Chapter 254: He Will Die
And yet... nothing had worked. The infant’s hunger for blood was deeper than they imagined, carved into his very soul. Even pain had failed to sever it. Morvakar paced the chamber, his hands clasped behind his back as his mind churned with fury. He had underestimated the heir’s addiction. He muttered calculations under his breath, formulas and incantations, as his gaze flicked to the table where his final resort lay. He feared this moment.
His eyes flickered toward Thessa. She stood rigid against the wall, still trembling from the restraints he had cast upon her hours ago. Though the spell had faded, her face was streaked with tears of despair. He knew what she was thinking—escape. She had already tried once in the dead of night, clutching the child to her chest, tiptoeing toward the shadows. But Morvakar had anticipated it. The memory still lingered in her eyes: hatred and helplessness intertwined. Now she stood there, shoulders squared but body taut with fear, every breath carrying the scent of her frustration.
"If this continues," Thessa whispered hoarsely, "he will die."
Morvakar stopped pacing. His back stiffened, and slowly he turned. "I have to use the sun stone shards, Thessa."
Her eyes widened, her breath hitched. For a moment she said nothing, only stared at him with horror. Then, her hands curled into fists, and tears spilled freely down her cheeks. "If he dies, Morvakar..." She stepped forward. "If the heir dies—" She broke off, swallowing against the lump in her throat. "I will never forgive you."
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Morvakar’s lips curved into that thin, unsettling smile that always made Thessa’s stomach tighten. "I’m used to being labeled the villain," he said softly, almost conversationally, as if they were discussing the weather instead of a child’s survival. "But I have to do this. For Damien. For Luna. For you." His voice cracked almost imperceptibly on the last word, though he covered it with a deep inhale, turning swiftly back to the workbench so she couldn’t see the flicker of humanity he tried to bury.
The table before him was chaos made deliberate. Thessa clutched the baby tighter, rocking him gently even as his scarred body trembled in her arms.
"You have to survive this, your highness," Morvakar murmured, finally lifting the blood mixture, now tainted with the dust of the sun stone. His fingers shook only slightly as he scooped the mixture into a tiny silver spoon. He glanced at Thessa briefly, but she didn’t speak—her lips pressed tightly together, eyes burning with the plea she no longer bothered to voice.
The baby whimpered faintly, small lips opening in instinct. Morvakar leaned close, spoon trembling as he pressed it against the infant’s mouth. One spoonful. The child swallowed, his body jerking at the burn. Another spoonful, harsher this time. Thessa flinched as the baby writhed, clutching him so hard she thought she might crush him. By the third spoon, his skin began to glow.
It was faint at first. Then it grew brighter, until his flesh turned translucent. His tiny chest heaved, ribs starkly visible, bones casting eerie shadows beneath the light. It was grotesque.
"Morvakar!" Thessa cried. She pressed her face to the child’s glowing skin, desperate to shield him even from the light that poured out of him.
"It’s okay," Morvakar said quickly, though his own voice wavered against the weight of what he was seeing. He forced calm into his tone. "This is normal. This is what should happen." But his eyes never left the child.
They both stood still. Time stretched—seconds felt like hours—as they waited for the child’s reaction. The baby’s eyes flew open suddenly, glowing bright as molten silver, so wide it seemed as if he were seeing through both of them, through the walls, through the very fabric of existence. Thessa gasped, tightening her hold as the child let out a shuddering gasp—then went utterly still.
The silence that followed was deafening. His tiny chest no longer moved. His skin, once lit with unbearable radiance, dulled to a sickly pallor.
"No...No, no, no!" Thessa shook the child gently, then violently, tears streaming down her face as she begged him to breathe. Her grief flooded the room, so palpable it felt like another living presence.
Morvakar froze. His carefully constructed composure shattered as the weight of his choices crashed over him.
"Breathe, damn you," he whispered hoarsely, a plea slipping past his lips before he could stop it.
And still, the child did not stir.
"Your highness..." Morvakar’s hands trembled as he pressed them against the infant’s chest. He then clutched the child from Thessa’s arms, holding him close, his composure finally fracturing. For all his genius and arrogance, for all the times he claimed to play God, in this moment he looked nothing more than a man finished.
In one sudden motion, panic surged through him. His boots thundered against the stone as he burst through the parlour door, racing outside. His gaze flew upwards—toward the horizon, where the sun sank lower.
"Morvakar... say something." Thessa stumbled after him, her hair whipping free from its braid in the wind. She followed his gaze upward. "Morvakar!" Her scream tore through the twilight, breaking on his silence.
Finally, he snapped. His roar reverberated through the air, a sound torn raw from his chest. "He’s dead! Thessa! Is that what you want me to say?" His fangs glinted in the twilight as his face twisted with fury—at himself, at fate, at her for forcing him to say it aloud. "I failed! He is dead!!!"
Thessa staggered back, her knees giving way as she sank into the dirt. She opened her mouth, but no sobs came. The grief was too vast, too sharp—it hollowed her out from the inside, leaving only a stunned, suffocating silence. She looked at Morvakar blankly, her eyes glassy, as though staring at a stranger rather than the man who had just tried to save their heir.
Morvakar laid the baby gently on a rough-hewn wooden platform, his hands shaking despite himself. He lifted his hands to the sky, his palms open, his face bathed in the last light of the dying sun.
Thessa froze. For before her eyes, Morvakar did the impossible.
His lips moved. The sound that left him was so alien, so powerful, it thrummed in her bones.
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