Zayden was left alone for a while after Enzo’s visit. No one dared to co see him. Not when he had shut the doors and drawn the curtains closed, isolating himself from the rest of the palace as though he could shut his heart away just as easily.
Unfortunately, his mories knew no walls. His hallucinations knew no locked doors, no windows, and no boundaries.
Whether he closed his eyes or kept them open, Ren’s figure continued to haunt him.
Sotis, it was those pitiful crimson eyes staring at him with hurt and disbelief.
Sotis, it was Ren’s laugh—a sound so rare that hearing it had always felt like a reward. A treasure only a handful of people were fortunate enough to witness. Every ti it happened, Zayden’s heart would skip a beat.
And sotis... Sotis it was far worse.
He would rember Ren lying against his chest after a long day, nuzzling closer without a word. He would rember absentmindedly running his fingers through silver hair while listening to the oga complain about trivial things, which he rarely did. He would rember those peaceful monts that made him forget battles, politics, responsibilities, and every burden he carried upon his shoulders.
Those mories hurt the most because they had been real.
But now, the alpha was no longer sure whether what tornted him were hallucinations or simply mories replaying on their own cruel routine.
"Please..." Zayden muttered, bringing another glass of wine to his lips. "Just go away."
As the alcohol poured down his throat, it burned. Yet it failed to numb the ache inside his chest.
On the table rested more bottles than he cared to count. Several others lay shattered across the floor, their contents staining the carpet dark.
The room slled of ruin—alcohol.
Zayden laughed bitterly. The sound felt foreign even to his own ears.
"You always complained when I drank too much." His gaze drifted toward the empty space beside him, toward the place where Ren wasn’t. The place where Ren would never be again.
The alpha’s fingers tightened around the glass.
"I told you that you were my Polaris." His voice trembled, barely audible. Just enough to echo in the quiet room. "I told you that whenever I was lost, I would follow your light."
A painful smile ford on his lips. One that vanished as quickly as it appeared.
"So why did you mislead ?" The question hung unanswered in the silence. "Why did you let trust you this much if you knew everything would end like this?"His throat tightened.
The alcohol was no longer helping. If anything, it only made the mories clearer. Crueler. Now, he could practically hear Ren’s voice. See the warmth in his eyes. Feel his touch.
And that was precisely the problem. Because despite everything he had learned—the lies, the betrayal, the secrets—despite the anger that still consud him, a part of Zayden remained incapable of hating him.
The realization made him lower his head into his hands.
"What am I supposed to do now, Ren?" The question escaped him in a broken whisper. "I don’t know which part of you was real anymore."
Tears slipped down his cheeks. And unlike all the tis before, he didn’t bother wiping them away.
***
He didn’t hear the doors open.
He didn’t hear the footsteps crossing the floor, crunching over shattered glass. He didn’t notice anything at all until a hand seized him by the collar and hauled him upright with a force that sent the wine glass slipping from his grip.
"What in the—"
"Where is your sense?!" Soren’s voice cracked through the room like a whip.
As Crown Prince, he was not a man accustod to being ignored—and he was even less accustod to finding his brother like this.
His eyes swept over the carnage—the bottles, the stains, the curtains drawn against the world—and his expression shifted from fury to sothing rawer.
Sothing that looked almost like grief, if grief wore the face of rage. He left his brother alone, hoping it would help Zayden clear his mind but nothing changed!
"Do you even know what your child is up to?" he demanded, releasing Zayden’s collar but not stepping back. "I found Eiran lurking near the dungeon. The dungeon, Zayden! Do you have any idea what sort of people are kept in that place? What he might have seen? What he might have heard?"
Zayden said nothing. He simply stared, hollow-eyed, as though the words were reaching him from sowhere very far away.
That only seed to make it worse.
"You are supposed to be his father!" Soren’s voice broke on the word, and he pressed on before the crack could widen.
"You are the Empire’s General—n follow you into battle without a second thought. Soldiers would, and did die on your word alone! And here you are—" he gestured sharply at the bottles, at the stained floor, at all of it. "—drowning yourself like a man with nothing left to lose. I did not expect this from you. I have never expected this from you!"
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Zayden’s jaw moved, just slightly. He looked down at his empty hand where the glass had been.
"Did you even confirm it with him?" Soren asked at last, his voice dropping to sothing quieter.
More dangerous for its quietness.
"Did you even ask Ren? Face to face? Did you give him the chance to—"
"No."The word fell flat.
Soren went still. A soft gasp escaped his mouth.
Zayden pressed the heel of his palm against his eye socket, as though he could push the exhaustion back inside.
When he spoke again, his voice carried none of the authority that made battalions fall into line. It was sothing far smaller. Sothing that had been worn down to the bone.
"I couldn’t." He exhaled, a slow, unravelling sound. "I couldn’t even ask him."
"Zayden—"
"Because I am afraid." He admitted. It ca out cracked at the edges, like sothing that had been held together too long and finally split.
He finally looked at his brother, and what Soren saw there made him freeze in his place.
"I am afraid that the mont he opens his mouth, I will believe him. Whatever he says. Whatever lie he decides to give —I will believe it, brother." Zayden’s hands dropped to his sides.
"I love him." The words were almost soundless. "I love him so, so much, and I know that I should hate him for what he has done. I need to hate him. I need to, because if I don’t—" His voice cracked.
He paused before starting again. "But I can’t. I don’t know what I am to do."
For a long mont, Soren said nothing.
Then, without a word, he crossed the distance between them and pulled his brother into his arms the way he hadn’t since they were boys—before ranks, before duties, before the Empire had decided they were no longer allowed to simply be brothers.
Zayden didn’t pull away.
He broke. Tears flowed down his cheeks like a relentless river. His shoulders trembled, and soft, broken whispers left his lips.
"Brother, tell ... what am I to do?" He sniffled.
Soren’s heart sank.
He hadn’t seen Zayden like this in a long ti. It was as if his younger brother had returned to being the crybaby he used to be—the small, tearful boy who would co tugging at his sleeve whenever the world felt too scary to navigate alone.
Except this ti, the world genuinely was too heavy. And Soren had no sleeve left to offer. Only his arms, and the silence of soone who did not yet have the right words, but refused to let go anyway.
His hand moved to the back of Zayden’s head—the sa way it had when they were children—and he held him there, steady, while his brother fell apart against his shoulder.
"I don’t know," the oga admitted quietly.
It was perhaps the most honest thing a Crown Prince could say.
"But you are not going to figure it out at the bottom of a wine bottle, Zayden. And your son needs his father present. Not absent as you are now. Mostly now that Ren isn’t at his side."
He felt his brother exhale—a long one.
"One step at a ti," Soren murmured. "That is all. Take your ti to process this. But don’t take so long that everything is gone when you are ready to confront reality."
"But... What happened to Eiran?" Zayden finally asked, wiping away the tears.
"He... He said he was searching for his papa," Soren sighed, rubbing his temples. "I barely convinced him that you were too busy to be with him, and that is also why you kept saying the wrong things about Ren."
Zayden narrowed his gaze as if he couldn’t comprehend what his brother was saying.
"What do you an?"
"You would tell him that Ren went to the mansion, then tell him that he would co back soon, only to say you both would join him shortly after. The poor child was confused beyond asure," Soren shook his head.
"Ah... But where is he?..."
"I left him in the hallway. He wished to et you."
"In this state?... I..."
"Freshen up. I’ll bring him to his room," Soren exhaled, turning on his heel and walking away, leaving Zayden alone in the room once again.
User Comments
0 comments from readers