Chapter 91: True prince

Chapter 91

“The Crown Prince has arrived,” a voice murmured. Lucian looked up, but he was no longer in the cellar.

He was in the past. At the head of the table sat his father, the King, looking exactly as he did centuries ago—hard-eyed and immovable.

Lucian sat at his right hand, the weight of the heir’s signet ring heavy on his finger. Around the long table, the faces of his past were carved in candlelight: Caleb, looking deceptively loyal; Princess Selena, wearing a mask of victory; and her father, the visiting King.

He remembered this day. The day the world had tried to chain him into that unwanted alliance. “Prince Lucian,” his father’s voice boomed, vibrating through the stone floor. “You are late to your own celebration.”

Lucian sat paralyzed. He watched the massive double doors swing open and saw himself—his younger, arrogant self—stride into the hall.

The younger Lucian walked with a high head, offering no bow to the lesser lords; instead, they inclined their heads as he passed, acknowledging the “Prince of Death.”

The younger Lucian moved toward the table and took the seat where the current Lucian sat. In an instant, Lucian felt his physical presence evaporate.

He was no longer a participant; he was a ghost, standing at the edge of his own history. “A King’s business is never finished, Father,” his younger self replied.

Lucian watched with a hollow ache in his chest. He knew this memory. He knew every word.

But as the King stood to raise a golden goblet, the candlelight caught the jagged rubies in his crown, forcing Lucian to avert his eyes.

As he did, his gaze snagged on a shock of familiar white hair. Lucian’s breath hitched. Isabella.

No, not the Isabella he knew. This girl was younger, her spirit more fragile, her body trembling under the weight of an ancient maid’s dress.

She moved toward the King, clutching a wine bottle as if it were a lifeline. Standing as a silent specter in the corner of the room, Lucian watched the girl approach his younger self.

Her hands shook so violently that as she tilted the crystal, the dark red wine missed the cup entirely.

It splashed across his younger self’s leather tunic and soaked into the white linen. The girl flinched, but she didn’t look at the King.

She didn’t look at the younger Lucian. Her eyes snapped directly toward the corner of the room where the ghost of Lucain stood.

In an instant, Lucian’s eyes locked onto her golden gaze. The air in the memory didn’t just thicken; it froze.

The girl looked past the royalty and the chaos of the banquet, staring directly into the soul of the man he had become.

“Bella.” The name didn’t come from the room. It erupted from the deepest, most guarded vault of his mind—a roar that silenced the clinking of silver and the anger of kings.

The moment their eyes met, the “block” Clara had warned him about disintegrated. It started as a trickle and ended as a flood.

A million images, sharp as glass and hot as fire, slammed into Lucian’s consciousness. He wasn’t just watching anymore; he was drowning.

He remembered the secret heat of her skin in the moonlit gardens. He remembered the taste of stolen sugar and desperation on her lips.

He remembered the agonizing weight of his crown when he realized he would have to choose between his empire and the girl with the white-streaked hair.

But through the rush of love came the terrifying truth of the betrayal. He saw himself—the real Lucian, the Crown Prince—standing in a dark corridor, his heart breaking as his father ordered him to the northern border.

It had been a setup. A fake war to clear the path for Selena. He saw Caleb, his brother, pacing his room with a dangerous expression. “She’s a servant. And servants are meant to be used.”

Lucian let out a choked sound as the final memory—the Why—returned with the force of a landslide.

He hadn’t just killed Caleb in a fit of rage. He had returned from the north, having survived a coordinate assassination attempt meant to ensure he never came back, only to find a nightmare waiting for him.

He remembered the sound of the horse. He remembered the desperation. He remembered the ride.

And then he saw her.

White hair streaked with red. Hands trembling with a sword. Eyes empty, not from madness, but from something far worse.

Resignation.

“Bella.” The name echoed again. The memory didn’t just play before him; it consumed him. The sound of a horse, driven to the point of heart failure, thundered into the courtyard.

Lucian watched his younger, battle-worn, covered in his own blood and grime, his armor shattered from the assassination leapt from the saddle before the beast had even stopped, his boots skidding against the cobblestones.

“Bella.”He screamed her name, a sound of such profound agony that it felt like the sky itself might split open.

The crowd of nobles and guards parted like a sea of vipers, their faces pale with shock. They had expected him to be a corpse in a northern ditch; they hadn’t expected the Prince of Death to return with the fury of a thousand suns.

Lucian sprinted toward the platform, his eyes wide and wild. He pushed past the royal guards, his strength fueled by a frantic, soul-crushing terror.

He reached the base of the gallows just as Bella’s body rolled off the edge of the wooden stage, falling into the dirt like a discarded doll.

Lucian caught her. He fell to his knees, the impact jarring his bones, but he didn’t feel it. He cradled her head against his chest, his hands—stained with the blood of the men who had tried to kill him—now desperately trying to staunch the wound at her neck.

“No, no, no,” he sobbed, his voice breaking into a thousand pieces. “I’m here. Bella, look at me. I’m here!”

The world around them slowed. The jeers of the crowd and the distant shouting of the King faded into a dull hum.

Bella’s golden eyes, glazed and fading, flickered one last time. She saw him. A tiny, fragile smile touched her blood-stained lips—a look of pure relief that he had survived, that he had come back for her.

And then, the light vanished. Her head fell back, her body going limp in his arms, the weight of her soul departing leaving only cold flesh behind.

Standing in the corner of this memory, the older Lucian watched his younger self howl at the sky.

He felt the phantom sting in his own neck, the burning resonance of the blade that had taken her life.

He watched as his younger self’s grief transformed into something far more dangerous than sorrow.

Young Lucian looked up at the dais. He looked at his father, whose face was a mask of stern disappointment.

He looked at Selena, who was dabbing at her eyes with a lace kerchief that didn’t hide her satisfied smirk.

And then, he eyes fell on Caleb. His brother stood there, leaning casually against a stone pillar.

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