1. The First Death #2
He had only meant to rest his eyes for a moment. But the moment stretched too long.
He woke to a sound like thunder cracking the earth apart.
The ground beneath him trembled violently. A deafening explosion tore through the cavern. Dust and debris rained down. Dorian threw an arm over his mouth as he stumbled upright. He could hear the groan of stone giving way, the unmistakable sound of a tunnel breaking open.
Dorian pressed himself against the rock wall, peering out as the dust began to settle. His heart pounded as figures emerged through the shattered barrier—the soldiers of Ashvold, marching forward, their banners unfurling in the flickering torchlight.
They had done it. The Duke had broken through.
And he was waiting for them.
Duke Drakefell stood outside the mine, a satisfied smirk on his face as he extended a hand in greeting to the approaching general. Dorian’s stomach twisted in horror. He had been right, but far too late. Haverland was exposed, and the Duke had welcomed the enemy like an honoured guest.
Dorian took a step back, intending to retreat, but a rough hand seized his arm. Before he could react, another wrenched his other arm behind his back, forcing him down onto his knees. The Ashvold soldiers had found him.
Dorian struggled, but a gauntleted fist struck the side of his head, sending white-hot pain lancing through his skull. Stars burst across his vision. He barely registered the hands dragging him forward, half-conscious, until the voices around him became clearer.
“Caught him lurking, my lord,” one of the soldiers sneered, shoving Dorian to the ground before the Duke.
Drakefell’s smirk widened as he crouched beside him. “Lord Nightbloom,” he sneered. “What an unexpected pleasure.”
Dorian spat at his feet. He tried to summon words—some retort, some threat of vengeance, but he couldn’t form them.
Drakefell chuckled. “Kill him,” he commanded.
Before anyone could act on that order, a commotion stirred from the direction of the manor. Voices—confused, uncertain—broke through the dust. Dorian barely had time to register them before a figure emerged from the gloom.
Selene.
She stood at the edge of the clearing, her face pale, her expression unreadable. The staff of Nocturne Hall clustered behind her, eyes darting between their duke and their duchess, as if unsure who to side with.
For a split second, the Duke was distracted. Dorian seized the moment, lurching forward with all the strength he had left, aiming for his throat.
He never made it.
Pain exploded in his stomach. A dagger—Drakefell’s dagger—buried itself deep in his flesh. He gasped, the world tipping sideways as his knees buckled.
Selene screamed.
The servants surged forward, some attempting to restrain the Duke’s men, others grabbing whatever weapons they could find.
The air swarmed with the clash of steel and guttural cries.
. Shadows danced wildly across the walls.
Torches hit the floor. Orders rang out, servants shrieked, bodies hit the floor in dull, echoing thuds.
Pickaxes and shovels became makeshift weapons in the hands of those brave or desperate enough to fight.
A servant swung a rusted chain at a soldier’s head, sending him sprawling into a pile of loose rock.
Another was wrestled to the ground, his cry cut short by a mailed fist. Sparks flew as swords scraped against stone.
Someone overturned a cart of ore, sending it careening into a cluster of men, scattering them like startled rats.
Through the haze of pain, Dorian felt the presence of someone hovering over him. Selene’s face swam into focus. “Get up,” she said. “ Please get up!”
Dorian didn’t think he could, but Selene was asking him, so he had to try. His limbs felt leaden, the pain in his abdomen sharp and blinding, white-hot. He tried to move. He couldn’t.
But then her arm was around him, pulling him upright. A gasp tore from his throat, but she didn’t let go, didn’t stop.
Around them, chaos reigned on. Servants fought against the Duke’s guards with whatever they had.
A man fell to his knees, clutching at the blood welling from his throat.
A woman struck one of the Duke’s soldiers in the face with a cast-iron pan, sending him sprawling, but another tackled her a moment later.
They were all going to die. It was only a matter of time.
Duke Drakefell’s voice cut through the din. “Find them! Get them! They cannot leave this mine!”
Selene flinched, but kept dragging Dorian forward, her breath coming fast and ragged. Dorian barely had the strength to move, but he forced himself to match her steps, knowing that if they fell behind, they’d be caught.
And Selene would die with him.
“You should… yo u should run…” he told her.
“No, thank you,” she said, her voice trembling. She offered no more excuse for why she was helping him.
They staggered away, slipping through the shifting mass of bodies, the battle fading behind them. Every breath burned, every movement was agony, but Selene did not stop. Dorian was conscious of strange things. The smell of Selene’s hair, gravel underfoot, spots in his sight.
Blood in his boots. Far, far too much of it.
“We… we should find shelter,” Dorian suggested.
Selene nodded. They spotted a narrow gap between the rocks. An alcove, Dorian thought, half-hidden by ivy. It would do. She pulled him underneath the foliage, only it wasn’t alcove, or even a cave.
It was a passage.
It wasn’t part of the mine, Dorian realised through his haze of pain. The walls were smooth, not freshly cut, and the air had the scent of dust rather than damp earth. It looked like an ancient path, one not meant to be found.
They pressed forward, their steps unsteady. The passage twisted and turned, its walls lined with faded carvings. The deeper they went, the quieter the world became, as if they had stepped into a place forgotten by both men and gods. At last, the tunnel widened, and they emerged into a vast chamber.
Brittle sunlight filtered through a collapsed section of the ceiling, illuminating a row of broken pews and a crumbling altar. The scent of old incense lingered in the air, barely perceptible beneath the dust.
An abandoned temple.
Dorian barely made it through the temple entrance before his knees gave out. Selene caught him as he collapsed, steering him towards a pile of rubble. She propped him up against the fallen stone, her breath uneven from exertion.
“Yes, that’s right, you just… you just rest there for a little bit…” she murmured, as though she were speaking to an injured child with a scraped knee, who’d be fine as soon as he forg ot about the pain.
Dorian already knew he wouldn’t be.
He turned his gaze around the room. Stained light filtered through cracks in the dome, painting the wreckage in fractured colours.
It was a ruin of time and war, its once-grand pillars crumbling, half-swallowed by creeping bracken and shattered glass.
A statue, faceless and worn by centuries, loomed above the altar.
A goddess, he thought. It was hard to tell. She was so far away…
“Where are we?” he wheezed.
“A temple of some kind,” Selene said. “I’ve never seen it before.”
Her fingers ghosted towards the dagger in his abdomen, brushing the hilt. His body flinched at the touch, but the pain barely registered anymore.
“You’re not… you’re not supposed to pull it out,” he told her. Not that it would make much difference now.
“Is that something they taught you at school while they taught us embroidery?”
“I guess,” he said, voice weak. “My embroidery is terrible.”
A faint laugh passed between them, thin as thread, fraying at the edges.
“What… what do you like doing?” Selene asked, as though they were standing at a ball, exchanging polite pleasantries instead of crouched in a temple ruin, waiting for him to bleed out.
As though they were old friends, instead of strangers tied together by…
well, he didn’t know. But there must have been a reason she felt she couldn’t abandon him.
He was grateful for it, whatever it was.
No one wanted to die alone.
“I like… I like riding,” he told her, words growing softer. “Fencing. Sketching—”
“What do you sketch?”
“Flowers, mostly,” he admitted, and then, because he was dying and no longer cared, “roses.”
Like the symbol of your house.
“I’ve always preferred wildflowers,” Selene said, clearly missing the point .
A fresh wave of pain rippled through him, and he made a sound, something caught between a sigh and a whimper. His body was breaking beneath him.
“There, there, it’s all right,” Selene soothed, her fingers going to his temple. “You’ll be fine.”
She was wrong, of course. They both knew it.
“What will you do now?” Dorian asked.
The colour drained from Selene’s already pale face. “I don’t… I don’t know. Wait until the forces have passed through. See if I can find Cassie and a horse. Go, go—somewhere.”
“Your parents?”
“I’m not sure they’ll have me.”
Dorian closed his eyes. He thanked the gods for the family he had, rather than the one he had lost. He thought of Soren, Ariella, Rookwood, Aunt Elizabeth. All of Thornmere.
Tears leaked from his eyes. He would never see them again.
Selene’s fingers brushed his cheek, wiping them away. He felt her touch, but not much else. His body was growing numb.
“If you can, go… go to Ebonrose,” he told her.
“Ebonrose?”
“My family home. They’ll look after you.”
“They don’t even know me.”
“That won’t matter. They didn’t know me once upon a time.”
He wished he was back there now. He’d always wanted to die there, always imagined that he would, surrounded by his friends, a family, maybe—not here in a mountain temple, next to a girl he barely knew and desperately wished he knew better. He wanted Ariella, Soren, Rookwood, Aunt Elizabeth.
He wanted his father.
Dorian forced his eyes open. Gods, she was beautiful. He didn’t want to die. Not here. Not now. But if he had to, there were worse places to expire than in her arms.
A chill passed over him. “I’m cold,” he whispered.
Selene moved closer, wrapping her arms around him. His head lolled against her shoulder, the scent of her hair the last thing he would ever know .
Sensation fell away.
His eyes grew heavy.
And then—nothing.
Nothing, except her arms.
That was the first time Dorian Nightbloom died.
It was far from the last.