Long after the pace had settled into night's stillness, Valerian made his way through corridors that few even knew existed. These hidden passages, built into the very architecture of the royal residence, had allowed the brothers to maintain their secret communication for millennia without raising suspicion. Tonight, for the first time, Valerian walked them without concern for being discovered.

  He found Lucius in his private chambers, standing before a window that overlooked the moonlit gardens. The same gardens visible from Nova's new quarters, though from a different angle.

  "Brother," Valerian said simply, closing the hidden door behind him.

  Lucius turned, a slight smile touching his lips. "Brother," he returned. The word, spoken openly without whispers or code phrases, carried a weight of significance after two thousand years of careful concealment.

  For a moment, they simply regarded each other—two beings who had witnessed the birth and development of vampire society from its chaotic beginnings, who had shared monthly private communications across millennia while maintaining the public facade of merely political allies.

  "It feels strange," Valerian said finally, "to speak without pretense."

  "Strange but welcome," Lucius agreed. He gestured toward a seating area that looked almost conspicuously normal for the private sanctuary of vampire society's progenitor. "We no longer need to maintain appearances, at least not with each other."

  As they settled into chairs that had witnessed countless cndestine conversations, Valerian's expression shifted toward genuine joy—an emotion rarely seen on the military leader's disciplined features.

  "After two thousand years," he said, "to finally acknowledge our retionship publicly..." He shook his head slightly, as if still processing the change. "I've imagined this moment since we first adopted our separate identities."

  "As have I," Lucius admitted. "Though I hadn't anticipated it occurring quite so... dramatically."

  Valerian studied his brother with the insight born from shared origins and millennia of close observation. "You seem troubled," he noted. "Finding Nova after two thousand years should bring peace, yet you appear more conflicted than ever."

  Lucius was silent for a long moment, his gaze returning to the window. When he spoke, his voice carried an unusual vulnerability. "I am... uncertain how to proceed. Finding him after waiting so long, only to discover he suffered for two centuries while I searched..." His fingers tensed almost imperceptibly on the armrest. "The rage I feel at his suffering mingles uncomfortably with relief at finally finding him."

  "What troubles you most?" Valerian asked directly, his military precision cutting through potential evasions.

  Lucius considered this carefully. "The imbance," he admitted finally. "I've known him through prophetic dreams for two millennia. I've prepared for his arrival, anticipated his needs, imagined our connection. Yet to him, I am a complete stranger—a powerful king who has somehow fixated on him without expnation."

  "And you've offered him transformation," Valerian stated rather than asked.

  Lucius nodded once. "He needs time to consider."

  "As he should," Valerian replied. "It's the first genuine choice he's been offered in centuries."

  A comfortable silence settled between them—the type possible only between beings who had known each other since before their immortality began. After a few moments, their conversation naturally turned reflective, as it often did during their private communications.

  "Do you remember those first years after the Evolution?" Valerian asked. "When we were still determining how to navigate the world we had inadvertently created?"

  "I remember your frustration with my approach," Lucius responded, a hint of amusement touching his voice. "You wanted immediate action while I insisted on patience."

  "Because I was still thinking like a street child," Valerian acknowledged. "Immediate problems required immediate solutions in our human lives. We couldn't afford long-term pnning when survival depended on today's decisions."

  "While I had already begun shifting perspective," Lucius continued. "Seeing patterns across years rather than days, possibilities across centuries rather than moments."

  "Your patient vision versus my protective precision," Valerian summarized. "Both shaped by our origins, yet expressed differently through immortality."

  Lucius nodded thoughtfully. "Those same differences remain evident in our approaches to Nova."

  "You see millennia of possibility," Valerian agreed. "While I focus on his immediate security and wellbeing."

  The brothers fell silent again, each contempting how their earliest experiences had shaped their immortal existence. Born to poverty, raised without parents in the harshest circumstances, they had carried those influences into vampire society despite their extraordinary power.

  Finally, Valerian leaned forward with uncharacteristic gentleness. "May I offer counsel, brother?"

  Lucius raised an eyebrow slightly—a small gesture that nonetheless conveyed genuine surprise. Valerian rarely offered unsolicited advice, preferring direct action to contemptive guidance.

  "Please do," Lucius replied.

  "Give him space," Valerian said simply. "More than you think necessary."

  Lucius waited for eboration, and Valerian continued after gathering his thoughts.

  "He's known you for one day, brother. You've known him in dreams for two thousand years." Valerian's voice carried the directness that had made him vampire society's most formidable military leader. "That creates a fundamental imbance that cannot be addressed through expnation alone."

  Lucius considered this perspective carefully. "You suggest distance when every instinct urges closeness?"

  "I suggest patience," Valerian crified. "Let him discover who you are rather than who he fears you might be or who you hope he thinks you are. Give him time to form his own understanding without the weight of your two millennia of expectations."

  Lucius's expression shifted subtly as he absorbed his brother's counsel. "Your military expertise applies surprisingly well to matters of connection."

  "Military strategy requires understanding motivation and perception," Valerian replied with a slight shrug. "The principles remain consistent whether pnning battles or building retionships."

  Lucius nodded slowly, recognizing the wisdom in his brother's perspective. The imbance Valerian identified was indeed the core challenge—how could any genuine connection form when one party carried two thousand years of anticipation while the other had just begun processing freedom?

  "Even immortals must learn patience," Valerian added, his eyes carrying a hint of amusement.

  Lucius stared at him for a moment before unexpected ughter broke from him—a sound rarely heard even in these private chambers. "You quote my own wisdom back to me," he said, shaking his head. "Words I spoke to you nearly fifteen hundred years ago when you wanted to accelerate military development in your territory."

  "Words that were correct then and remain so now," Valerian replied, smiling slightly. "Though perhaps more difficult to apply when one's own heart is involved rather than merely geopolitical strategy."

  The brothers continued their conversation well into the night, discussing Nova, the revetions that had shaken vampire society, and the transformations to come. For the first time in two thousand years, they spoke without codes or careful phrasing, simply as brothers who had begun their journey as street children and now stood as the two most powerful beings in vampire society.

  As dawn approached, Valerian rose to leave. "He will make his own choice," he said, returning to their central topic one final time. "Your task is merely to ensure it is truly his, unburdened by either your expectations or his past captivity."

  Lucius nodded, accepting this counsel. "Thank you, brother."

  "For what?" Valerian asked, pausing at the door.

  "For reminding me of the humanity that remains in us both," Lucius replied simply. "Despite all we have become."

  Valerian's expression softened momentarily before his military bearing returned. With a precise nod, he departed through the same hidden passage he had used to enter, leaving Lucius alone with his thoughts and the dawning recognition that the retionship he had anticipated for two millennia would necessarily develop differently than anything he had envisioned in his prophetic dreams.