Lucien carried Seraphina's body in front of the altar.
To the very chapel where he had left her—bloody, burned, and nameless in the grave.
He laid Seraphina on the stone altar, under the broken stained glass that once reflected their promises.
He knelt. He wounded himself—a cut on his palm. He let the blood flow.
It flowed onto the marble. It reached Seraphina's lips.
"Take it, Sera," he whispered, almost inaudible amidst his tears. "Let me give it back."
But instead of being accepted by the mark—it reversed.
Seraphina's skin pulsed, as if her very soul rejected his blood.
Her pulse throbbed—not to live, but to refuse.
Seraphina's body stiffened. It remained cold.
And in Lucien's very wound—the mark on him began to burn.
"No…" Lucien groaned. "No, please—don't do this to me. Not again."
The mark flared again—and as if it had a mind of its own.
An ancient sigil was imprinted on his chest and instead of tightening it pushed him further away.
The mark had chosen.
And it wasn't him.
Seraphina's fingers suddenly clutched the edge of the marble.
Lucien gasped.
Her eyes opened, but they weren't hers.
They weren't the eyes of the Seraphina he loved.
They were from Aria.
The woman who was burned, silenced, and abandoned.
And the voice that came from her mouth was a mixture of two.
The Seraphina who lived.
And the Aria who was burned.
If love is a vow…Then what we had was a weapon.
Lucien froze.
He was no longer the king. He was no longer the man who was loved. He was no longer running towards goodness. He was the one abandoned by the curse.
You kissed the ashes you made—but never faced the fire you lit.
Lucien's tears fell.
He didn't know who he was asking forgiveness from.
Himself?
The ghost?
Or his own failure?
A lightning bolt struck the cathedral roof.
The entire chapel trembled.
The skeletal Seraphina raised her hand from the darkness.
And with it, the real Seraphina screamed.
"LUCIEEEEN—"
From her chest, the mark flared again.
Not on her wrist.
Not on her skin.
In her very heart.
And with every beat, it was as if the curse that became the memory of love was strangling her.
Again, the candlelight died.
And in the last flicker of light…
They both cried.
One in flesh.
One in ash.
In the deepest recesses of San Arcana Cathedral, there is a chamber only Lucien holds the key.
Silent and dark, it seems forgotten by the world. The air is thick with dust—like the smoke of old memories refusing to dissipate.
In every corner, flickering candles dance in the trembling light of their flames, as if concealing—or desperately trying to hide—something.
This is the room Lucien calls his private chamber. But in the Church's books, it is known as The Mourning Chamber—a secret altar of suffering.
A place of mourning. A prison of sin. And now, a nightmare awakened once more.
Seraphina entered silently, her steps light but hesitant. Her eyes were fixed on a wall that seemed to beckon her.
A section of the wall was unusual. A loose brick—not immediately noticeable, but in the candlelight, its weakness seemed to moan.
She touched the cold brick and felt a slight give beneath her fingers. She pressed it gently, and suddenly, behind the wall, a mechanism hummed.
The stone moved.
Slowly, a passage opened. A blue light—not from the candles, not from the fire—caressed her face. Terrifying. And yet, she did not retreat.
A kind of confusion crept into her chest—like smoke from the fire of memory.
She entered.
Each step echoed on the cold stone floor—like the whispers of the dead's memories. She felt the weight of each breath, as if the air itself resisted her approach.
At the end of the passage, a chamber opened. Covered in dust. Silent, as if never touched by life again. But in its center, something immediately caught her eye.
A large glass case.
Inside—a wedding dress. White fabric stained with dried blood, clinging to the embroidery and lace as if time could not wash it away.
Her chest tightened again. That dress was a tomb of memory—uncertain when the remaining traces would finally die.
She approached it, her fingers touching the cold glass.
She remembered that night. The wedding night. The night of her death. The dreams consumed by fire. Underneath the dress, an old diary was tucked under the case.
She opened it. Slowly. As if afraid of repeating it all.
There was Lucien's handwriting.
Secrets confessed—not words only of love—but secrets of power and sin.
It stated that he ordered Seraphina's death.
I thought I could save Aria from the curse, it was written on the page almost torn from Lucien's old diary. But the protection I thought I had became a prison for her soul...
As Seraphina read his words, she felt a sudden deepening of the wound in her chest.
It wasn't anger that dominated her heart, but an intense sadness.
How could she accept that the man she loved was the one who forged the chains of her imprisonment?
The touches that once held her with love… were they the ones that dug the passage that became her soul's prison?
As she turned abruptly, she heard whispers.
Whispers—cold and clinging to the skin—like shadows of dead memories.
A woman's voice, faint but full of pain and supplication, as if drawn from the depths of a wounded soul.
Release me...
She turned quickly, searching for the source of the voice. But there was no one. No shadow.
The candles suddenly flickered, intensified, and then blazed with red fire. Seraphina felt a chill down her spine, as if a cold hand grasped her shoulder.
And in the depths of her heart, a sentence echoed. To keep her safe, I had to kill her twice. Once with fire… and once with my own hands.
Seraphina took a deep breath.
In the darkness of the passage, she remained—while the shadows moved around, like eyes that never left.
The night was not over.
And Lucien's secret was only beginning to be revealed.
Lucien stood atop San Arcana Cathedral, as the cold wind ruffled his shoulders—like the hand of the past refusing to let go.
From above, he could see the entire city—quiet, peaceful, unlike his own heart, full of screams.
In the stillness of the night, there was no sound but the beat of his own heart.
And there, under the moon and clouds, the memory returned.
And the moon—it wasn't bright.
It wasn't full. It was faded silver, like the eye of someone who had run out of tears. Hanging in the sky like a wound that still wouldn't heal.
Streaked with clouds like a dead person's veil—not waving, just watching.
In Lucien's every gaze, the moon became a mirror of his sin—though round in shape, his memories were fragmented.
Its light did not bring hope—but a reminder that even the sky burns when the stars are gone.
And before that moon, Lucien remained a statue of destruction—neither walking nor kneeling.
A man who learned to stand beneath his own nightmare.
"How could I love and hurt her at the same time?" he sadly murmured to himself.
Lucien's chest filled with heaviness.
It was no longer simple love. It was a prison—a chain he couldn't remove even if he tried to escape.
His heart felt caught between grief and madness. Days consumed by loneliness, nights full of dreams that suddenly vanished in an instant.
And no matter how hard he tried to free himself, the memory of Seraphina remained tied to every corner of his dark past.
"I loved her so much," he whispered, as if pleading with the wind. "But my love became my prison." He took a deep breath, searching for the words that had long been imprisoned in his chest. "I am trapped. Trapped between mourning what I lost, and the madness of knowing I caused it."
He closed his eyes, and for a moment, he felt the heat of the fire that killed that woman—not in the body, but in the soul.
"I thought that if I could end her pain... maybe, somehow, I could save what was left of her. But instead... I only trapped her more."
Lucien paused, his voice like a lament cursed by silence.
"Every night, I hear her whispers, begging for release—begging me to free her soul from this cage I built. But every time I try... I'm reminded of the price."
His eyes were full of misfortune—like a tomb of secrets he desperately buried, but never stopped rising.
"To keep her safe," he murmured again to himself. "I had to kill her twice—once with fire, and once with my own hands."
He remained standing, his eyes veiled as he watched the dim light of the moon, which seemed to sympathize with his suffering.
Lucien was a man consumed by darkness—a shadow wandering within the curse he himself created.
The coldness of the wind seemed to caress Seraphina's skin like fingers from the past—gentle, but full of resentment.
Seraphina bowed before the glass case, bearing the weight of memories that refused to die.
She looked again at the red wedding veil that had long been hidden inside the crystal-like, blood-red box—torn, and smelling of old memories and tears.
Her heart beat rapidly, echoing in every movement of the surrounding candles.
Slowly, she lifted the veil. She touched it hesitantly.
And as she pulled it from the glass case, she felt a cold wind pass around her. Underneath the veil, something glinted.
A dagger.
Heavy, cold, with runes faintly shimmering in the darkness of the room.
Seraphina grasped the dagger's handle, her gaze fixed on the symbols that seemed cursed—etched into the metal as if written with blood and fire that never dried.
But as her fingers touched the cold metal, her heart suddenly quickened—as if a creature awakened within the metal.
Following that, an intense current surged through her veins, coursed through her flesh, and exploded in her temples.
A pain that wasn't just pain—but memory, scream, and curse that simultaneously entered her mind.
Images of her death flooded her memories.
The fire slowly consuming her skin.
The screams of people cutting through the silence.
Lucien's merciless eyes.
And the weight of the world crashing onto her chest—as if not only her body was burned, but also her soul.
As if consumed by fire again, she burned again—but deeper, more intensely.
"What is this?!" she screamed, dropping the dagger to the floor.
Behind her head, a shadowy figure lurked—like a ghost long silent, now awakening again.