. He could almost see it now: the imperial banners rising against libraries instead of fortresses, the smell of parchment and ash filling the air while the scholars’ pleas were drowned beneath the sound of drums.

The Emperor had not conquered Lystheria for its land. He had conquered it for its silence.

And silence, Damian thought, was the most dangerous weapon of all.

Damian’s words struck like an arrow to the gut. Leroy’s chest tightened; the forest around them seemed to blur and tilt. "But not all books speak the truth," he murmured, more to himself than to Damian.

"They did," Damian replied quietly. "Ours were verified, attested, copied from the original hands of history itself. We do not lie in Lystheria, not about history."

Leroy’s step faltered. The sun above dimmed behind a passing cloud, and his shadow stretched long and thin upon the earth.

If that book was true...

Then that means...

My wife... I should protect her!

Damian’s fire dimmed to an ember, his voice lowering from jest to steel.

"Leroy."

Leroy turned to him, meeting his gaze. The sunlight that once caught in Damian’s golden-brown hair now framed a different man entirely, no longer the charming fool, but a prince of lineage and burden. That quicksilver shift between mask and monarch never failed to unsettle him. Damian was unreadable, too sharp beneath the laughter, too dangerous beneath the smile.

"I’ve heard," Damian began, his tone steady as the wind rustling through the leaves, "that the King of Corvalith prepares for war."

Leroy said nothing at first. His eyes followed a drifting leaf to the ground, then rose again, unbothered. "What of it?" he asked, his words clipped. "Let him."

Damian studied him, the edge of a smile flickering and dying before it could take shape. "You truly care nothing for it?" he asked softly. "For Vaeloria... for what it could become, if freed from the tyrant?"

Leroy’s jaw tightened. "Freedom," he murmured. "For whom? For the ones who call my people slaves? For the empire that calls my country a vassal? I have no throne here... or anywhere..."

Damian stepped closer, his gaze unwavering. "So says the heir to the Dragon throne, the last of the Aurelthar bloodline..."

Leroy wanted to be shocked, but couldnt.

"You could." Damian’s words hung heavy, deliberate. "You have a claim to the Vaelorian crown, and you know it. With me, there are others: three kings, and princes besides, ready to rise. The Emperor’s tyranny weakens by the day. The moment is near. What say you, Prince Leroy, the true heir to the Dragon Throne? Are you willing to rise against tyranny, to embrace your destiny?"

The forest fell silent. Somewhere in the distance, a bird took flight, startled by the stillness between them.

Leroy did not answer; not yet. But the shadows in his eyes deepened, and Damian could tell: the fire he had tried to bury was stirring once more.