Chapter Two: The Boy Who Would Not Flinch

...\~Silas's POV\~...

...The prince’s scent lingered long after he’d gone smoke, cold iron, and a trace of something bitter and electric, like ozone before a lightning strike. Silas inhaled it without meaning to. His senses were sharp lately. Sharper than they should be. Side effects of the Binding mark pulsing faintly beneath the glyphs carved into his skin....

...He shifted, wincing as the iron manacles dug into his wrists. The chains were enchanted, heavy with old magic, but it was the glyphs drawn in glowing ink that refused to fade that burned him. They pulsed faintly with the rhythm of his heartbeat. Not pain. Not exactly. But a constant reminder....

...Of what he was....

...What he wasn’t allowed to be....

...Not anymore....

...The dungeon cell was carved from obsidian and sealed with wards older than any language still spoken. It reeked of mold and blood and despair. Yet Silas had known worse places most of them inside his own mind....

...He let his head fall back against the wall and closed his eyes....

...The prince’s face burned behind his eyelids. Not just the face Corin wore now, but every variation Silas had seen in dreams and visions: Corin with fire in his hair and tears on his cheeks. Corin bloodstained and gasping, begging the gods for mercy. Corin smiling through cracked lips in a field of flowers that didn’t exist....

...You’re late, Silas had said when he first saw him. But that wasn’t true. Corin had come at the exact moment fate allowed it....

...The storm inside Silas stirred. It was always there, just under his skin magic that didn’t belong to him but clung to his bones like frost. Wild, hungry, twisted by prophecy and tempered by fear....

...He should have died at the ruins. Should have let the curse finish what it started. But something had pulled him back. Something had held him, warm and furious and alive....

...Corin....

...Or the idea of him....

...He looked at me like I wasn’t a person. Like I was a task....

...Silas clenched his fists until the glyphs sparked, pain flaring up his arms. He welcomed it. It was something real....

...He could handle being hated. He’d been hated before. But indifference? That cold, clinical curiosity?...

...That was worse....

...Because it meant Corin hadn’t seen it yet. The thread. The bond. The inevitable chain that tied them together, tighter than blood, deeper than magic. The Crimson Vow wasn’t just a ritual. It was a sentence. One lived. One died....

...Silas let the silence settle again, broken only by the distant echo of boots and the slow drip of water from the ceiling. And then.....

...Footsteps. Quicker this time. Lighter....

...The lock clicked, metal against metal....

...A servant girl peeked through the door, wide-eyed and pale. She held a tray of bread, dried fruit, and water that tasted like ash....

...She didn’t speak. Just set it down and fled....

...Silas didn’t touch it. He wasn’t hungry. Hunger felt too human....

...Instead, he stared into the shadows, where the light didn’t quite reach....

...“Please,” he whispered to the silence, voice barely audible. “Don’t let him be kind. Don’t let him try to save me.”...

...He drew his knees to his chest, chains rattling. The air felt too tight....

...“Because I’ll let him.”...

...And that would be the end of everything....

...\~End of POV\~...