The night wind felt like it was blowing in from some forgotten depth, slipping through the cracks of the ruined building with a cold so thin it cut like a blade. Silent and I were sitting in a corner on the second floor of an abandoned motel. Outside the broken window, only a streetlamp burned, its dim light flickering in the wind.
Silent hadn’t spoken the entire day.
Ever since that kiss—
Ever since the mistletoe swayed gently above our heads, as if signing some irreversible contract for us—
He’d become unnervingly quiet, like something had ripped his soul out.
It wasn’t indifference. It was fear.
Fear of coming closer to me.Fear of touching me again.Fear of what he might do if he lost control.
I wanted to reach out and lay my hand on the back of his, but the moment I shifted, he just turned his head and looked at me.
That look was like a plea:
“Don’t let me hurt you.”
I drew my hand back.
Right then, a step creaked on the broken staircase—so soft it barely existed.
It didn’t sound human.
I didn’t need to look to know who it was.
Seitheil.
He stopped in the doorway, long hair stirring lightly in the night wind, his gaze colder than usual—and more like he’d already seen through everything.
He didn’t ask anything.Just walked straight to the window, as if he were studying a world that had already been destroyed too many times.
Only after a long silence did he speak.
“You and I are like two lines of light and shadow, crossing once on the road of fate, then forced to live out parallel destinies.”
There was no lead-up to it.No sigh, no resentment.
Just cold, almost cruel calm.
I froze.
“Light… is that me?” I asked.
Seitheil nodded, fingers tapping lightly on the window frame.
“You were born into a tribe meant to maintain the cycle of life in this world. Your people are light—birth, spring, the seeds of every next rebirth.”
He lifted his eyes, looking at Silent.
“And ‘shadow’—that’s my kind. We stand watch over death, maintain order, bring endings, and keep the world’s edges from collapsing when it’s destroyed.”
I understood.
Light and shadow were always meant to face each other from afar.
Not too close.Never fully apart.
But—
Between him and me, there was Silent.
Seitheil went on, slowly:
“From the very first Rose War, you and I have been written this way. We were meant to intersect only once in fate, yet the world keeps forcing us into parallel lines.”
My heart clenched.
He wasn’t speaking in metaphors.
He was stating facts.
All I knew of the Rose Wars were scattered fragments.
So I asked, “The Rose War… what is it, really?”
Seitheil was quiet for a few seconds.
Then, in a voice like he was reciting the will of the world, he said:
“The Rose is a memory core. The Rose War is the world’s reboot command.”
My breath stopped for a moment.
Seitheil didn’t give me time to process it.
“When the world tips out of balance, when nature dies, when races massacre each other, when disasters can no longer be reversed—the Rose triggers a ‘rewrite.’
And the condition to trigger it is—”
He looked at me.
His gaze was so dark it seemed to swallow all light.
“The death of the Heart of the Luminary Elves”
I went rigid.
So that’s…
why every race wants me dead?
Seitheil’s voice dropped to a murmur:
“After you die, that core energy releases. Only then can the Rose restart the world. And we—the Dark Night kind—are the ones charged with carrying out that process.”
Silent suddenly lifted his head.
His voice was so torn it barely sounded human:
“So… the Rose’s ‘rewrite’ of the world… is just to kill her?”
Seitheil didn’t deny it.
Silent’s fingers curled, the veins on the back of his hand standing out, one by one.
In that moment, I saw something flicker in his eyes—
Not anger.Fear.
Deep, helpless fear.
Like he’d finally understood what it meant to call fate a curse.
[Silent’s POV — I]
She has to die?
When was that decided?Who decided that?Why didn’t anyone ask me?
Why is it…
Why is it that every single time, she dies before I do?
The first time was in the Rose Court.The second time was at the end of the world.The third time? Is it supposed to be here?
My hands are shaking.
I don’t know if it’s anger.Or terror.
Terror of losing her.Terror of being useless again.Terror that…
I still won’t be able to stop fate.
Seitheil looked at us—at me and Silent—as if we were two lines that were never meant to intersect, now forcibly tangled together.
He continued:
“The First Rose War—she died. Silent killed himself to follow her. That was your first intersection—and the trigger that rebooted the world.”
“The Second Rose War—the end of the world. To bring him back, you offered your life to the blood of the Dark Night. That was the choice that made me choose wrong. The world collapsed because of it, and the Rose had no choice but to throw all three core fragments into a new world.”
Seitheil raised his hand, pointing to the modern street outside.
“This place is the Third Rose War.”
I drew in a shaky breath.
“Then… this time, is the reboot condition still the same?”
Seitheil stayed silent for a long moment.
Then said:
“The Rose memory core has never changed its reboot protocol.”
Silent got to his feet like he was about to kill someone.
“There won’t be a third time,” he growled.
His voice was no longer human.
Seitheil kept his back to us, his tone flat, as if announcing an ending already written:
“Light will always die before the reboot.
Shadow will always serve as executioner.
And the variable—”
He turned his head to look at Silent.
“Will always stand between us and rip open a new crack in destiny.”
Silent clenched his jaw.
I laced my fingers through his.
Seitheil spoke the last line. A prophecy. Or a curse.
“Light, shadow, and the variable were never meant to cross.Our first intersection was a mistake.The second was a catastrophe.The third—will rewrite the whole world.”
The night sank deeper.
Three lines of fate glowed faintly in the dark.
And I knew—
From that moment on, the three of us would never go back to our original tracks.
The night grew heavier.
Outside the ruined motel, the street lamps went out one by one,
as if this world were slowly pulling light away from us.
After Seitheil left, the air pressed down like a stone on my chest.
Silent sat by the window, his back so tense it looked like it might split.
I knew something was wrong with him.
Ever since we came back from the Rose Court, he’d been holding himself in—
Holding back his instincts, his blood, his entire self.
But tonight—
That restraint was thin as paper.
I walked toward him.
“Silent, you—”
He suddenly lifted his head.
His eyes were no longer their usual black.
A dark red was slowly spreading through them, like blood mist.
A low sound trembled in his throat—like a beast forcing its growl back down.
My heart skipped hard.
“What’s wrong?” I asked quietly.
He looked like he was forcing himself to stay still, his fingers digging hard into his thigh.
“…Don’t come closer.”
His voice was hoarse and stretched tight, dragged out from the bottom of his throat.
But I didn’t step back.
I knew he didn’t want to hurt me.
He was afraid he would.
I reached out and touched the back of his hand.
That instant—
He grabbed my wrist.
Hard.
Like he was afraid I might run.
“Silent?”
“I told you… not to come near me…”
His breathing grew fast and ragged.
Cold sweat broke out across his forehead.The tips of his teeth showed sharp and white—
Not fully bared fangs, more like something he was forcing back, halfway out.
More frightening than full transformation—because it was a sign control was starting to fail.
[Silent’s POV — II]
Her scent…Too close.
Too warm.
Like light stabbing into the deepest dark.
No.
No, I can’t… I can’t get closer…
Or I’ll…
I’ll do the thing she fears.
I don’t want…
I don’t want her to be afraid of me.
Please. Just leave—
[Back to Hanna’s POV]
He suddenly let go of me and staggered back against the wall, like something invisible was crushing his lungs.
“I don’t… know why this is happening.” He clutched at his chest, his fingers shaking like they might shatter.
“Infection… doesn’t work like this… it’s not… supposed to be…”
Like he was realizing for the first time what he’d become.
I took step after step toward him.
He looked up; the dark red in his eyes mixed with a storm of pain.
“Hanna… I’m afraid I’ll bite you.”
His voice broke.
It wasn’t a threat.
It was a plea.
The last warning from what was left of his rational mind—
“I love you—that’s why I’m afraid of myself.”
I cupped his face in my hand.
His whole body jolted like lightning had gone through him.
“Then bite,” I said softly.
His pupils tightened sharply.
I went on, “If you really can’t hold it back, then bite me.
Because you’re not a monster—you’re just someone the world forced into this.”
Silent’s breath halted.
A second later, he grabbed my shoulders, slammed me back against the wall.
Not violently—
It was that kind of restraint that’s so extreme it turns into desperation, like he was trying to lock himself inside the space around me so he wouldn’t hurt me.
His forehead pressed against mine.I could feel the veins beating under his skin.His breath was hot, disordered.
“…You don’t… you don’t know how much I want to…”
He couldn’t finish.
What stuck in his throat wasn’t words.
It was instinct.
I touched the side of his face; his body trembled like he’d been shocked.
“Silent, I’m not afraid of you.
What’s truly terrifying is fate, not you.”
His fingers dug into the wall beside my head.
The concrete cracked under his hand.
That was the edge of losing control.
I knew he couldn’t hold out much longer.
He whispered in my ear:
“The first time I died… I died with you.
The second time… I died for you.
I can’t… let you die because of me again.”
My throat tightened.
“So you want to just suffer alone?”
He shut his eyes.
The next moment, it was like something drained all the strength from him. He buried his face against my neck.
He didn’t bite.
He just rested there. Just clung to me with everything he had left.
His voice was muffled against my shoulder:
“…Hanna, I’m so afraid of loving you.”
It felt like someone had run a blade straight through my heart.
I wrapped my arms around him, letting his whole weight fall against me.
His body was trembling.
He wasn’t afraid of the dark.He wasn’t afraid of death.
He was afraid—
of losing me again.
Outside, the night sank to its deepest black.
For the first time, Silent lost control—
And at the very last moment,he didn’t bite down.
He won against his own nature.
But it also made one thing very clear to me:
The world isn’t afraid of his fangs.
The world is afraid—
of how much stronger he’ll become for my sake.
In that moment,the three lines of light, shadow, and the variable finally crossed for real.
ns216.73.216.33da2
and then Add to home screen.