Chapter 4

Luciano's blood ran hot. A burning sensation spread from the tattoo on his chest all the way to his limbs, right down to his bones.

He didn't let go of Cecilia's hand.

Because he could clearly feel his body getting stronger, and something inside him was waking up.

Elena gasped behind him.

"Markings are appearing on her skin... and they're moving! Three years, and nothing like this has ever happened before!"

Luciano had no time to respond. His consciousness was being pulled down by a massive force, sinking into a bottomless dark red ocean.

At the far end of the ocean, a flame was nearly dying out.

Cecilia's life force.

He had seen too many deaths in the fighting ring. He knew what a person looked like on the edge of dying, and Cecilia was exactly that — except her body was being held in place by some force, kept from dying completely, but also kept from coming back to life.

It was crueler than death.

Luciano clenched his jaw and pushed the power that had just awakened inside him toward Cecilia.

The thorned crown on his chest burned sharply, but he didn't pull back. He pushed harder.

The rose markings below Cecilia's collarbone suddenly blazed with a blinding golden light, and the air in the entire tower began to tremble.

Then the light faded.

Cecilia's fingers moved.

Elena covered her mouth as tears poured down her face.

Luciano let go and stepped back. His face was deathly pale, his forehead soaked in cold sweat — but his eyes were brighter than they had ever been.

His power had awakened.

Only part of it, but it had awakened. He could feel a door inside him cracked open, and behind it was a force so vast it was almost suffocating. But the crack was too narrow, and only the thinnest sliver had leaked through.

Even that sliver had pushed his senses up by more than one level. What is that door? How does something like that exist inside me? he thought.

On the bed, Cecilia's lashes fluttered, and then she slowly opened her eyes.

They were grey-green, a lot like Elena's, but colder and deeper.

"Mom?" Her voice was so hoarse it was barely audible.

Elena threw herself to the bedside and grabbed Cecilia's hand, sobbing too hard to speak.

Cecilia's gaze moved past Elena's shoulder and landed on Luciano.

She looked at him for a long time — long enough that Luciano started to wonder if she was fully conscious yet.

"Who are you?"

"Luciano Costa."

Cecilia's pupils contracted slightly. Then she looked away and didn't look at him again.

That reaction caught him off guard. By any normal logic, someone who had been asleep for three years should at least be a little curious about the person who woke her up. But Cecilia's response was more like she had confirmed something and then lost interest.

Elena filled Cecilia in on everything that had happened over the past three years — in bits and pieces — including Edmond's ambitions, the Elder Council's control, and the so-called ritual participants sent by the affiliated families.

Cecilia listened to all of it without a word. No anger, no grief, barely even a change in expression.

Three years of sleep hadn't made her fragile. If anything, it had burned away everything unnecessary, leaving behind nothing but pure, clear reasoning.

"So," Cecilia finally looked at Luciano again, "you're the person the Costa family sent to take part in the ritual. By the rules, if the ritual succeeds, you become my husband?"

"That's how the rules go." Luciano leaned against the wall, his tone casual.

"Then the rules can change."

Cecilia said it so calmly that even Elena froze.

"Cecilia, he just saved your life..."

"Mom," Cecilia cut her off, "that's exactly why I can't let him become my husband."

Luciano raised an eyebrow. Now he was interested.

"Let's hear your reasoning."

Cecilia pushed herself up to sit. Three years without movement made it a struggle, but her eyes didn't show a trace of weakness.

"You've seen what the Helsing family looks like right now. Edmond has a grip on the Elder Council, controls the family's armed forces and all external trade channels. My father's will left the inheritance to me, but the will has to be certified by the Elder Council before it can be carried out."

She paused.

"If I announce that you're my husband right now, Edmond will get the Elder Council to invalidate the marriage within twenty-four hours. The reason is simple — the Costa family is an affiliated family, and you're an adopted son. How could someone like that be a worthy match for a direct-line heir like me?"

Luciano said nothing, because she was right.

Some of the Vestland Isles were closed, some were open, but to keep bloodlines "pure," marriages and inheritances between islands were strictly recorded in each family's Elder Council genealogy system.

Here, even the most powerful family, once classified as an "affiliated family," meant that most of its members could not marry into a higher-ranking family — unless they were exceptionally distinguished and had been certified by that family's Elder Council.

"And then," Cecilia continued, "the Elder Council would declare the ritual invalid and restart the process. At that point, Edmond would push forward his own candidate. I just woke up with nothing to stand on, the curse is still in my body, and I could collapse again at any moment. What would I have to fight him with?"

This woman had slept for three years, and the first thing she did after waking up wasn't cry or say thank you — it was analyze the situation.

Luciano had to admit, he was impressed.

"So you're saying you won't accept this marriage?"

"Not that I won't," Cecilia looked at him, "I can't — at least not right now. I need time to take back control of the family. Until then, I can't give Edmond any leverage."

"You're sharp." Luciano let out a short laugh, but it didn't reach his eyes.

Because he had a more difficult problem of his own.

During the process of waking Cecilia, his power had only grown by a small amount. He could feel the rest locked away deeper inside him. To recover fully, he would probably need more physical contact.

But Cecilia had just made it very clear — no marriage.

Luciano was quiet for a few seconds. Then he pushed off the wall and walked to the bedside.

"I can agree to your terms. No marriage, no public relationship. In front of everyone else, I'm just an irrelevant ritual participant sent by the Costa family."

Cecilia looked at him, clearly surprised he had agreed so quickly.

"But I have one condition of my own."

Luciano leaned down until they were eye to eye.

They were close enough that their breath mingled. Cecilia caught the faint smell of gunpowder and blood on him.

"I'm also someone under a curse. You felt what happened just now too. I'll call it a resonance state for now — but that was just simple contact, and it already reduced the curse inside me by quite a bit. My guess is that to break the curse completely, we'd need something more intimate. Something more intense."

Cecilia's expression shifted. She understood exactly what he was saying, because she had felt it too.

"What you mean is..."

"No marriage, fine," Luciano swallowed, "but I want to try kissing. Or more than that — sex. I want to try."