The illusion broke all at once. Like the castle got tired of acting.
The beautiful bedroom, the warm sunlight, the soft silks… it all melted away. It was like candle wax sliding off a shape. What was underneath was ugly. Real.
The silk sheets didn't stay silk. They fell apart into old, torn cloth, full of holes, like something moths had eaten for years. The colour drained out until it looked dead and gray.
The air changed too. The sweet smell faded. The comfort vanished with it.
The walls that had looked rich and golden cracked open. The gold flakes fell off like rotten bark. Underneath wasn't smooth stone.
It was black.
It looked like bone.
Something old. Something wrong.
The whole room hummed with a dark magic. A magic that didn't die. It felt like pain that had been trapped for a long time.
The window Sylvera had held onto as proof… shimmered. Twisted. It rippled like water.
Then the light bent the wrong way.
And she saw what was really there.
A stained-glass panel.
Not a guardian. Not an angel.
Lyria.
Dead. Cold. Her arms folded over her chest. Her hair spread out among painted lilies.
It wasn't art.
Sylvera understood it in one sharp second.
It was a memorial.
Her breath caught. Her legs gave out. It wasn't only fear.
It was the feeling of hope dying.
That room hadn't just been a lie.
It had been hope.
And now it was gone too.
Before she could fully fall, Lorian pulled her out of the room. His grip was firm, but not cruel anymore.
Not vicious.
Just desperate.
They crossed the doorway of the false sanctuary, and the magic dissolved behind them. The air changed instantly.
The warmth was gone.
The lavender smell was gone.
The smell of books was gone.
The true castle smell hit her instead.
Blood.
Rust.
Damp rot.
The undead courtiers… the ones she couldn't hear inside the illusion… now their sounds returned. Low, distant moans. Sliding through stone like wind through hollow reeds.
The torches in the corridor flickered strangely. No rhythm. No peace.
Their flames stretched tall, making shadows that didn't move right. The shadows lagged behind them, slow and wrong, like even darkness didn't want to follow.
Sylvera stumbled as they walked. The castle's weight came back. The real weight. The weight of centuries, sorrow, death.
"Why?" she gasped.
Her voice shook. Not just from breath. From everything.
"Why show me that illusion?"
Lorian didn't answer at first.
He walked heavy. Dragging.
The cold, confident king was gone. The man beside her looked tired in a way that scared her.
His shoulders slumped.
His arms hung low.
The magic that always clung to him was gone too. Not because he was weak. But because he was drained.
At last they reached a smaller chamber. It was bare. Cold. Rough stone walls. Iron bars across the entrance.
A real prison.
He pushed her inside gently.
Not with force.
With finality.
He didn't speak for a moment. He stood outside the cell and stared at his own hands. They trembled. He rubbed his face.
When he lowered his hands again, Sylvera saw his eyes clearly.
The violet glow was gone.
Not dimmed.
Drained.
Dull gray.
Hollow.
Broken.
"Because even monsters need respite," he said. His voice was hoarse. Uneven. "That room… that was the last place untouched by what I've become."
He didn't look at her. His eyes stayed on the floor.
"That was where I used to dream of bringing her back," he said. "Where I could pretend for a few minutes that I hadn't turned the rest of this castle into a grave."
Sylvera slid down to the floor. She wrapped her arms around her knees.
The stone was freezing under her dress. It pulled her into reality.
Through the iron bars, she watched him. His silence. His weariness. The grief sitting deep in his face.
She couldn't tell what she was looking at.
The man she once admired…
Or a ghost wearing him.
The cell door clanged shut. Heavy. Final.
The sound echoed through stone like a tomb closing.
Sylvera didn't flinch. Her hand dropped slowly from where she had reached for his sleeve.
He had stopped.
He had listened.
And that was the most terrifying part.
Because it meant something inside him was still alive.
Some thin part of the man he used to be.
Or maybe only the echo of love for a dead woman.
Either way, it meant the monster still had a heart.
And broken things can still cut deep.
Silence settled in the room. Thick. Dusty.
Sylvera stayed still and replayed the moment in her head, again and again, like she couldn't stop.
Slowly, truths started forming.
Not guesses.
Not theories.
Truths.
First truth: Lorian hadn't let go of his past. Not truly.
The flicker in his eyes when she said Lyria.
The crack in his voice.
It wasn't acting.
It was pain. Real pain.
That room she thought was a trap… wasn't for her.
It was for him.
It was his retreat. His only break from what he had done to this place.
He grieved in every breath. And grief… grief is its own magic. Not the kind that throws fire.
The kind that destroys a person from the inside.
His love didn't stop when Lyria died.
It rotted. It grew worse.
And in that rot… a kingdom was born.
A kingdom of corpses and shadows.
Second truth: Sylvera looked like Lyria.
That was real.
But she wasn't her.
And that was its own curse.
If the resemblance was strong enough to confuse him… then what would stop him from remaking Sylvera until she fit the image he missed?
What would happen if one day he couldn't see the difference at all?
That thought scared her more than the cell.
Because it wasn't death she feared most.
It was losing herself.
Becoming someone else's memory.
Third truth: He was going to show her.
Not through books.
Not through lies.
For real.
He had agreed to take her to where Lyria died.
That meant something.
Maybe guilt.
Maybe pride.
Maybe the last weak breath of a dying conscience.
But it meant the truth mattered.
To him.
And now, to her.
Sylvera didn't know what she would find when the moon was high.
But she understood something now.
She wasn't only trying to escape.
She was pulling the castle apart.
The castle, the curse, even Lorian… it was all connected.
Threads in a web she had walked into without knowing.
And with one question… she had pulled the first knot loose.
She leaned back against the wall. The stone was cruelly cold.
But it was real.
At least in this cell, nothing pretended.
The moans of the undead court slid through cracks in the walls again. Distant, constant.
But now it didn't frighten her the same way.
There was fear, yes.
But there was something else too.
Purpose.
Resolve.
Dangerous resolve.
She had asked for the truth.
She had forced his hand.
And when midnight came, she would face it.
Not as Lyria.
Not as the witch he could twist into a fantasy.
But as Sylvera.
The woman who walked into the monster's castle…
and refused to vanish.
He turned to leave, but Sylvera caught his sleeve.
"Wait."
To her shock, he stopped.
"Show me how it happened," she demanded. "Not through books or lies. Take me to where Lyria died."
Lorian's breath hitched.
For a heartbeat, she saw it—the man under the curse. The husband who still grieved.
Then the castle bells tolled, and the moment snapped.
"When the moon is highest," he whispered. "I'll show you everything."
The door clanged shut behind him, leaving Sylvera in silence.
She stood still for a long moment, the sound of the lock echoing inside her bones.
Her heart was pounding.
Not just from fear.
From something else.
Something shifting.
It hadn't happened through a scream or spell.
It happened through a whisper.
And a promise.
He had stopped.
He had listened.
And now he had promised the truth.
The cell was small and cold, but she didn't feel trapped the same way.
For the first time since coming to the castle, she felt like she was standing at the edge of something bigger.
Not just mystery.
Answers.
She sank slowly to the ground. Back against the wall. Fingers around her knees. She let the silence sit on her. She let the weight settle.
She had time now.
Time to think.
Time to prepare.
Three truths circled in her head.
The king was more prisoner than tyrant.
The castle's heart held worse horrors than she imagined.
And that book still pulsed in the dark library, waiting.
She thought of the book again. The way it felt alive. The way it pulled at her.
It wanted her to open it.
And she almost had.
Sylvera remembered how Lorian stopped her.
The crack in his voice.
The panic.
That wasn't a king protecting secrets.
That was a man trying to stop her from getting hurt.
But hurt from what?
The truth?
The magic?
Or something even worse?
She stood and paced the cell. Her fingers brushed the bars. Cold metal. Solid.
But her mind kept going back.
Back to the illusion room.
Back to the stained glass window.
Back to that warmth that had felt comforting for one small moment.
Now she understood.
That illusion hadn't been a trap.
It had been a sanctuary.
His last weak attempt to hold onto something good.
The last place untouched by decay.
"Even monsters need respite."
The words repeated in her mind.
But he wasn't only a monster.
He was a man chained to a past he couldn't fix.
And now he had agreed to show her that past.
She knew it would hurt.
She knew it would be ugly.
But she also knew she had to see it.
All of it.
Time passed slowly in the cell. She couldn't see the sky. Couldn't count stars.
But she felt the castle shifting. The quiet deepened. The moans of the undead softened. Even the air felt different.
Midnight was coming.
She stood and waited.
When the footsteps came, she didn't flinch.
Lorian appeared at the end of the hall. No armor. No crown.
Just a long coat.
And tired eyes.
He unlocked the door without speaking.
She stepped out.
Together, they walked into the dark.