The hallway to August's chamber was dim with the haze of evening, shadows collecting like slow-moving water along the edges of the stone walls. A faint scent of cedarwood and old paper lingered in the air, remnants of the manor's age and dignity.
Elias paused before the ornate door, his footsteps silent despite the worn boots he wore. Behind him, Katherine followed without a word, her hands folded neatly in front of her. Her expression was unreadable, regal even in her stillness.
But it was the sight just beyond the threshold that drew their attention at once.
Hael stood there — not inside the room, but just past the open door — with a conflicted look twisting his usually neutral face. One gloved hand was pressed to his chin as if he were still weighing the moment. His satchel of instruments remained unopened on the nearby chair.
Elias narrowed his eyes. "What is it?"
Hael turned to them, blinking as if startled. "He—" he started, then stopped. "He wouldn't let me near him. He's... not ill anymore, but he won't allow an examination."
Katherine stepped forward, brows drawn. "Is he in pain?"
"No," Hael replied at once. "At least, not in the body. He looked alert, but... distant. He said nothing, only stared at me like I was a stranger trespassing. I didn't wish to cause distress."
Elias exhaled slowly and glanced toward the door. "He's awake, then."
"Yes," Hael said. "But I'm unsure if he's fully—present."
Katherine's eyes softened. She turned to Elias. "Perhaps it should be you who goes in."
Elias hesitated. The last time he'd seen August, the boy had been shivering with dreams, thrashing against sleep. He didn't want to barge in and force anything.
But he nodded.
He stepped past Hael, the door whispering open wider with a creak that echoed through the still chamber.
And there, seated in quiet shadow, was August.
He was dressed in Night gown, his pale hair falling in loose waves around his shoulders. The light from the fire gilded his profile, casting delicate shadows along the curve of his cheek. He did not turn to greet them. He was staring ahead—at something Elias could not yet see.
Katherine and Hael waited at the threshold.
Elias took one more step.
"August...?"
The silence that followed was not empty.
It was waiting.
August turned his head when Elias stepped further into the room.
There was no smile. No flicker of warmth. Only the soft shift of his smoke-grey eyes meeting Elias's gaze with a stillness that was almost unsettling. He sat in one of the high-backed chairs near the hearth—carved mahogany, upholstered in wine-red velvet. The flames danced behind him, casting flickering gold through the pale silk of his loose shirt and onto the pale curve of his throat. The shadows made him seem sculpted of porcelain and firelight.
"I don't need rest anymore," August said, his voice as clear and smooth as polished glass. "I'm fine."
Elias blinked.
The boy—no, the man—who had collapsed days ago in a tangle of illness and silence, who could scarcely lift a hand, now sat like he belonged on that throne of crimson velvet. He looked every inch the son of nobility. But there was something else too—something in his posture, the tilt of his chin, the measured, distant cadence of his words.
Confidence.
No. Arrogance.
Elias's jaw ticked.
The hell are you talking like that for?
That thought didn't reach his lips, but it twitched at the corner of his mouth in irritation. He crossed his arms, eyes sharp and watchful. "You don't look fine."
"I don't need to look it," August said evenly, turning his head slightly toward the mirror on the wall, where firelight licked his reflection. "I am."
A beat of silence. The flames hissed in the hearth.
Behind Elias, Katherine entered without a word, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly at the tension in the room. Hael lingered just beyond the doorway, uncertain whether to stay or retreat.
August's gaze shifted toward his aunt, his expression unreadable—serene, composed, and detached.
"You don't have to worry anymore, Aunt Katherine," he said, voice low but firm. "I'm well. I don't need anyone watching over me. And I certainly don't need a physician hovering with his scalpels and tinctures."
Katherine did not flinch. "Hael is not here to harm you."
"I know," August replied. "But his presence is unnecessary."
He said it like he were dismissing a servant, not a man who had faithfully tended him through nights of fever.
There was no cruelty in his tone—but no warmth, either.
Elias's jaw clenched harder. He stepped closer.
"You couldn't walk three days ago," he said, voice low and edged. "You couldn't even lift your head."
August finally looked at him again—really looked. There was a flicker, brief and indecipherable, behind those long lashes. But then he blinked, and it was gone.
"I remember," he said. "But that has passed."
"You don't just rise from your sickbed and declare yourself healed like that," Elias muttered. "You're not made of iron."
"No," August said. "But I'm not made of glass, either."
The fire behind him cracked louder.
"I don't need people fussing over me," August added, quieter now. "I need space. And time. That's all."
Katherine stepped forward then, calm but steady. "August, we only care about your safety—"
"I know you do," August interrupted, more gently. "But I can't—breathe, with so many eyes. Let them go. Please."
There was a moment.
The flames hummed.
Elias looked at him again—this new version of August, regal and remote, cloaked in his own silence like armor.
It wasn't fake.
It wasn't a performance.
This was still August, but something had shifted. That fever hadn't broken him—it had scorched something clean.
His voice. His poise. His gaze.
He wasn't just speaking like his father.
He was becoming him.
"I'll tell Hael to wait outside," Katherine said at last, her voice soft. She nodded toward the door, and Hael bowed silently, disappearing into the hallway with a swish of his long coat.
Katherine lingered a moment longer.
"If you grow tired again, even for a moment, you must say something. This is not pride—it is your life."
August's jaw tightened slightly, but he gave a small nod.
"I will," he said. "If I need to."
She held his gaze for a breath longer, then turned and quietly left, the door closing behind her.
Now there were only two left in the room.
Elias and August.
The fire cracked louder now, shadows playing along the stone walls.
Elias watched him in silence, trying to figure out what to say.
"You're angry," August said after a long pause, not looking at him.
Elias exhaled. "I'm not."
"You think I'm playing a part."
"I think you're... hiding something."
August's fingers curled slightly against the armrest.
"I'm not hiding. I'm standing."
Elias gave a small shake of the head, stepping to the side so that the firelight painted across both of them. "You can stand all you want. But don't push away the people who held you when you couldn't even sit."
August's lips parted—but no words came.
That silence, too, meant something.
"I'll be in the hall," Elias said finally. "But don't take too long pretending to be invincible."
He left without waiting for an answer.
And behind him, August sat still, eyes on the flames.
But something flickered again.
Not in the hearth.
In him.
The door shut with a soft finality. The sound barely echoed through the large chamber, but it filled the quiet like a stamp.
August did not move.
The fire had burned lower now, the coals simmering with a muted red. Shadows curled across the stone walls, and the heavy air inside Blackwood Manor seemed to hum in his ears—not with noise, but with memory.
He was alone again.
Not just in the room, but somewhere deeper.
The chair beneath him might have been carved for royalty, but his thoughts sat elsewhere. His hands, once neatly clasped in his lap, drifted apart. His fingers curled over the edge of the velvet armrest like they were bracing against something.
And then—his eyes lowered, lids heavy, lashes trembling.
He let himself sink.
Not into sleep.
But into memory.
---
Khyronia.
That strange and ancient city.
He hadn't realized how much it had carved into him until now—when its quiet began to return in fragments. Not as images, but as sensations.
The cool, scented air of the hidden chamber.
The veiled master who said so little, but who watched him with eyes that held centuries.
And that sentence—still lingering in the back of his mind like an unfinished thread.
"Not everything will be told. You must find it yourself."
That wasn't cruelty.
It was trust.
August leaned his head back against the velvet. The mirror beside the hearth reflected only pieces of him—his throat, his shoulder, a curl of platinum hair. But in the glass, it looked as if someone else stood behind him.
He didn't turn.
He didn't need to.
They were gone. His parents. His past. But somehow, the weight of what they left behind was still in the walls. In the silence. In him.
A flicker of something drew his eyes toward the tall study doors at the far end of the corridor.
The letters.
He had not read all of them yet.
Some remained sealed—slipped between pages, stacked beneath candles, tucked into the folds of leather-bound tomes. Left by hands long vanished.
They waited for him.
Like echoes paused in ink.
Like ghosts that would not knock but only whisper when the house grew quiet.
His lips parted slightly.
He would go soon.
Not yet.
But soon.
Let the fire die down a little more.
Let the shadows gather around the velvet chair.
Let the weight of silence press until it felt like memory again.
Then he would rise.
Then he would begin again.