The hour had turned, though no chime marked it. Time in Blackwood no longer rang — it waited. Watched. Withdrew.
The study had long since surrendered its solemn hush. What remained now was something else entirely — not silence, but suspense stretched thin over the skin of the room, like parchment soaked in oil and waiting for the match.
August sat motionless, yet it was the stillness of a blade before it is drawn — not peace, but tension disguised in poise.
The emblem had not moved, but it may as well have sprouted horns.
He stared at it with the expression of one who recognizes, finally, that the monster beneath the bed had in fact lived inside his chest all along.
A prince in exile from his own ignorance.
He no longer felt young.
His hand clenched the edge of the desk once more, then loosened — as if even the wood beneath him had become suspect. He worked silently— not rash, but swift, like a bird startled mid-prayer.
Bookshelves watched. Candles blinked. Even the walls, hung with ancestral portraits, seemed to wince.
August sat hunched in the lambent hush of his study, quill poised above parchment as ink bloomed like bruises upon vellum. He had been writing ceaselessly, his mind winding through labyrinthine thoughts like a hound chasing ghosts—so absorbed, he scarcely noticed the first tremor in his gut.
A faint ache, no louder than a whisper against his ribs.
He dismissed it, blaming the storm of thoughts that had ravaged him all morning—politics, veiled threats, and memories he had no business entertaining. But the discomfort ripened swiftly into something darker, more insistent. It coiled deep within him, no longer a whisper but a clenched fist twisting in his abdomen.
A soft sound escaped him, unbidden—a breath drawn too sharply.
He set the quill down. The chair beneath him gave a groan as he rose, the sound brittle in the hush. A sheen of sweat had begun to gloss his porcelain brow, and his pale hand trembled as it gripped the edge of the desk for balance. His other arm curled around his middle, protectively, as if he could hold the pain at bay.
"What… is this?" he muttered, voice hoarse, strained.
The words evaporated into the still air.
The ache sharpened again—a cruel, invisible blade—and August staggered a step, the fall of his boots muffled by the velvet rug. His shoulders bowed, and the loose cascade of his ivory curls slipped over one side like a silken curtain. His breath caught, shallow and uneven, as he clutched at the desk once more.
And there—
Beyond the wide window where violet velvet curtains swayed gently with the hush of air—something stirred.
A figure. A shadow.
No sound. No movement. But presence.
A, indistinct silhouette stood in the garden's gloom, half veiled by the drapery. eyes that glinted like white diamonds beneath moonlight, soulless and beautiful. Watching.
Unblinking.
Unseen but fully knowing.
The figure did not enter. It did not need to.
August could feel it—its will, pressing through glass and silk like a ghost's breath on his neck. The pain wasn't natural. It was planted—a phantom seed taking bloom inside him with vicious bloom. Something foul clung to his blood now.
His body convulsed slightly as he fell to one knee, hand still white-knuckled upon the polished desk edge. The sun above had not shifted, yet the room felt colder now. Quieter.
Haunted.
And the man in the shadows—if man he was—watched with cruel stillness, knowing precisely what he'd done.
The gaze.
Heavy. Intrusive. Unmistakable.
His eyes lifted toward the tall arched window, its velvet curtain fluttering ever so slightly, as if touched by a hand unseen. The fading light turned the panes to mirrors, and yet—there was a silhouette. Still. Watchful.
August's voice, though frayed with pain, sharpened with command. "Who—who is it?" The words were bitten between breaths, but they carried.
The figure did not answer.
It moved.
Not away.
Forward.
There was no glass shattering. No storm of entry. Just a ripple of darkness as the tall shadow stepped past the curtain like a ghost made flesh. And then he was there—an inch from him—faster than anything human.
He was tall. The rich black cloak with silver gold thread that had hidden him now fell away slightly with his movement, revealing dashing features sculpted with a cruel perfection. Hair like spilt ink tousled in elegant disorder, and eyes—those eyes, red as crimson but glinting with a vicious clarity—drank August in with loathing.
Kellian Vesper.
There was no mistaking him. The hatred on his lips wasn't new; it had curdled over years, festering into something intimate. Watching August suffer didn't merely satisfy him—it thrilled him.
Behind him, lounging like a cat too bored to pounce, stood Elysian Nevan. His silver-laced eyes half-lidded, his posture draped along the window ledge. Laziness was his art, but danger was his scent. Even in stillness, he was a warning.
But it was Kellian who approached. He stepped into August's pain like one steps into an open wound—deliberate, unsympathetic, relishing.
With a motion swift as wind over a dagger's edge, he seized August's chin in his gloved hand and forced his face upward. The contact sparked sharp agony in August's gut, but he did not wince. His pain was an old companion; his pride, the unyielding shield.
Their faces inches apart, breath mingling between them—one ragged, one ice-calm.
"How dare you," August rasped, his voice low but biting, "step into my manor unannounced."
The moment stretched.
Kellian tilted his head, the ghost of a smirk pulling at the edge of his mouth. There was no humor in it—only derision.
"You call this a manor?" he said at last, voice velvet-wrapped venom. "It reeks of desperation and ghosts. Just like you."
August's eyes burned, but not with tears. No, those had long dried. What remained was fury—dignified, refined, barely contained by flesh.
"You come armed with poison and insult," he hissed, teeth clenched. "Is that all the Eclipse Elite can offer now?"
From behind, Elysian chuckled. "Ah, he still has his tongue. Good. It would be such a waste if it shriveled with the rest of him."
But Kellian did not laugh. He leaned closer, his grip unrelenting.
"You should have died that night," he whispered. "It would've been cleaner."
"And you," August returned, the words cracking through pain and courage alike, "should have stayed forgotten."
Kellian's grip tightened, but just as sudden, he let go.
August staggered, catching himself against the desk, his body trembling from the internal assault. He would not fall—not in front of them.
Kellian turned, his cloak swirling behind him like the wings of some infernal raven.
Elysian pushed off the window and offered August a smile far too warm for the context.
"Ohhh be Gentle," he said lightly.
August's blood ran cold.
The shadows took them.
And August alone—sweat clinging to his skin, breath trembling through the ache in his ribs. The poison still clawed at him, low and relentless, like teeth behind the veil of pain. It wasn't over. It had only just begun.
He tried to straighten, bracing himself against the edge of the desk.
And that's when he felt it.
A shift in the air. A heat that wasn't fire.
Kellian.
August didn't need to look to know he stood there. Still. Watching. The kind of silence that precedes a storm, or a blade being drawn slowly.
The air between them tightened, a breath held too long. August's voice broke it.
"If you ever lay your hands on Elias," he said softly—more vow than threat, "I will not let you live. Not with my hands."
A pause.
And then the rustle of a cloak. The sound of footsteps turning back toward him.
August looked up. And then.
August's back slammed against the wall, the stone biting into his spine as Kellian's hand shot forward, clamping around his throat with a force that sent the air fleeing from his lungs. Not to kill—no, not yet. But to silence. To punish. To crush something fragile and defiant in him. Kellian's eyes were wild, not with bloodlust, but something colder
—rage brewed in betrayal's silence. He wanted August dead. He just couldn't bear to see him alive. Not with those eyes still burning. Not with that stubborn mouth still breathing. His grip tightened, trembling—not from effort, but from fury unspent. "Why won't you just disappear?" he hissed, almost a whisper, almost a plea. August clawed at his wrist, his legs kicking weakly, but his gaze
storm-grey and sharp—never wavered. That look made Kellian snap. He shoved him harder, the wall shaking with the impact, and his breath came ragged. Something inside him broke. He wanted to hurt, but not end. He wanted silence, but not death. It made him mad.
Kellian stood barely a breath away. Close enough to scorch, yet he held his throat. So tight. Now His presence alone was pressure—quiet, terrible pressure—like standing beneath thunderclouds that hadn't yet decided to break.
His eyes gleamed—red and sharp, like rubies caught in candlelight, glimmering with hate and something harder to name.
"You think I don't know?" Kellian said, his voice low and cruelly calm. "I know Elias lost his memories."
August flinched—just barely. The pain still gnawed at his core, but it was nothing compared to the blow of those words.
He gritted his teeth, every breath scraping.
"I'm warning you," he whispered, eyes never leaving Kellian's. "Touch him, and I will end you."
Kellian didn't laugh. Didn't smirk.
He simply studied August—like someone reading the edge of a prophecy they didn't believe in, but feared anyway. Then, with a soundless breath, he stepped back.
Kellian stepped back—not in retreat, but in silent dismissal. The space he left behind felt colder for it.
August, no longer supported by the defiance in his spine, sank. His knees buckled beneath him like a marionette cut from its strings, and he collapsed to the ground with the slow, aching grace of a wilting flower.
Sweat clung to his brow like dew on dying petals, his breath coming in ragged threads. The poison curled and twisted in his gut, each pulse of pain a wicked knife turned inward. Still, he pressed his palm to the floor, teeth gritted, eyes dazed—but unbroken.
Above him, Kellian stood like a dark monument, unmoved by the ruin at his feet. He looked down—not with satisfaction, nor mercy, but something far more scathing.
"Pathetic," he spat, the word sliding from his tongue like venom.
It hung in the air, sharp and lingering.
Then—another presence.
Elysian approached soundlessly, as if conjured by the very shadows themselves. He reached out, not to August, but to Kellian—his hand settling gently upon the taller man's shoulder, fingers curling with quiet familiarity.
"It will be all right," he said, voice smooth, soft as velvet but strangely absolute. "Let us leave before curious eyes begin to stir."
Kellian's gaze flickered toward him, and for a fleeting breath, his cruel expression fractured—softened, as if Elysian alone was allowed passage through the storm of him. Something unspoken passed between them, a glance heavy with history.
They turned.
Together.
But not before casting one final look upon August.
A tableau: the broken nobleman upon the floor, wrapped in agony and sweat, silver hair tangled like moonlight in ruins… and yet, his eyes—still burning with quiet wrath.
They saw it.
And walked away.
They both flew by the long arched window, without any burden.
August remained, alone. Every inch of his body screamed, his insides afire with poison's cruel rhythm—but still he did not cry out. Only his breath, thin and pained, marked the silence.
And even now, even brought low, there was steel in his suffering.
Giles moved with uncommon haste, the sealed letter trembling faintly in his gloved hand as he ascended the corridor. Though age had silvered his temples and slowed his stride, there was a sharpened edge to his movement now—an instinct honed through decades of loyal service. Something was wrong. He could feel it in the marrow of his bones.
The great doors of the study loomed ahead, half-shadowed by the light that clung to the halls. He reached them, breath shallow, and with one firm push, the latch gave way.
The door creaked open.
And silence met him.
The vast study, once full of quiet order, lay in strange disarray. The chair behind the writing desk stood empty, slightly askew, as if someone had left in haste. The chaise by the tall bookcases—unoccupied. The soft tick of the mantle clock felt deafening in the hush.
Then—his gaze shifted.
There, by the far window, where the light spilled in like golden ink, a figure lay crumpled on the floor. Shivering. Breath short. Pain painted into every fragile line of his body.
"My Lord…"
The letter slipped from Giles's hand as he rushed forward. The years melted from him in that moment. He dropped to one knee beside August, the polished floor cold beneath him, but he paid it no mind.
August's body was curled, his white hair tangled against his sweat-damp brow, his fingers clenched tight over his abdomen as though trying to keep something cruel inside from tearing free. His skin was pale—too pale—even for him, and his eyelids fluttered, heavy and half-closed.
"My Lord, what happened?" Giles asked, voice roughened with urgency, yet never without reverence.
There was no reply. Only the low rasp of August's breath, shallow and strained.
Giles leaned closer, hands trembling now—not with fear, but with fury at his own helplessness. "August," he said again, more firmly this time, brushing a lock of damp hair from the young man's temple. "August, please… What is wrong?"
A faint sound left August's throat—neither word nor cry, just a breath caught in pain. His eyes fluttered open for a fleeting instant, silver-grey and clouded with fever. But he could not answer. He could barely endure.
Giles gritted his teeth, his old heart pounding like war drums. Whatever had transpired here had left its shadow.
And it had not been kind.