The carriage swayed gently, its wheels groaning over the uneven stones of the old country road.
The scent of damp earth rose with every turn, mingling with the faint perfume of the pinewoods that hemmed the path like a cathedral of ancient sentinels.
Through the misted glass, Everin beheld them—
those spires of blackened stone, long and slender as if they were the very fingers of heaven reaching down to brush the world.
The cathedral stood not far now, its bell tower half-shrouded in pale morning fog, the bronze cross at its peak catching what little light dared pierce the clouded sky.
The nearer he came, the more his thoughts strayed from the scenery and bent toward the manor beyond.
Blackwood.
August Everhart D'Rosaye's
that brooding fortress of slate roofs and arched windows, where shadows seemed older than the walls themselves.
He could almost hear the echo of the gates creaking open in his mind.
Could almost see the pale figure within, standing by the firelight.
But the image faltered.
The August of his thoughts was not the August he feared he would find.
For poison had wound its treacherous fingers through his veins.
Everin did not know the depth of its malice—
whether it had merely grazed him, or whether it had curled itself around his very heart.
He pressed his gloved hand against his knee, steadying himself against the rattle of the carriage.
How will he be?
The question, like a needle, kept pricking at the soft fabric of his hope.
He told himself—almost fiercely—that he would see him near well, seated perhaps by the hearth with that unflinching gaze he carried like a sword.
Yet the truth, quiet and cold, whispered otherwise.
Outside, the road narrowed.
The forest thickened.
The fog drew closer, cloaking the path as though it too sought to hide the outcome from him.
And there, in the far-off distance—beyond the dark canopy of pines—
the first turrets of Blackwood began to emerge.
Tall, immovable, and sombre, they rose from the land like the crowns of sleeping giants.
Everin's breath misted against the glass.
His fingers curled around the carriage seat.
In moments, he would be there.
In moments, he would know.
The carriage gave a final lurch before stilling, the tired breath of its horses steaming in the cold morning air.
Everin sat motionless for a heartbeat, listening to the quiet thrum of his own pulse.
Through the mist, Blackwood loomed—its slate spires and mullioned windows catching what little light the pallid sun afforded, its iron gates yawning like the jaw of some ancient sentinel.
The footman descended, boots striking the gravel with a muted crunch, and swung open the door.
Everin's hand lingered on the edge of the frame.
One step—only one—and he would cross into the realm of shadows that August called home.
But his foot hesitated.
The thought of entering felt like stepping into a dream he had no wish to wake from, and yet dreaded to see unfold.
August… beautiful, fragile—ah, not gentle, no; there was steel in him.
But Everin loved him all the more for it, though love was, at times, a noose around the heart.
He had come too far to retreat now.
A weary smile—thin as frost on glass—bent his lips, yet faltered at once, for in the hollow of his chest his heart whispered the same merciless refrain: poison.
And with that word, the memory uncoiled—
August as a boy, silent as snowfall, distant as the moon, yet radiant enough to make the world seem dim.
Everin recalled how he would slip behind Aunt Katherine's skirts to avoid his gaze, only for Everin's own stubborn affection to cling all the tighter.
He saw again the morning light spilling over those ivory curls, gilding them as though some painter's hand had lingered there.
From his breast pocket he drew the handkerchief—white as a winter sky, edged with silver and gold embroidery that traced August in delicate letters.
Once, it had carried a faint perfume that could undo him with a breath; now its scent was gone, yet still he pressed it to his lips, kissing the name as if it might answer him.
A heat touched his cheeks; his sea-born eyes glimmered beneath the weight of memory, honey-gold curls swept neatly from his brow.
"August…" he murmured—again, and yet again—as if the name itself were a draught both intoxicating and cruel.
Drawing in a breath that trembled like a candle in a draft, Everin set his foot to the gravel.
The long gates of Blackwood rose before him, their black iron twisted into shapes like sleeping thorns, and with the groan of ancient hinges, they began to open.
Everin slipped the handkerchief back into his breast pocket, the embroidered name hidden now like a secret too dangerous to be seen.
He took a step forward. The cold air bit gently at his cheeks as the footman of Blackwood swung open the wrought-iron gates with a groan like the sigh of something ancient and unwilling to wake.
Yet with each footfall, his nerves coiled tighter.
How was he to meet August now?
Not the August of memory—distant yet luminous—but the August whose body had been trespassed by poison's slow and silent hand.
It was then that Giles emerged from the mist, the steward's measured steps muffled on the gravel.
Everin stilled, finding him just a few paces away, the man's dark coat buttoned to the throat, his expression a model of Blackwood restraint.
Giles approached and bowed, the gesture precise, as though every movement in this house must be weighed before given.
Everin's brow furrowed.
"How… how is he now?"
The question left his lips with more urgency than grace, a thread pulled too quickly from fine cloth.
The steward lowered his gaze. "My lord… the poison has lessened its grip upon him. Yet… a trace's still lingers in his veins."
Everin's lips pressed together, forming a line as thin and taut as drawn steel.
"Can… can I see him?"
Giles lifted his head, and for a breath's space the two men regarded one another—one with eyes that pleaded, the other with the measured calm of a man who knows truths better left unsaid.
"Yes, my lord," he said at last, "but… I am not certain he will be pleased to see you."
Everin's jaw slackened, then tightened once more as an unwelcome name rose in his thoughts—Elias.
Not an enemy in open war, no, but a thief of something far more precious: August's company, August's trust. From the first moment to this very day, he had stood between them like a shadow drawn too long by the sun.
"No one will bar me from him," Everin said, the words low but unyielding. "Not Elias. Not anyone. I will see him."
With that, he strode forward toward the manor's looming façade, his coat sweeping behind him like a standard in a silent march.
Giles remained at the gate, watching him go. At length, the steward's head tilted in a slow, resigned shake—the same weary gesture a parent gives a stubborn child determined to claim the toy they have set their heart upon.
Everin's boots struck the marble with a soft, deliberate cadence, the sound muffled by the thick Persian runners unfurling like rivers of muted wine down Blackwood's hallways. The air here was cooler, touched with the faint perfume of cedar and the ghost of long-burnt fires. Shadows clung to the cornices like cobwebs spun by patient centuries, and the sconces, though lit, seemed reluctant to give up their light.
He kept walking.
Past closed doors that looked as though they might whisper if leaned upon, past portraits whose oil-dark eyes seemed to follow him. The silence grew heavier the further he went, as though each step took him deeper into a heart that had long ago learned not to beat loudly.
And then—there it was.
The chamber door. August's door.
Everin's breath shortened, his ribs tightening as though braced by unseen hands. His pulse throbbed like a drum hidden under his ribs, urgent and unrelenting. August was there. Just beyond that polished oak.
It was possible—likely—that August would not wish to speak to him. But that mattered little.
He would see him.
Even if only for a moment, even if August's eyes remained closed, even if pain dulled that gaze into something distant. He would see him, and then he would leave, and no one could rob him of that.
He reached the threshold and paused, one gloved hand on the brass knob. He swallowed against the dryness in his throat, drew in a breath that trembled faintly, and turned it. The latch yielded with a subdued click.
The door swung inward with the slow complaint of old hinges, a sound so soft it seemed to hush the very air in the room.
And there—
He saw him.
August lay reclined among a sea of ivory cushions, their lace-trimmed edges spilling like delicate waves over the carved headboard. His nightgown—long, sheer in places, and trimmed with the fineness of old lace—flowed over him as though sewn from moonlight itself. His hair, pale as winter wheat, spilled in loose curls over the pillow, catching what little light the drawn curtains permitted.
He was breathing—not well, but breathing—and the fragile rise and fall of his chest was the most arresting sight Everin had beheld in all his days. His lashes, pale and long as if spun from frost, trembled faintly, a shiver of some unspoken discomfort.
Even like this, diminished by illness, August was unarguably beautiful—
beautiful in the way statues are beautiful, not because they move, but because they remain.
Everin scarcely realised at first that he was alone.
Only when his gaze strayed past the bed to the far wall did he see the tall figure standing sentinel there.
Elias.
The other man's presence was a sharp stroke of reality across the silk of Everin's moment. Elias's arms were folded, his posture easy but edged; his expression one of unmasked distaste, as though Everin's very arrival had been the wrong note in a sonata.
Everin swallowed and stepped further into the room, willing himself to disregard him. But before he could close the distance to August's bedside, Elias moved.
In two unhurried strides, he was there—standing directly in Everin's path. His height was an advantage he did not need to flaunt, yet he leaned forward, closing the gap with deliberate precision until his shadow fell over Everin's face.
Everin halted, his ocean-hued eyes meeting those glinting green ones, eyes in which something unreadable flickered—perhaps warning, perhaps challenge.
"Step aside," Everin said, voice clipped but steady.
Elias's brows drew together by the faintest measure. His reply came low, his tone just shy of a whisper, yet carrying the weight of command. "Please leave. It is an order from Lady Katherine. No one is allowed to see him."
Everin did not move. He lifted his chin slightly, as if to meet that looming presence without flinching. "He is my cousin," he answered, each word slow and deliberate. "I have every right to visit him without being halted."
Elias's mouth twitched—though not in amusement—and the corner tightened into something that might have been called displeasure had it been a lesser man's face. He did not step aside.
The space between them was taut as a drawn bowstring.
Everin's fingers itched with the impulse to push him aside, but even as the thought rose, he knew the futility of it. Elias was built as though some old god had sculpted him to guard gates, not open them; to stand in thresholds and make trespass feel impossible.
Yet for all the barricade of his frame, Everin's resolve did not waver.
He could feel August's presence just beyond, as palpable as the warmth of a candle through glass.
And he would not be turned away.
Elias did not blink.
For a moment, the silence between them was like ice—clear, brittle, dangerous if broken too suddenly. His gaze, steady and unyielding, was that of a man accustomed to having his will obeyed without the necessity of raising his voice.
When he spoke, it was with the slow precision of someone selecting a blade from a velvet-lined case.
"Leave," he said, the word soft as falling ash. "Leave quietly… while it is still my courtesy that asks it of you."
Everin's lips pressed into a thin line. He could feel the pull of those words, the weight behind them, but the stubbornness in him burned like an ember refusing to be smothered.
Elias's shadow loomed closer. "If you do not," he continued, voice lowering into something cold enough to frost the air between them, "then I will use my own methods to make you."
The implication was not shouted. It did not need to be. It lingered like the faint scent of steel after a blade has been drawn—felt more keenly in the skin than in the ears.
Everin's breath caught in his chest, not from fear, but from the sheer audacity of being challenged so openly here, in August's own chamber, when the very reason his heart was hammering was only a few feet away.
"Your methods," Everin repeated, tasting the words like something bitter. He let his gaze rake briefly over Elias's stance—perfectly balanced, immovable, as though the floor itself had consented to hold him in place.
The hallways of Blackwood had seemed long a moment ago, but now the space between him and August's bed was the longest corridor he had ever faced—barred not by distance, but by the tall, unshifting figure before him.
"You speak," Everin murmured, "as though my will is made of softer things than yours."
Elias did not answer at once. The corners of his mouth shifted—just enough to suggest that he was neither amused nor angered, but merely calculating. The green in his eyes glinted faintly, like light skimming over deep water.
"I speak," he said at last, "as one who knows the cost of ignoring my words."
There it was—an unspoken history in the timbre of his voice, an assurance that this was not the first time he had been forced to act on such a warning.
Everin's hand twitched faintly at his side, his gloved fingers curling, not in preparation for violence—he knew the folly of that—but in the effort of holding his ground. He could feel the tension in the air, like the moment before a door slams in a storm.
For a heartbeat, they stood thus, the very room seeming to lean in, listening. The faint rise and fall of August's breath, the whisper of the curtains shifting against the window frame—every sound became a needle threading through the silence.
Everin knew one thing with absolute clarity: if Elias moved, it would not be to let him pass.