Chapter 3.2

The Rensier sisters have been abducted!

It was the knight who had accompanied Aria and Rosaline as their escort who returned and delivered the news.

“Send a message to the Count, now!”

“Have you alerted the palace? What about House Aphlenta?!”

One of the servants mentioned Aphlenta, and no one questioned it.

Everyone knew Synox, the undisputed heir of House Aphlenta, held deep feelings for the Rensier daughters.

And then he appeared.

A man strode past the mansion gates, platinum-blond hair glinting under the sun. Towering like a knight, with piercing blue eyes.

Synox.

The man they’d all been scrambling to find. He moved like the biting north wind as he grabbed one of the household staff.

“Thank the gods, Lord Aphlenta. Just earlier, Lady Aria—”

“Where is Miss Rosaline Rensier?”

What? The question caught the servant off guard. Wasn’t he here for Lady Aria?

“Why did you go with Lady Aria Rensier?”

“Pardon? Well… because Lady Aria asked me to…”

Synox’s brow furrowed. The servant flinched instinctively. That wasn’t the answer he wanted.

More questions followed.

“Was she wearing a bracelet? One with amethyst? She might have said she got it from her sister.”

It was a strange question, but the servant racked his brain anyway. One wrong word, and it felt like he might lose his head. Synox’s gaze was that cold.

Thankfully, one of Rosaline’s maids spoke up.

“Yes, the young miss was wearing the bracelet when she left.”

Finally, a flicker of relief crossed Synox’s ice cold expression.

He turned to the Imperial Mage who’d followed him.

“Head west. Rescue Miss Rosaline Rensier.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll go east.”

* * *

Synox Aphlenta had spent nearly a decade trying to cure one woman’s illness.

He didn’t give up easily. Especially not on goals he’d set his heart on.

Synox had decided to heal Aria’s heart, and in the end he succeeded. For one reason only.

He wanted her younger sister’s heart.

Rosaline Rensier.

“Tell me you like me.”

The girl who tried everything to keep him away from Aria.

But silencing his mouth alone was never going to solve the problem.

Eventually, Rosaline had cornered him outside the greenhouse.

“I like you.”

The summer’s sunlight shattered around her as she spoke. He’d faltered in that moment, captivated by her brilliance, and in the end he contradicted her.

It was a lie.

Rosaline didn’t know a damn thing about him.

She only knew the surface.

“I know.”

…And that was the answer she gave him.

What did she think she understood?

That day, Synox had wanted to ask her, “How can you say you like someone when you don’t know a thing about them?”

He was only lucky he didn’t blurt that question out loud.

Right after, Rosaline spoke words that revealed exactly what she had been reaching for when she grabbed him.

“Just let me have your body.”

From then on, for three years, they only met in the bedroom.

Sometimes, Synox thought to himself that maybe “liking someone” isn’t something you should express with sex alone. When people mistake physical desire for love, it leads to ruin

For three years, he collected that ruin and turned it into a single, silent wish.

I want to be in a real relationship.

“This has to be the last time.”

I have to pursue love.

One where they didn’t have to hide away from the sun, but one where they could walk proudly through the night with.

But then—

“Urgent news from House Rensier! The daughters have been…!”

How the hell did things turn out this way?

He’d only been stuck in the lab for a few days, trying to synthesize the last compound needed for Aria’s medicine.

Aria’s heart condition had been his longest-standing debt. Until he cured her, he couldn’t begin something new.

He couldn’t love Rosaline while still owing her sister her life.

After endless attempts, Synox finally found the material he needed to heal Aria’s heart and locked himself in the lab. The ingredient hadn’t surfaced in centuries, and it had to be handled in that space.

The tracking spell he’d placed on the Rensier sisters had only been broken for that short time.

But even in that short window… this happened.

Am I cursed?

He was seriously beginning to wonder. As if the world was determined to sabotage his every attempt at love.

But he wouldn’t give up.

Synox arrived at the warehouse the tracking spell pointed to.

I shouldn’t be here. I should have gone to Rosaline.

“Yes, the young miss was wearing the bracelet when she left.”

Even knowing that, he couldn’t change direction.

The bracelet he’d passed to Rosaline through Aria had been enchanted with protective magic.

At the time of its creation, Synox had been borderline paranoid. He’d stuffed every possible enchantment the gem could hold. Fireproof, unremovable, enchanted with a binding spell so no one but the wearer could remove it.

Rosaline should be safe, but walking away from her felt like betrayal.

He forced down the dread and poured magic into the warehouse’s entrance.

BOOM!

The doors exploded inward. The magic circle vanished in a flash.

Dust choked the air, and inside there was a woman slumped against the far wall.

She had blonde hair, just like both Rensier sisters. Synox stepped in, fast.

“Aria Rensier. If you’re conscious—”

He froze in his tracks, the words ceasing from his tongue.

In Aria’s hand was a bracelet.

An amethyst one that gleamed in the darkness.