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he day of the banishment was heralded by a grey, dismal outcry from the heavens above.

Never before had Darius seen such doleful weather in the lands that seemed permanently kissed by sun. The rain fell in a sepulchral parade of black ribbon, pummelling the earth and the flowers, beating all the animals into quiet submission.

The ceremony was subdued; observed by an exclusive few in one of the solarites’ gilded temples. A priestess anointed her altar with the four elements—a chalice of rosewater, a lit candelabrum of consecrated sunflower oil, a loaf of honey bread, and frankincense in a brass censer.

Lanius was led up to his fate in cosmic metal cuffs. The solarites joined hands around him and began to chant, their voices rising up alongside auspicious wisps of incense to the painted mural ceiling.

Amira led the chanting as she withdrew the ceremonial golden dagger from its gem-encrusted sheath. The chanting intensified as she held it up to the sky to infuse it with divine light. Then she beckoned Léandre forth who marched up the aisle in his robes of pure white silk, ready to selflessly toss his life aside to ensure Lanius’ concealment.

Darius watched the scene with little sentiment other than pity for such a foolish display of martyrdom, before a loud wail pierced the procession and Laila burst through the doors.

“Stop,” she cried out, darting with light-speed before a Lightshield stepped forward to obstruct her path, picking her up off of her feet. “No, stop. Don’t do this Léandre, please. Let go of me. Let go.” Her body crackled with enough electricity to have the guard that held her crumple to his knees but as soon as she slipped free, more arrived to restrict her.

Her pain penetrated right through Darius, in spite of his anger and resentment and his repression of both combined. He felt stirred to comfort her, whatever instincts he thought he’d suppressed towards wanting her becoming viciously roused to awakening.

“Keep her still,” Amira instructed as she moved towards her daughter with ire in her step. There was almost a tenderness in the way she held Laila close as she spoke to her—right before she electrocuted her so violently she went limp.

Darius stood immediately in alarm. But what he noticed most prominently was the way the audience, minimal as it was, didn’t even stir at the commotion.

Laila remained motionless for so long Darius worried she’d been rendered unconscious. But then he noted with relief the little weeping tremors in her body before Amira had her escorted away, halting Léandre with a hand when he attempted to follow.

“She’s just being hysterical,” Amira murmured as she went to resume the ceremony, “I’ve treated the issue.”

Darius tried to soothe his emotions into slumber again as the ritual commenced.

During the crescendo of the chant Lanius combusted into white flames, his primal cry echoing into nothingness. Then Amira stabbed Léandre through the heart with the dagger, causing whatever spark of life remained in him to be mercilessly snuffed.

Léandre’s neck arched back with his dying gasp, his once pristine robes sullied red. Amira withdrew the dagger aglow with a pulsating heat, as though the metal were new from a forge. When the heat dissipated she had been left with a key in its place. She plunged the key through the flames surrounding Lanius and twisted it, causing them to burst into scattering embers until even they had faded. And the deed was done.

A few Lightshields escorted Léandre’s body away on a pram as Amira approached Darius.

“It is done. Mortos is now fully yours to claim. Congratulations, Darius Rex.”

He waited until the last of her clicking footsteps had fallen away before he let his chest shudder with the depth of this revelation. Because now there was just him. Dominus dead and father exiled, there would only ever be him. He would return to a hall of phantoms.

He only wished he had someone waiting there for him to collect him into their open arms so he might unburden his troubles. But it was not to be. He would know no tender lover’s touch when he stepped foot on the black sands of Mortos. Only judgement and suspicion and wariness. More than fully deserved.

He returned to the Moon Tower.

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He spent the next few days arranging his belongings into a comprehensible order to package away into a chest. These were the objects he’d procured from the country during his stay. All the books, the cosmetics, the clothing and souvenirs.

So distracted he was by his task that he didn’t even notice Lyra when she slipped into his room, a potentially fatal error he immediately cursed himself for when he heard her voice.

“I assume you’ll be on your way then.”

His shoulders seized as he clutched onto one of the leather tomes he had been painstakingly arranging into alphabetical order.

“Yes, I will be. I’m sure you and the rest of your comrades will be satisfied to see the back of me.”

“Oh, I will,” she said, a touch more nasally than her usual tone. “Listen, I—I feel immeasurably foolish having to do this but you have to believe me when I say I no longer know what else to do.”

He stood to full height as he turned towards her and saw her opaline eyes had become clouded pink from tearfulness. She looked vulnerable in a way he had not seen her, it drew him like blood to a shark.

“What is it?” he asked, brow raised in questioning.

“Laila has not left her room for days,” she said, and he tried to avoid the way that rustled something in him. “All she does is cry since my uncle so… they were very close, and… she won’t let herself be seen by anyone. I’ve tried my best but I just can’t give her what she needs right now, you understand. So, I’ve come to you.”

“Laila and I are no longer in a relationship.”

“I know,” she said, “but I also know she happens to regret the way that you ended things. I think it would really help her get closure to move forward if you went and said goodbye.”

He exhaled sharply in a laugh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You can’t be serious.”

“I just thought seeing as you were purporting to care for Laila you might want to do one thing to set her mind at ease.” She raised her chin in disdain, her jaw set firm. “But now I see you really are just monstrous.”

Darius recoiled at the sheer venom in her tone as she pivoted on her foot and walked down the steps to the exit. Then he sent the book in his hand careening with a dash against the wall, watching it explode in a scattering of pages.

He massaged his temples and sighed before collecting back up the pages with a mental note that he would glue them back together at the earliest opportunity. He closed the lid to his chest and sat atop it, exhaling deeply, before he stood and marched down the steps of the tower.

He didn’t know why he suspected she would have left the doors to her balcony open, but he was soon rewarded for his impulse when he saw the soft billowing of silk drapes yawning outwards into the breeze.

He scaled the unruly growth of climbing roses onto the landing, hauling himself with ease over the balustrade. He peered into the stagnant gloom of her boudoir. The only light that touched the room was whatever tendrils had snaked their way past the balcony doors before being shunned away.

Darius saw the amorphous lump of her silhouette through the drawn drapes on her canopy bed and slowly inched forward to peel them back in order to reveal her.

She did not rouse from her huddled position, her breathing a faint ebbing motion. She was clothed in one of her flimsy satin nightgowns that rippled faintly with every exhale rolling in from the balcony doors.

He sped away to close the doors first before rushing back to her and touching a few dried curls of her hair, brittle from dehydration.

She only made a soft sound in response, so meek and pitiful he felt something in his chest droop with it. “Léandre?”

“Laila,” Darius said, dimpling the edge of the mattress beneath his weight as he sat on it.

She let out a snuffle as she turned to see it was him instead of her guard, unravelling herself from the cocoon she’d made with her arms. “What are you doing here?”

“Lyra sent me. I wanted… to apologise for your loss.”

“Well, you came and you apologised,” she said with a sniff, her red-rimmed eyes hollow, “now you can go.”

He clutched her arm before she could make a bid to escape him. “That’s not all I came here for.”

“Darius, please don’t do this to me right now.”

“I want to be here for you, Laila,” he said, swallowing before he managed to cautiously add, “if you’ll let me.”

The words were enough to make her deflate for how little she could cope with it. That in her time of need he would be there, as he always had been, to offer her solace even after she’d hurt and disappointed him. Her chest spasmed with a hiccup, and he gathered her into his arms just as her face crumpled into a sob.

“It’s okay,” he said as she mewled her soft kitten cries. He cradled her to him with a shush as she trembled in his grip, resting his chin on her hair as he stroked it. “It’s okay,” he said again as her cries grew louder and more laboured. Then she rested her cheek on his chest, soaking his shirt.

He held her until her sobs quieted, raising her face to him as he brushed her tears away with his thumbs. “Is that better?”

She nodded weakly in response.

“Come on,” he said, gathering her up into his arms. “I’ll run you a bath.”

He carried her into the ensuite and set her on the edge of the cavernous rose quartz tub. Then he spun the swan tap, perusing her extensive collection of bath toiletries before he selected a few fragrant oils, slices of citrus and wildflowers.

He unhooked the straps of her nightgown, peeling off the sheer garment with a strange sense of abashment for someone who had undressed her many times before now.

“Get in with me,” she told him before unbuttoning his shirt.

He let her undress him as he slid down her undergarments and soon they were bare before each other as she climbed in first to settle into the tub. He nestled in behind her as he surrounded her with his extensive arms and legs. Thankfully, the tub was such a size that it was not an uncomfortable fit for him. Darius stroked her hair as she leaned back against him.

“This feels nice,” Laila sighed in contentment, nuzzling into his chest.

He hummed in agreement as his arms encircled her waist to pull her near.

She stroked her fingers up and down his upper arm.

“I’m sorry about Léandre, princess,” Darius said, “I know how much he meant to you. I can’t say I understand what it means to lose a guardian in this manner but—”

“It’s okay,” she said, pressing her lips to his bicep. “I’m just glad you’re here with me now.”

Darius swallowed, snuffing the sudden desire that perhaps, just possibly, she meant it, truly meant it in the way he desired her to. That she had sought the ghost of his company outside her most carnal fantasies as he had done her. But he knew better now.

“So am I,” he said, “and I’m sorry to tell you this now but… with my father out of the way that means—”

“You’re going back to Mortos.”

“I’ll probably have to depart within the next couple of days—”

“Don’t,” she told him, her fingers now clutching firmly into his bicep. “I don’t want to think about you leaving me right now.”

He buried his face into her hair and kissed the crown of her head. “I’m all yours until then.”

“Thank you,” she said, her hand sliding around his face to stroke his cheek before she drew him near. Their eyes met over her shoulder, her gaze intent, and though she knew she shouldn’t she couldn’t help but lean in to graze their lips against each other. The kiss was a soft, exploratory thing and dangerously tantalising.

It took every ounce of him to pull away from her, to take in a breath of air that wasn’t stained with her scent. “We shouldn’t.”

“I don’t care.” She brought his lips back on hers to kiss him more intently.

He pulled away again. “Laila, please.”

She turned herself round to rest her hands on his shoulders, pressing the warmth of her body against his in a way she knew enticed. “What’s the matter, Darius?” She bit her lip as she searched his eyes. “Don’t you want me anymore?”

Darius closed his eyes, heaving a sigh. “You know that isn’t what this is about.”

“Then what is it about?”

“You’re grieving and you’re vulnerable, looking for comfort wherever it comes and I cannot—”

“I want you,” she said, running her hands slowly down his chest, “I need you.”

Though he fought against it, hearing her say she needed him was the crippling blow. He made a strained sound, as though wounded from it, and she seized his weakness.

“Laila—”

“Don’t think.” She put a finger to his lips then moved her hands to palm his cheeks. “Just feel.”

When she kissed him again he did not pull back. His mouth moved of its own accord as he deepened it, wrapping his arms around her to pull her closer. The moment Laila moaned with relief made him realise how much he needed it too. Needed her. So he let himself succumb to her a final time.