Chapter 291: A Grave Waiting for the Living
[Silthara Palace—Training Field—Continuation]
He sucked in a breath, and his brows drew together, but he did not pull away and his voice came out strained, "Zer...It hurts."
The words struck something. Zeramet’s eyes flickered as he released Levin at once as if burned, but the damage had already been done. A red mark bloomed around Levin’s wrist where his fingers had been.
Several knights visibly flinched. Zeramet turned so sharply the air itself seemed to recoil.
"DISMISS."
The word cracked across the field like thunder; every knight jolted.
No one dared hesitate. They scattered at once...some nearly tripping over their own feet in their haste to obey, others dragging their stunned companions with them. Within moments, the training field was clearing in every direction.
Only Duke Aren remained. Zeramet’s breathing was too even now; that was how Levin knew he was furious. The Malik turned toward the Duke and forced the next words through his teeth as he said, "Father, please leave us."
Aren did not move immediately.
His gaze went first to Levin, to the red mark on his wrist, to the stubborn set of his son’s mouth. Then he looked back at Zeramet, and for the first time that morning, the Duke’s expression held something very close to warning.
"Be gentle with him."
Zeramet said nothing.
Aren studied him for one beat longer, then gave a short nod and stepped away, retrieving his sword from the sand before leaving the field.
The moment he was gone, the silence changed, no longer public and no longer performative. Now it was just the two of them standing in the center of the arena with too much fear and too much anger trapped between them.
Zeramet looked at Levin’s back for a moment before speaking as he said, voice low, "Now tell me, what made you decide this on your own?"
Levin turned to face him fully; there was hurt in his eyes now. Hurt—and something harder beneath it.
"What would you have me do?" Levin asked. "Wait?"
His voice sharpened.
"Wait for another attack? Wait until they slip through the palace walls? Wait until one of them gets close enough to touch our children?"
Zeramet’s jaw tightened. Levin took one step closer as he demanded. "What if next time I’m too late? What if next time I lose one of my kids?"
That was enough.
Zeramet grabbed him by both arms and yanked him forward until their bodies were only inches apart.
"Consort, do you think this is a simple war?" Zeramet’s voice dropped into something lethal. "Do you think hunting the black serpents is the same as leading a border war or crushing some arrogant noble house?"
Levin stared back at him without flinching.
Zeramet’s grip tightened as he said,
"They do not fight like ordinary enemies. They do not announce themselves. They do not march under banners. They do not strike where you expect them to strike. Their silence is their weapon. Their patience is their weapon. You do not even know when they are already watching you."
He leaned closer.
"So tell me, Consort... how dare you stand here and speak of wiping them out as if it is some simple matter of drawing your sword and marching into battle?"
Levin’s eyes flashed. "I don’t care how they fight."
"You should."
"I don’t."
"Then you are being foolish."
Levin laughed once; it held no amusement as his voice echoed. "Foolish? For wanting to make sure no one touches my children?"
"Our children," Zeramet snapped.
Levin did not back down. "Then all the more reason for me to move first."
Zeramet’s fingers bit harder into his arms.
"No."
Levin’s gaze sharpened.
"No?" he repeated.
"No," Zeramet said again, quieter this time...but infinitely more dangerous. "You do not get to decide alone that you will throw yourself into a war against a clan that has hidden itself for centuries."
Levin’s lips parted, disbelief flashing across his face as he asked. "And what exactly do you intend to do? Lock me inside the palace and tell me to smile while others fight in my place?"
"If I must. I will do it."
Levin went still.
Zeramet’s voice dropped lower. "Do not test me on this."
The wind swept across the training ground, carrying dust and the metallic scent of sweat and steel between them. Levin stared at him, and when he spoke again, his voice was no longer sharp; it was worse and it was quiet as Levin said, "If I have to give my life to keep them safe, then I will."
Zeramet’s entire body locked. Levin held his gaze and continued, every word deliberate.
"No matter how deadly the black serpents are... I will never let them reach my children. Even if it costs my death—"
"Say one more word," Zeramet cut in, his voice suddenly so cold it felt like the air had split open, "and I will put you in chains myself."
Levin froze; the field fell deathly silent. For one long heartbeat, neither of them moved. Levin looked at him as though he had misheard.
"...What?"
Zeramet stepped closer...too close. His hands slid from Levin’s arms to his wrists, locking around them with frightening steadiness as he forced Levin to look at him.
"I said," Zeramet murmured, every syllable shaking with a control that felt one breath away from breaking, "that if you speak of throwing your life away again, I will lock every door in this palace, seal every gate, and cage you with my own hands if that is what it takes."
Levin’s breath caught; the words hit harder than the grip ever had. His eyes searched Zeramet’s face...shock first, then hurt, then something almost brittle.
"You would cage me?" he asked quietly.
Zeramet’s jaw clenched. "If that is the only way to keep you alive—yes."
Levin stared at him; the pain that crossed his face then was brief but devastating, not because he believed Zeramet was bluffing, but because he knew he wasn’t.
Zeramet stepped closer still until their foreheads nearly touched, until his voice no longer sounded like anger at all. It sounded like fear.
"I will not lose you again," he said.
The words came out rough...too raw and too immediate.
Levin’s expression changed; his brows drew together. "...Again?"
Zeramet froze; the world seemed to stop. Levin searched his face carefully now, blue eyes narrowing as they traced every fracture Zeramet had failed to hide.
"Why do you keep speaking as if I’ve already died once?"
No answer, not a single one, only silence...deadly, suffocating silence. Zeramet’s hands loosened around Levin’s wrists, but he did not let go completely. He couldn’t.
Levin’s gaze did not leave his face; the morning wind hissed through the empty training field, a banner snapped overhead, and still Zeramet said nothing.
Because what could he say?
That he had walked through the royal graveyard after Asha’s funeral and found Levin’s name carved into stone?
That beneath that name was a death date that had not happened yet? That ever since seeing it, every reckless word from Levin’s mouth felt like a knife being twisted into Zeramet’s ribs?
Levin exhaled slowly, then, with a composure that somehow hurt more than anger would have, he stepped back. Zeramet’s hands slipped from him. Levin looked at him one last time.
Whatever he saw in Zeramet’s face seemed to settle something inside him, because his expression closed...not fully, but enough.
"We should go back," Levin said quietly.
No accusation, no raised voice, and no dramatic demand for answers. Just that, which was somehow worse. He turned and began walking out of the training field without another word.
Zeramet did not stop him; he stood there, rooted to the earth, watching Levin’s retreating figure grow smaller and smaller against the pale morning light. Only when Levin vanished beyond the stone archway did Zeramet realize his hands were trembling.
He looked down at them, then up, toward the direction of the royal graveyard, and his breath grew heavier. The memory hit him without mercy—
White stone, cold earth, and a name carved where no living name should be.
Levin Veyrhold.
Not some forgotten noble, not a distant commander.
Levin, his consort. The father of his children, the consort, maybe he had once failed to protect.
Zeramet’s chest tightened so violently it felt as if something inside him had been split open.
He remembered the grave exactly as it had stood beneath the sky—silent, impossible, merciless in its certainty. He remembered the date. The hidden seal. The line carved beneath it like a curse left behind by a world that had already ended once before.
And now Levin had stood before him in the training field, speaking of sacrifice, of death, of throwing himself at the black serpents if it meant keeping the children safe—as if Zeramet had not already seen the proof of what that future might become.
His hands shook harder.
"I won’t let it happen," he whispered to no one.
The wind carried the words away. Zeramet closed his eyes for a single moment, breathing through the pressure crushing his lungs.
Then he opened them again, and there was nothing soft left in his gaze, only terror sharpened into tyranny, only love twisted into something controlling, ruthless, and desperate enough to become monstrous if that was what survival demanded.
If fate wanted Levin dead, then Zeramet would become something far worse than fate. He would chain prophecy itself by the throat, and if Levin hated him for it—if Levin looked at him with hurt in those blue eyes and called him cruel—then so be it.
Cruelty was a small price to pay for keeping him breathing.
The empty training field stood silent around him, littered with footprints, scattered sand, and the echo of words neither of them could take back.
Far above, the royal banners of Silthara snapped in the morning wind, and somewhere beneath the palace, beneath stone, beneath history, beneath the lies of one broken timeline, a grave waited with Levin’s name on it.
END OF SEASON: TWO
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