Her brows knit together.
Normally Marcus would at least answer.
“Marcus?” she called again as she walked toward his room.
Still nothing.
A strange unease crept into her chest.
She pushed the door open.
And the air vanished from her lungs.
Marcus lay on the floor.
Dark blood pooled beneath him, spreading across the wooden boards from deep wounds carved into both of his wrists.
“Marcus!”
Her scream shattered the silence.
She dropped to her knees beside him, tears flooding down her face.
“My brother… what have you done?” she sobbed, pressing trembling hands against his arms, desperately trying to stop the bleeding. “Stay with me… please stay with me.”
Her cries echoed down the hallway.
A neighbor rushed in after hearing the commotion.
Together they carried Marcus outside and hurried toward the nearest healers’ hall.
The healers rushed him immediately into the inner chamber.
Aria collapsed onto a bench outside, uncontrollable sobs shaking her body.
Her white blouse was soaked with Marcus’s blood.
Her trembling hands were stained crimson.
“You cannot leave me,” she whispered again and again. “Please don’t leave me…”
Hours crawled by.
She paced outside the chamber doors, whispering desperate prayers to the Moon Goddess.
Finally, after nearly two hours, a healer stepped out.
Aria rushed toward him immediately.
His expression was grim.
“Your brother remains in critical condition,” he said quietly. “We stopped the bleeding… but his spirit is fading. It is as though he has lost the will to live.”
Aria felt her knees weaken.
“The next twenty-four hours will be crucial,” the healer continued gently. “All you can do now… is pray.”
He walked away.
Aria remained standing there in silence.
That night she did not sleep.
She sat alone in the corridor, staring at the door of Marcus’s chamber while quiet tears slipped down her cheeks.
No one came to comfort her.
She faced everything alone.
The hours passed slowly.
And then, twenty-four hours later, the news she feared finally arrived.
The healer approached her quietly.
“I am very sorry, Miss Sinclair,” he said gently.
“Your brother has fallen into a coma.”
Third Person's POV
When Aria heard the healer’s words, her body went completely numb.
She slowly sank onto the chair beside Marcus’s bed, as if every ounce of strength had drained from her limbs. For several long moments she felt nothing—not her heartbeat, not even the steady rhythm of her breathing.