The West Wing – Morning Light
Breathing hurt.
It shouldn’t have. That was the first thing he noticed.
Breathing was supposed to be easy. Thoughtless. In and out, like waves.
But now every inhale scraped at the edge of his ribs. Every exhale felt like he was exorcising something old and bitter that had lived in his chest for too long.
Lucian opened his eyes slowly.
This time, there was no dream. No throne room. No sword. No ghost of his brother’s voice demanding explanations.
Just light.
Pale. Thin. Morning light spilling across the ceiling of a room he recognized, but didn’t know how.
His body was the second thing he noticed.
Not because it moved.
Because it didn’t.
He tried to sit up.
A mistake.
Pain slammed into him with such force he nearly blacked out.
His neck spasmed. His spine lit with heat. He gasped and fell back into the pillows, trembling. The air felt heavier suddenly, like even the light pressing against his skin was too much to bear.
A sound left his throat — not a scream, not a word.
Just pain.
And then her voice.
Soft. Careful.
“Lucian.”
He turned his head—barely.
Selene was there. Closer than he expected. Kneeling beside the bed, sleeves rolled to the elbow, cloth and water already in her hands. Her hair was braided back, her eyes dark with something he couldn’t name.
Fear?
No. Not quite.
Exhaustion. Worry. Care.
She said his name again, quieter. “You’re alright. Don’t move yet.”
He couldn’t have moved if he wanted to.
“I—” His voice cracked. It felt like sand. “I can’t—”
“You don’t have to. Not yet.”
The cloth was warm. She brushed it gently across his face, wiping the sweat from his temple.
He watched her work.
She was older now. Not by much, not in the lines of her face — but in presence. Her movements were practiced. No longer the quiet, tentative girl he remembered in the background of feasts and ceremonies.
But not a stranger.
“Where…” he whispered.
“You’re safe,” she said. “In the west wing. Your chamber. It’s still yours.”
“How… long…”
Selene hesitated.
Then: “Ten years.”
He closed his eyes.
The number didn’t feel real.
Neither did the way his body trembled beneath the weight of it.
He drifted again.
Not into sleep.
Just into stillness.
When he opened his eyes again, the light had shifted. Afternoon now.
Selene had changed his shirt. He hadn’t noticed when.
He didn’t remember speaking. Didn’t remember asking. But his arms were clean. His hair had been combed and tied back loosely. He looked down at himself and saw the same hands — just thinner. Pale.
Time had skipped over him.
Preserved him.
But the damage had found its way in anyway.
Selene returned with a small hand mirror tucked beneath a cloth.
He saw it and looked away.
“I thought you might want to see,” she said.
“No.”
“It’s still you.”
He let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh. Bitter. Flat.
“It’s not,” he said. “It’s a version. Like someone copied me and forgot to finish the rest.”
She sat beside the bed.
Said nothing.
He turned his head again — slowly, carefully — and found her watching him.
“Say it,” he whispered.
“What?”
“You think I look the same.”
“You do.”
“But I’m not.”
Selene nodded. “I know.”
He tried to smile, but it didn’t come.
Instead, he whispered:
“I think I’m still dying.”
The West Wing – Late Afternoon
Lucian sat propped up on too many pillows, body shaking from the effort of holding still. The room spun in slow waves, each breath a needle.
But he was done lying down.
If his body wanted to fall apart, let it. He was going to face whatever came upright.
Even if it killed him.
The window had been opened — barely. Just enough for a faint breeze to stir the curtains. It brought the scent of woodsmoke and damp stone, the kind of air that used to mean winter was coming. Now, it just smelled old.
Lucian’s fingers drifted toward the edge of the blanket. They didn’t quite close.
He hated how slow everything was.
“I need to know,” he said, voice quieter than he meant. “Tell me what I’ve missed.”
Selene sat nearby, back straight, hands folded in her lap. Her face had that same calm she always wore — but it was thinner now. Paper-thin.
“What do you want to know?” she asked gently.
“Start with them.”
A pause.
“My brothers.”
Selene hesitated.
Not because she didn’t know what to say — but because she did.
“Elias is still Lord Commander,” she said. “He’s the one who kept the Guard from fracturing after Cassian was crowned.”
“And Cassian?”
“He was crowned eight months after…” She trailed off. “After you collapsed.”
Lucian nodded once. “The people accepted him?”
“They didn’t have a choice.”
That made him smile, faintly. “No one ever does, with Cassian.”
Selene didn’t argue.
“And the Queen?” he asked.
“Isolde. Yes. Still standing beside him. She’s… careful. But not cruel.”
He leaned his head back, breath shallow. “So the family’s thriving.”
Selene’s silence said otherwise.
“Do they know I’m awake?” he asked suddenly.
Her eyes flicked to his.
And he knew the answer before she said it.
“Yes.”
The word landed like a stone in his chest.
He waited, but she didn’t go on.
“How?” he asked.
“You said my name the night you opened your eyes,” she said. “The ward pulsed. The pendant cracked. It left a trace.”
Lucian closed his eyes. “And Cassian felt it?”
She nodded.
“I’m not sure what he knows exactly,” she said. “But he knows something. So do Elias and the Queen. They’ve already moved the guard.”
He looked at her. “They sealed the wing.”
“I broke the seal to reach you this morning. It was weaker than it should’ve been.”
Lucian swallowed. “And?”
“And Cassian hasn’t come yet,” she said softly. “But I think he’s watching.”
Lucian let out a slow, shallow breath. “Then why are you still here?”
“I don’t know how long I can be.”
That changed something in the room.
The ache in his chest wasn’t just physical now. It was real. Present.
“You’re scared,” he said.
She didn’t deny it.
“For you,” she whispered. “Not of you.”
Lucian didn’t know what to do with that.
“Are they going to kill me?” he asked.
It wasn’t theatrical.
It was honest.
Selene’s breath hitched. “No.”
“But you’re not sure.”
“I’m not sure what they’ll do,” she said. “And I don’t think they are either.”
They sat in silence.
The wind moved the curtain slightly.
Lucian’s hand curled slowly into a loose fist, and for once, it held.
“Do they talk about me?” he asked.
“No.”
“Do they remember me?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s why you’re dangerous.”
He let that settle.
Not because it surprised him.
But because it didn’t.
“Do you regret staying?” he asked.
Selene blinked. “No.”
“Even if I ruin everything?”
“You already did,” she said, voice soft.
Lucian laughed. It hurt.
But he didn’t stop.
The West Wing – Evening
The pain was no longer just pain.
Lucian lay motionless beneath the blankets, breath shallow, spine pressed flat against the mattress. The fire in the hearth had burned low, but the air felt thick, as if something unseen had settled into the room with him.
It had been hours since he last tried to move.
His limbs weren’t numb—they were foreign.
But worse than that was the weight inside him. Something beneath the surface, coiled and tight, pulsing behind his ribs like a second heartbeat. It wasn’t constant. But when it stirred, it made his vision ripple and his skin feel too thin for his body.
He didn’t know what it was.
He just knew it wasn’t his.
Selene returned with a basin of water and a strip of linen, her footsteps soft but certain.
She always moved quietly. Even now, she felt like part of the room—present, but not demanding.
Lucian opened his eyes as she dipped the cloth and wrung it out.
He watched her, then asked, voice hoarse:
“Who else… is gone?”
She looked at him.
He didn’t clarify. He didn’t have to.
The word hung unspoken between them: Father.
She set the cloth aside.
Then sat down beside the bed.
“He passed in the fourth year,” she said quietly. “After the fever returned.”
Lucian didn’t speak.
He couldn’t.
“He was sick for a long time,” she added. “It was slow. He held on longer than the physicians expected. I think he kept hoping.”
Still, Lucian said nothing.
He stared at the ceiling, eyes glassy, throat too tight to swallow.
Selene didn’t reach for him. Didn’t offer a hand.
But she didn’t move away either.
“He asked about you,” she said. “Every time he was lucid.”
Lucian blinked hard.
“I don’t remember him ever asking about me,” he said.
“He did,” she replied. “When no one else was around to hear it.”
The silence broke him.
He turned his face to the side, away from her, and the tears came soundlessly—wet and sharp, cutting through the tightness in his chest with cruel relief.
It wasn’t a sob.
It was surrender.
Not to weakness, but to the truth: he hadn’t been there.
Hadn’t stood at the deathbed. Hadn’t seen the man who raised him fall. Hadn’t said goodbye.
The one person who might have understood what was wrong with him… was gone.
And he’d slept through it.
Selene didn’t speak.
She sat beside him in silence until the shaking stopped.
Only then did she stand and retrieve the cloth again.
He didn’t stop her when she dabbed at his forehead.
He didn’t flinch when her fingers grazed his.
Later, as the fire settled into coals, the feeling returned.
That pulse.
Like something inside him pressing outward—slow, steady, wrong.
He gritted his teeth until it passed.
But even when it faded, something lingered behind it.
A question he couldn’t shake.
Why didn’t he wait for me?
The West Wing – Near Midnight
The room was still.
Only the fire remained alive — a low, pulsing glow in the hearth, casting long shadows that reached across the walls like fingers trying to touch something lost.
Lucian lay awake in the bed he’d once collapsed in.
His breathing was shallow. Not from pain this time. From resolve.
The ache hadn’t lessened. His limbs still felt like wet rope. His back still screamed if he shifted the wrong way. But his mind was clear.
Clear enough to know he couldn’t stay here.
Not forever.
Not another day.
Not when everything was already moving around him.
Cassian knew.
Elias would follow orders or instincts — Lucian wasn’t sure which would be worse. And the Queen? He didn’t know what her silence meant yet, only that it wasn’t passive.
And then there was Selene.
Sleeping beside him in the chair, curled in on herself like someone used to being small. Her brow was relaxed. Peaceful. She didn’t sleep like that often, he could tell.
He watched her for a moment longer.
Then shifted.
He moved his hand first — just to test the weight of it.
It felt wrong. Heavy, like it belonged to someone else.
He clenched his fingers, slow and stiff, until the joints popped.
Then he brought it to the bedframe.
Pressed.
Waited.
Pressed harder.
His shoulder lit with fire.
His vision darkened at the edges.
He bit his lip until he tasted blood.
But he didn’t stop.
Sitting up was not graceful.
It was violent.
A shaking, breathless effort that left him drenched in sweat by the time he was upright. His spine curved forward like a bow. His hands clutched the mattress so hard his knuckles turned white.
His legs felt like ash.
His feet, when they touched the floor, were ice.
But they touched.
And that mattered.
Selene stirred.
Her eyes fluttered open, hazy from sleep. Then widened when they locked onto him.
“Lucian—”
Her voice was sharp now, full of alarm. She rose quickly, nearly stumbling over her own cloak as she rushed to him.
“You shouldn’t be—”
“I have to,” he rasped.
She reached out instinctively, ready to catch him. “You’re not ready—”
“I know,” he snapped, louder than he intended. His whole body shuddered from the strain. “But I can’t keep lying here. I’m done sleeping. I’m done waiting for someone to let me exist again.”
His voice broke on the last word.
Selene froze.
He pushed off the mattress.
It was like trying to stand on cracked stone — every joint wobbling, every tendon resisting. His knees buckled before he was even fully upright. One foot slipped.
He would’ve fallen.
But Selene caught him.
Hard.
Not gently.
Like someone used to holding broken things before they hit the ground.
Her arms wrapped under his, anchoring him against her shoulder. His breath came in gasps. His whole weight pressed into her. He hated it. Hated how fragile he felt against her strength.
“I told you—” she whispered, voice strained under his weight.
“I know,” he said again, softer now. “But I had to try.”
“You could’ve broken something.”
“I already did,” he muttered. “I broke ten years.”
Selene exhaled slowly.
And then—she helped him.
Not back to the bed.
Forward.
One slow step. Then another.
Together, they reached the edge of the rug, where stone floor met the fringe of shadow.
He couldn’t go further. Not yet.
But he had moved.
And that was everything.
She guided him back to the bed. He collapsed into the mattress like it was the only solid thing left in the world.
Neither of them spoke for a long time.
Selene wiped his forehead with a cloth again, then refilled the water cup with trembling hands.
He watched her.
“You’re angry,” he said.
She paused.
“I’m scared,” she said, voice flat. “There’s a difference.”
Lucian nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “Just don’t die.”
The fire behind them popped. Ash shifted in the grate.
Lucian leaned his head back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling.
Then turned his eyes toward her.
“Do you think they’ll come?” he asked. “Cassian. The others.”
“Yes,” she said. “Eventually.”
“What will I say?”
Selene didn’t answer immediately.
Then, softly:
“Say you woke up because the world forgot how to live without you.”
He smiled, barely.
And this time—it didn’t hurt.
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