Chapter 20: World Needs You to Sleep
Dawn crept through Lucien's chamber windows, painting his pale skin in shades of gold and amber. He lay sprawled across silk sheets, sleeping on his stomach, a maroon velvet blanket draped loosely across his lower body. His bare back rose and fell with the steady rhythm of deep sleep—the kind that came after hours of exhaustive meditation and physical training.
Alcine stood motionless in the shadows near the window, watching. Waiting. When footsteps approached in the corridor outside, he moved like smoke dissipating, vanishing through the balcony door without sound.
'Knock. Knock.'
"Prince Lucien?" Maid Aisa's voice carried through the heavy oak door. No response came. She hesitated, then turned the handle and entered.
Her breath caught.
He was there, asleep, shirtless, the blanket riding low enough to suggest he wore nothing beneath it. Morning light traced the defined muscles of his back, the elegant line of his spine. She stood frozen, face flushing hot, heart hammering against her ribs in a way she'd never experienced before.
'He's beautiful. Like something from the old stories about angels walking among mortals.'
She forced herself to move, to do her assigned duties. Quietly, she began tidying the chamber—gathering clothes scattered across chairs, replacing burnt candles with fresh ones, adjusting items on the bedside table.
As she leaned over to straighten a book ('The Meaning After Nothingness', she noted the title), his hand shot out and caught her waist.
She gasped—not from fear, but surprise.
He pulled her down onto the bed with effortless strength, the blanket shifting to cover them both. His eyes remained closed. His voice came muffled, dreamy, still half-lost in sleep.
"Shh... Don't you know it's still early morning?"
Aisa lay there, perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe. His hand rested on her upper chest—over her clothing, not intimate but undeniably possessive. The warmth of his body radiated through the thin fabric of her maid's uniform. The luxury of silk sheets, the scent of sandalwood and him, the impossibility of this moment—it all crashed over her at once.
'I wonder what he's thinking?' Her hand grazed his thigh accidentally, and she realized with fresh shock that he truly was naked beneath that blanket. 'He isn't even hesitating. He's just... comfortable with this. With me.'
Her face burned redder than summer cherries.
"Do you know any lullaby?" he asked, eyes still closed, voice carrying that particular softness of someone barely clinging to consciousness.
She looked stunned. "Ah... yes, Prince Lucien."
She couldn't fully grasp what was happening, but her voice found the words anyway—an old lullaby she'd learned as a child, one sung throughout Aurelith to honor Sol, the sun god.
'"Sun is still away... but work isn't finished... You have to sleep, for the world needs you to..."'
Her voice was soft, uncertain, but it carried.
Lucien's breathing deepened, evening out. His hand remained possessively placed on her chest while his own chest pressed against the mattress. Unhurried. Unworried. Within moments, he'd drifted back into sleep.
"Prince Lucien..." Aisa whispered, studying his face in the growing light. The silver-white hair, the aristocratic features, the complete absence of tension. "What if someone comes?"
She tried to shift away, but found herself unable to move. Not because his grip was too strong—but because her body didn't want to leave. Didn't want this strange, impossible moment to end.
So she lay there, heart racing, while the Second Prince of Aurelith Empire slept beside her with all the trust of a child who'd never known danger.
---
Hundreds of miles away in State Zyrick, the morning sun illuminated a very different scene.
The grand banquet hall of Zyrick's Royal Palace had been transformed overnight. Thousands of place settings stretched across dozens of long tables. Curtains in imperial colors hung from every window. Servants moved with choreographed efficiency, making final adjustments to flower arrangements and seating charts.
Duke Vasant stood in the center of it all, looking more relaxed than he had in months.
"Duke Vasant, you're looking remarkably happy." General Onnes—Army Chief General of State Zyrick, a man who'd been conspicuously absent from the court session in Siena—approached with genuine curiosity.
"I'm happy because it feels like nothing terrible happened after all, General Onnes." Vasant gestured for nearby butlers to adjust the decorative curtains. "We don't know exactly what's going to happen today, but I'm excited. Somehow, we'll be able to tell loyal nobles from the corrupt ones—and the best part?" His smile widened. "Neither my head is cut off nor anyone else's. No executions. No massacre. Just... a banquet."
The entire palace grounds and banquet hall were densely secured with Imperial Guards and Zyrick State forces. An ocean of armor and weapons, positioned to look ceremonial rather than threatening.
"It's a thing of awe, isn't it?" General Onnes mused, scanning the preparations. "All this... and not a hint of violence in the planning."
"The taxes are adjusted now." Duke Vasant settled into a chair at the high table, testing the view. "We increased prices on goods slightly, but it's still far less burden than those crushing taxes we suffered under. Either way, it's joyous for Zyrick. Our people are celebrating in the streets."
Outside the main entrance, two guards stood at attention, whispering to each other.
"Oi, look at that guy approaching—see that thing on his back?" The younger guard's voice pitched with nervousness. "It's... probably huge. What do you think it is?"
"I don't know, but look how he walks. Like he owns the ground beneath his feet."
They watched as a figure in a white cloak entered the palace grounds, something impossibly long and heavy wrapped in white cloth across his back. Dark hair with white streaks. Brown eyes that seemed to see everything without judging anything. A rosemary sprig held casually between his teeth.
The guards didn't recognize him.
But their instincts screamed 'danger' and 'safety' in equal, confusing measure.
---
Beyond the palace walls, in the bustling cityscape of Zyrick's capital, merchants had set up stalls to capitalize on the festival atmosphere. One such stall belonged to a traveling merchant and his eight-year-old son, selling herbs and medicines to nobles' servants and palace guards.
"Whooo! I have money, Father, look—" The boy ran circles around their stall, clutching a gold coin like it was a sacred relic. "That arrogant guy who didn't pay us wasn't so arrogant after all, I guess!"
He plopped down on a chair, staring at the coin with wonder.
His father chuckled, arranging their wares with practiced efficiency. "That's because he was never arrogant to begin with, boy. You just didn't understand what you were seeing."
"What do you mean?"
"Sometimes the strongest people are the quietest ones. Remember that."
The boy turned the coin over in his small hands, not yet understanding but filing the lesson away for when he was old enough to grasp it.
---
On the road leading into Zyrick State, Princess Thalira's imperial convoy rolled past the border marker—an ornate stone pillar bearing the state's crest.
"We've entered Zyrick," Minister Graham announced, closing his book. "The capital is another hour's travel at this pace."
Thalira pressed her face against the carriage window, studying the landscape. It looked... normal. Peaceful, even. Farmers worked their fields. Children played near a stream. Nothing suggested rebellion or danger or the political minefield they were supposedly walking into.
"It seems so calm," she observed.
"The best traps always do," Graham replied quietly.
Senior Maid Zeta said nothing, still lost in thoughts of silver-white hair and violet eyes and opportunities she'd wasted in service to the wrong person.
The carriage rolled on toward the capital, where a banquet hall waited.
Where loyal and corrupt nobles would soon gather, unknowing participants in a test designed by a serpent prince.
Where a Rank 2 Death Knight had just entered, seeking only good food and interesting conversation.
Where a Rank 8 Death Knight hid in shadows, planning murder.
Where everything was about to converge in ways no one—not even Lucien—could fully predict.
The pieces were all in position.
Now the game would begin.