The courtyard was silent, save for the ragged breaths of the broken elders and the soft hum of Lucavion’s starlight blade. His words echoed in Jayan’s mind, a cruel refrain that she could not escape.
“Rat Jayan…”
The name reverberated through her like the tolling of a bell, each repetition a hammer blow to her already crumbling spirit. Rat Jayan. A creature who scurried in the dark. A betrayer. A coward. The words seemed to coil around her, binding her in an unshakable truth.
Her gaze remained fixed on Lucavion, whose form stood like an unrelenting shadow against the chaos around them. His dark eyes pierced her to the core, his expression betraying no pity, no sympathy. He was the harbinger of judgment she had earned—her choices brought him here, her sins had summoned him.
And then, she saw it.
A flicker of movement—a flash of white—cutting through the smoke-choked air. Enjoy exclusive content from empire
What is that?
Jayan’s glassy eyes followed the shape as it leapt gracefully onto Lucavion’s shoulders, its movements fluid and weightless, like drifting snow. A small, delicate figure settled there—a cat, its pristine white fur shimmering faintly, untouched by the blood or dust that stained the ground.
But it was the eyes that struck her.
Golden. Radiant and unyielding. Eyes that she knew. Eyes that had watched her grow, had guided her, had believed in her.
“Ah…” Jayan’s breath hitched, her trembling hand lifting just slightly as if reaching for the vision before her. Her vision blurred with tears, her lips parting in a trembling whisper.
“Master…”
The cat tilted its head slightly, those golden eyes fixing on her with an expression that seemed to see everything—all her triumphs, her failures, her sins.
It was her.
Vitaliara.
Her master. The Guardian Beast of Life. The being she had betrayed.
A strange stillness washed over Jayan, drowning out the pain in her limbs, the blood pooling around her knees. It was as though the world had faded away, leaving only her and the soft radiance of those golden eyes.
‘Why is she here?’ the thought whispered in her mind. And yet, as she stared at Vitaliara—at the form of her master perched so effortlessly on Lucavion’s shoulder—Jayan felt no anger. No resentment. Only clarity.
It was her.
The one she had turned her back on. The one she had traded for power that was never hers to hold.
Vitaliara’s gaze held no malice, no vengeance. Only quiet understanding. And in that moment, Jayan understood something she had refused to admit.
She had done this to herself.
Her betrayal. Her ambition. Her choice to reach beyond what she deserved.
“You forfeited that right the day you betrayed her,” Lucavion’s voice echoed in her mind, his words now carrying the weight of a final truth.
Jayan’s lips trembled. Slowly, painfully, a smile crept across her bloodstained face—fragile and broken, yet strangely serene.
“I… I am sorry,” she whispered.
It was all she could say. The only words left to her.
Her strength left her as though carried away by the wind. Her knees buckled, her body sagging forward. She fell onto the blood-soaked ground, her silver-streaked hair fanning out around her like a wilted blossom.
The smile remained on her face as her vision dimmed, the golden light of Vitaliara’s eyes the last thing she saw.
And as the darkness swallowed her whole, Jayan felt no fear. No bitterness. Only a strange sense of peace—one born from the clarity she had denied herself for so long.
********
Lucavion stood over Jayan’s lifeless form, his starlight blade humming faintly, as though even the weapon mourned the silence left in her wake. Blood pooled around her, dark and glistening under the shattered remnants of the courtyard sky. And in that moment—amidst the ruin, the betrayal, and the ghosts of choices long past—there was nothing but stillness.
At his side, perched with delicate grace upon his shoulder, Vitaliara watched Jayan’s body with those golden, unfathomable eyes. Her gaze, shimmering like molten sunlight, seemed to pierce through the empty shell Jayan had become, reaching for something beyond the mortal realm. And then she spoke.
[Why?]
Her voice was soft, the single word carrying no anger, no judgment—only a quiet, aching bewilderment. It lingered, as though it might draw an answer from the corpse itself. And yet, Lucavion felt the question was not meant for the fallen alone.
His dark eyes flickered toward Vitaliara, his expression unreadable, though beneath that surface there was something far more turbulent. Something fractured. Why?
“Indeed.” Lucavion’s voice emerged like a low murmur, sharp but quiet, cutting through the heavy silence. “I wonder why.”
His gaze dropped back to Jayan’s crumpled form, taking in the fragile lines of the woman who had, in her ambition, shattered everything she once believed in. Blood matted her silver-streaked hair, but her face… her face, though streaked with dirt and tears, was almost serene in its finality.
‘Foolish,’ Lucavion thought, but even as the word entered his mind, it lingered uneasily. Is it foolish to dream? To want more than what the world offers?
He crouched beside her, the hem of his cloak brushing against the crimson-stained stones. His fingers reached out, stopping just short of her still form. A peculiar pang touched his chest—one he wasn’t prepared to name.
“She betrayed her master. Betrayed you.” Lucavion’s voice was measured, but there was a faint edge to it, a subtle rasp that betrayed the thought unspoken. ‘And yet… was she truly so different from the rest of us?’
Vitaliara tilted her head, her golden eyes narrowing faintly as if sifting through Lucavion’s words. [It does not answer why,] she murmured, her voice carrying a depth far older than the mortal world. [Why would she trade her heart, her loyalty, for something that was never promised to her? Did she believe it would free her?]
Lucavion’s mouth quirked, though the smile never quite reached his eyes. “We are all prisoners of something,” he replied softly, his gaze lingering on Jayan’s curled fists, as though the bloodstained ground still held the secrets of her desperation. “Chains take many forms, Vitaliara—poverty, pride, dreams too big for the hands that carry them.”
He exhaled slowly, the breath escaping him like a whisper of smoke. ‘Greed…..it is indeed a dangerous emotion.’
He thought inwardly.
‘Greed and pride…..’
Lucavion shook his head slowly, strands of his dark hair falling to shadow his sharp features. The quiet hum of the starlight blade at his side faded as he released his grip, its light dimming like a star retreating beyond the horizon. His expression was inscrutable—neither pitying nor cruel—merely weary, as though the weight of understanding carried its own price.
“Greed and pride…” he murmured to no one in particular, his voice carrying the echo of something final. “They drive us forward, clawing for more… until we find ourselves buried beneath their weight.”
Straightening, Lucavion rose to his full height, his cloak sweeping in a quiet arc as he stood. His shadow stretched long across the blood-soaked stones, reaching for Jayan like a specter come to collect what little remained. He looked down at her one last time, something fleeting passing through his gaze—acknowledgment, perhaps. Or something softer. Understanding? No, not quite.
Vitaliara’s golden eyes remained fixed on him, unblinking. Her fur shimmered faintly in the dim light, the weight of her silence heavier than words. For a being who had seen empires rise and fall, Lucavion knew she was no stranger to betrayal, ambition, or loss. And yet, there was something different about the way she regarded Jayan—something softer in the tilt of her head, the narrowing of her gaze. A quiet lament, perhaps, for a mortal soul who had dared to believe in something she could never truly hold.
[Humans,] she said at last, her voice low and resonant, [always bring something different before my eyes. No matter how many I’ve watched rise and fall, they remain… surprising.]
Lucavion tilted his head toward her, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, though it carried no warmth. “Surprising… or exhausting?”
Vitaliara huffed softly, the sound halfway between amusement and resignation. [Both.]
The corner of Lucavion’s lips quirked further, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared. He cast his gaze across the courtyard, the once-pristine walls of the Azure Blossom Sect now smeared with the blood of Jayan’s shattered ambition. The faint flicker of torches cast shadows over the fallen bodies of her loyalists, warriors who had fought and died for promises they would never see fulfilled.
“I suppose,” Lucavion said, his voice cutting cleanly through the silence, “now that we’ve dealt with the matter, it is time for the real work.”
*******
“What….What happened here?”
In his entire life, he could never have expected to see this scene before his eyes.
“This…..”
Neither Manco nor Shelia…..
They were utterly speechless….
With the corpses and all the other things spread around them…..
It was a scene of massacre.
Indeed, it was a bloody river.