The daylight crept gently through the tall windows, veiled in pale gauze. The sun was out, yes—but it held no warmth, only that useless brightness that made everything feel too real, too unkind. Within the chamber, silence sat between two figures like a guest neither had invited.
August lay on the bed.
Not like a prince in repose, nor a patient in peace—but like a man trapped inside his own ribs. The pillows at his back were silk, fluffed, precise. The sheets were crisp. The room, quiet. But nothing could still the war behind his eyes.
Not even sleep dared stay.
Beside him, Elias sat in a straight-backed chair, legs still, shoulders tense. His arms were folded—not in defiance, but in defense. Of what, he wasn't sure.
He didn't remember this room.
He didn't remember the softness of August's hair, or the sound of his voice before the fever made it sharp.
He didn't remember why the silence between them felt so loud.
He only remembered waking up in this manor, wrapped in bandages, told he belonged there.
Now, he sat beside a boy who looked at him like he was everything.
And Elias… didn't know how to feel.
August stirred.
Barely—a flinch more than a movement. But Elias leaned forward slightly, unsure whether to speak. He didn't. Not yet.
A soft, ragged breath left August's lips.
His hand trembling—lifted to his forehead, and then stiffened. As if pain struck, sudden and sharp, behind the eyes. He winced. Grit his teeth.
"August?" Elias's voice was careful. A question, not a call.
No answer.
The boy in the bed sucked in a breath through his teeth. Something behind his eyes was twisting—memory, perhaps. Or poison. Or both.
"You think I don't know?"
"I know Elias lost his memories."
Kellian's words.
Cold. Slow. Certain.
August's breath hitched as the memory surged.
No warning.
Only that blade-like strike across the mind—a pain that crawled behind his temples and lit fire along every nerve. His spine twitched. His hand shot upward to his head as though trying to rip the agony from his skull with fingers alone.
Elias stood up—half a step, not too close.
He didn't know what to do.
He didn't know what he used to do.
Did August like to be touched? Did he hate it? Had Elias comforted him before, or stood exactly as he stood now—useless, afraid?
"What's wrong?" Elias asked, voice low but not steady.
August didn't reply.
He turned his face to the side sharply—and choked.
Something warm, metallic, bitter, surged up his throat. He coughed once, and a fine thread of blood spilled past his lips, dark and sharp against the white sheets.
Elias's heart lurched. "August—!"
"I'm fine," August said through clenched teeth, his voice nearly a growl.
"You're not."
"Don't," he snapped, not meeting his gaze. "Don't look at me like that."
Elias hesitated—then sat down slowly, his movements wary, as though afraid to startle a creature already wounded.
"I am not regarding you with anything," he said quietly.
You are," he said through clenched teeth. "Don't insult me with sympathy. I don't need anyone's worry. Or pity."
Elias said nothing.
Not because he agreed.
But because he didn't know how he used to fight back.
He didn't remember what words August needed.
He just… sat there. Still. Present. But not quite close.
August leaned back into the cushions, jaw trembling as he pressed his wrist to his mouth to wipe away the blood.
"The antidote," Elias said, "Lirael said it would work. He and I both—"
"It is working," August cut in.
"Just slowly.
A pause.
Then, lower:
"…I can feel it. Every time I breathe."
Elias looked at him, eyes tight with something too raw to name. But he didn't reach for him. Didn't touch him.
Because something in him whispered:
I should know how to do this.
But I don't.
And August—he didn't noticed.
Of course he didn't.
And he said nothing.
Because silence was easier than grief.
The hallway outside August's chamber was washed in a pale, drowsy light—the kind that passed through heavy drapes and seemed reluctant to disturb anything within. Elias stepped toward the door, his hand hovering over the polished brass handle, fingers trembling faintly though he pretended otherwise.
He wasn't sure why he hesitated.
Perhaps it was the blood.
Or perhaps it was the way August had turned his face to the window—resolute, distant, not wanting to be seen like that. Not by him.
Still, Elias's breath was uneven, and his chest felt too small for the worry it held. Something was wrong. More than what August would allow him to see.
More than what Elias—lost to memory, adrift in his own skin—knew how to tend to.
He reached for the handle.
And the door opened from the other side.
A breath caught in Elias's throat.
Lirael stood there, a silhouette haloed by the lamplight behind him, robes of pale ivory trailing like scripture. His long blond hair was loosely tied, but strands had fallen across his temple, and his eyes—those strange, magenta eyes—immediately swept over Elias with that unnerving precision that priests and magicians shared.
The healer did not smile.
He rarely did.
But something in his posture softened—if only slightly.
"Elias," Lirael said. "Is he—?"
Elias stepped back, just once. Enough for Lirael to pass. His voice came low.
"He's not fine."
Lirael's brows furrowed—barely a flicker, but enough.
Without waiting for permission, he moved past Elias with the effortless grace of one who had walked beside illness longer than most had walked beside men. His footsteps were soundless, his expression unreadable.
Elias turned, lingering by the doorframe now, uncertain if he should stay or vanish.
August had been right about one thing.
He didn't know how to care for someone. Not properly.
But he could watch. He could be near.
He could stay.
Inside, August had leaned back once more, but only just. His fingers were still curled slightly at his side, a faint tremor in their joints. The blood had been wiped away, but its echo still clung to his lips—the dull red of defiance.
Lirael approached the bedside, drawing gloves from his satchel with the care of a man preparing for a sacred rite.
"August," he said gently, his voice silken but not soft, "you should have called for me the moment the pain returned."
August didn't open his eyes.
"I don't require a nursemaid."
"No," Lirael replied, unoffended. "But your body disagrees."
August made a sound then—half a scoff, half a sigh. But he did not stop Lirael as the man reached for his wrist, fingers light but steady as he checked the rhythm beneath the skin.
Elias watched.
The chamber had gone quieter somehow—more reverent. The scent of lavender mingled now with the sharper notes of tinctures and paper-sealed salves. Bottles clinked faintly as Lirael examined him, drawing a small blade to check the veins beneath August's nails, then tilting his chin to peer into the whites of his eyes.
"You're still running a fever," Lirael murmured. "And the poison… it lingers."
"It was supposed to be purged," August said hoarsely.
"It was weakened," Lirael corrected, "but not undone. Not entirely. Your blood still carries traces of it. And if you keep resisting rest…"
August's lashes flicked open, and his gaze cut sharp as glass toward Lirael.
"Then what?"
"Then it will fester again," Lirael answered, unapologetically. "And I will have to reopen the wound."
A silence fell. Not cold, but strained.
Elias stepped forward, then stopped again. A half-motion. Always a half-motion.
Lirael glanced over his shoulder and caught the hesitation.
"You may come closer," he said without looking away from August. "Unless you'd rather wait until I'm pricking veins."
Elias didn't smile. But he moved.
August turned his face away again—toward the window, toward the morning he could no longer pretend was gentle.
And Lirael, patient and practiced, resumed his work. A murmured prayer beneath his breath. A bottle uncorked. The soft sound of cloth being soaked, then laid gently across August's brow.
It was not enough.
But it was something.
And Elias, at last, sat back down.
Not beside August.
But near.
Watching.
Learning.
Or maybe Trying.
But nothing was better.
Not the light.
Not the linens.
Not the air thick with lavender and gentle intentions.
August's skin still burned with the residue of poison—phantom fire curling beneath his ribs, his joints aching as though he'd been hollowed out and filled with glass. The fever hadn't loosened its grip, only learned to hide better. His breath came in quiet, shallow exhales, and yet still he would not—could not—rest.
Rest.
How could he, when truth pressed itself like a blade beneath his collarbone?
He was meant to be moving, searching, unfolding the knots of the earlier secrets that had knotted into mind.
But.
There he was, a prince of nothing, marooned among pillows and silk, unable even to sit upright without betrayal from his own bones.
He loathed it.
Loathed the weight of blankets that felt like shackles. Loathed the pity in Elias's quiet. Loathed the carefulness in Lirael's every touch.
He did not want care.
He wanted clarity.
But the body refused what the soul demanded—and August, for all his strength of will, could not rise against that tyranny.
Lirael's hands withdrew at last, his examination complete. The cloth that had been pressed against August's brow now lay folded upon a tray, damp with fever and futility.
"You must rest," the healer murmured, his voice a chord of silk and stone. "Your body is too fragile to endure further torment. The poison may be fading, but its effects are remain."
August didn't answer.
He didn't even blink.
Instead, with a sharp breath and trembling limbs, he turned.
Away from the light.
Away from Elias.
Away from Lirael.
He shifted beneath the sheets like a wounded creature curling inwards—not from pain, but from pride. His spine to the room, his face half-buried in the hollow of the pillows.
He would not let them see himself like this.
Not when the blood still tasted bitter in his mouth.
Not when his muscles trembled with every breath.
Not when the rage in his chest had no outline but silence.
He hated this.
He hated this more than any blade.
More than any wound.
To lie here—like a patient, like a broken thing—when he had spent his whole life teaching himself not to break.
He had endured loss, exile, grief—without complaint. Without indulgence.
But this?
This was slow, humiliating.
His body—his betrayer.
And himself—powerless to wrest control from it.
Behind him, Lirael said nothing.
But Elias could see the flicker of an amused breath in the healer's chest—no ridicule, only reluctant affection. Lirael shook his head, lips twitching into a smile that spoke more of exasperated fondness than pity.
"So stubborn," he murmured under his breath. "So very royal."
Then louder—though still quiet enough that it didn't pierce the cocoon August had wrapped around himself—he said, "Let him be. For now."
Elias nodded slowly, watching August's back, unmoving beneath the silk.
He didn't dare say what he was thinking:
That this wasn't strength.
This was pain disguised in silence.
And pride mistaken for armor.
But still, he said nothing.
Because August would not have tolerated the truth.
Not yet.
So the room fell into hush once more.
The kind of hush that follows a storm—
Not calm, but aftermath.
And August, beneath his fury and fever, let the silence hold him.
Not to comfort.
But simply because there was nothing else left to do.
Neither Elias nor Lirael knew.
They saw only the back he turned toward them, the proud tilt of his shoulders beneath sheets too fine to comfort.
They did not see the way his lashes clung together—heavy with tears he did not permit.
They did not hear the ragged breath caught between restraint and rebellion.
They did not know that on the other side—where he had buried his face from view—August was crying.
Not for pity.
Not for comfort.
But because pain had found a place in him where pride could not reach—
And because his body, once so unyielding, now betrayed him with every breath.
He did not sob.
He wept—quietly, fiercely, like a cathedral cracking beneath moonlight.
And the room, wrapped in the hush of false peace, did not bear witness.
Not fully.
Because he made sure they wouldn't.
Because no boy should ever be seen breaking…
…not even when the breaking is done in silence.