Beneath the eastern wing of Thornleigh Palace lay a secret chamber long sealed from the vulgar gaze of courtiers and the idle murmur of banquet halls. Its doors, carved in solemn oak, bore symbols now unremembered by scholars: crescent moons entangled with jagged arcs of lightning, the ancient crest of Thornleigh's sovereign bloodline. Within, the air was damp, heavy as if it had drunk centuries of silence. The vault overhead arched like the ribs of some slumbering colossus, its stones whispering the weight of dynasties long entombed. Here, truth and treachery alike were summoned beneath torchlight.
Upon a couch of dark velvet sat Duke Alexandrino, a figure of distinction clad in garments that bore the grace of his rank without the gaudiness of vanity. His presence commanded the chamber with the quiet strength of one who need not raise his voice to enforce obedience. Behind him stood his men, rigid as shadows cast by marble statues, their hands resting near the hilts of their blades though not yet upon them.
Opposite him, in that chamber where oaths were measured against suspicion, sat Caldris Rheyne. His eyes—pale and cold as northern frost—were fixed upon his palms, as though he read in their lines a fate half-carved, half-defied. Behind him lingered his most trusted servant, a sentinel in silence, his face veiled by a mask of black and white divided clean down the middle. A cloak, long as night and heavy as penance, wrapped about him until he seemed less man than monumental shadow—an immovable wall that followed where his master led.
Duke Alexandrino's voice at last broke the hush, low yet resonant, weighted with grace and solemn dignity.
"So, Rheyne," he said, his tone as polished as silver but no less sharp for its refinement, "do you bring forth any evidence of your innocence?"
The words, though spoken with courtesy, bore the steel of accusation, and their echo trembled along the chamber's stone ribs.
Caldris's head lifted slowly, and for a moment silence reigned again. His jaw tightened with the fury he sought to bridle, for behind his master, the masked servant inclined his head ever so slightly—a silent counsel. The message was plain: this was not their territory; the tongue must be leashed though the heart burned.
Yet fury is a wild stallion ill content with the reins. Caldris's lips curved with disdain, and he spat the words, "That bastard," his voice edged like iron striking flint.
The torches flared as if the chamber itself recoiled. Alexandrino's men shifted faintly, their hands grazing the steel at their sides, but the Duke raised one pale hand with effortless authority. No sword was drawn. The silence deepened, as though time itself bent to hear what Caldris would say next.
Rising from his couch, Caldris stood tall, his shadow climbing the chamber wall like a dark banner unfurled. His voice rang bold and unbending.
"Give me time," he declared, "and I shall prove my innocence. I vow upon my blood, upon Khyronia's honour, that I will unmask the true hand behind this vile game. I will not merely uncover him—I already know the face of the serpent. And when I seize him, not even the hollows of eternity will hide him from my reckoning."
The words, flung into the chamber, settled like coals upon the still air, glowing with a fervour that refused to be quenched.
Turning sharply, Caldris strode toward the chamber's exit, the veiled servant following like a towering shadow, so tall and cloaked that he seemed to dissolve into the gloom, a figure carved of both nightmare and devotion. To those who watched, he appeared less a man than the sentinel of fate itself. Together, master and servant departed, the echo of their steps retreating into the labyrinth of corridors beyond.
Duke Alexandrino remained seated in his chaise, his hand lightly curved upon its carved armrest. His eyes, deep-set and thoughtful, followed the departing lord. Though suspicion had summoned Caldris to Thornleigh, there was no certainty in the chamber's air that he was a murderer. The Duke, who had looked upon liars for half a lifetime, knew well the hollow timbre of falsehood. Yet in Caldris Rheyne's voice there had been no hollowness, but rather the thunder of a man wronged, and wronged grievously.
"Strange," murmured Alexandrino at last, his words meant only for the hush of stone and the men who guarded him. "It does not rest upon me like guilt. No, it sits upon him as if he were the hunted rather than the hunter. Perhaps he did not slay those noble officials. Perhaps another hand seeks to weave this tapestry of shadows, and Rheyne is but the thread chosen to bear the stain."
The Duke's gaze drifted to the sigils upon the door—crescent moons clasped with lightning, emblems of dynasties that rose and fell before even memory could carve their names in chronicles. He thought of the storm gathering beyond Thornleigh's gilded halls, and of the men who walked cloaked in masks, swearing allegiance to no sovereign save the hidden one who moved them as pieces on a board.
And though the chamber fell silent again, Alexandrino knew that silence was not peace but only the pause before thunder.
Outside, in the vaulted halls of Thornleigh's palace, the echo of boots resounded like a distant drum of fate. Caldris moved with a measured stride towards the grand doors, his cloak trailing like a shadow at his heels. His servant followed, a hesitant figure in the silence, until he dared to speak:
"Master… do you think it is his doing?"
Caldris's jaw hardened, teeth clenching as though to cage the storm that burned within. "I am certain," he hissed, his words bitten through with fury. Yet, as his step faltered and he came to a halt, so too did his servant, pausing at the sudden stillness of his lord.
Caldris's hands curled—whether upon nothing or upon memory, it was not clear. Something unseen pressed against him, as if the present dissolved into the shape of the past. His countenance, fierce moments ago, softened into a grim pallor. A vision seized him: the flash of a memory, bright as steel and bitter as ash.
He was astride his horse—black as midnight thunder—its hooves pounding like the very heartbeat of despair. Faster, faster, he urged the creature on, though each stride tore at him with crueler agony. The world itself seemed to be collapsing; no, it was his world that broke apart. The more the horse galloped, the heavier the weight of foreboding crushed his chest.
Above, noon's light was swallowed by a surging sky. Clouds—dark, swollen, merciless—drew across the heavens, heralds of calamity. The winds grew sharp, their cry like a dirge carried through a land already undone. Caldris rode against it, breathless, heart aching with a pain he dared not name.
It was happening. Or had already happened. Yet still, he refused—refused to believe that destiny's cruel hand had struck so soon.
The manor, though still clothed in life, rang hollow to Caldris. Its lanterns flickered with the illusion of warmth, its windows breathed the sighs of a once-proud house, yet none of it mattered to him. To his eye, the laughter of its walls was but a painted mask; the only pulse he sought beat not in stone nor in silence, but in the hidden presence of one more precious than gold, more necessary than breath. All else was a ghost, an afterimage of a world he cared not to inherit.
His horse, dark as midnight ink, carried him with quiet urgency down the winding road that curled toward the estate. When the crest of its gates revealed itself beneath the dawn light gaze, the letters carved into its ironwork shone like a sigil — Blackwood Manor. A name whispered in the marrow of history, steeped in mysteries and blood. He drew rein, the stallion's breath fogging the cold air, and lingered only for a heartbeat. To stride openly into such a house would be folly, for Caldris bore the mark of a high-ranked assassin, sworn to shadows rather than courts.
With the silent grace of a hawk at dusk, he dismounted. His figure, lean as a blade, approached the tall iron gates, blackened with age and ambition. He did not so much as test the lock; instead, with a measured leap, he vaulted over their broad width. His boots met the ground with scarcely a sound, as though the earth itself conspired in secrecy with him.
The garden sprawled before him in eerie stillness. Roses, once fragrant sentinels of joy, drooped like mourners with their heads bowed. The fountains whispered only to themselves, their trickle sounding more like a lament than a hymn. No servants stirred, no laughter of children drifted between the hedges; it was a theatre where all the actors had vanished, leaving only the scenery behind. Seizing the moment, Caldris pressed forward, his stride neither hurried nor slow, but deliberate, as if every step drew him nearer to the very core of his heartbeat.
At the threshold of the manor, he paused. The vast door loomed above him, carved with patterns of ivy. He pressed through, the hinges groaning like ancient throats reluctant to wake. Within, the air grew colder. Silence gathered about him, heavy and expectant, as though the walls themselves held breath in anticipation of revelation.
He moved with the patience of an assassin, though his chest ached with the impatience of a man. Every step was precise, yet heavy with urgency. The manor's walls loomed higher as he approached, their pale stone catching threads of sunlight like flesh touched by fire. No laughter stirred from the windows. No rustle of children. No trace of song. Only silence, and silence itself was a kind of accusation.
Inside, the hush deepened. His boots whispered against marble floors, each step echoing like the throb of his own pulse. A hall stretched before him, long and lined with doors that seemed endless, each one a sealed mouth that could open to confession or to grief. His heartbeat thundered—thump, thump, thump—a drum of dread against his ribs.
The first door he pushed open creaked like a reluctant witness. He slipped inside with the poise of a predator. Sunlight speared across the chamber, illuminating velvet curtains, a polished table, the hushed order of a room unoccupied. His lips parted, breath raw. "Not here."
He closed the door, moved on. Another door opened, his hand swift but steady, eyes darting, absorbing every detail—the faint perfume of roses lingering, the neat bed unslept in, the chair turned toward the window as if expecting someone who never returned. His throat tightened. "Not here either."
He pressed forward, his body a blade in motion, but within, his spirit stumbled. Servants' footsteps drifted faintly along some far corridor, the murmur of daily routine rising with the dawn, oblivious to the chaos, the wound, the hunger that drove him. He heard them, catalogued their distance, dismissed them with instinctive calculation. He was unseen; they were irrelevant.
Door after door, chamber after chamber—his movements immaculate, his tread so clean the marble bore no memory of his passage. His mind prayed with each silent step, though his lips only broke once, at last, into a whisper cracked with ache.
"Where are you, Sevrin?"
The words floated, fragile and devoured by the vast hush of the manor. He swallowed them back like poison and pressed on, his heart both weapon and wound. Dawn poured brighter through the tall windows, gilding the dust motes into tiny stars, but to Caldris it was not light. It was reminder. Reminder of time passing, of absence lingering.
He moved deeper, further, refusing to yield. Every unopened door was hope. Every opened door was despair.
And still he searched.
Caldris moved with the stealth of a shadow, each step an echo of urgency pressed into the marble floor. He had searched chamber after chamber, each refusal of Sevrin's presence a dagger turned inward. Then—at the far end of the corridor—he saw it: a door left slightly ajar, breathing out a thin ribbon of dawnlight as if it held its own secret pulse. His heartbeat drummed, louder than the hush of distant servants, louder than the world itself.