The small, broken, thin body, casting a disproportionately large, swaying shadow on the small cart, had never seemed so beautiful and at the same time so unbearably irritating to Serak. There was something heart-wrenching and bitterly poetic about this fragility, which pierced the soul like a thorn.

Jumping up from his seat, Alpha felt thick, red-hot metal of rage coursing through his veins. He could already feel his fingers digging into the long, slender neck, like that of a graceful swan, as he shook this rebellious body, knocking the insolence out of it along with its breath. No one had ever dared to speak to him like that, touching on his most painful point.

He shouldn't have given him a chance. It would be better to return everything to the way it was. To hell with it. No. He would turn his life into a real hell, not a fake one.

But as soon as his hand, raised to strike, reached out to the pale skin, a whisper broke the silence, as faint as the dying breath of a moth.

"I don't feel well..."

And in a split second, before Serak could understand anything, Omega's face, already deathly pale, turned a sickly green. His eyelids closed, unable to bear the weight of his own body, and he fell limply into the arms of oblivion, into a deep, bottomless sleep.

Serak, frozen in a half-bent position, watched the whole scene, and the rage inside him slowly subsided, replaced by a heavy, familiar omnipotence. He did not collapse to the ground, but sank slowly, with a sense of dignity that even in the void should not suffer. A deep, weary sigh escaped from his chest, like the echo of a lost battle.

"So this is what you were like before we met?" he asked quietly into the silent air, and the question hung like a rhetorical cloud between them.

Once as bright as May thunderstorms, memories of this little boy's audacity began to fade and be forgotten, erased by the cruel sandpaper of time.

Ten years ago, songs were sung throughout the kingdoms, from cosy taverns to lavish palace halls. They rang out in beer mugs and were whispered behind spinning wheels. They sang of the old king of the south, grey-haired and mighty. The song began with sarcastic lines about how, in his old age, the king wanted to become closer to the people and married his own seamstress, whom he had raised since childhood. Their romance was so passionate and pure that, after a while, a boy was born. The only heir. And the king, who was once able to pacify rebellious barons, could not cope with his own son's character, which was as turbulent as a spring flood. Dozens of young, rosy-cheeked maids, after only a couple of months spent with the prince, left, touched by his grey hair, with dull eyes. At that time, everyone, from the lowliest shepherd to the chief advisor, believed that the prince, with his fiery temperament, refined by mentors as stern as swords, would quickly become his father's worthy right-hand man and, later, his brilliant successor, a new force to be reckoned with on the throne.

But in the east, where the wind smelled of dust and foreign blood, other, darker ballads gained fame and fear. They sang of another son. About the one who raised his hand against his own blood, the son-father-killer, whose hand clutched a bloodied sword and whose heart thirsted to take all the eastern lands, from the wooded foothills to the salty sea.

And the name of this father-killer is still haunted in street songs.

The forests, rustling their farewell, gave way to harsh, silent mountains; the mountains, in turn, opened up into endless fields singing with the wind; and the fields ended at the silent, endless sea. The world changed outside the cart window, but Kaelan still slept, motionless and serene, as if his soul had flown away to other worlds.

Serak, tired of the monotony of the journey, stopped the cart with a snap of his fingers. The silence that replaced the clatter of wheels was deafening. He decided to stretch his stiff limbs and look for something useful in the coastal forest - something like a strong vine to finally tie up the ever-elusive Omega, and at the same time shoot some game for dinner.

He glanced once more at Kaelan, who was resting peacefully. At rest, all the artificial harshness had left the young man, revealing something defenceless and infinitely weary. Serak snorted, shaking off unnecessary pity, jumped off the cart and stepped into the damp thicket opposite the endless sea, saturated with the smell of pine needles and wet earth.

It was difficult to find one's bearings in the gloom of the forest, where only timid golden rays of light penetrated. His eyes had to adjust to the semi-darkness, and his feet got tangled in the intertwined roots. Serak immediately regretted not bringing his faithful assistant, Eggy, the one who possessed strange, ancient magic inherited from his sorcerer ancestors. Then, of course, he wouldn't have had to get out of the cart and get his cloak dirty with pine needles and dirt. Everything, from game to ropes, would have obediently jumped to his feet. But Serak was adamant in his instructions: Eggy had to keep a watchful eye on the surroundings, looking for any traces of rebels. And she had long since decided to find and bring back her... husband on her own.

Husband...

Or, more accurately, ex-husband? Their marriage had been a fiction from the very beginning, a delicate web of lies woven for higher purposes. The only thing that bound them together as 'husband' and 'wife' was not vows or feelings, but only magical marks burned into the most intimate parts of their bodies.

So why did the mark of one of them suddenly disappear, as if it had never been there?

Almost automatically, obeying an old, painful habit, Serak touched his tongue with his fingertip. His finger touched a barely noticeable scar engraved there by magic. The mark was a small curl in shape. But this small scar, which always burned brightly with a golden colour, caused him terrible pain.

So why should I be the only one to suffer while your neck is clean?

"Damn it," he cursed quietly, chasing away the swarm of heavy thoughts that had come over him. "I'll think about it later."

He was making his way through the thorny undergrowth when his gaze suddenly fell on a large boulder warmed by the sun. Several plump, well-fed snakes were basking on it, as if on a pedestal, absorbing the last warmth of the fading day into their scaly bodies. At that moment, his own stomach, having forgotten about hot food, betrayed him and growled loudly, breaking the forest silence. The hunt was on.