POV: Sera
The man's eyes were silver.
Not gray, not light blue—actual liquid silver, like mercury in a thermometer. They watched me as I stepped into the circle of stones, and even though he was chained and bleeding, those eyes held more power than anything I'd ever seen.
"Stay back," he whispered, but his voice was weak. "Not safe... for you..."
I should have listened. Should have run. But I'd spent my whole life listening to people who lied to me, and this dying stranger was the first person tonight who seemed to care if I got hurt.
Lightning flashed again, and I saw him clearly. He was beautiful in an impossible way—sharp cheekbones, pale skin, white hair that shouldn't exist on someone who looked maybe thirty years old. Silver chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles, digging into his skin.
But it was the blood that made me gasp. Black blood. Not dark red like normal blood—actually black, like ink, spreading across his chest from a wound that looked like someone had stabbed him with something poisonous.
"What happened to you?" I dropped to my knees beside him, my hands shaking.
"Betrayed," he said, and somehow that one word held three thousand years of pain. "Poisoned by someone I... trusted."
I knew that feeling.
"I'm going to help you," I heard myself say. It was stupid. Crazy. He was probably dangerous. The black blood definitely wasn't normal. Nothing about this was normal.
But I was so tired of standing by while people got hurt. I'd stood by while Marcus destroyed me. While my father disowned me. While Vivienne stole my life.
Not this time.
I pulled off Luna's jacket and pressed it against his chest wound. The black blood soaked through immediately, burning cold against my hands.
"You can't help me." His silver eyes met mine, and I saw something flicker in them—surprise? Confusion? "The poison... made for immortals. No cure for humans to give."
"Immortals?" I almost laughed. "Like vampires or something?"
"Like emperors who have lived for three thousand years." His breathing got harder. "Like fools who trusted the wrong person and now die alone in the rain."
Three thousand years. He was crazy, obviously. Dying and hallucinating.
But his eyes didn't look crazy. They looked sad. Ancient. Lonely.
"You're not dying alone," I said firmly. "Not if I can help it."
I looked around desperately for something, anything. My eyes landed on the scarf still somehow around my neck—the silk scarf my mother gave me before she died. The last thing I had from her.
I unwrapped it with shaking hands and pressed it to his wound.
"That won't work," he said, but there was something soft in his voice now. "But thank you for trying. It's been... very long time since anyone showed kindness to me."
"Don't talk like that. Don't you dare give up." Tears burned in my eyes. Why was I crying for a stranger? "I just watched my whole life fall apart tonight. I'm not watching someone else die too."
The tears fell on his chest, mixing with the black blood on my mother's scarf.
Then something impossible happened.
The scarf started glowing. Soft violet light, the same color as my eyes—the eyes I'd always hidden because everyone said they were weird.
"What—" I started, but the light got brighter.
The black blood began moving. Not spreading—pulling back, like it was being sucked out of his body. The poison glowed violet where my tears touched it, then faded to nothing.
The stranger's silver eyes went wide. "Impossible. You're—you can't be—"
A sound like breaking glass filled the air. I looked up and saw cracks forming in the silver chains. They glowed red-hot, then shattered in an explosion of light and sound that threw me backward.
I hit the ground hard, my head spinning. Thunder crashed overhead, or maybe it was just the ringing in my ears.
When I could see again, the man was sitting up. The black blood was gone. His chest wound was closing, skin knitting back together like watching a video in reverse.
But his eyes—his eyes were different. Still silver, but warmer somehow. Not empty anymore.
He stared at his hands like he'd never seen them before. Touched his own face. Then he looked at me, and his expression was pure shock.
"I feel it," he whispered. "Pain. Surprise. Wonder." His voice got louder. "I feel!"
He stood up in one smooth movement, chains falling away from his body. He was tall—really tall—and despite being half-dead a minute ago, he moved like a predator. Graceful. Dangerous.
I scrambled backward, suddenly very aware that I was alone in the woods with a strange man who claimed to be three thousand years old and had black blood.
"Don't be afraid." He took a step toward me, then stopped. Tilted his head. "Actually, your fear is wise. I should terrify you. But I won't hurt you. I can't. You saved me."
"The chains," I said, my voice shaking. "What were they?"
"Prison. Curse. Punishment." He looked at the broken silver pieces on the ground. "I was chained here to die slowly, poisoned by someone from my own court. But you..." He focused on me again, and his eyes were intense. "You broke the chains. Cured the poison. Made me feel again."
"I don't understand any of this."
"Neither do I." He walked closer, and I saw his wound was completely gone now. "I am Kael Noctis. I've ruled the Eternal Court for three thousand years. For all that time, I felt nothing. No joy. No sorrow. No love. No pain. Empty." He touched his chest where the wound had been. "Until you. Your tears touched me, and for the first time in millennia, I felt pain. Then I felt everything."
"That's impossible," I whispered. "None of this is real. I'm probably passed out in Luna's apartment, having a breakdown."
"You're not." He was right in front of me now, close enough that I could see flecks of gold starting to appear in his silver eyes. "You're here. You're real. And you're the most impossible thing I've encountered in three thousand years."
He reached out and touched my face, and his hand was warm. Shouldn't immortals be cold?
"What are you?" he asked softly.
"I'm nobody. Just a girl whose life fell apart tonight."
"No." His thumb wiped away a tear I didn't know I'd shed. "You're definitely somebody. Somebody who broke an immortal's curse with her tears. Somebody who—"
A scream tore through the woods. Human. Male. Close.
Kael's head snapped toward the sound, his eyes going cold and dangerous.
"They followed you," he said. "The ones hunting you."
"How do you—"
"I can smell them. Six men. Armed. Coming fast." He looked back at me, and his expression was fierce. "They want to hurt you."
"Marcus sent them," I realized. "He must have found out I left Luna's—"
"Do you trust me?" Kael interrupted.
"I don't even know you!"
"Do you trust me?" he repeated, more urgent. The men were getting closer. I could hear them crashing through the bushes now.
I thought about Marcus's betrayal. Vivienne's smile. My father's silence.
I looked at this strange man with silver eyes who said thank you for helping him. Who asked if I trusted him instead of just taking what he wanted.
"Yes," I whispered.
Kael smiled. It was the first smile he'd worn in three thousand years, though I didn't know that yet.
"Then hold on tight."
He pulled me against his chest, and the world exploded into light.