Chapter 72 The weight of silence

Chapter 72 The weight of silence


Decades Ago — The Varex Estate

"Why won't you let me face punishment?"

Lucian's voice cracked, raw with grief and desperation. He stood in his father's study, still wearing the blood-stained clothes from that night. Seraphina's blood. His hands wouldn't stop shaking.

Selene stood by the window, her back rigid, her voice cold and controlled when she finally spoke.

"Listen, Lucian. Things are not as easy as you think they are." She turned to face him, her expression hard. "If the witches come with full force on us and you're found guilty, they have magic strong enough to do terrible things to you. Things far worse than death."

"So what?" Lucian's voice rose, anguish bleeding through every word. "I just get away with it? I just... pretend it didn't happen?" He turned to his father, who stood silent by the fireplace, staring into the flames. "Father, say something. Why aren't you saying anything?"

Aldric heaved a sigh, deep and weighted with more than his son could possibly understand. He closed his eyes briefly, then finally turned to face Lucian.

"Listen to me, son." His voice was quiet, measured, like he was choosing each word carefully. "We are only calling it what it was. An accident. You didn't mean to kill the witch. It's just.."

"Seraphina!" Lucian's shout echoed through the study, making Selene flinch. "Her name was Seraphina! Not 'the witch.' Not some nameless casualty." His voice broke completely. "And I... I loved her, Father."

The words hung in the air like a confession and a condemnation all at once.

Aldric's entire body went rigid.

He heard it. Heard the echo of his own voice from decades ago, saying those same words to his own father. I love her. I love Morgana.

And he saw himself in his son the same desperation, the same anguish, the same impossible choice between love and duty.

Aldric's throat tightened. He wanted to speak, wanted to tell Lucian that he understood. That he knew exactly what his son was going through because he'd lived it himself.

He'd fought with his own father to be with Morgana. Had stood in a room not unlike this one and declared his love for a witch who was supposed to be his enemy.

But when his father had threatened exile threatened to strip him of his pack, his family, his very identity Aldric had been left with no choice.

Or at least, that's what he'd told himself.

He'd decided it was best to go with his father's wishes. To marry Selene. To do his duty.

It had broken his heart.

But Morgana didn't know that. She'd thought it was easy for him. Thought he'd simply walked away without a second thought.

And now history was repeating itself, and Aldric was powerless to stop it.

"Lucian," Aldric started, his voice rougher than he intended. "I know this is.."

"You don't know anything," Lucian said bitterly, tears streaming down his face. "You don't know what it's like to hold someone you love while they die. To watch the light leave their eyes because of you."

But Aldric did know. Not in the same way, perhaps, but he knew what it was like to lose someone you loved because of your own choices.

He just couldn't say it.

Couldn't admit that he'd abandoned Morgana. Couldn't confess that somewhere out there, she might have borne his child alone. Couldn't tell his son that the very witch whose sister he'd killed was the woman Aldric had once loved more than life itself.

The silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating.

"The pack will protect you," Selene said finally, her voice cutting through the tension. "The covens won't get to you. We'll handle this internally."

"Handle it?" Lucian laughed, a broken, hollow sound. "There's nothing to handle. I killed her. I deserve whatever they want to do to me."

"You deserve to live," Selene said firmly. "What happened was a tragedy, but destroying yourself won't bring her back."

Lucian turned away from both of them, his shoulders shaking. "I can't... I can't just move on. I can't pretend this didn't happen."

"We're not asking you to pretend," Aldric said quietly. "We're asking you to survive."

"For what?" Lucian's voice was barely a whisper. "So I can live with this guilt every single day? So I can wake up every morning knowing I killed the only person who ever made me feel like I could be something more than just... this?"

Aldric's chest ached. Those words could have been his own, decades ago.

"Yes," Aldric said, and his voice cracked despite his efforts to stay strong. "Because that's what we do, Lucian. We carry it. We live with it. We bear the weight so that others don't have to."

Lucian looked at his father with hollow eyes. "I don't want to be protected. I want to be punished."

"The world will punish you enough," Selene said, and there was something almost gentle in her voice now. "Every day you live will be punishment. Trust me."

Lucian stood there for a long moment, broken and lost.

Then, slowly, he nodded.

Not because he agreed. Not because he accepted it.

But because he was too shattered to fight anymore.

"I'm done with love," he said quietly, his voice empty. "I swear it. I'll never let myself feel that way again." He looked at his parents, his eyes red and haunted. "And I'll punish myself every single day for what I did. Every. Single. Day."

Aldric wanted to tell him not to make that vow. Wanted to say that closing himself off from love would only make the guilt worse.

But he said nothing.

Because he'd made the same vow once. And he'd kept it.

And look where it had gotten him.

Miles away, Morgana stood over Seraphina's grave, her magic crackling in the air around her like a living storm.

She didn't know that Lucian was drowning in guilt. Didn't know that he'd loved Seraphina the way Aldric had once loved her.

All she knew was that they'd taken her sister.

And she vowed, with every fiber of her being, to destroy them all.

Lucian had taken Seraphina.

But little did Morgana know he'd also taken the first woman he'd ever loved.

And in doing so, he'd destroyed himself just as thoroughly as he'd destroyed her.