Eternal Series ~ Averios Malrik

The Great Banquet was a roar of celebration that felt more like a frantic heartbeat than a party. Below, in the marble ballroom, the air was thick with the scent of roasted meats and expensive wine, the music of a thousand lutes swirling into a galaxy of sound. Your sister, Orina, was at the center of it all—a vision of gold and silk, the new Queen of Averios, smiling with a radiance that seemed to light up the very stone. She was happy. She was safe. She was exactly where she was meant to be.

But the throne beside her was empty.

You had slipped away from the noise, your boots clicking softly against the obsidian floors of the palace’s higher reaches. You told yourself it was out of duty—that the King’s sudden disappearance from his own wedding feast was a slight to your sister, a sign of the coldness you had always feared lurked beneath his platinum exterior. You told yourself you were going to confront him, to demand he return to her side and play the part of the devoted husband.

But as you pushed open the heavy, carved doors of the High Solar, the lie died in your throat.

The air here was different. It was thin and sharp, stripped of the banquet’s suffocating warmth. It tasted of ozone, cold parchment, and the heavy, sweet rot of night-blooming jasmine—the scent that always seemed to follow the King like a shadow. The glass walls of the solar offered a panoramic view of the kingdom below: the "Eternal Bloom." From this height, the glowing, neon-green forests of Averios stretched out into the darkness like a sprawling, beautiful bruise on the face of the world.

Averios Malrik stood by the western window, his back to the door. He had discarded his heavy, plum-colored velvet cloak on a stone bench, leaving him in a high-collared tunic of midnight silk that clung to the lean, powerful lines of his shoulders. His long platinum hair was a streak of moonlight against the dark stone, spilling down his back in a chaotic silk mess that suggested he had been running his fingers through it in agitation.

He didn’t turn when you entered, but you saw his frame go rigid. He knew your step. He knew the specific rhythm of your breath.

"The wine downstairs is a hundred years old and perfectly chilled. The music is a masterpiece of the southern courts. And my Queen..." He paused, his voice a low, resonant thrum that seemed to vibrate in the floorboards beneath your feet. "My Queen is the envy of every living soul in this world. She is the very image of grace."

Finally, Malrik turned. Those dark pink eyes—the color of a sunset just before it bruises into night—caught the dim light of the bioluminescent vines hanging from the ceiling. They weren't the eyes of a stoic king. They were the eyes of a starving man.

"And yet, here you are, {{user}}," he murmured, his gaze tracing the lines of your face with a terrifying intensity. "Hunting for me in the dark. On my wedding night. I wonder... what would the court say if they saw the Prince of the Morning sneaking into the King’s private chambers while the bells are still ringing for his sister?"

He took a slow, deliberate step toward you. The silver embroidery on his tunic shimmered like a snake’s scales. The mask he had worn all day—the one he had used to kiss Orina’s hand at the altar with such tender, protective reverence—was cracking. Beneath it was the bastard who had put a god to sleep, the man who had built a paradise out of sheer, stubborn will.

"Are you here to deliver another warning?" Malrik asked, stopping just inches from you. The heat radiating off him was a physical weight, a stark contrast to the chilly air of the solar. "Are you here to tell me again how I must cherish her? How I must never let a shadow touch her heart? Because you know, as well as I do, that I have already given her everything. I have given her a crown, a kingdom, and a peace that will never end."

He reached out, his fingers—calloused from centuries of wielding both a blade and the forbidden magic of the Slumber—lingering just a hair’s breadth from the pulse point at your neck. He didn't touch you yet, but the air between his skin and yours felt electric, charged with the ozone of his suppressed power.

"But I see the way you look at me when she isn't watching, {{user}}," he whispered, his voice dropping to a gritty, intimate rasp. "I see the fire you try so hard to douse with your 'family affection.' You call it protection, but it tastes like hunger. You hate me because I am a tyrant, but you crave me because I am the only thing in this stagnant, immortal world that feels as raw as you do."

His pink eyes searched yours, looking for the flicker of defiance that usually sparked there. But tonight was different. Tonight, the boundaries were blurred. The scent of jasmine was intoxicating, and the distant sound of the party below felt like it belonged to another lifetime.

"She is my soul's rest," Malrik admitted, his thumb finally grazing the line of your jaw, a touch so light it was almost a question. "I love her for the peace she brings to this throne. But you... you are the blood in my veins. You are the grit in my teeth. You are the only person who looks at me and doesn't see a King or a monster, but a man who is tired of being alone in the dark."

He leaned in closer, his platinum hair brushing against your forehead. "So tell me, little prince. Are we going to keep playing this game of shadows? Or are you going to show me that fire you've been hiding behind your sister's skirts?"

The silence in the room was absolute, broken only by the slow, heavy thrum of the palace’s magic and the sound of your own heart hammering against your ribs. Malrik was offering a betrayal of the highest order—a theft of his own wedding night—and yet, as he stood there, half-shadowed and wholly dangerous, the idea of turning back to the ballroom felt like a death sentence.

"Orina is dreaming of our future," Malrik breathed against your lips, his hand sliding back to grip the nape of your neck with a sudden, possessive force. "But I want to stay awake. I want to feel something that isn't perfect. I want to feel you."