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Pamarthe – Brune Family Homestead, Near the Cliffs
Lioras breathed deeply and closed the diary.
It wasn't anything new—he'd been writing in it for as long as he could remember. The voices were calling his name, but he didn't move. He couldn't. Not yet. Not until he felt some flicker of purpose. Not until the words on the page came to life.
But no matter how long he waited, the pages would never become sentient. They would always be a dream he fought for in silence—a dream that would remain just that.
He slid the book into his pocket, the motion eerily familiar. Routine. Rehearsed. His body ached from sitting too long, but he didn't stretch. Didn't sigh. Just stood there, listening.
The wind was never quiet. Not like him.
It had been howling all afternoon—louder than usual, like it was trying to say something no one could quite understand. Lioras liked to imagine it was speaking to him. Not in words, but in feeling. Like the wind understood him better than anyone else ever had.
And maybe, in some strange way, that was true.
The voices grew louder. Closer. His father's low murmur. Jace's sharper tone. Halric's laugh—brief, then gone. Lioras wasn't blind. He knew they didn't really need him. They just needed someone to fill the space. To patch the silence in their family with something that looked like presence.
He looked out at the ocean. Its crashing waves, wild and furious, seemed almost innocent compared to the war inside his own mind. Each day, his existence felt harder to justify.
And then, the voices stopped.
Like even they didn't know what to say anymore.
Lioras knew what came next. He knew what he had to become—the version of himself they could understand. The one who filled their void, even as his own remained empty.
Null.
He accepted that role without complaint. He always did.
Lioras took one last look at the world around him—the cliffs, the sea, the sky—and then, without a word…
He turned.
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