FROST
Chapter 97: The Crimson Soul

Chapter 97: The Crimson Soul

Caspian stood motionless for a moment, the chill wind tugging at the hem of his deep indigo cloak.

The moonlight carved silver lines along the intricate engravings of his shoulder plate.

The armor of a royal guard, once beneath him, now worn with quiet dignity: blackened steel with lunar sigils etched in silver, a long tasset flowing behind his knees like a knight in exile.

His sword hung by his side. But it was the crescent brand beneath the edge of his collar that defined him now—not as king, but as penitent.

He stared at the gate, jaw clenched. So many memories—so many things he could give. But which one?

The first moment he held the Queen’s hand? The day he kissed her beneath the moonflowers? Or Cloud’s first word when he saw as still a toddler?

They were all priceless. And so, he froze.

Then—without a sound—she appeared.

He didn’t hear her steps. Didn’t feel the shift in air. One moment he was alone with his turmoil, and the next, Seravine stood before him, close enough to kiss.

Seravine’s body was made for temptation, but it was her eyes—those golden, hypnotic irises—that held their prey until it was too late. She walked like a dance, slow and deliberate, hips swaying with a rhythm older than time.

Her dress, little more than dusk and shadow, clung to her every curve, revealing more than it concealed. Her skin gleamed like sunlit obsidian, and her voice—velvet laced with sin—slid between thoughts like smoke.

"You’re trembling," she murmured, tilting her head as her fingers danced up the edge of his chestplate, tracing the scar beneath his armor with intuitive grace. "Surely a memory isn’t that hard to part with... unless the King has finally learned fear."

He didn’t flinch, but his eyes snapped to hers—calm, calculating, tired. And Seravine found herself holding her breath.

Gods. He was more than handsome. He was devastating.

Even after everything—the fall, the branding, the burden of his guilt—there was still something ethereal about him. Like a statue carved by both angels and ghosts. His features were noble: strong cheekbones, a jaw lined in soft stubble, and eyes that once might have glowed with the confidence of a ruler but now shimmered with something deeper—resolve woven with grief.

His hair curled just behind his ears, tangled slightly from the wind, and still, he looked regal in the way only the broken can be.

He did not glance down at her touch. He did not falter at her nearness. And that made her pause.

Most men melted when she smiled. Caspian merely studied her, as though he were parsing a riddle in her presence.

Seravine leaned in closer, lips brushing the shell of his ear.

"I could make you forget," she whispered. "Let me help you choose. Give the gate something small... like the first time you felt shame. Or the moment you realized you couldn’t protect her."

His breath hitched—but not from her touch.

"Or perhaps..." she continued, letting her arms slide around his shoulders, pressing her body against his armor, "you’d prefer to trade a dream? One where the child returns. Whole. Laughing. Safe."

Caspian’s voice came low, like distant thunder. "You deal in temptation, not mercy."

A slow, amused smile curved her lips. "And you wear your sorrow like clothing, Moonfallen. But I see you... I see the man beneath all that armor. The man who would burn down the stars to find his child."

She touched the edge of his collar, where the silver crescent still glowed faintly through the fabric.

"Would you trade your crown again, just for a chance to face the one who stole everything? To find that demon?"

The words slipped from Seravine’s lips like honey laced with venom—but the reaction they summoned was nothing she anticipated.

In a breath, the world shifted.

Caspian’s hand shot out with a speed that betrayed his calm exterior. His fingers clamped around Seravine’s wrist like an iron vice. The playful smirk died on her lips as she gasped, her whole body jerking forward. Pain flared instantly in her arm.

She let out a small, strangled cry. "Ah—!"

Caspian’s expression had changed. No longer the quiet, brooding sorrow that lingered in his gaze like a forgotten melody. Now his eyes burned—stormy, silver, and furious. A tempest long held at bay now bared its fangs.

His grip tightened, knuckles white with rage. The moon above shimmered against the pale scar etched just beneath his brow, making him look almost spectral in his fury.

He yanked her forward, closer, until there was no space between them—only the weight of accusation.

"How did you know about him?" His voice was low, almost guttural. It was the voice of a man who had screamed his grief into the wind, who had begged gods for answers and received only silence. It was a voice trembling on the edge of madness and meaning.

Seravine’s seductive bravado shattered like glass beneath his grasp.

"I—I—" Her lips quivered.

Fear took root in her chest, coiling tighter by the second. She had faced soldiers. She had laughed in the faces of bounty hunters, flirted her way out of assassination attempts, played with royals like puppets. But this—this was something else.

This was wrath.

"A-All half-demons know who Yami is!" she stammered, eyes darting between his and his tightening grasp. "He’s—he’s a tale mothers whisper to their bastard children! A curse carved into our blood! I swear—I only know the name!"

Her legs trembled. Caspian had not yet released her. His grip wasn’t just forceful—it was desperate, as though she held the only thread left in the tangle of his despair.

His eyes widened further, the name echoing in his mind like the tolling of a bell. "Y-Yami?" The name tasted bitter, unfamiliar, but right. His lips formed it again, slower, like a man unlocking a memory sealed by pain.

Yami.

Suddenly, the wind howled through the peaks, and Seravine’s hair whipped across her face. But she didn’t dare move. Her heart thundered in her chest like war drums, and her breath came in shallow gasps. Her limbs were shaking. Her seductive nature had long slipped into shadows, leaving only the trembling, cornered half-demon behind.

Caspian’s expression shifted then—not to softness, but to realization. His fingers loosened, and she stumbled back a step, clutching her wrist, breath hitching.

He stared at her with haunted eyes, now wide with questions rather than rage.

"You knew his name... before I spoke it." His voice was quieter now. Not gentler, but lower—more dangerous. "What else do you know about him? What else are you hiding?"

Seravine swallowed, her throat dry as bone. "N-Not much," she whispered, barely able to meet his gaze. "Only rumors. That he’s no ordinary demon. That he’s... older. Wiser. That even the hell gates refused him. He’s known to some as the Crimson Soul—a being not born of the underworld, but one that crept out of a void deeper than hell itself."

Her voice faltered at the last word, almost as if speaking it invited the void closer.

Caspian’s breath hitched, his jaw clenched so tightly the veins along his neck pulsed. Then his voice thundered, raw and fractured.

"How did you know he was the one behind my fall?!"

The air seemed to ripple with the force of his anguish. His voice carried the weight of shattered vows, of a crown cast into darkness, of a love torn apart by invisible hands. Seravine flinched as if the very ground beneath her feet had growled.

She curled her fingers into trembling fists, lips pale. "I-I didn’t—" she stammered, then swallowed again, her voice breaking. "I didn’t know... not exactly. But I smelled it."

"Smelled it?" Caspian echoed.

"I—I can smell people’s fear," she admitted, pressing a hand to her chest as if to steady her racing heart. "It seeps from the skin like smoke. Most of the time, it’s just colorless emotion. But yours... yours was different."

She raised her gaze slowly, and for a moment, her eyes shimmered with something not seductive, but ancient.

"That fear... it had form. It took shape behind your eyes when you weren’t looking. I saw glimpses—broken images, bleeding memories. A shadow stealing something precious. A scream that never ended. A throne burning."

Caspian stared at her, silent. The wind tugged at his cloak, billowing it behind him like torn banners from a forgotten war.

"I didn’t know his name," she murmured, "but the moment I said demon... the shape changed. Became clearer. Older. Hungrier. I saw... red. So much red. As if his soul bled through yours."

Seravine took a breath, unsteady. "I didn’t mean to see it, Your Grace. But fear tells its own story. And yours... is louder than most."

Seravine hesitated for a moment, still rubbing her wrist, then glanced over her shoulder at the towering gates—silent, brooding, and wholly unimpressed by her near-death performance. Her golden eyes narrowed slightly, then flicked back to Caspian, who remained perfectly still, save for the twitch of an eyebrow.

"Well," she said, clearing her throat and brushing a lock of midnight hair behind her ear, "perhaps... if you will let me, I could offer an easier way through these gates."

Caspian exhaled through his nose. A long-suffering sigh. The kind only men who had seen too much and slept too little could manage. "Aside from memories," he said dryly, "fine. Tell me what."

Seravine’s smile stretched slowly, almost too slowly, until her sharp fangs peeked —"let me bear a child—your child."

There was a long, flat silence.

Caspian blinked once. Then again. He leaned forward just a little, as if the sheer absurdity of the sentence hadn’t quite cleared his ear canal.

"I’m sorry," he said, voice unnervingly calm, "what was that?"

"Please let me bear a child of yours, Your Majesty," Seravine really repeated, this time more confident. "It is my mission to bear a child from a royalty to break my curse, so in return, I’ll let you pass these gates without surrendering any unforgettable memories. Or perhaps you can surrender the intimate moment with me so you can live freely, seeming faithful to your wife, The Queen."

Caspian stared at her, unmoving, his eyes narrowing a fraction. He looked like a man calculating whether it was faster to climb over the gates or hurl himself through them to avoid further conversation.

"...So your solution," he said, slowly, carefully, "to help me get past the gates... is to blackmail me with hypothetical infidelity, via a royal bastard, in exchange for magical safe passage?"

Seravine nodded proudly. "Exactly! Now you understand."

He blinked. "And you thought this was the best time to bring that up?"

"You seemed tense. I thought I’d ease the mood," she offered sweetly, as if she’d handed him a mug of tea and not detonated logic in front of his feet.

There was a long silence as Caspian stared at the gates, his expression a masterful blend of I am too old for this, my wife is going to kill me, and the walls of this damn ruin are witnessing my downfall.

Finally, he said, "You realize I could just knock you unconscious and carry you through the gates?"

Seravine grinned. "Would you, though? You strike me as the gentle type. Noble. Dutiful. Bound to honor."

He turned his gaze back to her, slowly. "I’m bound to sanity. You are not helping."

"I am helping," she insisted, now circling him dramatically. "Think about it. A cursed demon bearing the child of a former king. You could name him Caspine Junior. Or Caspinette, if you prefer a girl. We could make it a ritual. I’ll light the incense, you can glare stoically—"

Caspian abruptly turned toward the gate and pressed his hand against it with the quiet desperation of a man pleading for divine intervention.

It shocked him slightly. Probably from judging.

Seravine leaned in, unbothered. "Shall I start taking off my—"

"Demon," he raised a hand like a tired substitute teacher. "If I surrender a memory, will you vanish instead?"

"Temporarily," she said with a wink. "But I always come back."

Caspian closed his eyes. "Of course you do."