Tem was lounging on the sofa in one of the many lounge rooms in his father's castle, thinking.

Mainly, about Lumi.

He was annoyed that this filth could work her way into his head so easily. Yet... In a way... He liked it too. It gave him something to keep his mind off the taunts thrown his way at school.

And now he was just sitting, and thinking. No-one else as in the room - the servants had long since cleaned this room... They were off somewhere else. And Tem didn't know where his father was... To be honest, he didn't really care.

He went back to thinking about sword training, which lead to him thinking about Lumi...

... Again.

He thought of her smile, her laugh that he had only heard once, yet that one time it had sounded like angles singing, which he shouldn't like but then, he had. He thought of her sparking eyes that seemed to make the sun pale in comparison. He thought-

THUD!

The sound ripped through the air, making Tem flinch. It was the undeniable sound of a body hitting the floor, probably the cellar. It was always the cellar, where the captured Sevlata's were brought to. And every time, he was almost smiling in the sound of others pain.

Almost smiling. The last humane part of him still found it disturbing.

He listened as a demanding voice - possibly the head of guards or his father - spoke to the children. He knew they were children due to their sobs. No adult sobbed like that.

"PLEASE! SPARE ME!" Came a scream. Laughter echoed up the stairs to his ears. They were enjoying this, just as much as Tem was.

More screaming. The hair on the back of Tem's neck pricked. Why was he enjoying this?! It was inhumane... Yet...

Finally, the screams were replaced by heavy breathing. They would live through today...

Just.

Footsteps echoed up the stairs. His father walked up from the cellar, a smile on his face. Just like usual.

Tem couldn't be bothered to stay and listen to his father and his lap-dogs laugh about the pain. He glanced towards the window. Even through the storm clouds, he could see the sun setting. Instead of it being orange and yellow like in the history books, it was grey and black. Just like everything in this world.

He walked up the polished black marble stairs to his over-sized room. A small, almost ridiculously so, bed was in the middle, crates of his old treasures piled around it.

He fell onto his bed and dropped to sleep. His dreams, like always, were filled with darkness.

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He was woken by frantic sobbing from two floor a below. His white hair was messed up from sleep, his stormy eyes darkened even more from tiredness. But the pain behind those screams was just so... Delicious.

He pulled on a spider silk robe and walked through the darkness to where he knew the prisoners were kept. His fingers brushed against the cold iron of the door. He opened it silently and slipped inside.

The Sevlata children were crying. Each of them were hugging a different one, tears running down their faces. They shrunk away when they heard his bare feet hit the cold stone slabs.

The truth hit him. They were scared of him.

Power rose in his chest. A feeling of pride flowed through him. But he let no emotions show on his face as he studied his father's next victims. Three of them, two boys and one girl. The first boy had Sandy hair, a small nose and crooked teeth that could be seen as he sobbed. A knife wound on his shoulder bled steadily.

The second boy had Brown hair, freckles and a knife wound on his left eyebrow, his knee and his upper arm, which he clutched with a blood soaked rag.

The only girl had long blond-white hair, watery blue eyes, freckles and bore a huge similarity to the second boy. Perhaps they were twins. She had a knife wound across her face, starting under her eyebrow and ending above her lip. That almost blinded her and drowned her.

Most people would feel sorrow and pain to the injured and crying children. It just made Tem hungry.

He stared at them as they sobbed for almost a hour. Then he sighed. He had been watching the girl. The more he stared at her blue eyes and blond hair, the more it looked like Lumi.

He couldn't kill them. Or let them be killed.

He unhooked the key from its hook, and shoved it in the door, twisting it and hearing the small click that confirmed the door was open. The small children stared at him, at his eyes, knowing he was their enemy, and knowing he was standing there, letting them go. Finally, one had the courage to speak up. The girl.

"What are you doing?" She asked him quietly. He shrugged.

"Letting you go." He said in a mono-tone voice. They stared more. He sighed. "D'you want to go or not?"

That got them going. They scrambled up, and darted out of the cell. Then they stopped.

"We don't know where we're going." They said. Tem sighed.

"Fine. I'll take you home." He said, still staring at their blood. So bright... So sweet...

He shook those thoughts out of his head, and walked up the stairs and out of the front door, the Sevlata's behind him. They walked to the middle zone, and finally arrived at the border of their destination. The children gave cries of joy when they saw it, and ran off, leaving Tem in the shadows still, only one person looking at him.

Lumi.

She was staring out of her window. She had seen the whole thing. Thoughts flew through her head. 'Was that Tem?' 'Why was he helping them?' 'What is he doing here? He's going to get caught!' 'Why do I care about his well being?'

Finally, as she was about to leave him to get away by himself, he looked up. They made eye contact. There was no denying it.

It was Tem.

He stared for moment. Then raised his pale hand to the moonlight, waving. She waved back. A flicker of a smile flashed across his face, as he put his hand down and walked back to the shadows, Lumi watching him every step of the way.