POV: Sera
The doors open, and the breath leaves my body.
The throne room is vast and dark—not dark in a threatening way, but dark like midnight sky. Bioluminescent lights float at various heights, creating shadows that seem alive. The walls stretch so far up I can barely see the ceiling. And dominating the entire space, on a throne carved from obsidian, sits something that makes every cell in my body respond.
He's massive. Seven feet tall, maybe more—I can't quite process his size. His skin is pure black, but not empty black. It's like looking into space itself, swirling with silver veins that run beneath the surface like constellations. Four eyes—two large and violet, two smaller and silver at his temples—fix on me.
And the moment those eyes find mine, my power explodes.
I don't activate it deliberately. It erupts from me like a volcano, golden light flooding my skin, ancient symbols igniting across my palms and arms. The light is so bright guards squint, but Kael'thor just watches me with those four glowing eyes.
And I see.
Oh god, I see everything.
Beneath the monster exterior, beneath the crushing weight of leadership that presses down on him like a physical force, beneath centuries of impossible decisions and guilt and loss... I see a being who is profoundly, achingly alone. Two hundred years of solitude carved into his bones. Two hundred years of carrying worlds on his shoulders. Two hundred years of being feared instead of seen.
I see his deepest desire: someone to look at him and not see a monster. Someone to know that saving his people wasn't evil. Someone to tell him he's done enough.
I see him, truly see him, and the power of that sight knocks the breath from my lungs.
Kael'thor stands slowly from his throne.
Each movement is deliberate, powerful, dangerous. He descends the steps with predatory grace, and with each step closer, I feel the pull between us intensify. It's not just recognition. It's attraction—primal, undeniable, dangerous.
He stops three feet away, and his four eyes scan across my face like he's memorizing me. Like he's been waiting his entire existence to find someone who looks exactly like this.
"What are you?" His voice is like thunder rolling across a distant sky.
The question hangs between us, loaded with meaning I don't fully understand.
"I don't know," I whisper, and my voice shakes. "This morning, I didn't know I could even do this."
Kael'thor takes another step forward, and suddenly he's close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his gaze. His presence is overwhelming—the sheer size of him, the raw power radiating from his skin, the intensity in those four eyes that see me so completely.
"You're not human anymore," he says, and it's not a question. It's an observation. A claim.
"No," I agree, my golden light burning brighter. "I'm not."
He reaches out slowly, giving me time to pull away. I don't. His clawed hand comes close to my face, and I feel the warmth of his skin even though we're not quite touching. His fingers trace the air beside my cheek, and the gesture is so gentle from someone so massive that tears prick my eyes.
"Say something for me," Kael'thor commands softly. "Use your power. Look into me. Tell me what you see."
My heart pounds. The entire court watches us—every mutant guard, every servant, every being in the throne room holding their breath.
I meet his violet gaze directly and let my power flow.
I see him—not just his desires, but his memories. Flashes of a dying world. A young prince watching his family perish. The burden of leadership forcing itself onto shoulders too young to carry it. Centuries of choices that haunt him. Millions of lives depending on his every decision. The suffocating loneliness of being untouchable, feared, alone.
And underneath it all: hope. Ancient, desperate, fragile hope that someday someone would see past the monster and recognize the being underneath.
"You're exhausted," I whisper, the words escaping before I can stop them. "You've been carrying everyone else's weight for so long, you forgot what it felt like to just... be."
The entire court freezes.
Kael'thor's four eyes flash—violet brightening to near white. The bioluminescent markings on his skin flare to life, ancient Xar'ethian script appearing across his arms and chest like a language of pure power.
"You speak to the King this way?" His voice is quiet. Dangerous.
I should be terrified. Every instinct screams at me to apologize, to bow, to make myself small. Instead, I step closer.
"I speak to someone who's been alone too long," I tell him, and my voice steadies with certainty. "I see you, Kael'thor. Not the monster. Not the King. Just... you."
He moves so fast the guards reach for weapons. But Kael'thor doesn't attack.
He touches me.
His clawed hand—carefully, so carefully—comes to my face, cupping my cheek with surprising tenderness. His thumb traces my skin, and the contact sends electricity through my entire body.
"No one has ever seen me before," he says, and there's something broken and hopeful in his voice. "Not in two hundred years."
I'm hyperaware of everything—his touch, his heat, the way his four eyes burn as they study my face. The way my power responds to his presence, growing stronger, more vivid. The way my heart races.
"Someone sees you now," I tell him.
Kael'thor's hand moves to my jaw, tilting my face up toward his. He's close enough that I can feel the energy radiating from his skin. Close enough that I can see the silver veins running beneath his obsidian surface glow brighter with each second he touches me.
"This is dangerous," he says, but he doesn't pull away. "You, here, in my court, with this power. With what you do to me."
"What do I do to you?" I ask breathlessly.
"You make me want to be more than what I am," Kael'thor whispers. "You make me believe I could be seen as something worthy of—"
The throne room doors explode inward with a sound like thunder.
A guard bursts through, armor torn and bleeding, and the moment is shattered like glass.
"My King!" the guard shouts. "Humans! A diplomatic envoy from the Ashford settlement! They're demanding an audience. They're demanding... they're demanding the return of Sera Ashford, or they're threatening war!"
Kael'thor's hand drops from my face, and his entire body goes rigid.
His four eyes flash dangerously as they lock back on me, and when he speaks, his voice is different. Cold. Calculating. Royal.
"So," he says quietly, and there's something possessive in every syllable. "Your family has come to retrieve what they threw away. How... foolish of them."
He turns to face his guards, and in that turn, I see the monster return—not because he is one, but because he's choosing to let them see one.
"Prepare the war chamber," he commands. "And make sure our guest does not leave these chambers. She's now officially under my protection. Anyone—anyone—who tries to take her will answer to me personally."