"Well, well."
Vesper’s dark gaze drifted lazily over the shattered doorway, settling on the two men standing in the wreckage.
"The Royal Prince and the Dragon Duke himself." A slow, smirk touched her lips as she leaned back against her counter. "Crown Prince Adrian... if this is how a future emperor announces his arrival, I’d hate to see how he declares war."
Adrian stepped through the splintered oak. His boots crunched over shattered wood, his icy-blue eyes burning with a lethal, barely restrained fury. Razor-sharp Lycan claws protruded from his torn leather gloves, and the ambient temperature in the apothecary plummeted in an instant.
Frost raced across the stone floor beneath his feet, crawling up the legs of towering shelves packed with dried herbs, sealed potion jars, and shadow-creatures that stirred behind glass despite having no business being alive.
The jars trembled. One cracked right down the center.
Adrian didn’t spare it a glance.
"We don’t have time for your tongue, Vesper." His voice was a guttural growl that rattled every glass bottle in the room. "Hand over the Silver Frost-Leaf."
Vesper tilted her head, letting out a musical, mocking laugh that echoed off the stone walls. She didn’t so much as glance at the frost creeping toward her boots.
"The Silver Frost-Leaf? Oh, sweetheart, why didn’t you just say so? Let me just pull the single most extinct, soul-stabilizing plant in the continent out of my pocket for you. Do you think I run a charity, Your Highness?"
"Name your price, Vesper," Aldric said, stepping through the ruined entrance behind Adrian. His golden dragon eyes were slitted with dangerous precision, his usual lazy smirk gone entirely. The air around him shimmered with intense heat haze, scorching faint black rings into the antique rugs beneath his boots. "And name it fast, before I decide your little sanctuary makes a lovely bonfire."
Vesper’s sarcasm faded by a fraction. Her dark eyes flicked between the two of them, taking in the sheer, unraveling desperation neither man was bothering to hide. She leaned forward, resting her chin on her pale, ring-adorned hands, looking almost thoughtful.
"Someone’s burning from the inside... her core needs relief," she murmured. Her gaze sharpened on Adrian’s throat, locking onto the frantic pulse visible there. "Not just any kind of burn, either. That’s a God-tier seal reacting against dark demon magic. There’s only one fool in this realm careless enough to cause that."
Neither of them answered. That silence told her everything.
"Interesting," Vesper whispered softly, a flicker of something ancient and cold passing behind her eyes. "A Cursed Rose, clawing at a demon’s seal. The old legends are stirring again, aren’t they?"
"How do you know about that?" Aldric asked, his golden eyes narrowing.
"Oh, dear, nothing ever passes me," Vesper drawled, her smirk returning. "I was born with all-knowing senses. I even know—"
"We don’t have time for stories," Adrian snapped, his claws flexing at his sides as stone cracked beneath his heavy boots. "The price. Now." Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Vesper straightened, all business again. "Gold won’t cut it—I have more of that than the crown does. What I want is a royal pardon for my coven, sealed in blood, and immunity from the Imperial Guard for as long as you sit on the throne."
"Done," Adrian said without a breath of hesitation.
Vesper’s smile turned razor-thin. "No, Your Highness. Not ’done.’ Sealed."
She reached beneath the counter and produced a small, silver ceremonial dagger, setting it beside a glass stasis chest with a soft, deliberate clink.
"Words are cheap from men who want to be emperor. I want your blood in the binding circle, witnessed by my coven’s magic. So that if you ever renege on this oath, it isn’t my curse that comes for you—it’s your own broken word, unraveling you from the inside out."
Adrian’s jaw tightened. His electric-blue eyes flicked to the blade, then to the glowing chest beyond it—to the single, diamond-pale leaf resting inside, swirling faintly with frost-white mana.
Somewhere back at the abyssal fortress, through the frayed thread of the soul link, he felt Rosearia’s pulse stutter.
He didn’t hesitate a second time. Adrian snatched the blade and dragged it across his palm in one clean, ruthless stroke. Blood welled dark and immediate. He slammed his bloody fist onto the binding circle carved into the counter.
*THUMP!*
The shop’s air shivered as unseen magic snapped the oath shut like a closing fist. Crimson runes flared once across the wood before fading into the grain.
"There," Adrian said flatly, blood dripping onto the scarred floor. "Sealed. Now give me the leaf before I burn your coven’s pardon and take it anyway."
Vesper laughed—a real laugh this time, delighted despite herself—and slid the stasis chest across the counter. "A pleasure doing business with you, Your Highness." Her eyes flicked toward the exit as Adrian snatched the chest up. "Try not to let her die on the way back. A girl who can crack a demon’s seal and drag two princes into my shop at midnight sounds far too interesting to lose."
They didn’t take a carriage. They didn’t take the paved royal roads.
Morphing their immense mana into pure speed, Adrian and Aldric tore through the night like twin streaks of lightning—one electric-blue, one blazing gold—carving smoking trails through the frost-hardened fields beyond the capital.
The wind roared in Adrian’s ears, cutting against his face, but his mind stayed locked on a single, unbearable thought: *If her pulse fades before we reach the gates, I will tear Asmodeus limb from limb and salt the ground where he falls.*
Every second dragged like an hour. The soul link between the Triad thrummed with a static, chaotic frequency, dragging the fortress’s violent state straight into both their skulls. Adrian could feel Rosearia’s life force flickering like a candle fighting a gale, her crushed soul core straining against the glowing chains meant to hold it—and losing.
Adrian didn’t slow down. He smashed through the grand front gates without breaking stride, sprinting through the dark stone corridors as shadows peeled back from the sheer violence of his aura. Guards flattened themselves against the walls in terror to let him pass.
He kicked the doors to the main chamber open hard enough to crack the obsidian frame.
"Asmodeus!" His voice cracked through the vaulted ceiling like thunder.
In the center of the dark room, laid out on a grand bed, was Rosearia. Her pale skin had gone deathly cold, soaked through with sweat. Dark crimson-black veins of chaotic magic were spreading fast across her throat and collarbone, fighting the glowing golden chains of her soul seal one flickering link at a time.
Standing over her was Asmodeus, his pitch-black eyes locked on her face, his own dark mana surging wildly as he fought—and failed—to force the eruption back down.
"You took your time," Asmodeus rasped, turning his head slowly toward the doorway. His usual clinical mask had cracked clean through, fangs still faintly elongated, one hand hovering over Rosearia’s convulsing frame as though he didn’t trust himself to touch her again.
Adrian crossed the room in three strides and slammed the glass stasis chest onto the bedside table hard enough to spider a crack through the wood. His eyes swept over Rosearia’s shuddering body—and caught on the faint purple bruises circling her wrists.
Something feral and possessive tore loose inside him.
In a blur of motion, Adrian grabbed Asmodeus by the collar and drove him back into a stone pillar hard enough to crack the wall behind him.
"If she dies tonight," Adrian snarled into his face, claws digging through fabric and skin alike, "I swear on the crown I don’t even want, Asmodeus—I will burn this fortress to cinders with you chained inside it."
Asmodeus didn’t flinch. His void-black eyes held Adrian’s electric-blue glare with icy, exhausted detachment, though the muscle in his jaw flexed once, hard.
"Save the threat for after she’s breathing, Adrian," Asmodeus said softly, urgent beneath his calm tone. "Crush the leaf. Force the nectar down her throat. Now—before her core breaks beyond repair."
Adrian shoved Asmodeus away and turned to Aldric, tossing him the glowing chest. "You use dragon fire. Extract the nectar without destroying its properties."
Aldric didn’t waste a second. He caught the chest, opening it to reveal the diamond-pale leaf. Instead of crushing it with raw physical force, Aldric placed the leaf inside his mouth. Channeling the controlled, concentrated warmth of his inner dragon flame, he gently broke down the leaf’s essence, liquefying it into pure, luminous silver nectar.
Moving with sudden urgency, Aldric leaned over the bed, holding Rosearia’s chin. He pressed his lips directly over hers, tilting her head back to force the first drop of the warming, silver elixir down her throat.
Rosearia’s body shuddered violently, and a soft, breathless cough escaped her lips as the cold nectar met the burning chaos inside her chest.
"Is that all of it?" Asmodeus demanded, stepping closer, his dark eyes fixed on her throat.
"No," Aldric murmured, his golden eyes burning with intense dragon warmth as he looked down at her pale, shivering face. "She needs the full core of the leaf."
Without waiting for permission, Aldric leaned down again, capturing her mouth once more to pour the rest of the glowing, potent nectar deep into her throat.