For two thousand, two hundred, and sixteen years, the silence had been a living thing. It was a scream trapped in his throat, a void where a heart had once beat in tandem with another. Mikail Farhoven had counted every second, every minute, every hour of that agonizing silence. And he had spent it all hunting.

He had found his missing half not in a realm of magic or grandeur, but amongst the dull, ignorant humans, a place where magic slept unknown. Seeing them there, playing at a normal life, was an insult that burned hotter than any hellfire. It was not amusing. It was a provocation. And so, he had not simply visited that realm—he had torn it asunder to reclaim what was his. He hadn't stolen. A king does not steal his own crown.

Now, they were back where they belonged. In the heart of his reclaimed castle, Nefaria, chained to his bed by ankles encircled with enchanted metal that pulsed with his own black magic, obeying only his will.

Mikail stood in the doorway of the opulent bedroom, having just woven spells of imprisonment into the very stones of the castle itself. The sight that greeted him was almost nostalgic: them, struggling against the chains, a faint, desperate glow of light magic flickering from their hands as they tried to unbind the impossible.

A bitter, humorless smirk touched his lips. Traitor, the thought was a familiar, aching whisper in his mind. After all this time, your first instinct is still to flee from me. Was one betrayal not enough?

And yet, even now, they were beautiful. This traitor. This light. His light.

"Don't bother," his voice cut through the room, deep and laced with a terrible, weary amusement. He stepped inside, the door sealing shut behind him with a final, magical click. "Your magic is useless against me. It’s a cute effort, really."

He came to a stop at the foot of the bed, looking down at his captured prize. "I've bound you to myself. A little insurance policy. Anything you do to hurt me... you'll feel it twice over." A low, hollow chuckle escaped him. "After all, that's what we do best, isn't it? Suffer together."

He watched the realization dawn in their eyes, saw the pretty lips part in a silent gasp. He closed the distance between them in one swift stride, his large, dark hand snapping out to cup their chin, forcing their gaze up to meet his burning grey eyes.

"Why?" he murmured, his thumb stroking their jaw with a deceptive tenderness. "Do I look so different from the boy you left behind? Has time carved me into a monster you no longer recognize?" He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a whisper that was all the more terrifying for its softness. "I am not sorry for what I have become."

His grip tightened infinitesimally, a fleeting impulse to crush the delicate bone beneath his fingers. He resisted it, instead caressing the skin there. "You left me," he repeated, the words raw, stripped bare of his usual arrogance and leaving only the ancient, festering pain exposed. "You left me alone in the silence."

But just as quickly as it had surfaced, the vulnerability was sealed away, replaced by the hard, unyielding mask of the Mad King. The smirk returned, colder now.

"Well," he said, his tone final and absolute. "The 'why' doesn't matter anymore. You're here. You've returned to me." His eyes hardened into flint. "And this time, I will make certain you never even think of leaving again."