Chapter 4 | Dying Prince | Leah
But deep in those pupils, a golden light flickers—like the first ray of sun before dawn.
The moment those eyes open, I stop breathing.
Ice-blue, with vertical slits. Not human eyes. Predator eyes—the look of something at the top of the food chain sizing up its prey. The moonlight makes that stare cut right through me, through skin, through bone, straight to the deepest hidden parts. I want to pull back, but his head is still resting on my knees, pinning me in place.
"I... I'm trying to save you." My voice shakes like leaves in fall. "You've been poisoned by Shadeblight."
I don't move. His eyes drift from my face down to my wrist.
Black metal, cold and gleaming. A Nullblood Suppressor. Number Seventeen.
That number glows harsh in the moonlight, like a brand burned into skin.
His eyebrows pull together. Not disgust—something more complicated. Confusion, maybe. Or disbelief.
"You're Nullblood." His voice is rough. Not a question. A statement. A fact he can't wrap his head around.
"Yes." I tuck my wrist behind my back, trying to hide it, trying to hide all of me. "But I know some magic. Your wounds are still leaking poison. You need another dose."
He just stares at me, silent. That look makes me want to disappear—not because it's mean, but because it's too sharp, like he's checking if I'm real, making sure a Nullblood is actually standing in front of him.
"Your eyes," he says.
"What?"
"They're glowing."
I touch my face without thinking.
In the puddle's reflection, my eyes are silver and burning bright, like two strange moons stuck where my eyes should be.
Nullblood eyes don't glow. That's basic stuff—even first-year students know that.
"I don't know why." It's the truth. I don't know. All I know is that when I was making the cure, my hands started glowing, my eyes changed, and my collar cracked. I don't know what it means. I just know it's happening.
He tries to sit up, moving slow, like a mountain of ice collapsing from the inside.
I reach for his shoulder, my hand pressing against muscle that feels like stone, burning hot through his clothes. The heat makes me want to pull away—and weirdly, never let go.
"Don't move." I turn to grab more ingredients.
Bloodrose petals. Shadowmoss threads. A piece of moonstone. My fingers are still shaking—not from the cold, but from his stare drilling into my back, two solid beams burning through my spine.
Crush. Mix. Say the words.
Silver light pours from my palm again.
I stare at my hands, light moving under my skin, leaking between my fingers, dripping onto the moss. The Suppressor stings, harder than before, like something inside me is being torn apart. The cracking sound is faint but clear, like ice under pressure.
"Focus." His voice cuts in suddenly, low and steady, like an old drum beating in my chest. "Feel the light in your hand—that's not normal magic. Listen to me..." His fingertip touches my forehead lightly, and a cool current slides down my spine like a snake made of ice. "Picture the silver light like streams flowing into an ocean. Your heart is where it starts."
His fingertip is cold against his burning skin. That cool current lights something up inside my head. The silver light steadies, gets brighter, like it's being tuned by something ancient.
I kneel next to him and feed him the paste.
This time there's no shock—just a warm pulse that runs from my fingertip up my arm, like two rivers meeting.
"Thank you," he says.
Two words, quiet, but I freeze. It's not the fake gratitude of someone trying to survive. Not the polite thanks of some noble looking down at me.
It's real.
Like he's accepting something that doesn't make sense: a Nullblood just saved his life. Like he's rethinking a rule he thought he understood for a thousand years.
And somehow, that makes me want to cry more than any compliment ever could.
The purple-black edges of his wound start to fade.
Poison vapor rises from his chest, sharp and sweet, twisting into smoke under the moonlight.
"Your name," he says.
"Leah."
"Leah." He says it again, his voice dropping lower, like he's tasting the sound. Then his whole body goes rigid.
I jump, reaching for his shoulder. But his hand is faster.
Long fingers wrap around my wrist, grip tight enough to hurt. I'm yanked toward him, my knees slamming into the moss. The smell of blackwood and blood-orange crashes over me, thick enough to make me dizzy, thick like old wine I could drown in.
"Wait—" I try to pull away.
His eyes change. The ice-blue gets swallowed completely by gold, like the ocean catching fire at sunrise. His breathing speeds up, chest rising and falling hard, each breath pulling in my scent, like a starving animal finally finding food after forever.
"Mine," he says.
His voice is low, not talking to me—just stating a fact. Like a king claiming land. Like a hunter marking prey. But underneath that word is something more complicated—not ownership, but recognition. The wild relief of a thousand years alone finally finding someone like you. A shiver runs up my spine from bottom to top.
No one has ever said that to me. No one has ever... wanted me like this.
"You're still poisoned—" I try to pull away.
His grip loosens a little, but his stare gets tighter. Those golden eyes hold something I can't look away from—not like he wants to hurt me, but hunger. Deep, aching hunger, like someone who's been walking through a desert for a thousand years finally seeing water.
His fingers move from my wrist to my collar, tracing the metal, then my neck. The touch steals my breath, like a faint electric shock. The skin under the collar trembles—not from fear, but from something I barely want to admit to myself.
"Your heartbeat," he says. "It's fast."
"Because you're scaring me."
His mouth twitches. Not quite a smile, but close. "Me too."
That stops me cold. A Third-Rank Prince, Senior Judge on the Council, heir to the highest military family under the Obsidian Moon—and he says he's scared too. Of me? A Nullblood?
He pushes himself up higher, leaning against the bloodthorn tree. In those golden eyes, clarity comes back like the tide going out. But the instinct hasn't left—it's still burning underneath, like a volcano under the ocean.
"That cure you made," he says, "works ten times faster than anything the Council's alchemists can do."
"I just followed the recipe."
"You read it and remembered it." He leans back, his voice getting sharper. "A restricted magic recipe. Even senior teachers need three days to look it up. You read it once and remembered it."
I don't know what to say. He's not complimenting me—he's just stating a fact that confuses him. And that confusion isn't pity. It's pure surprise. Like a mathematician finding an answer that breaks every rule they know.
The night wind picks up, carrying that blackwood and blood-orange smell through the air. His eyes close halfway, then open again with the gold dimmed but the ice-blue still glowing faintly, like the sky after sunset.
"Come here," he says.
"What?"
"Closer." His voice drops lower, coming from deep in his chest. "Let me see what's on your neck."
I realize the Suppressor came loose when we were struggling, showing the skin underneath. Cracks spread out from the number, glinting silver in the moonlight. He gently pulls my hand away where I'm trying to cover it.
Moonlight hits my neck. His stare locks on it, pupils shrinking again.
"Silver veins," he says.
"What?"
"Under your skin. Silver veins."
I try to twist and see my own neck, but I can't get the angle right. His words stir up a strange feeling—not fear, but waking up. Like there's a door deep inside my body that's always been closed, and now his voice is pushing it open. Silver light leaks through the crack.
The energy field in the Forgotten Walk, my glowing eyes, silver veins—it all points to an answer I don't want to think about. About who I am. What I am.
But before I can ask, he moves forward suddenly. Some force pulls me to him. Not rough—magnetic, like two magnets finally getting close enough. My forehead presses against his shoulder, and I catch the bitter blackwood smell in his hair, deep like old medicine. His arm wraps around my back, light, like he's afraid of breaking something fragile.
"Thank you," he says again, this time close enough that I can feel his chest vibrate, like a small drum against my ear.
I freeze against him, my heartbeat trying to break through my ribs. His body temperature is higher than normal, fever-hot through his clothes, but it feels strangely comforting. Like finding a fire on a freezing night.
"You're shaking," he says.
"Because you're hot."
"Because you're scared."
I don't say anything. He's right, but not completely. I am scared, but there's something else too—a craving deep in my bones, wanting to press closer, bury my face in his shoulder, wanting—
His fingers stop at the base of my skull, pressing gently. A strange tingle shoots up my spine—electricity, magic, some kind of closeness I've never felt before, something only bloodkind know.
"Leah." He says my name with a tone I've never heard. Not an order, not a question—something softer.
"Yeah?"
"If you don't leave," he says, "I won't let you go."
That sentence hits me like lightning. Not a threat. A warning. An honest, clear-headed warning. He's telling me he's losing control. Telling me that if I stay, he can't promise what he'll do.
I should get up, run back to the academy, bury tonight under the moss of the Forgotten Walk.
But I don't move.