Chapter 218

Chapter 218: Chapter 218

Julian

The small glass bottle felt light in my coat pocket, but its contents were priceless.

It was a small, round flask filled with a thick, silver liquid that swirled on its own without being shaken. I had received it only an hour ago from a dark practitioner who lived in the low neutral town past the border. It had cost me two gold rings and a promise of future protection, but every coin spent was worth the prize now resting against my ribs.

An illusion-fog potion. A rare, illegal concoction designed to warp spatial perception, trick the eyes, and rewrite reality for anyone who breathed its invisible fumes.

I walked down the quiet, sunny corridor of the west wing with slow, easy steps. My hands were folded neatly behind my back, my posture relaxed, my pale hair neat and brushed.

To the guards watching me from the end of the hall, I was simply an advisor taking a quiet morning walk through the estate. They didn’t know what was tucked inside my coat. They didn’t know that while Drake was away at the northern border post meeting with regional scouts, I was preparing to turn his quiet home into a nightmare.

I stopped outside the small glass conservatory at the end of the private wing.

This was Lysander’s favorite spot in the palace. It was a round, glass-walled room filled with green plants, small stone benches, and a wide view of the misty mountains. Since the night of the gala, Lysander spent most of his afternoons sitting here alone, staring out the window with quiet, hollow eyes, wrapped in heavy wool shawls while Drake worked to secure the borders.

I glanced back down the hallway. The two guards posted near the archway were standing fifty feet away, out of direct sight of the conservatory entrance.

I slipped inside the glass room, letting the door click quietly behind me.

The conservatory was warm and humid, smelling of damp soil and fresh leaves. Lysander was sitting on the wooden bench near the back wall, his hand resting over his rounded waist, his head leaning tiredly against the glass pane. His dark hair was slightly messy, and his skin looked pale, almost translucent under the afternoon sun.

He didn’t turn around when I entered. He simply let out a long, exhausted breath.

"I told you to leave me alone, Julian," Lysander said, his voice flat, dry, and completely empty of fight.

"I’m not here to talk to you, little bird," I replied softly, keeping my tone smooth and pleasant.

I reached into my coat, pulled out the small glass flask, and carefully removed the cork stopper.

The moment the seal broke, no sound came out, but a faint, translucent vapor began to spill over the glass rim. It was completely odorless and nearly invisible, drifting downward like a thin, silvery mist that spread rapidly across the warm floorboards.

I set the open flask behind a large potted fern near the door, where the warm air from the floor vents would blow the vapor straight toward the center of the room.

I took two steps back, pulling a small silver charm from my pocket that protected my own mind from the fumes, and leaned lightly against the glass frame near the entrance.

"What is that?" Lysander asked, his brow pulling together as his dark eyes finally turned toward me. He sniffed the air slightly, sensing the sudden change in atmosphere. "What did you do?"

"Nothing at all," I lied with a sweet, calm smile. "Just enjoying the afternoon view."

Lysander made a move to stand up, his hands pressing against the wooden bench to push himself forward. But the moment his feet touched the floor, the potion began its quiet work.

The invisible fog swept into his lungs.

Lysander froze. His dark eyes widened in sudden, absolute terror as his vision warped.

To my eyes, the room remained bright, warm, and sunlit. But I knew what the potion was doing inside his head. The bright glass walls were twisting into tall, dark stone blocks. The green leaves of the potted ferns were turning into sharp, rusty iron bars. The warm afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows was darkening into the gloomy, suffocating shadows of a subterranean cellar.

"No..." Lysander gasped out, his breathing turning fast and shallow as he scrambled backward on the bench, pressing his back hard against the glass pane. "No... not again..."

"Is something wrong, Lysander?" I asked, my voice sounding distant, warped, and menacing inside his altered perception. "You look like you’re back in Gideon’s basement."

"Get away from me!" Lysander screamed, his hands flying to cover his head as he looked around the warped room.

In his mind, the wide, open conservatory had shrunk into a tiny, airless stone cage. The wooden bench beneath him felt like freezing floorboards, and the soft rustle of the leaves sounded like the cold clinking of silver suppression chains dragging across the floor.

"Drake!" Lysander cried out, his voice breaking into a raw, terrified sob that echoed off the glass walls. "Drake! Help me! Please!"

"Drake isn’t coming," I purred softly, taking a slow step forward. To him, my simple grey suit likely looked like the dark, tattered robes of the witch who had bound him to the wall. "Drake locked you in this room, remember? He left you in the dark while he moved on with his life."

Lysander squeezed his eyes shut, his entire frame shaking violently as he curled his body into a tight ball on the bench. He wrapped his arms tightly over his stomach, burying his face against his knees, sobbing hysterically as the false reality swallowed him whole.

"I’m sorry!" Lysander whimpered into the empty air, his voice full of a heartbreaking, desperate agony. "I’m sorry! Don’t touch the baby! Please don’t touch my baby!"

I stood near the door, watching him weep and thrash against invisible chains, a quiet, cruel satisfaction filling my chest.

There were no physical marks left on his body. No bruises, no cuts, and no blood for Drake’s doctors to find. When Drake returned from the northern border post, he wouldn’t find a crime scene. He would simply find his mate screaming at empty air, completely broken by his own mind, sinking deeper into the madness that would eventually drive them apart forever.

I picked up the small glass flask from behind the fern, recorked it carefully, and slipped it back into my coat pocket.

"Enjoy your stay in the cellar, Lysander," I whispered softly.

I pushed open the conservatory door and stepped out into the bright, quiet hallway, leaving him trapped inside his own illusion while I walked back to my rooms with a light, easy smile.