Rise of the Lustful Evil Monarch (Re)

Third Person's POV

It had been too long since she had felt such closeness and this stillness.

After what felt like forever apart, they drank in the moment with reverence.

Then Nyx spoke suddenly in a low voice as she brushed with a rare vulnerability.

"Like you saw… I can no longer stay with you in the Sanctum, little Ethan. Tell me, are you sad?"

Her words pierced gently, like a cool breeze over warm skin, but Ethan also seemed to sense a hint of danger in her voice, and he couldn't help but feel that if he gave the wrong answer, he would suffer.

He inhaled sharply, and though he tried to hide it, a sigh escaped him as he answered not with bravado, but from the depths of his heart as his voice became tinged with the ache of unspoken dreams.

"Yes… I am sad, Master. When I saw you like this… in that form… I had already imagined your plan.

To be honest, I was indeed excited, but it seemed that fate had decided something else for us."

Nyx lifted her head at that and started searching his face.

As she focused, she could see in his eyes that those crimson depths held sincerity and something raw.

Seeing that, her heart softened and without a word, she reached up and cupped his cheeks.

As he felt her warm palms against his skin, she squished his face between her hands and forced his lips to pout slightly as her golden eyes narrowed in mock sternness.

"There is no need to be sad," she said in a voice both playful and fierce.

"You are still my little boy, and no one—and I mean no one can keep us apart if I don't allow it.

We will meet in that mountain town below the Sanctum every few days, and I will appear whenever I like. Let them try and stop me."

Saying that, she tilted her head and gave him a small grin as a mischievous glint danced in her eyes.

"Now tell me… are you happy, baby?"

Ethan tried to smile, though his expression was still slightly strained as he nodded slowly.

Seeing him like that, this tall, broad-shouldered man she had watched grow from a scrawny child, Nyx laughed softly.

In that moment, he wasn't a warrior or a prodigy.

He was just her Ethan, the boy who used to hold her hand and ask a hundred questions, and who clung to her when nightmares came.

But now there was stubble along his chin, and that small detail brought a pause to her thoughts.

Her smile faded slightly as she remembered something and then, leaning close to his ear, her voice dropped to a whisper, soft as a falling petal.

"Do you miss your mother, little Ethan?"

Hearing such an unexpected sentence, Ethan froze as her words had struck something buried deep.

His gaze, which had been fixed gently on her, suddenly dulled and then brightened in the next second like a candle reignited as something inside him had cracked and he went still in the next second.

In the silence that followed, a distant, hazy yet vibrant memory stirred in his mind.

He could vaguely visualize the moment when a woman's arms had wrapped around him.

She was humming softly in her melodious and loving voice while shimmering violet hair fell like a curtain around his face as his tiny hands tangled in it.

Her face remained hidden in a soft haze, but her eyes, those warm and gentle violet eyes, shone with a love so profound it made his chest ache as he remembered it.

But no matter how hard he tried, the details of her face stayed blurred and unreachable, and he knew that the reason behind it was the long years that had eroded them like waves over stone.

And suddenly, the guilt came crashing down. First publishеd оn М|V|L!ЕМРYR.

It had been so long, so long since he had even thought about her.

Lost in his battles, his growth, and his bonds in this new continent, he had pushed aside the one thing that should never have faded: his family.

He had forgotten that they were still waiting, searching, and all the while hurting to their core.

Remembering that, regret consumed him in a flash, and soon tears welled in his eyes and started slipping down his cheeks silently as his breath trembled with sorrow.

He couldn't stop them, no matter how hard he tried, as a lifetime of weight, of longing and silent sorrow, poured out through those tears.

This was the first time, truly the first time, that Nyx had seen him in such a situation where he had laid himself truly bare.

Her strong, proud, and calm disciple, the boy who had never allowed himself to cry, was now crumbling in her arms like wax.

He couldn't speak, and even though his lips parted, no words came out of them, and the only thing that did come out were the broken sounds of sad breaths filled with grief.

Seeing him in such a low state, she finally reacted and, pulling him closer, she wrapped her arms around him tightly in a protective but gentle embrace.

Her hand ran gently along his back as she attempted to soothe and anchor him even though she had no experience in such a thing.

She let him be vulnerable as she held him like he was something fragile and priceless.

Minutes passed like that, until she felt the quakes of his breath soften, and his body relaxing slowly in her arms.

Then she spoke in a decisive and clear voice.

"We're going to the Dark Star Continent next week. Prepare yourself, little Ethan. I will come back here for you… And we will be going to your family."

She paused there and let the weight of her promise settle.

"It's finally time…"

Hearing her, he muttered as her words hit like thunder in his soul.

Ethan's tear-filled eyes widened, and disbelief was written all over his face.