The fire still burned in the hearth, but Dante didn't move. The master was gone, leaving him alone with the ghosts that never truly left.
He closed his eyes, and the memories came like blades—sharp, merciless.
**
Time was colder in those recollections. Dante had been seven when he first laid eyes on the boy with dark hair and amber eyes just like his. Small, fragile… but there was still a light in him. A light Dante had long since lost.
"He's your brother," his mother had said with that weary voice, her eyes always raw from too much crying. "On your father's side."
His father—Lorde Rhael Montcroix—was known for his coldness. A name spoken with fear, with reverence, but never with love. He had never touched Dante with kindness. Never called him his son. He'd used Dante's mother—a woman of old blood and unearthly beauty—as nothing more than a vessel. A womb. And when he tired of her, he cast her aside like dust on marble.
Dante remembered how she faded with each passing year. How the light dimmed in her eyes, as if breathing the same air as Rhael was a curse she couldn't escape.
The half-brother had come from another woman. A maid, young and foolish enough to believe Rhael's false promises—until she was sold like property. She died not long after childbirth. And the child… the child was hidden. Raised in silence, tucked away in the cold, hollow corners of House Montcroix.
Dante found him one night in the garden, curled up against the stone wall, shielding himself from the rain beneath an old, frayed cloak.
"What's your name?" he asked.
The boy looked up at him with eyes that shimmered in the dark. Shy. But unafraid.
"Cael."
Dante stepped closer. Looked at the trembling body, the pale skin, the dirt-stained fingers.
"I'm your brother," he said. "And no one will hurt you while I'm here."
**
For months, Dante became his shadow. His shield. He smuggled food to him, taught him how to move through the halls without a sound. At night, he whispered stories to chase away the dark. For the first time in his life, Dante felt something pure. Something untouched by hate.
But everything shattered when Cael turned five.
One night, Dante came home and the boy was gone. He searched, begged, screamed into silence. But no one spoke. Only the kind of silence that feels like a coffin closing.
Days passed before he uncovered the truth.
His father had sold him.
The boy had been traded for gold and favors, handed to another family like livestock. The Valtieris.
Dante would never forget the way that name tasted the first time he heard it. Like rust and frost. Like the beginning of something cursed.
**
Years later, he learned the truth was even blacker.
Cael hadn't just been sold.
He had been offered.
A sacrifice. An experiment. The center of a ritual older than reason—so vile it had been outlawed even among the cruelest. And the hands that performed the rite? Not just Cassios Valtieri—Selene's father—but Rhael Montcroix himself.
Two monsters. One pact.
Cael's blood had been spilled to summon something ancient. Starved. Something that fed on agony.
His body was never found.
But Dante knew.
He felt it in his bones.
Cael had died afraid. Alone. Wondering why his brother hadn't come.
And Dante had never forgiven himself.
**
He first saw Selene when she was eleven.
She drifted through the adults like a ghost wrapped in silk. Hair white as snowfall. Eyes of two fates—one the color of blood, the other like a brewing storm. She looked at him once. Just once. And in that breath, something inside him broke.
Curiosity. Disgust. Fury. Desire.
All tangled together like thorns around his ribs.
She was beautiful. Innocent. Dangerous.
But more than that… she was a Valtieri.
And that was enough for him to hate her.
He could see it in her blood. The same poison that had taken everything from him. The same stain that marked the altar where his brother died.
**
The years passed. And that hatred festered.
Even when her eyes confused him. Even when her voice burned with defiance. Even when he dreamed of her mouth in twisted, fevered nights.
Even when she cried.
He couldn't separate them.
Her face bled into Cassios'. Her voice echoed like Cael's final scream. Her blood… a mirror of what had been spilled.
He was caught.
Between vengeance and hunger.
**
Now his hands trembled.
He rose from the armchair, unsteady, and walked to a hidden shelf. Drew out a dark wooden box, sealed with old sigils. He opened it with reverence.
Inside, wrapped in dust and time, lay the only portrait of Cael.
The boy smiled. A small, aching smile. Eyes too sad for his age. The cloak he wore swallowed him whole. And there—in the corner of the image, almost invisible—was a mark. The Valtieri crest, hand-drawn.
Dante fell to his knees.
Tears slid down his face. Quiet. Unforgiving. He hated crying. Always had.
But tonight, he couldn't hold them back.
"Forgive me, Cael…" he whispered. "I was just a child. I couldn't save you…"
But he knew.
Nothing would bring Cael back. Nothing could rewrite the past.
And Selene…
She was the living ghost of it all.
But somehow, she was also the only thing that made him feel alive.
**
Thunder cracked in the distance.
Dante stood. Slowly. Wiped the tears from his face. His eyes were empty—but something inside him still beat.
He had to choose.
Sink into the abyss… or face the truth.
And the truth, cruel as it was, had eyes of two colors—
And a name carved in sin.
Selene Valtieri.
End of chapter.