The Polaris Path did not end at a threshold; it dissolved back into the immutable law of stone and silence. One moment they were walking on a ribbon of starlight through the heart of a nebula, the next, the celestial grandeur folded in on itself, the swirling galaxies and distant stars collapsing into a single, silent point of light behind Statera's outstretched hand. With a soft sigh, like the universe letting go of a held breath, the light vanished. The profound, humming silence of the path was replaced by the natural, cold quiet of a deep mountain passage. The air smelled of frost and ancient rock. The transition was so seamless, so absolute, it was as if the path had never existed at all, a secret known only to the stone, the stars, and the highest echelons of the Polaris Lumina.

They stood in a narrow, high ceilinged corridor hewn from the living mountain. The walls were of a deep, blue black basalt, veined with faint, dormant traces of silver that hinted at the magic sleeping within the palace's bones. They were not in a room, but in a forgotten arterial hallway, deep within the palace's foundational structure.

A collective, shuddering sigh of relief passed through them. It was more than a release of breath; it was the exhalation of a terror that had been held in their lungs for days. The weight of their flight, the spectre of the Plaza, the ever present fear of pursuit, it sloughed from their shoulders like a physical burden, leaving them feeling both lighter and utterly, devastatingly hollowed out. They had outrun the immediate horror. They had reached the sanctuary. The cost of that journey was written in the blood dried on their clothes and the deep, exhausted shadows in their eyes.

For a long moment, they just breathed, acclimating to the simple, solid reality of being within walls that were theirs.

It was the twins who broke the silence, their voices hushed with something beyond exhaustion, awe.

"We're… inside?" Shiro whispered, his single amber eye wide as he took in the majestic, sombre scale of the corridor. He had let go of Statera, standing on his own trembling legs, his head craned back to see where the corridor vanished into darkness high above. "The stories… they said it was a barren wasteland. A dead kingdom of ice and bones." He shook his head slowly, a painful, wondering smile touching his lips. "But this… this is a mountain's heart. It's… it's the most solid thing I've ever seen."

Kuro, still held fast on Lucifera's back, was equally stunned into silence. His single eye scanned the ancient stone, reading the history in its strata. "My father…" he began, his voice rough with a strange mix of bitterness and wonder. "He called it a gilded tomb. A dying world clinging to forgotten glory. A cautionary tale." He swallowed. "He lied. This isn't death. This is… endurance. This is patience." The realization that his entire understanding of his mother's homeland was a carefully constructed lie was a new, different kind of blow.

The walk to the royal quarters was a silent, solemn procession. They moved through servant passages and across deserted, vaulted galleries, their footsteps echoing in the immense quiet. The palace was a symphony in ice and shadow. They glimpsed vast halls where ceilings of carved ice glittered, capturing and refracting the eternal moonlight that filtered through crystalline windows. They passed gardens of frozen flora, each petal and leaf a perfect, captured rainbow suspended in time. It was a place of profound, silent beauty, a stark rebuttal to every lie they had ever been told.

Finally, they reached a heavy, star engraved door of nebula wood. Nyxara placed her palm against a specific constellation carved into its surface. With a soft, definitive click that sounded like the locking of a tomb in reverse, the door swung open. They stepped through, and it sealed behind them.

The silence that rushed in to greet them was immense, a physical pressure against their eardrums. This was Nyxara's sanctum. The air usually hummed with the gentle, comforting resonance of the Celestial Tapestry on the far wall, its woven strands of captured starlight depicting the slow, eternal dance of the heavens. Now, the tapestry seemed dim and lifeless, the heart of Algol within it guttering like a candle in its final moments, its pulse weak and irregular. The light it cast was a sickly, intermittent red black that painted long, nervous shadows across the room, making familiar shapes seem sinister and unknown.

They had come here because it was the one place Nyxara could be without arousing suspicion. Her forced seclusion was their greatest asset, a lie that now provided a shield.

As Lucifera carefully lowered Kuro onto a large divan heaped with furs, and Statera guided a swaying Shiro to sit beside him, Nyxara did not tend to them. She staggered away from the group, her gaze pulled across the room.

On the wall beside the dormant Tapestry, in a simple, elegant frame of polished nebula wood, hung the portrait. King Eltanar. Her father. Not in his formal royal regalia, but as she best remembered him: standing in the sun dappled Starlight Grove, a faint, wise smile touching his lips, his hand extended not in command, but in invitation. His eyes were kind stars, filled with a love and belief that had felt like an unshakeable constant in her universe.

Nyxara limped towards it, her heart pounding in her chest. She stopped before it, her hand reaching out to gently touch the painted cheek of the father she had loved so dearly. The contrast between the memory of his warmth and the cold, sickly light of the dying Tapestry was a physical ache.

Her voice, when it came, was a raw, broken whisper, filled with a lifetime of loss and a fragile, newfound hope.

"Father," she breathed, tears tracing clean paths through the grime and blood on her cheeks. "I have returned. Not as a queen reclaiming her throne… but as a mother." She glanced back at the two wounded young men on her divan, being tended by their own fierce protectors. "I have brought your grandsons home. I have brought our family home."

She leaned her forehead against the cold, painted wood of the frame, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. She had not come to rally an army or plot a coup. She had come, broken and bleeding, to present a dead king with his greatest, most unexpected legacy: a family, forged in fire, and delivered from the dark.

The moment of raw emotion was broken by a low, pained chuckle from the divan. Shiro, leaning heavily against the furs, managed a weak grin. "Hope he… doesn't mind the state we're in. We're not exactly… presentable for a king."

"He would have seen the strength, not the blood," Nyxara said, turning to face them with a watery smile. "He would have looked past the wounds and seen the infants who earned them."

"A generous assessment," Lucifera remarked dryly, though she made no move to fetch any medicines. "Given that one of the infants attempted to walk on legs that refused to obey, and the other appears to be attempting to become one with the upholstery."

"I am not merging," Shiro protested, though he sank deeper into the furs with a sigh. "I'm… conducting an analysis."

"He's a poet, even in his defeat," Statera said fondly, running a hand through his hair. "My little rain baby, always finding the prettiest words for the ugliest situations."

Across from him, Kuro watched the exchange, a faint smile touching his lips. "He was wrong about everything," he repeated, almost to himself.

"He was," Nyxara agreed, moving to sit on the divan's edge near him. "But you are here now. My storm baby, seeing his true inheritance for the first time." She reached out, her hand finding his. "You both did so well. I am so proud of my infants."

Kuro's cheeks flushed. "We're not infants," he muttered, though he didn't pull his hand away.

"Oh, but you are," Statera chimed in, her eyes sparkling with mischief despite her exhaustion. "Our brilliant, brave, utterly helpless infants. Did you see the way they tried so hard to mask their pain? So courageous. So… strong."

"A classic infantile trait," Lucifera noted, her tone clinically deadpan. "Characterized by enthusiasm significantly outweighing capability. The Rain Baby's attempt to mask his pain was humorous."

Shiro groaned, burying his face in a fur. "You saw that?"

"We all saw it, my love," Statera said, patting his back. "It was very… you."

"And the Storm Baby's expression when he realized the pain was too much," Nyxara added, a genuine laugh bubbling up. "Priceless. The sheer outrage. I wish I'd had a painter on hand."

"The pain wasn't too much," Kuro grumbled, his flush deepening. "I was… just surprised."

"Of course you were, darling," Nyxara cooed, pinching his uninjured cheek gently. "A perfectly surprise that left you on my lap. My precious, grumpy little storm cloud."

Lucifera watched the exchange, her head tilted. "The nicknames are proving to be highly effective," she observed. "They elicit a predictable and entertaining physiological response: increased dermal vascularity and sputtering denial. It is an efficient method of behavioural conditioning."

"You're not helping, Aunty," Kuro said, shooting her a look.

"I am not here to help," Lucifera replied, a faint, almost imperceptible smirk touching her lips. "I am here to observe my nephews. And to note that the efficacy of my sedatives will expire within the hour. The subsequent pain will be… catastrophic. I advise you to enjoy this current state of manageable discomfort. And the teasing. It will be the last thing you enjoy for some time."

The room fell silent for a beat, the warning hanging in the air like a coming storm.

Then Shiro let out a weak laugh. "Even our doom is delivered with a side of commentary."

"It's part of her charm," Nyxara said, smiling at Lucifera, who merely raised an eyebrow.

"So," Kuro said, shifting gingerly. "Until then… we just sit here? In the dark? Waiting for the agony to begin?"

"Precisely," Lucifera stated.

"Well," Statera said, settling back against the divan and pulling Shiro closer to her side in a gentle, one armed hug. "At least we have each other to complain to."

"And we will," Nyxara promised, her own hand tightening around Kuro's. "We will complain loudly, and at length. And we will tease you both mercilessly throughout. It is our privilege."

In the dim, dying light of the Tapestry, surrounded by the silent, sleeping strength of Nyxarion, they did just that. They were broken, hunted, and awaiting a wave of torment. But for now, they were together. And the sound of their quiet, teasing laughter was a finer shield against the coming dark than any wall of stone.

The quiet teasing settled over the royal sanctum like a second layer of furs, a fragile, warm shield against the immense, sleeping silence of the mountain and the creeping dread of impending agony. The dying, arrhythmic pulse of the Celestial Tapestry cast its sickly light, but it no longer felt like a symptom of decay; it became a private, intimate campfire around which their new family gathered.

Shiro, nestled against Statera's side, watched the interplay with his single amber eye, a faint, weary smile playing on his unmarred lip. Kuro, propped against a mountain of pillows, tried to maintain a semblance of princely composure, but the effect was ruined by the thick black salve packed into his eye socket and the way he unconsciously leaned into the space his mother occupied beside him.

It was Lucifera who broke the latest round of gentle mockery. She had been observing the dynamics with her usual analytical precision, but the sharp edges of her Sirius intensity had softened into something more contemplative in the safety of the sanctum.

"The physiological response to the 'Storm Baby' moniker is notably consistent," she stated, her voice a dry rasp that nonetheless carried a new, almost warm curiosity. She wasn't just collecting data; she was participating. "A rapid increase in dermal capillary activity, primarily in the facial region. A fascinating, if predictable, tell."

Kuro's good eye narrowed. "It's not a 'tell,'" he grumbled, the flush already betraying him. "It's an involuntary reaction to profound and unjustified infantilization."

"It is a blush, my little tempest," Nyxara corrected, her fingers gently brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. "And it is utterly endearing. It tells me you are still in there, beneath all the princely scowls and strategic brooding."

"See?" Shiro chimed in, his voice slurred slightly by the lingering sedative. "Even half blind, I can see it from here. It's like a beacon. 'Here lies the Baby Black Prince, embarrassed by his mother.'"

"Says the 'Rain Baby' who is currently using our mother as a pillow," Kuro shot back, the retort lacking its usual venom, flavoured instead with a weary, brotherly exasperation.

"He is welcome to," Statera said, her voice a soft, melodic counterpoint to their bickering. She gently squeezed Shiro's shoulder. "It is a far better use for me than being a shield against knives. I prefer this role immensely."

A comfortable silence fell, filled only by the soft crackle of the true, physical fire now burning in the hearth, a luxury Nyxara had insisted upon, a tiny rebellion against the palace's frozen grandeur. Kuro's gaze drifted from his brother's smug expression to the woman who had carried him through the tunnels. Lucifera sat in a high backed chair of obsidian, her posture still perfect, but her hands were resting in her lap, not poised for a weapon. The eerie, brilliant white of her eyes was fixed on the flames, her thoughts seemingly light years away.

A strange impulse, born of painkillers and a sudden, overwhelming gratitude, seized him.

"You know," Kuro began, his voice cutting through the quiet. All eyes turned to him. "Lucifera is a mouthful. Especially when one is... indisposed." He gestured weakly at his own broken state. "All those syllables. It's inefficient."

Lucifera's head turned slowly, her sharp gaze focusing on him. "It is my name. It is precisely as long as it needs to be. Efficiency is not measured in syllabic brevity but in semantic accuracy."

"Semantic accuracy," Kuro repeated, a slow, daring grin spreading across his features. It was a painful expression, pulling at the gash on his cheek, but he wore it anyway. "Fine. Then how about a semantically accurate abbreviation? 'Aunt Luci.' It's faster. Less formal. Fits better now."

The suggestion landed in the room with the weight of a dropped stone.

Nyxara's multi hued eyes went wide with delight. Statera's Polaris light flickered with amusement. Shiro let out a soft, choked sound that was half laugh, half gasp of disbelief.

Lucifera simply stared. The clinical analysis vanished from her expression, replaced by pure, unadulterated shock. The name was so simple, so… diminutive. So familiar. It was the absolute antithesis of everything she was. Councillor Lucifera of the Sirius Clan, a being of shadow and sharp edges, reduced to 'Aunt Luci.'

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She opened her mouth to deliver a scalding rebuttal, to dissect the absurd sentimentality of the suggestion, but no sound came out. Instead, a remarkable thing happened. A faint, rosy hue began to bloom high on her alabaster cheekbones. It wasn't the spectacular, furious crimson that Kuro or Shiro produced; it was a subtle, delicate flush, like the first hint of dawn on a frozen landscape. She looked, for a single, breath taking moment, utterly flustered.

" 'Aunt Luci'?" Nyxara breathed, her voice full of wonder. "Oh, Kuro, it's perfect. It's utterly, completely perfect."

"It suits her new role," Statera agreed, her smile warm and approving. "Our deadly protector has a soft side. It deserves a softer name."

"I do not have a 'soft side'," Lucifera finally managed, her voice tighter than usual, the blush stubbornly persisting. "The designation is… unnecessarily familiar. And linguistically reductive."

"But you like it," Shiro said, pushing himself up slightly to get a better look at her face. "You're blushing, Aunty Luci."

The use of the new name sealed it. Lucifera looked from one face to another, seeing not mockery, but a profound, welcoming affection. They were pulling her into the fold, not with force, but with a nickname. It was a more terrifying battlefield than any she had ever known.

She saw the expectant look on Kuro's face, a mix of pride at his own audacity and a genuine hope that she wouldn't reject it. The strategic part of her mind, the part that valued alliances and assessed advantages, calculated the benefits of accepting this new… title. The rest of her, the part she kept buried deep, felt a strange, unwelcome warmth that had nothing to do with the fire.

With a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of a thousand recalibrated protocols, she gave a single, sharp nod. "If the appellation proves operationally efficient in fostering unit cohesion, then I will… tolerate its use." She paused, and then added, almost as a mutter, "...Nephew."

It was a surrender. A glorious, unprecedented surrender.

Kuro's grin widened. "Excellent."

But Lucifera's sharp eyes missed nothing. She had conceded a battle, not the war. The balance of power had to be restored. Her gaze fell upon Kuro, so smug in his victory.

"Do not let this minor victory inflate your ego, Storm Baby," she said, and the nickname now carried a new, playful weight. "Your current position of propped up convalescence does not lend you an air of authority. It lends you an air of needing your mother tucking you in."

The counterattack was swift and effective. Kuro's triumphant grin vanished, replaced by that familiar, furious crimson flush. "I do not need…"

"Oh, I think you do," Nyxara interrupted, seizing the opportunity with glee. She leaned over and, with a tenderness that utterly undermined the action, made a show of adjusting the furs around his legs. "There. All snug for my little storm cloud. Would you like a story before the pain comes back? Perhaps a lullaby?"

"Mother," Kuro groaned, trying to bat her hands away, his face burning.

"He'd prefer a tactical briefing," Shiro mumbled from his pillow, eyes closed. "With charts. And pointers. About how not to get his eye carved out next time."

"A lesson we could all benefit from," Statera said, her laughter like soft bells. She looked at her two nephews, one flushed with embarrassment, the other feigning sleep to hide his own smile. Her heart felt so full it ached. "Look at you both. My fierce warriors. Brought low by a few affectionate words and a handful of furs."

"They are not 'brought low,'" Lucifera, Luci, observed, her voice now carrying a note of calm amusement, the formality finally bleeding away into something more natural. "They are being recalibrated. Their brains were overloaded with defiance and independence. They are simply reverting into a more… manageable condition."

"Manageable?" Kuro and Shiro said in unison, their voices overlapping in indignant harmony.

Statera couldn't help herself. She reached out with her good arm, her hand finding Kuro's cheek. She didn't pinch it, but held it gently, her thumb stroking his burning skin. "There is no shame in it," she said, her voice overflowing with maternal love. "Every great general, every master strategist, was once a little storm baby who needed his mother to make everything better."

Kuro's protest died in his throat. He was trapped, surrounded by a love that was as relentless as it was kind. He could only sit there, flushing magnificently, as Statera continued to gently hold his face.

Shiro, seeing his brother's utter defeat, made the fatal error of chuckling.

Statera's gaze slid to him, her expression shifting to one of playful wickedness. "And you, my little rain baby, should not laugh. You are merely a puddle compared to his storm. The moment I stop being your pillow, you will slide right off this divan and into a sad, sleepy heap on the floor. You are both, and I say this with all the love in my heart, completely and utterly helpless."

The chamber erupted. Nyxara's laughter was a bright, musical thing. Luci's was a soft, dry sound, more an exhale of amusement, but it was genuine. The two young men could only sit there, side by side, a matched set of spectacular, crimson faced humiliation.

Any attempt at a retort failed. Every time Shiro opened his mouth, a yawn overtook him. Every time Kuro tried to formulate a defence, the throbbing in his eye socket scattered his thoughts. They were infants in a cradle of their own making, swaddled in furs and teased mercilessly by their mothers.

And as the first, tentative needle of real pain began to pierce the fading veil of the sedatives, they realized, with a sense of shocking clarity, that they wouldn't have it any other way. The teasing was the sound of belonging. The embarrassment was the price of admission to a family they had never dared to dream of. The coming agony would be a shared thing, faced in a room that, for the first time, truly felt like home.

The fragile peace, woven from teasing and the soft glow of the hearth, was a tapestry too delicate for the world they inhabited. It began to unravel not with a sound, but with a cessation. The gentle, numbing hum of Lucifera's sedatives, which had held the worst of the torment at bay, began to fade. It was like a tide pulling back from a ravaged shore, and what it left behind was a landscape of pure, undiluted agony.

The first sign was a subtle tightening around Kuro's mouth. The wry, embarrassed smile he'd worn during the teasing vanished, replaced by a bloodless, rigid line. His single, storm grey eye, which had been alight with rare warmth, clouded over, focusing on some internal, horrifying horizon. A fine tremor started in his hands, rattling against the fur of his blanket.

Across the divan, Shiro's breathing hitched. The comfortable, drowsy rhythm stuttered. His single amber eye flew open, wide and unseeing for a moment, before the consciousness of pain flooded in. It was a wave, building from the deep, internal bruising left by Aella's boots, cresting with the searing, blasphemous fire of the X brand on his face.

He drew a sharp, wet breath to scream.

Nyxara's hand was there in an instant, clamping over his mouth with a mother's terrifying speed. Her other hand found Kuro's shoulder, gripping it hard, a silent command for silence.

"No sounds," she whispered, her voice a blade of strained steel. Her multi hued eyes were wide with shared panic, reflecting the dawning horror in her sons'. "The patrols. The corridors outside are not empty. A scream in this dead place would be a beacon."

The order was a cruelty worse than the pain. The agony demanded voice. It was a living thing, a parasite of pure sensation that needed to be expelled through the throat or it would devour the mind from within.

Kuro's body arched, a silent, rigid bowstring of torment. A strangled, guttural sound, like the death rattle of a beast, was muffled by the sheer force of his will, vibrating against his clenched teeth. Tears of pure, animal suffering welled in his eye and traced hot paths through the grime on his cheeks.

Shiro was less controlled. The pain was a white hot star going supernova behind his eye socket. He thrashed against Nyxara's hold, a frantic, weak struggle. His scream, trapped behind her palm, was a high, desperate whine that seemed to shake his very bones.

"Lucifera," Statera's voice was low, urgent, stripped of all its earlier melody. She was already moving, her own pain forgotten, her Polaris light sharpening into a beam of focused purpose. "The gag. Now."

Lucifera was already there. She didn't move with haste, but with a devastating, silent efficiency that was more frightening than panic. From a fold of her robes, she produced two strips of soft, clean leather. Without a word, she gently but immovably pried Nyxara's hand from Shiro's mouth and replaced it with the gag, tying it securely behind his head. He fought her for a second, a wild, terrified animal, before the fight left him, replaced by a shuddering, silent sob as the leather stifled his anguish.

She repeated the process with Kuro. He didn't fight. He merely opened his mouth, his body trembling violently, and accepted the violation. His eye, locked on Nyxara's, was a well of such profound, helpless suffering that she felt her own heart crack anew.

The sanctum was now a chamber of silent horrors. The only sounds were the crackle of the fire, the ragged, nasal breathing through clogged nostrils, and the terrible, wet, muffled sounds of screams that could not find freedom. Their bodies were the canvases upon which their agony was painted in violent strokes: backs arching, fists clenching and unclenching, feet scrambling uselessly against the furs.

Statera knelt between them, the chest of medicines open beside her. Her face was a mask of compassionate ruthlessness.

"Listen to me," she said, her voice cutting through their private hells. She held up a small, crystalline vial filled with a substance that seemed to writhe with a faint, silver light. "This is a Luminis salve. It will cool the burn. It will soothe the raw nerves. But it must be applied. The contact… it will be intense."

She looked from Shiro's terrified eye to Kuro's resigned one. She forced a lightness into her tone, a grotesque parody of her earlier teasing, a lifeline of normality thrown into the abyss. "Consider this the easy part. A little sting. Tomorrow… tomorrow, my brave little infants, we must sew you back together. And for that, the sedatives are gone. We need you awake. We need you still. So, enjoy this momentary discomfort."

The promise was a fresh torture. Tomorrow held a new, sharper blade.

She didn't wait for a response. She dipped her fingers into the vial. The salve clung to her skin, glowing with a cold, fey light.

She went to Shiro first. He flinched back as her hand approached his face, a low, desperate moan escaping around the gag. His eye was wild, pleading.

"I know, my rain baby," she whispered, her own tears finally falling. "I know. Be brave for me. Just for a moment."

Her fingers made contact with the ruined flesh of the X brand.

The effect was cataclysmic.

It was not cooling. It was not soothing. It was a new kind of agony, a searing, cosmic cold that felt like liquid nitrogen being poured into the wound. It was the absolute zero of pain, a cold so profound it became a fire. Shiro's body jack knifed. A scream, perfectly silenced by the leather, tore through him with such force that Nyxara had to throw her body across his legs to hold him down. His back bowed off the divan, every muscle corded and straining against an enemy that was inside him.

Statera worked quickly, her touch feather light yet relentless, spreading the glistening silver salve over every millimetre of the burned, ravaged tissue. With each pass, his silent convulsions intensified. When she was done, she sat back, breathing heavily, her face pale. The salve sank into the wound, and the visible, angry red inflammation began to recede, but the price had been a temporary escalation into a realm of pain that bordered on the metaphysical.

Kuro watched it all, his own pain forgotten in the horrific spectacle of his brother's suffering. His eye was wide with a shared terror.

Then it was his turn.

Statera approached with a second vial. This salve was black and thick, like tar dredged from a lightless ocean trench. It smelled of grave earth and frozen metals.

"For the eye," she stated, her voice trembling slightly. "To keep the darkness at bay. To fight the corruption Athena left behind."

Kuro squeezed his eye shut. He gave a single, sharp, jerky nod. Do it.

Nyxara held his head steady, her hands framing his face, her own eyes squeezed shut as if she could absorb the pain through her touch.

The moment the black salve touched his ruined socket, Kuro understood Shiro's reaction.

It was not cold. It was a presence. It was a thick, sentient sludge that seemed to writhe into the shattered orb, a million tiny, icy claws scrabbling and digging into the raw nerve endings. It was a violation so intimate, so deeply personal, that it bypassed pain and became a form of spiritual rape. His body, which had been trembling, went utterly rigid. A single, silent, breathless scream locked in his chest. His good eye rolled back in his head, showing the white.

Lucifera, observing dispassionately, noted, "Physiological response indicates, the pain is likely transcending somatic parameters and achieving a psychic resonance."

Statera finished packing the socket, her jaw set. The black tar seemed to absorb the light around it, making the injury look like a hole into nothingness.

For a long moment, the only movement was the violent, shuddering aftershocks wracking their bodies. The initial, world ending peak of the salve's application began to recede, leaving behind the original, "dull" agony, which now felt almost manageable by comparison. Their breathing began to slow from frantic, nasal gasps to ragged, sobbing pulls of air.

Slowly, carefully, Statera reached over and untied Shiro's gag. He sucked in a huge, shuddering breath, but no scream followed. Only a broken, wet sob. She did the same for Kuro, who merely turned his head and vomited weakly onto the stones beside the divan, his body wracked with dry heaves.

The worst was over. The salves were working, their magic now a cool, numb blanket slowly smothering the inferno.

But Statera did not look relieved. She looked at their ashen, sweat soaked faces, at the way they flinched at her slightest movement. She looked at the vial of Luminis salve, then at the needle and thread laid out for the morrow's butchery.

A new, terrifying resolve settled on her features.

"No," she whispered, almost to herself.

She reached into the chest and pulled out a different instrument. It was a slender syringe, filled with a liquid that was not silver or black, but a deep, mesmerizing violet. It seemed to swirl with a light of its own.

"Change of plan," she said, her voice hollow.

Both boys' eyes snapped to her, to the needle. A fresh, different kind of terror dawned, the terror of the unknown.

"Wh't 's 'at?" Shiro slurred, trying to push himself away.

"The salves… they are a temporary measure. The pain will return in waves, stronger each time," Statera explained, her voice clinical, forcing herself to detach. "You will scream. You will bring the entire palace down upon us. I cannot stitch you while you are like this. This…" she held up the syringe, "…is a direct infusion. An extreme sleeping agent. It will not heal you. It will shut you down. For about twelve hours. When you wake, the worst of the inflammation will be passed. Then… then I can sew."

"No," Kuro gasped, trying to sit up. "No, you said… tomorrow…"

"The situation has evolved," Lucifera stated, her voice supporting Statera's grim decision. "The risk of discovery is too high. This is the logical choice."

"It is the only choice," Nyxara said, her voice thick with grief. She looked at her son. "It is a kindness, Kuro. A retreat. Let go."

But they were warriors. A needle was a weapon, and it was coming for them. As Statera approached Shiro first, he tried to scramble back, a weak, pathetic crab like motion. "No… Mother, please… not a needle… anything but that…"

It was a child's fear, primal and absolute.

Nyxara and Lucifera moved as one. There was no malice in it, only a grim, loving necessity. Nyxara held Shiro's shoulders, murmuring soft, meaningful comforts into his hair. Lucifera pinned his legs with an effortless, unbreakable grip.

Statera's hand did not shake. She found a vein in his arm, and before he could plead again, she plunged the needle in.

The effect was instantaneous. His struggles ceased. His eye lost focus, the amber light dimming to a soft, hazy glow. A sigh of pure, blissful nothingness escaped his lips, and he sank into the furs, asleep.

Kuro was next. He didn't fight. He just stared at the needle with his one good eye, a look of utter betrayal on his face. "You promised," he whispered to Statera.

"I promised to make you whole," she replied, her voice cracking. "This is the path."

She injected him. His rigid body went limp. The storm in his grey eye was quelled, replaced by an empty, calm sea. He was out.

The silence that returned to the sanctum was absolute and heavy. The battlefield was won. The patients were subdued.

Wordlessly, exhausted, Statera turned her skills on Nyxara, cleaning and properly stitching the gash on her thigh with quick, precise movements. Nyxara bore it in silence, her hand resting on Kuro's still chest. Then, Statera tended to her own shoulder, her face a mask of concentration as she sutured her own flesh without a sound, a testament to a lifetime of discipline.

When it was done, the three women were spent. The energy required to hold back the horror, to inflict pain to cause healing, had emptied them.

Nyxara didn't speak. She simply lay down on the wide divan, pulling Kuro's unconscious form against her, wrapping her arms around him as if he were still the small boy he'd never been allowed to be. Statera did the same on Shiro's side, curling her body around his, her head resting near his, her hand on his heart to feel its steady, drugged beat.

They were a portrait of exhaustion and protection, two queens clinging to their broken sons in the heart of a dead kingdom.

Lucifera watched for a moment. The scene was illogical. It was inefficient. It was the most defenceless they could possibly be. And it was, therefore, the moment they were most in need of a sentinel.

She did not join the pile. Instead, she extinguished the main hearth fire, plunging the room into the deep, bloody gloom of the dying Tapestry. She stood for a moment, a silhouette against the faint light, watching the four forms on the divan settle into the uneasy stillness of trauma and drugged sleep. The silence was a physical weight.

The unyielding sentinel posture finally broke. A deep weariness, earned from the brutal flight through the tunnels and the psychological toll of the evening, seemed to settle into her bones. She was not a machine, and the body that had carried a prince for hours now demanded its due.

Quietly, she moved to a small, arched doorway set into the far wall of the sanctum, the entrance to Nyxara's private spare room, a place for handmaidens or honoured guests in a lifetime long past. She pushed the heavy curtain aside and disappeared inside.

The room was small, spartan, and cold. A simple bed with a thin mattress and a single fur lay in the corner. It was a world away from the communal nest of furs in the main chamber, but it was shelter. It was privacy.

Lucifera did not bother to undress. She simply lay down on the bed, pulling the single fur over herself. The actions were not those of the deadly Sirius councillor, but of a soldier finally off duty. Her brilliant white eyes closed. The constant, analytical hum of her mind stilled. For the first time since the ambush in the fissure, Lucifera allowed herself to truly rest, her body surrendering to the profound exhaustion she had held at bay for so long. The Councillor was gone. Luci was asleep, finally granting her own strained muscles and weary mind the same mercy she had given her nephews. The sanctum, and its precious, vulnerable occupants, were left to the guard of silence and stone.

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