The chamber had quieted. The stars carved into its stone ceiling no longer shimmered with the same wonder. What had once been a sanctuary of secrets now felt like a tomb not for bodies, but for truths long buried.
August stood motionless, his eyes lingering on the likeness of the assassin etched into the center wall. The scrawled name beside it had settled into his bones like frost: Elias. Still, he said nothing. His silence, as always, was louder than most men's screams.
Across the room, Caldris Rheyne stepped forward, hands folded neatly behind his back. Candlelight curled over the edges of his dark robes, and his voice, when he spoke, was gentle, worn.
"There are things I've kept hidden for decades," he said. "But some truths… they knock until the door splinters."
Elias, still stunned, finally turned toward him. "Why me?"
Caldris regarded him carefully. "Because your existence was a threat. Not just to the Eclipse Elite's command but to the prophecy they pretend not to believe. They feared what you would become."
August glanced at Elias, but the taller boy didn't meet his gaze.
Caldris's lips thinned. "And now you both carry knowledge heavier than any blade. Use it wisely… or it will use you."
The silence that followed was not empty it brimmed with unspoken questions and the ache of understanding that could not be undone.
"We should go," August said quietly. His voice, low and steady, left no room for argument.
Caldris walked with them to the stone stairwell. Before they ascended, he paused beside Elias and placed a hand briefly on his shoulder. "You are not who they say you are," he said. "You never were."
Elias nodded once, jaw tight.
August didn't look back.
But just before they disappeared into the narrowing passage, Caldris called softly into the dim:
"You remind me of someone," he said. "Someone I failed to save."
The stairway swallowed their figures one step at a time.
And behind them, in the silent chamber beneath a ruined city, Caldris stood beneath his carved constellations a solitary sentinel to a past he could not undo, and a future he would never stop watching.
The stars had not faded yet when Caldris Rheyne led them from the chamber.
No words passed between them for some time. August walked in silence, his hand occasionally brushing the hilt of the sword Elias had polished for him just days ago — though it felt like another life. Elias walked beside him, tense but steady, his eyes flicking toward every shift in the shadows. He had not asked for the truth they were given, but now that it burned in his chest, he would carry it.
Khyronia's lower catacombs were silent as a tomb. Dust clung to old carvings on the walls — faded sigils and names erased by time. At the end of the passage, Caldris raised his lantern. The stone shifted with a low groan, revealing a hidden archway that opened into mist and soft grass.
A moon-silver carriage waited at the edge of a grove, veiled in creeping vines and shadowed trees. The horses stood unnaturally still, their coats black as a midnight mirror, their eyes reflecting the light like polished onyx.
Two guards waited — tall, faceless beneath deep hoods. They did not speak.
Caldris turned toward August and Elias.
"You will ride through the Eastern Vale," he said quietly. "There is a bridge where no bridge should be. Cross it by starlight, and no eye loyal to the Eclipse Elite will see you pass."
Elias accepted the scroll offered to him — sealed in dark wax bearing a rune neither he nor August could read.
"Give this only if you're caught," Caldris added, his voice colder now. "It will buy you time. Nothing more."
August met his gaze. "Why help us?"
For a moment, Caldris didn't answer.
Then he said, "Because not all debts are paid in blood. Some are owed to the ones we failed to protect."
August didn't press further. The ache in his chest hadn't dulled, but he no longer wanted answers from men whose eyes were always turned toward the past.
As Elias stepped toward the carriage, Caldris placed a hand gently on August's shoulder. "Velmoura is quiet, but it listens," he said. "If you wish to find what was lost… don't look to your blade. Look to what haunts your silence."
August gave no reply — but he did not look away.
They climbed into the carriage, the door shut with a soft click, and the shadows swallowed them whole.
As the horses moved, silent as death, Khyronia faded behind them — a city of secrets buried in starlight.
And far ahead, through fog and twilight hills, Velmoura waited.
The carriage moved steadily along the winding road, wheels humming over damp earth. A soft creak, rhythmic and patient, filled the silence between them. Trees passed by the windows like shadowed phantoms, branches bowing under the weight of dusk. The interior lantern glowed gently, throwing golden light across August's face — still, unreadable.
Elias watched him, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. There was something tight in his chest he hadn't been able to ease since they'd left the hidden chamber.
August hadn't spoken in nearly an hour.
"You're quieter than usual," Elias said, voice careful.
August's eyes shifted to him — slow and deliberate, like a gate opening in winter. "There's nothing worth saying."
That answer stung more than Elias expected. He leaned back a little, uncertain. "Did I say something wrong?"
"No," August replied simply. He turned his face back toward the window. "It was too long ago."
"What was?"
But August didn't respond.
Elias frowned slightly. "You used to talk more. When we were younger."
That earned him a flicker of a glance — quick, sharp, almost a warning.
"You remember wrongly," August said. "I never did."
Elias's voice grew softer. "You spoke to me once. Right before I left. It was your birthday. You sat in the garden. You let me carve that little knight for you."
August's jaw tensed. His gaze fell back to the lantern. "And then you left."
Elias exhaled. "I didn't want to."
"But you did."
There was no bitterness in August's tone — only fact. Blunt, clean, cool. And yet it hung between them like a wall of stone.
"I was only a boy," Elias said. "I didn't understand what I was leaving behind."
"And I was a child," August murmured. "I understood enough."
He lapsed into silence again. The words had cost him more than he'd admit. Elias watched him — pale lashes against fair cheeks, silver hair catching the firelight in quiet arcs.
"You became distant," Elias said after a moment. "After I left."
"I had no reason not to be."
"You could've written."
"You could've stayed."
That time, Elias said nothing.
Outside, the fog had thickened. Trees gave way to fields, to low stone walls and forgotten crossroads. The path forked, and the carriage turned gently toward the southern route — Velmoura lay ahead.
August finally moved. He shifted in his seat, folding his arms, the movement both defensive and graceful.
"You say I changed," he said softly. "But it was you who disappeared."
Elias's voice broke a little when he answered. "And if I said I regretted it?"
"I would believe you," August said. "But it wouldn't change anything."
The carriage hit a patch of uneven road, jolting softly. Elias braced himself and studied August's silhouette in the dark. The sharp line of his jaw. The stillness. The self-protection worn like armor.
And yet, despite the coldness, Elias knew what it meant.
August had cared. Once. Maybe still did.
The silence between them was no longer empty — it was dense, humming, alive with things neither of them dared say aloud.
Far ahead, in the soft glow of twilight, the first distant rooftops of Velmoura came into view. Familiar spires rising from the mist. The silhouette of the manor August had once called home.
And within it — memories buried deep. Locked doors. A waiting echo.
Elias leaned forward, his voice low. "I'm here now."
August didn't look at him.
But after a long breath, he replied.
"For how long?"