"And I… was the man who helped you betray him."
For several seconds, Aliena forgot how to breathe.
The underground kingdom had gone unnaturally quiet. Even the shadows seemed to have stopped moving, as though the darkness itself wanted to hear Sebastian explain what he had just confessed.
Across the shattered chamber, Caelum smiled.
It was a beautiful smile.
That was the most terrifying thing about it.
He had Sebastian's face, the same sharp jaw, the same dark hair, the same unnerving beauty that made people forget their own names when he looked at them. Yet there was something different in his eyes. Sebastian's eyes had always carried a storm, even when he was smiling. Caelum's were still. Ancient. The kind of stillness found in a grave that had been sealed for a thousand years.
He looked at Aliena as if she were the only person in existence.
As if the centuries between them had been nothing more than an inconvenient afternoon.
