The man took another step forward, the cold air swirling in his wake, as if he had brought a storm with him. His eyes never left Aidana's, piercing her with an intensity that made her pulse quicken despite herself. She stood unmoving, her stance composed, but something inside her—something long buried—shifted.

He was too close now, too aware of her. A mortal would have been blind to the illusion she wore, would have seen only the guise of a noblewoman in the shadowed corners of this opulent hall. But not him. He knew.

"I'm not sure you belong here," he said, his voice low, dark, carrying the weight of someone used to commanding rather than asking.

Aidana's gaze did not waver. She was the Angel of Death, the one who walked in the dark spaces between life and eternity. Her power was subtle, unspoken. Mortals never saw her coming—never felt the chill of her presence until it was too late. But this man, this stranger, he saw her as though she were laid bare before him. And for the first time, something in her felt... exposed.

"Who are you to judge where I belong?" she replied softly, her voice the calm before a storm, as though she were the very stillness that came before death claimed its prize.

The man's lips curled into something that could have been a smile, but it was too cruel, too calculating to be kind. "I am Dacre. The King of Blood."

Aidana's heart skipped, her gaze narrowing, though she did not show it. She had heard whispers of him—the King of Blood, the one whose very name carried a legacy of ruin. A man not chosen by gods, but cursed by them, a figure of destruction, feared by all who knew of him. But standing before her now, he seemed something else. Something... darker.

"King of Blood," she repeated, her voice soft but laden with recognition. "I should have known."

His smile deepened at her words. "You know of me, then." It wasn't a question, but a statement laced with intrigue. His eyes glinted like twin rubies—sharp, dangerous, calculating. But there was something more beneath that coldness, something she couldn't name. Perhaps it was a spark of recognition on his part too. Perhaps something deeper than either of them understood.

"Why are you here, Dacre?" Aidana's tone shifted, a slight edge to it now, though she did not lower her guard. He was too close for comfort.

He took another step, his presence filling the space with a force that could not be ignored. "I came to ensure the King of the Gilded Throne doesn't slip too easily into death's embrace." His words were cryptic, but they held an undercurrent of something darker, as though his interest in the dying king was more personal than it seemed.

Aidana's hand twitched, her fingers itching to reach for the soul that had already begun to slip away from its vessel. It would be so easy. The king's light was dimming—she could almost taste the soul on the air. But Dacre was standing in her way. And for some reason, his presence was not just an obstacle. It was... disorienting.

"You have no claim over this soul," she said, her voice colder now, a warning. "The King has already been judged. His time is up."

Dacre's gaze flickered to the dying king, still breathing, his breaths shallow and ragged. His expression hardened, but it wasn't with anger. It was something else—something unreadable. He looked back at Aidana, his smile gone, replaced by a rare seriousness.

"Perhaps," he murmured. "But you and I both know that fate is rarely so simple."

Aidana's breath caught, a sudden unease curling in her chest. She'd faced countless mortals before, all of them too weak to understand what they were up against. But this man, this King of Blood—there was something in him, something she couldn't define, that left her momentarily vulnerable.

They stood there in silence, an invisible thread pulling between them, taut with unspoken tension. The storm in her eyes flared, but she could not hide the faint flicker of curiosity. Was it fear?

No. It was something else.

Something that had not been there before. Something that had no place in her world of shadows and inevitabilities. But Dacre, the King of Blood, had ignited something in her—something that refused to be ignored.

"Perhaps you are right," Aidana said, her voice softer now, the calm of death settling once again over her. "Fate is rarely simple."

Dacre's gaze lingered on her, and in that moment, she felt a shift—a tug on the threads of her existence. But as quickly as it came, it vanished, leaving only the unshakable certainty that their worlds were on a collision course.

The King of Blood may have been a distraction. But something told her that his presence here was far from coincidence.

And as her fingers hovered once more near the dying king's soul, she knew that nothing would be the same after this encounter.