The years crept by on silent feet, bearing witness to the grim ritual that the isle had become a sepulcher for the damned, a dining hall for the cursed. Astel, the boy with the angelic countenance and the devil's strength, had grown taller, his features etched with the sorrow that his dual existence wrought. The landscape of the island, once barren, had blossomed into a grotesque garden of gravestones, a mute testament to his unwitting prey.

The sky above was as unchanging as the King's decrees that condemned men to become sustenance for the beast. Astel, in his moments of lucid human grief, extended the only courtesy he could muster to the victims of his monstrous half: he gave them graves. But as the numbers grew, the land became crowded with the dead, and he resorted to the grim efficiency of mass graves, great pits that he filled with the broken and the lost.

When freed of his gravedigging duty, Astel would climb the castle walls during the full moon, a creature of sorrow silhouetted against the silvered sky. As a youth of merely fourteen, atop the ancient parapets, he pondered his plight. The moonlight anointed him, emphasizing the inevitable beast within.

Each flickering light across the narrow sea spoke of a life that was forever beyond his grasp, a mirage of normalcy that the cruel twist of his fate denied him. He was the outcast, eternally separated from the mundane joy of village life that he craved—not for riches, but for normalcy: a blacksmith’s ring, a mother’s song, the carefree laughter of children.

His solitude was profound as he watched from his perch, envisioning the everyday melodies of life that thrummed with the steady pulse of normalcy, unmarred by the darkness of his reality.

The castle walls, etched by time’s relentless march, stood as indifferent custodians of his sorrow. In his humanity’s brief visits, Astel traced their contours, seeking cold comfort in their enduring presence against the ephemeral touch of his own skin.

As the full moon dwindled, so did Astel’s humanity. With each cycle’s close, his form twisted once more into that of a beast. There was no fight, no lament; there was only acceptance—the silent surrender of a soul fated to walk in shadow more than light.

Night creatures retreated, sensing the rise of a predator, and the castle, once a bastion of his past life, now served as a hollow cocoon for his transformation. Unfettered, the change overtook him, a dread spectacle of nature warped, observed only by the cold, distant heavens.

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Tonight, the navyguard's vessel, a stark silhouette against the lunar-glowed sea, berthed at the jagged outcrop of the island with the stealth of a specter. From its belly, they dragged forth a figure—Lysa, a woman heavy with child, her condition as clear as the full moon that bathed the world in its pallor. They deposited her within the confines of the castle's formidable gates, her arrival as quiet as the whispers of rebellion that had sealed her fate.

Astel, atop the wall, witnessed this unexpected interlude. Confusion creased his brow, the mistake apparent even to his young mind; prisoners were for the beast, not the boy. Yet, the full moon reigned in the heavens, and within him, the human heart still beat strong.

As Astel descended the cold, stone steps, his shadow danced along the castle's weathered walls, merging with the darkness that shrouded the courtyard. The night air, crisp under the full moon's gaze, carried the salt tang of the sea and the distant murmur of waves breaking upon the shore.

He approached the new arrival with caution etched in his youthful features. The navyguard had left her, a solitary figure shrouded in the embrace of the night, within the castle's imposing gates. She sat upon the ground, her back against the cold stone, her hands cradling the swell of her impending motherhood.

As Astel approached, her gaze lifted, and a tentative warmth flickered there—an ember of hope in the chill of her imprisonment. "You are...?" she began, the words catching slightly, betraying her trepidation.

"Astel," he answered, his voice as soft as the moonlit whispers of the sea beyond the castle walls. "I reside here, alone."

"Alone?" Lysa's eyes roamed over the crumbling battlements, seeking the lie in his claim. But she found only truth in the lonely expanse. "Then perhaps we are both prisoners in our own way," she mused, a note of camaraderie in her voice.

Lysa's hands went instinctively to her swollen belly, the life within her a stark contrast to the desolation around them. "I am Lysa. They say I am to be punished for my husband's courage," she murmured, a defiant fire flaring in her eyes despite her dire circumstance.

Astel's lips curved in a ghost of a smile, but it was a smile that never quite reached his eyes. "Yes, we are prisoners of sorts. But you needn't remain so. This is no night for you to be out in the open."

She peered at him, her maternal instinct roused, seeing before her not a stranger, but a youth not much older than her own son, left behind in the tumult of the capital. "And where should a mother be on such a night, if not safe and sheltered?"

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"The dawn," Astel said, glancing toward the east where the horizon promised the return of the sun, "brings danger. And I must hide you from it. There are recesses here where even the day's light fears to tread."

Lysa accepted his proffered hand, allowing him to help her to her feet, her movements slow and deliberate. "Lead the way, Astel. I trust you."

They wound their way through corridors draped in darkness, with only the occasional beam of moonlight illuminating the ancient stone underfoot. Astel's mind warred with itself, the need to protect this woman and her unborn child from the horror he became with the sun's rise vying with the desire to keep his monstrous truth hidden deep within the shadows of his soul.

The sight of Lysa, heavy with child, stirred something deep within Astel, a pang of longing that surged up from a well of memory he had long tried to seal. As she accepted his hand, the contact awakened a sense of warmth he had not felt in years, a remembrance of a connection he had never known. The warmth of her skin against his cold fingers seemed to bridge the gap of years filled with cold stone and colder isolation.

"What was she like?" he found himself murmuring under his breath, the question slipping out like a wisp of fog on the night air.

Lysa, catching the fragment of his musing, tilted her head slightly. "Who?" she asked, her voice a soft beacon in the oppressive dark.

"My mother," Astel replied, the words foreign yet familiar on his tongue. "Or any mother, for that matter. I know not the comfort of a mother's embrace, nor the lullaby of her voice. I wonder, at times, what that bond may feel like."

The corridor seemed to swallow his confession, the walls ancient witnesses to a vulnerability seldom spoken. Lysa's eyes softened, the inherent motherhood within her responding to the orphaned child before her, despite the years that had etched lines of hardship upon his face.

"There is no love like it," she said, her hand squeezing his. "Unconditional. All-encompassing. It is the first love we know, and it shapes us in ways we cannot always see."

Astel's eyes, the color of the sea under a stormy sky, held a glimmer of something that might have been tears if he had been the sort to shed them. But he was not, for tears were a luxury afforded to those who had hope of comfort.

"Tonight," he said with newfound resolve, "I will ensure you know only safety. And perhaps, in some small way, I can understand what it means to protect, as a mother protects her young."

In the waning moonlight, Astel led Lysa through the labyrinthine corridors of the castle, out into the chill of the night, to the old guard's quarters where Godrick once lived. The derelict structure stood as a silent sentinel, its walls echoing the lost laughter and warmth of days long past. The very air was thick with the ghost of memories, each one etching a deeper furrow in Astel's young brow. Lysa, with her maternal sense heightened by her condition, could not help but notice the undercurrent of melancholy that seemed to cling to the boy.

"Who lived here?" she asked as she settled on a worn chair, looking around the dimly lit space.

Astel paused, a figure caught between two worlds — one foot in the present, the other anchored in a painful past. "Someone who cared for me," he said quietly, the words barely carrying across the room.

Lysa saw the veil of sadness that seemed to draw over his young features and reached out a hand, a gesture of kindness that sought to bridge the gap between them. "They must've been a wonderful person to leave such a mark on you."

A silence hung in the air, taut as a bowstring, before Astel moved to change the subject. "You must be hungry," he deflected, offering her a portion of the scarce rations he'd managed to gather. The bread was hard, the cheese stronger than either would have preferred, but hunger made a sauce of everything.

In the sheltered solace of the guard's quarters, where the clamor of the outside world was but a distant whisper, Astel found himself in the company of Lysa, the pregnant prisoner whose fate had become entwined with his own. The flickering torchlight played across the walls, throwing their shadows into a gentle dance as they conversed in hushed tones.

Astel, with a curiosity borne of a life secluded and a lineage shrouded, inquired about the world beyond the castle's unforgiving walls. "What of King Johann?" he asked, his voice a cautious murmur, betraying a longing to understand the pieces of his past left unspoken.

Lysa's eyes, carrying the weight of knowledge and the sorrow of her own story, met his with a gentle candor. "The king, they say, is a man of iron will, his heart hardened by trials and loss. Queen Maria, may the gods rest her kind soul, was a light to the realm, but she passed in childbirth," she shared, her voice a soft lament that fluttered in the dim light like a trapped bird.

A sharp pang of concealed grief struck Astel as he absorbed her words. The truth of his birth and the lie of his death knitted together within him, forming a noose of betrayal around his heart. "And the child?" he probed further, the pain of his inquiry masked behind a veil of feigned detachment.

"They say the babe followed the mother into death's embrace. A tragedy that haunts the king to this day," Lysa said, her gaze falling to her own swollen belly, a silent prayer passing her lips for the child within.

Astel felt the sting of the lie like a physical wound, a bitter reminder of his forsaken place in the world he had never truly been a part of. He was the ghost of a prince, erased from history by a father's decree, a living secret cloaked in the guise of a monster.

"The king has since found solace in a new marriage," Lysa continued, oblivious to the tempest of emotions roiling within Astel. "He has a son now, Lucius, a boy adorned in splendor and raised for the throne. The palace is abuzz with tales of his future reign."

Each word was a cruel comparison to Astel's cursed existence. He, the forgotten heir, confined to shadows and silence, while another, Lucius, basked in the golden light of a future promised. A future that by birthright should have been his, now forever out of reach, just as the stars twinkling beyond the walls were untouchable to a boy who could never truly leave his prison.

Lysa, perceiving a shadow pass over Astel's features, reached out, her hand brushing his arm in a comforting gesture. "Life is a strange tapestry, young one," she said, a note of wisdom threading her words. "We are but threads within it, our paths woven by unseen hands."

Astel nodded, the contours of his fate etched deep within him. He was a prince of a forgotten lineage, a specter in his own story, dwelling in the margins of a tale that would never claim him as its own. Astel's eyes darted away, a silent battle raging within. "Just... stay inside at night. Promise me that."

"I promise," Lysa said, puzzled but sensing the urgency in his tone. "You have my word, Astel."

And as Lysa settled into a restless sleep, haunted by the unknown terrors that lurked in the dark corners of her imagination, Astel sat vigilant. He watched over her as the moon traced its path across the night sky, knowing that when it set, and the sun rose, he could not be her protector anymore.