The alley is suffocated by shadow, the high walls of the merchant district cutting off the sun completely. It is a throat of stone, swallowing the light.
Luan stumbles, his boots scraping against the damp cobblestones. He coughs, a wet, ragged sound, and crimson splatters the dark ground.
"Stay... behind me, Elsbeth," he rasps, his voice broken by the phantom lava tearing at his throat. He forces himself to stand, shielding her with his trembling, broken body.
The man leaned casually against the far wall, shrouded in darkness. He didn't answer the coughs or the fear.
He just pushes off the brick and starts walking toward them, his steps silent.The darkness follows him, obedient.
Luan sways, barely able to keep his eyes open, but he raises a shaking hand in a protective posture. He is a dying man trying to fight a ghost.
The stranger stops a few feet away. He tilts his head, looking at the Jester.
"How are you going to protect her if you can't even stand, pal?" the man asks, his voice amused, light, and utterly unbothered. "And what is with that get-up? Are you a performer lost on his way to the circus?"
Elsbeth freezes. The voice cuts through her panic familiar, irritating, and undeniably safe.
She steps out from behind Luan's broken form.
"Leonard?" she shouts, "Is that you?"
Hope and fear wrestle in her voice.
The man laughs a bright, silly sound that has no place in this grim alley.
He steps into a sliver of stray light, revealing a rogue's grin and blonde messy hair that defies military regulation.
"Scared you to death, didn't I, Lady Elsbeth?"
Luan's limit breaks. The adrenaline fades, leaving only the curse. His eyes roll back, and he collapses hard onto the cold stone, the pain finally dragging him into the dark.
"Luan!" Elsbeth gasps, falling to her knees beside him. His name breaks from her throat like prayerraw, terrified, pleading.
Leonard's grin vanishes instantly. He hurries forward, crouching beside the fallen Jester. "Hey, hey... did I scare you that bad?"
"Stop with the jokes!" Elsbeth snaps, her voice flat and cold with fear. "Help us. We have no time."
"Okay, okay," Leonard mutters, effortlessly hoisting Luan's dead weight onto his shoulder as if he were a sack of grain. "But isn't that a little rude, my Lady? I just got back to the capital and you're already ordering me around with no greeting? How unfair."
He adjusts Luan's weight, his eyes scanning the alley entrance with a sharpness that betrays his training. "Jokes aside... what is happening in Liveria? The guards are ransacking the capital. They're tearing apart houses searching for you and 'some creature.' Did you piss off the King?"
"I'll explain everything later," she whispers. "We have to get to your house first. It's the only place they won't look."
"Right. Follow me, Princess."
She walks beside him, her gaze drowning in Luan's pale face slumped over Leonard's shoulder, as if looking away might let him fade.
They slip through the lower city's maze, narrowly missing a patrol.
Knights thunder past, none the wiser.
At the district's edge
A narrow, leaning house stands half-swallowed in ivy and warped shutters.
Leonard digs out a rusted key, muttering as the lock sticks twice before yielding.
He shoulders the door open, kicks it shut behind them, and lowers Luan onto a low wooden cot in the corner.
He surveys the room dust layered thick on every surface, cobwebs claiming the rafters, a stale stillness that suggests years of disuse.
"Wonderful," Leonard mutters dryly.
"Father still refuses to dust. Maybe he moved out and forgot to tell the house."
Elsbeth immediately drops to the floor beside Luan. Her eyes are locked on his face, tracing the lines of pain etched into his features even in sleep. She is terrified.
Leonard grabs a pitcher of water and a rag. He hands the cup to Elsbeth.
"Shouldn't we get him to an apothecary?"
Leonard asks, watching the Jester's shallow breathing. "Or a doctor? He looks like he's burning up from the inside out."
Elsbeth takes a small sip, her hands shaking. "No," she says, her voice cracking. "We can't. No doctor can fix this. If we take him out, they'll kill him."
She looks at the blood smearing Luan's chin and the paint on his cheeks. She desperately wants to clean him, to touch him, but she knows the price.
"Leonard," she whispers. "Can you... can you clean the blood from his face?"
Leonard pauses. He looks at the Princess of Liveria, sitting on a dusty floor in his house, guarding a broken Jester as if he were the crown jewels.
He realizes then that this isn't just a rescue mission. She is head over heels for him perhaps even far beyond that.
She looks at the Jester as if he is the only anchor in a spinning world.
Leonard doesn't ask questions. He nods solemnly, his playfulness gone.
Leonard nods solemnly "I got him,"
He dips the cloth in water and gently wipes the crimson from his face.
Elsbeth hovers her hands over Luan's face. She doesn't touch him. Her palms float just inches away, trembling, radiating a desperate desire to comfort him.
She hopes, prays, that he can feel her warmth bridging the gap between them. She leans close, whispering with her breath alone:
"Come back to me."
"There is no pain here," Luan whispers.
"It's so cold." He stands in absolute darkness. He cannot see his hands. He cannot see the sky.
He feels water lapping at his toes freezing, still water. It is everywhere, an endless ocean of black void.
"Elsbeth?" he calls out. His voice echoes, hollow and lonely. "Elsbeth, where are you?"
He runs desperately looking for his SUN. He splashes through the invisible water, turning in circles, chasing nothing.
"Elsbeth!"
He hears a sound. Not a bell. Not a scream.
A soothing hum. Faint, ancient, and warm.
He follows it. He runs until his lungs burn, chasing that single thread of comfort in the dark.
Then, the darkness tears open.
A golden light blooms in the void not blinding, but heavy, like the glow of a hearth fire at the end of a long winter.
"SHE GAVE YOU A VERY BRIGHT NAME."
The voice is everywhere. It is ancient, soothing, and carries the weight of a thousand years of weeping.
Luan stops, shielding his eyes. "Who are you?" he shouts into the gold. "What do you want from me?"
"I AM MERCY," the voice answers.
The light pulses, wrapping around him like a blanket.
"THE PRINCESS COULD HAVE ASKED FOR POWER—FOR SAFETY—FOR HER THRONE."
"BUT SHE ASKED ME TO LIFT YOUR CURSE."
Luan falls to his knees in the invisible water.
"IT WAS NOT EASY TO LIFT IT FROM YOUR TONGUE AND GIVE YOU A NAME. THE LAWS OF HEAVEN ARE HEAVY CHAINS."
"BUT MY CHILD... I HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOU FOR CENTURIES. I HAVE BEEN WAITING AND WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO SEE YOU AS A HUMAN.
SOMEONE TO SEE BEHIND THE MASK AND THE FORCED LAUGHTER AND THE JOKES."
The voice grows softer, filled with a terrible, tender sadness.
"AND SHE DID MORE THAN JUST SEEING YOU. SO I DID EVERYTHING IN MY POWER TO GRANT HER WISH."
"ALTHOUGH I COULD NOT REMOVE THE PAIN OF THE UNBINDING. FREEDOM ALWAYS HAS A COST."
The golden light begins to flicker, the darkness encroaching on the edges.
"TIME IS SHORT, LUAN. TAKE CARE OF THE DAUGHTER OF LIVERIA. AND TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF."
"I WILL HELP YOU BOTH WHENEVER I CAN. BUT AS OF THIS MOMENT, I CANNOT. YOU HAVE TO SURVIVE. FIGHT FOR YOU—"
The last syllable is stolen, like breath before drowning.
He reaches for the fading glow.
Darkness swallows him and the last thing he feels is her warmth on his cheek,
as if her hands from the waking world found him here.