Chapter 36 — The Princes Beneath The Mountain

They entered the ritual chambers just after midnight.

Snowstorms buried the cathedral above while Noctis slept uneasily beneath military lockdown and approaching coronation bells. The academy corridors remained patrolled heavily now, but Lucien knew the mountain better than the empire realized.

Of course he did.

Children raised inside cages eventually memorized every hidden exit.

Evelyn followed him through sealed lower tunnels beneath the cathedral foundations while candlelight flickered weakly across ancient stone walls carved with imperial scripture.

The deeper they descended, the colder the air became.

Not winter cold.

Burial cold.

The kind preserved intentionally.

Lucien walked ahead of her in silence, black coat moving faintly through darkness while the shadows guided them around collapsed corridors and hidden passageways beneath the mountain.

Neither spoke much anymore when fear grew too large.

Words became smaller than truth eventually.

The final door waited at the bottom of a spiral staircase descending far deeper than the official academy levels should have reached.

Massive black iron.

Covered in ritual seals.

And beneath them—

handprints.

Small ones.

Children’s.

Evelyn stopped breathing.

The candlelight trembled faintly between them.

Lucien rested one hand against the door mechanism.

For one terrible second, Evelyn saw hesitation cross his face.

Not fear of what waited inside.

Recognition.

Then the shadows unlocked the chamber.

The doors groaned open slowly.

And the smell hit first.

Preservation chemicals.

Ash.

Incense.

Death carefully maintained long enough to become ceremonial.

The chamber beyond stretched monstrously large beneath the mountain.

Ancient ritual circles covered the floor in silver-black scripture while cathedral pillars disappeared upward into darkness far beyond candlelight reach. Hundreds of glass preservation coffins lined the walls surrounding the chamber, illuminated faintly beneath glowing blue containment wards.

Children rested inside them.

Not skeletons.

Preserved bodies.

Royal heirs.

Perfectly still beneath ritual robes and silver burial crowns.

Evelyn felt horror hollow her from the inside out.

“Oh my God.”

Her voice barely survived the room.

Lucien remained motionless beside her.

The shadows around him had disappeared entirely again.

Every coffin carried a name.

PRINCE ADRIAN — Age 8

PRINCESS LYRA — Age 11

PRINCE CASSIEL — Age 14

Rows and rows and rows.

Failed heirs.

Failed integrations.

Children the empire buried beneath Noctis because their deaths complicated succession mythology.

Evelyn walked slowly between the glass coffins while candlelight shook violently in her hands.

Some of the children looked peaceful.

Others didn’t.

One boy’s hands remained frozen in visible panic against the inside of the glass.

Another girl still wore dried blood across the edge of her mouth.

The empire had preserved them like artifacts.

Not mourned them.

Displayed them.

Lucien finally moved deeper into the chamber.

His footsteps echoed softly through the cathedral-sized darkness beneath the mountain while Evelyn followed beside him in stunned silence.

At the center of the ritual chamber stood the coronation structure.

Massive.

Ancient.

A black throne surrounded by silver ritual rings carved directly into the stone beneath it.

The shadows reacted immediately.

Darkness spread faintly outward across the floor around Lucien’s feet while the mountain itself seemed to hum quietly beneath them.

Evelyn looked toward the throne with growing horror.

“This is where they finish it.”

Lucien nodded once.

No expression crossed his face.

Which frightened her more than rage would have.

He crossed slowly toward the throne platform beneath the towering ritual pillars overhead.

Then stopped.

At first Evelyn didn’t understand why.

Until she followed his gaze.

Another preservation coffin rested directly behind the throne itself.

Larger than the others.

Older.

The name engraved beneath the glass nearly erased by time.

VEIL-00

Inside rested a young man no older than twenty.

Dark hair.

Silver-gray eyes closed peacefully beneath ritual markings carved into pale skin.

And for one terrible impossible second—

Evelyn thought she was looking at Lucien.

The resemblance was horrifying.

Not identical.

Inherited.

Like the empire had been trying repeatedly to recreate the same weapon across generations.

Lucien stared at the preserved body in silence.

Then something inside him finally broke open.

Not violently.

Worse.

Quietly.

“He was my brother.”

The words shattered through the chamber.

Evelyn turned toward him immediately.

Lucien’s expression had gone frighteningly blank now, silver-gray eyes fixed entirely on the coffin behind the throne.

“I barely remembered him until now,” he said softly.

The shadows trembled faintly across the floor.

“He used to tell stories during storms because the younger children couldn’t sleep after the procedures.” His throat tightened almost imperceptibly. “Then one day they moved him below the cathedral and no one said his name again afterward.”

Evelyn’s chest ached violently.

Lucien crossed closer toward the preservation coffin.

The shadows followed him like mourning.

“He survived integration longer than anyone before me.” A faint bitter smile touched his mouth. “The emperor called him a necessary failure.”

The sentence hollowed the entire chamber.

Necessary failure.

God.

Evelyn suddenly understood why Lucien looked at himself the way he did sometimes.

Why every act of tenderness startled him.

Why love itself felt dangerous inside him.

Because beneath the empire’s violence lived an even deeper horror:

Lucien genuinely believed he survived because someone else died first.

The shadows darkened sharply around the throne platform.

Lucien lowered his head slightly.

“You should leave before coronation,” he murmured quietly. “Before this place finishes proving what I actually am.”

Evelyn stared at him in disbelief.

“What are you talking about?”

Lucien finally looked toward her then.

And the self-hatred inside his expression nearly destroyed her where she stood.

“They built me from suffering,” he said softly. “Every dead child in this chamber exists because the empire kept trying to create someone capable of surviving what killed them.” His gaze shifted briefly toward the throne. “Eventually they succeeded.”

“No.”

“It’s true.”

The shadows surged violently across the ritual floor.

Lucien’s breathing had become uneven now.

“I feel it every time I lose control.” His voice cracked slightly beneath the weight of it. “The violence feels natural to me, Evelyn.”

The confession echoed through the burial chamber.

Raw.

Terrified.

Like he had spent years waiting for someone to finally realize he was fundamentally ruined beneath the surface.

Evelyn crossed the distance between them immediately.

Lucien stepped backward instinctively.

“No.”

She grabbed his hands anyway.

The shadows froze instantly.

“You listen to me,” she said sharply, tears burning behind her eyes now. “You are not the empire’s failure.”

Lucien looked shattered.

Actually shattered.

Years of restraint and grief and conditioning collapsing visibly beneath her hands.

“You don’t understand—”

“I understand perfectly.”

Evelyn stepped closer until the ritual chamber disappeared entirely around them.

No empire.

No throne.

No dead princes watching from glass coffins.

Just him.

“You are not a weapon to me.”

The sentence broke something open inside him.

Lucien inhaled sharply like the words physically hurt.

And then—

for the first time since she met him—

he cried.

Not dramatically.

No collapse.

Just silent tears slipping downward while he stood trembling beneath the cathedral mountain with centuries of dead princes surrounding them.

Evelyn wrapped her arms around him immediately.

Lucien buried his face against her shoulder like a man too exhausted to survive pretending anymore while the shadows vanished completely from the ritual chamber floor.

And somewhere deep beneath Noctis Academy—

the empire began losing him forever.