Chapter 12: Fragment of Silence
10 p.m.
The grand auction hall of Veyll & Sons was packed to the rafters. Masked nobles, fat merchants dripping with rings, hooded mages whose eyes glowed faintly beneath cowls; every seat taken, every shadow occupied. The air hung thick with the cloying sweetness of rare incense and the sharper tang of naked greed.
Nyxarion stood beside the side door, black uniform immaculate, expression carved from winter stone.
Inside his head, Lucas's voice came tight and urgent.
I feel it.
It's here.
But… it's not on the stage.
Nyxarion closed his eyes for half a heartbeat.
The pull was brutal, almost painful. A cold hook buried behind his ribs.
It wasn't coming from the exhibition table.
It was coming from below.
From the preparation cells.
"The girl," he whispered, barely audible. "The brown-haired one from the caravan."
The fragment was with her.
Lucas went still.
The girl you saw crying in the cage-cart?
The one you brushed with a thread of shadow just to read her lock?
"Exactly."
Someone had slipped the fragment onto her after they arrived.
A thin obsidian bracelet.
Hidden beneath her sleeve.
Upstairs, the auctioneer began barking lots; jeweled rings, enchanted swords, forbidden scrolls; nothing that mattered.
Nyxarion moved.
He slipped down the servants' stair, nodded once to the guards (by now every man in the house knew him as "the House blade"), and stepped into the wing reserved for the "special" slaves.
She was there.
On her knees, dressed in a simple white shift, hair washed and combed until it shone.
Beautiful, exactly as the slavers had promised.
On her left wrist: a slender band of black obsidian that pulsed like a dying star.
Nyxarion entered and kicked the door shut behind him.
"The bracelet is mine," he said without greeting. "Take it off."
Lira shrank back, hugging her arm to her chest.
"If I remove it, I die. That's what they told me."
Inside his skull, Lucas roared.
Don't you fucking do this!
She's terrified!
Nyxarion ignored him.
"Last chance."
Tears spilled down Lira's cheeks, but she extended her trembling arm all the same.
Nyxarion touched the bracelet with two fingers.
The obsidian dissolved into black smoke.
Seventy percent of it surged into his chest; cold, ancient, perfect; like swallowing a glacier made of night.
Thirty percent refused to leave her wrist.
The smoke coiled, condensed, and sank into her skin as liquid shadow.
The bracelet reformed, thinner now, blacker, etched directly into her flesh; a living tattoo that throbbed in time with her heartbeat.
Lira arched, gasping. Not in pain.
In recognition.
Nyxarion's brow creased; the first genuine surprise he had shown in years.
The fragment had chosen to stay.
Lucas fell silent, stunned.
The mark on Lira's wrist flared once, then settled into a perfect circle of darkness.
Nyxarion reached again.
Nothing.
That thirty percent belonged to her now.
He crouched, seized her chin, and forced her tear-streaked face up to his.
"You just stole a piece of my soul," he said, voice low and lethal. "There is a price."
Lira trembled, but her eyes did not waver.
"I… I didn't mean to…"
"It doesn't matter."
He raised his right hand.
Shadows twisted, weaving runes of black fire that hung in the air between them.
"Soul contract.
You keep the piece.
In exchange, your life is mine.
Your will answers to me.
Break the contract and the fragment you stole will burn you alive from the inside."
Lucas screamed; Nyxarion crushed the sound beneath a wall of ice.
Silence.
Lira stared at the circle of runes like a doll whose strings had been cut, then looked up at him.
"I accept."
She placed her hand into the ring of shadow.
The runes seared themselves over the new mark; brand upon brand.
The pact locked with an audible snap that only the three of them heard.
Nyxarion rose.
"Stand, Lira.
From this moment, you are my property.
And the piece now living in your skin guarantees you will never run far."
Lira stood, obedient, head bowed.
Lucas finally forced words through clenched teeth.
You're a monster.
Nyxarion answered only him, almost gently.
I always have been.
And now I have a slave who carries a shard of me beneath her flesh.
Perfect.
He opened the door.
Lira followed two steps behind, silent as a ghost, the black circle on her wrist pulsing faintly with every beat of her heart.
Upstairs, the auction continued without pause.
No one ever noticed that the sacred virgin meant for lot 47 never reached the block.
First fragment recovered.
Seventy percent returned to its king.
Thirty percent forever imprisoned in the skin of a girl who now belonged to him body, soul, and shadow.