Chapter 32 The Things People Consume
Darius and Solis walked together through the quiet streets of the famine-stricken city. The morning light felt muted and distant, as if even the sun struggled to reach this place. Veth and Mara followed at a respectful distance, giving them space for the conversation that had begun the night before.
Solis moved with graceful sorrow, her extraordinary beauty almost painful against the hollow expressions of the people they passed. "Look at them," she said softly, her voice carrying a quiet melancholy. "They consume endlessly. Power. Attention. Love. Nations. Each other. They devour everything they can reach, yet nothing ever fills the space inside them."
Darius walked beside her, listening carefully. A man sat on his doorstep eating bread with slow, mechanical bites, his eyes distant and unfocused. A woman argued with a merchant over the price of grain, but there was no real fire in her voice, only habit and exhaustion.
"They have food," Darius observed. "Markets are open. Stores are full. Yet they look like they are starving."
Solis nodded, her dark hair catching the weak sunlight. "Because the hunger is not in their stomachs. It is deeper. They chase satisfaction the way a dying man chases water in the desert, but the cup is always empty by the time they bring it to their lips. They build empires, hoard wealth, collect lovers, chase glory, and still... the emptiness remains."
They continued walking. The streets felt strangely intimate in their shared desolation. Darius’s own lingering hunger from the previous night still pulsed at the edges of his mind, a constant, aching reminder of Solis’s nature.
"I spent most of my life trying not to need anything," he said suddenly, the admission slipping out quieter than he intended.
Solis stopped walking. She turned to him fully, her sorrowful eyes searching his face. The words seemed to strike her deeper than any bold declaration or clever flirtation ever could.
"You... chose absence?" she whispered, almost reverent.
Darius nodded slowly. "After they exiled me for being the weakest prince in recorded history, I decided that needing things only gave others power over me. So I needed nothing. No real ambition. No comfort. No deep connections. I became very good at being empty."
Solis stared at him for a long moment. Something in her elegant composure fractured further. The mask she wore cracked, revealing raw vulnerability beneath. For the first time in centuries, someone had offered her a mirror instead of demands or fear.
"You understand," she said softly. "Not just with your mind. With your own lived emptiness."
Darius gave her a small, tired smile. "Maybe a little. I spent years trying to become invisible. Useful but forgettable. The curse they put on me was supposed to make me weak. Instead it made me... resistant. To power. To need. To almost everything."
Solis stepped closer. The subtle tension between them shifted into something warmer. More dangerous. She was no longer looking at him with mere intellectual curiosity. There was comfort in her gaze now, a dangerous kind of comfort for a being like her.
"You are not trying to fill me," she murmured. "You are simply... here. Listening. Existing beside my emptiness without trying to conquer it or run from it. That is rarer than any power you carry inside you."
Darius met her eyes steadily. "I am not here to fix you, Solis. I will not demand you become something you are not. But I will walk with you. If you will let me."
Solis’s breath caught. She reached out and lightly touched his arm. The contact sent a fresh wave of that deep, aching hunger through him, but he did not pull away. For a moment, the emptiness felt almost shared. Almost bearable.
They continued walking side by side. Solis spoke of centuries spent watching people consume everything and still remain empty. Kings consumed kingdoms. Lovers consumed each other’s time and affection. Even the gods consumed worship. And still, the hunger never ended.
Darius listened without judgment. He asked gentle questions. He shared small pieces of his own past. Their conversation flowed easily now, intimate and melancholic, two beings who had both learned to live with absence in different ways.
Veth, following behind, muttered to Mara, "This is taking too long. I do not like how she looks at him."
Mara remained quiet, but her golden eyes watched the pair with growing concern.
As they finally turned back toward the grand estate, Solis walked closer to Darius than before. Her focus had shifted. No longer just curiosity. There was genuine comfort in the way she stayed near him, a quiet warmth that felt precious and dangerous for someone who had known only emptiness for so long.
They stepped through the estate gates.
The moment they entered the main courtyard, the difference hit them like a physical blow.
Half the estate was dead.
Nobles and servants lay slumped in chairs, on benches, and across the floor. No wounds. No signs of struggle. No blood. They simply sat or lay where they had been, eyes open but completely empty, bodies perfectly still. The other half of the guests still moved sluggishly through the halls, still eating, still pretending at life, but their movements were even slower now. More hollow. More lifeless.
Solis stopped beside Darius, her voice very quiet.
“I did not do this deliberately.”
Darius looked at the scene of silent, emptied bodies. The hunger had grown stronger while they were gone. Much stronger.
The things people consume had finally consumed them.