The blood was still warm when Aerys touched it.
It clung to the marble floor in a widening pool, blackened by shadow and moonlight, thick with the metallic scent that never truly faded no matter how many times he washed his hands. The palace corridor was silent now—too silent for a place where a man had screamed moments earlier.
Aerys knelt anyway.
His gloved fingers hovered over the blood for a breath, just long enough for doubt to whisper.
Don't.
He ignored it, as he always did.
The glove came off. Pale skin met crimson.
The world broke.
—
Sound arrived first—not as noise, but as pressure, like the deep vibration of a bell struck beneath the earth. Then came light. Not brightness, but clarity so sharp it hurt.
Aerys was no longer in the corridor.
He was standing in a smaller room, richly furnished, its walls lined with gold-veined stone and shelves of old books. A fire crackled in a hearth to his left. Across from him, a man knelt—alive, breathing, terrified.
The victim.
Lord Halvren Dorsk.
"You promised," Halvren was saying. His voice shook, tears cutting pale tracks through his powdered cheeks. "You swore on your blood."
Aerys felt the truth settle in his bones.
This was the moment before death.
Behind Halvren stood another figure, cloaked, face hidden. A knife gleamed in their hand—not steel, but bone, etched with runes that pulsed faintly.
"Truth," the cloaked figure said softly, "is more expensive than lies."
The blade fell.
—
Aerys gasped and staggered back, ripping his hand from the blood as if it burned.
The vision shattered. The corridor slammed back into place—the marble, the torches, the dead body sprawled at his feet. Lord Halvren's eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling, mouth frozen in a half-plea.
Aerys pressed his palm against the wall, breathing hard.
The vision had been clean. Too clean.
No distortion. No resistance.
That meant the blood was fresh—and the lie was deep.
"Assassinated," Aerys murmured. His voice echoed faintly off the stone. "Not a robbery. Not a duel."
He swallowed.
"A message."
A soft click sounded behind him.
Aerys didn't turn. "You can stop hiding, Captain. I smelled the oil on your armor three breaths ago."
Captain Rhen Volmark sighed and stepped out from behind a pillar. He was tall, broad-shouldered, his dark cloak clasped with the silver sigil of the Virelian Crown. His hand rested near his sword, though Aerys doubted he'd draw it.
Not here. Not now.
"Every time I watch you work," Rhen said, "I think I'll get used to it."
"You won't."
Rhen glanced at the corpse. "What did you see?"
Aerys flexed his fingers. The faint silver glow beneath his skin had already begun to fade, retreating like a living thing ashamed of the light.
"Halvren begged," Aerys said. "Which means he trusted his killer. Or believed he did."
Rhen grimaced. "Any faces?"
"No."
"That bad?"
"That deliberate."
Aerys pulled his glove back on, careful, methodical. His hands shook despite himself.
"Who ordered it?" Rhen asked.
Aerys hesitated.
There were rules about what he could say. About how much truth the Crown wanted at once. But the Silent Vein didn't care for rules.
"It wasn't a single person," Aerys said slowly. "It was a decision."
Rhen frowned. "That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you'll survive hearing."
Rhen stared at him for a long moment, then exhaled through his teeth. "The council will want your report before dawn."
"They'll get it."
"And Aerys?"
"Yes?"
Rhen's voice dropped. "This makes the seventh highborn death in three months."
Aerys nodded. "I know."
"The city's whispering."
"I know."
"They're saying blood itself is choosing sides."
At that, Aerys finally looked at him.
"The blood always knows," he said quietly. "People just forget to listen."
—
The Palace of Virelia slept uneasily.
From above, its white towers and domes gleamed like bone beneath the moon, flawless and serene. From within, it pulsed with secrets—corridors layered atop corridors, old stone hiding newer lies.
Aerys walked alone.
The guards gave him space. They always did. Not out of respect, but fear—fear of the faint glow they sometimes saw under his skin, fear of the way he looked at blood as if it were a language only he could read.
He didn't blame them.
He reached his chambers and sealed the door behind him with a soft click. Only then did he allow his shoulders to sag.
The room was sparse: a narrow bed, a desk littered with notes he didn't remember writing, shelves of books he wasn't sure he'd read. A single mirror stood against the far wall, tall and narrow.
Aerys avoided it.
He went to the basin instead and scrubbed his hands until his knuckles reddened. The blood was already gone, but the feeling lingered—the echo of Halvren's fear, the weight of the blade falling.
When he finally stopped, he leaned heavily on the basin's edge.
Something was wrong.
Not with the case.
With himself.
He closed his eyes and tried to recall the first time he had used his power.
Nothing came.
His chest tightened.
That wasn't unusual. Memories slipped from him all the time—faces, names, places. The price of truth. He had accepted that long ago.
But this absence felt… wider. As if a piece had been cleanly cut out.
Aerys straightened slowly and turned toward the mirror.
The man who stared back was familiar and not.
Dark hair, unremarkable except for the silver at the temples that shouldn't have been there at his age. Sharp eyes the color of stormglass. A thin scar ran along his jaw—he didn't remember earning it.
Beneath his skin, faint and coiled like a sleeping serpent, something glimmered.
The Silent Vein.
"You're losing more than usual," Aerys told his reflection.
The reflection did not answer.
He reached for the ledger on his desk and flipped it open. Page after page was filled with his own handwriting—observations, warnings, names circled in ink.
On the most recent page, written in a hand so frantic it barely looked like his own, were four words:
DO NOT TRUST LYRA VAEL
Aerys stared at the name.
Lyra.
The sound of it stirred something in his chest—warmth, fear, longing, all tangled together.
He did not remember who she was.
His breath hitched.
Slowly, carefully, he turned the page.
The next line froze the blood in his veins.
She is the only one who remembers you.
—
Far from the palace, in a room lit by blue-veined candles, a woman closed her eyes as a ripple passed through the world.
Lyra Vael pressed two fingers to her temple, steadying herself as the memory settled into place—new, heavy, dangerous.
Another truth uncovered.
Another piece of him gone.
She opened her eyes and whispered into the quiet:
"I'm sorry, Aerys."
Outside her window, the bells of Virelia began to ring.
One.
Two.
Three.
Someone had died.
And the night was only beginning.