His vision went black for only a second, light slipping back in just long enough to see his father’s hand wrap around a Veyra captain’s arm, ordering him to keep the Daunt’s quarantined. His sight pulsed again, black, then fading light, then back to black.
Greyson didn’t hear as the medical team arrived.
He realized then that the world’s noise had receded until all that remained was the slowing beat of his own heart as his body lifted from the bloody marble floor. He was cold, untethered, weightless as he drifted into somewhere deep inside the abyss.
His mind was a dark, twisted place that sometimes even frightened him. A place that no light or happiness thrived.
Memories surfaced like bodies in a flood, all claws grasping for his flesh to pull him to hell.
He’d let them, of course.
They blended together, these ghosts of both past and present. Faces without masks, people he’d killed. People he’d failed to save. Each execution had carved something vital from him until he was hollow inside, an empty vessel for the will of the Heart.
He’d been seven the first time he’d watched his father kill a man.
The rebel had been brought to their private residence, and beaten for information but remained defiant. Greyson remembered how his father had removed his golden mask and laid it carefully on the desk as if it were too precious to dirty with the blood of someone less-than. Maximus had wrapped his fingers around Greyson’s chin, holding his head still as he placed the gun between the man’s eyes and shot him without hesitation.
Blood had sprayed across the pristine carpet, droplets landing across Greyson’s face and clothes.
‘This is how we maintain order,’Maximus had said, voice steady as he replaced his mask.‘A Serel does not hesitate, a Serel does not show mercy. A Serel does not look away.’
Greyson remembered, and he remembered every death since.
The darkness shifted, memories giving way to sensations. He was aware of the movement, violent jerks. Someone was tugging him, hands pressing against the wound in his stomach. Pain bloomed, then receded, then bloomed again brighter and sharper.
He heard his mother’s voice, high and frantic, demanding they save him. Save the heir. Save the legacy.
Not save her son.Never that.
Light stabbed through his eyelids. Hospital lights, the white ceiling peeling past overhead as they wheeled him through corridors.
His father’s voice cut through the haze, threatening the medical staff with execution if word of this was leaked. The words followed Greyson into the dark as consciousness slipped away again for only a breath, or what felt like it to him.
When awareness returned, it was fragmented. He caught snippets of conversation, felt tubes inserted into his veins, heard the steady beep of machines monitoring his reluctant survival.
His body fought to live while his mind craved the quiet of extinction.
“Blood pressure dropping—”
“—more fluids—”
“—bullet missed vital—”
Greyson drifted again, sinking deeper into himself.
In darkness he found a strange comfort. He always had. Here, there were no masks, no expectations, no laws of the Heart to follow. Just silence—beautiful, peaceful silence.
The quiet was interrupted again by a new voice, sharper than the others. “I need everyone out of the room. Now.”
Through slitted eyes Greyson caught the silhouette of a man in surgical scrubs, mask covering the lower half of his face. Not the mask of the Heart, but of the doctor.
“President Serel, with all due respect, I cannot operate with you breathing down my neck.”
His father’s voice came from somewhere behind him. “You will operate in whatever conditions I dictate, Doctor Knowles.”
“Then prepare to watch your son die.” The words were flat, clinical.
Yes. Yes, let me die. He tried to force his eyes open.
