Caldris swallowed hard, as though the air itself had turned to stone in his throat. Each step he took toward the white ivory door grew heavier, as if invisible chains wound tighter around his legs, dragging him into some abyss of truth. The corridor breathed around him—whispering, urging—come closer… come closer. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, drumming like war against his ribs, a rhythm of dread that quickened the further he moved.
He reached the door. It stood slightly ajar, pale as carved bone, its gap no wider than a secret daring to be uncovered. With trembling fingers, Caldris pushed it open, and the hinges groaned like mourners, lamenting what lay beyond.
The first sight struck him like a blade. A woman sprawled upon the chamber floor, her golden hair spread like spilled sunlight now drowned in a dark pool of blood. She was beautiful even in ruin, a fallen angel with her wings clipped. Beside her, a man lay collapsed, his white platinum hair—a mirror of August's—matted with crimson. His arm had stretched forward in a futile reach toward his wife, as though death had caught him mid-prayer.
Caldris staggered inward, breath fractured, eyes burning with disbelief. A sword lay cast aside, its steel catching the dull light. It was not Sevrin's. Slowly, unwillingly, he knelt and turned the fallen man over, laying him onto his back. The wound across his chest gaped open, a cruel mouth carved by steel. Caldris's stomach knotted, but before thought could take shape, his eyes caught another trail—thicker, darker—spilling sideways like a river leading to a darker truth.
He froze. The world dimmed. His gaze followed the blood as if bound by fate's hand, and when it landed upon the figure beyond, his heart turned to ice.
There, swallowed by a lake of scarlet, lay Sevrin.
"No," Caldris whispered, but the sound was hollow, a ghost breaking free of his lips. He stumbled forward, every step shattering. His beloved lay draped in his black cloak, the fabric torn and disarrayed, as though the night itself had been ripped open. His obsidian hair, tousled and gleaming faintly in the dusk light, no longer carried its unruly sway. A faint line of blood traced his lips, and upon his face rested a smile—rare, fragile, like a confession whispered too late.
Caldris's hand hovered above him, trembling, refusing, denying. At last, he pressed it to Sevrin's chest. Cold. Lifeless.
The man who had faced enemies without flinching, who had cut down foes without shedding a single tear, broke. His hand cradled Sevrin's cheek—already marble cold. A tear slipped free, carving down his face like the river of grief that no blade could dam.
"Sevrin," he whispered,
voice cracking under the weight of buried hope.
"Sevrin, no… no, no, no. You're not gone, you can't be."
His voice rose, desperation shredding the iron of his composure. He shook Sevrin gently, then harder, as if the body would stir back to life
"Wake up! Do you hear me? Wake up!"
He pressed his forehead to Sevrin's, the coldness burning more cruelly than fire.
"You were mine to protect. Mine! I swore—I swore no blade would ever touch you,
look at me. Look at me, Sevrin! I failed you…"
His words dissolved into ragged sobs.
"Forgive me—gods, forgive me."
He pulled Sevrin into his lap, clutching him desperately, pressing him against the furnace of his breaking heart. His tears spilled freely, darkening Sevrin's cloak, as if he could baptize him back into life.
"Open your eyes… please, see me,"
he begged, his voice quivering like shattered glass.
"See how I am undone,
see how the world collapses without your warmth. Do you remember the night I make you laughed, just once, by the fire?
Do you remember the promises we made—that we'd outlive every storm together? Keep it, Sevrin… keep it, please…"
But the silence gave him nothing back.
Caldris's sobs deepened, raw and childlike. His pride, his dignity—every wall he had built—crumbled like ash. "Don't leave me. Not you. Anyone but you. If death wanted blood, then it should have taken mine, not yours. You're the better of me, the light of me, the reason I—" His voice broke, choked into silence. He buried his face into Sevrin's neck, inhaling the fading scent of him, as if scent alone could anchor his soul.
His memories tore through him like lightning across a storm sky.
The rooftop, where Sevrin's lips had brushed against his own, a kiss as fragile as dawn breaking. The way his dark hair had tangled in the breeze, carrying a scent Caldris swore he could still breathe in even now. Nights when duty called, yet he could never look at his reports, never draw his blade with full focus—because Sevrin's crimson gaze drew him away, made him forget the world. His touch—so vivid, so alive—still lingered on Caldris's skin, burning now like the ghost of fire across cold flesh.
But Sevrin lay unmoved, his lashes fanned gently against his pale skin, lips curved faintly with the echo of some private smile—as though death had carried him gently away, leaving Caldris to choke in the ruins.
Caldris's grief warped into fury. He looked skyward, his tears streaming like molten iron down his cheeks. "You gods!" he bellowed, the sound shaking the chamber walls. "You cruel, wretched cowards! Why him? Why not me? You stole the only soul that made this cursed world bearable. Was this your sport? Was it your pleasure to shatter me, to strip me of everything?"
His chest heaved, his throat ripped raw. He cursed their names, cursed every silent star that watched without mercy. And then his fury cracked back into pleading, his forehead pressed against Sevrin's as he whispered through gasping sobs. "Forgive me, my beloved. Forgive me for being too slow, too blind, too weak. I should have been your shield. I should have died in your place. If I had known that kiss on the rooftop was the last—" His voice collapsed into silence, and his sobs filled the spaces where words failed him.
He pressed trembling lips to Sevrin's cold forehead. "I should have told you more… how much I loved you. How every breath of mine was tethered to yours. Forgive me, Sevrin. Please forgive me…"
He tightened his embrace, rocking him as if to cradle him back into warmth, though each moment proved the truth crueler than the last. His grief was a sea threatening to swallow him, yet beneath it, a black tide rose.
His eyes, once dimmed with despair, blazed now with fractured rage. He bent low to Sevrin's ear and whispered, voice sharpened to a vow carved in blood. "I promise you this—I will avenge you. Do you hear me? I promise. I will rip apart the world if I must. I will not fail you again."
He pulled back, kissing Sevrin once more, softer than the first kiss they had shared on the rooftop. "I will avenge you, my love. No matter what it takes. I won't let you down."
Caldris pressed Sevrin's body against his chest, burying his face in the familiar cloak still heavy with blood. His tears spilled freely, soaking into the fabric, though no warmth would ever rise from it again. Beyond the chamber walls, the heavens themselves convulsed. Clouds, swollen with grief, clashed and split, their bellies ripped open by thunder. Rain lashed the windows and rooftops, breaking upon the earth like tears too heavy to hold, as if the sky itself wept in sympathy.
The storm did not touch them directly, yet its voice echoed through the chamber—each rumble of thunder rolling like a dirge, each crash of rain upon the stone sounding like a requiem for the dead.
But within that chamber, amid the storm's lament, Caldris clung to Sevrin—lover, friend, anchor—and screamed, his cry ripping into the storm as though to rival thunder. Grief had taken his soul, but rage had forged his vow.
And though Sevrin Noctis would never open his eyes again, Caldris swore to carry his name in fire, his love in blood, his vengeance in steel.
Still Caldris clutched Sevrin's lifeless body against his chest, as though by sheer force of will he could anchor him back into the realm of the living. His jaw clenched so hard it ached, his teeth grinding against the silence, against the truth he refused to bear. His eyes, once cold and grey as winter's steel, were rimmed in raw red now—two storms swollen with grief. Those eyes, unyielding in battle, had been bent at last, undone not by blade nor flame, but by love stolen too soon.
He rocked sevrin body slightly, unconsciously, like a grieving lover At the Loss, The chamber, littered with ruin and shadow, seemed to shrink around him, every flicker of candlelight dimmed, every breath of air too thin. His tears left faint streaks upon Sevrin's pale cheek, but the boy did not stir, did not answer, did not return.
Then—footsteps. Soft, hesitant, brushing against the floor of the hall beyond. Caldris heard them, but he did not care. Let the world intrude. Let it see him stripped of dignity. Let them all witness the shattering of the man who had once been called untouchable.
The steps drew closer, echoing faintly against the stone until at last they halted at the open threshold. A gasp split the silence—a sharp, brittle sound, like glass breaking.
A maid stood in the doorway, her hands flying up to press against her mouth. Her eyes widened, round with horror, her face paling so quickly it seemed all the blood fled her veins at once. She saw them. She saw the carnage—the Annalise with her golden hair splayed in a pool of crimson, "Raden" the lord of Blackwood manor collapsed in his final reach toward her, and there in the center of it all, Caldris upon the floor, holding the dark-cloaked boy as though the world itself would crumble should he ever let go.
The maid's scream tore from her throat, raw and jagged, carrying through the manor like a mourning bell. Her knees buckled, and she clung to the doorframe, swaying, as though the very sight had hollowed her bones.
Caldris's head rose slowly, a beast disturbed. His gaze found her—those frost-grey eyes, inflamed red with grief, burned like embers smothered in ash. He did not speak, but the weight of his stare was enough. It was a glare that seared with fury and warning, a silent command to turn away, to leave him to his ruin.
The maid trembled, her breath fractured, and for a moment it seemed she would faint then and there. Yet she could not wrench her gaze away from the scene—their lord and lady slaughtered like lambs, their assassin kneeling amid the wreckage, drenched in sorrow.
The chamber brimmed with silence again, save for the storm outside. Thunder growled, and the rain battered the windows as if desperate to break through. Caldris lowered his head once more, his cheek pressing against Sevrin's cold hair, his arms refusing to yield.
The maid's scream lingered in the air long after her voice fell quiet, a sound that would haunt every stone of the Manor
"Master…"
The voice was low, steady, but it cut through the suffocating silence like a blade. Caldris did not stir at first. His eyes had been closed, pressed shut against the visions that clawed at him. He could still feel the phantom weight of Sevrin in his arms, the coldness of his cheek, the last smile frozen in death. The word rang again, firmer this time, "Master."
Caldris's breath stilled. Reluctantly, he opened his eyes. The chamber of ruin, the corpses, the storm—gone. He was standing instead in the long marbled hallway of Thornleigh's palace. The air smelled not of iron and blood, but of wax and polished stone, of candelabra burning faintly along the corridor walls.
Behind him, a figure bowed slightly, the outline of a man who had served him faithfully for years—his most trusted hand, the one who had walked in silence wherever Caldris commanded. The servant's voice, though respectful, bore the hint of worry.
"Master… what were you thinking of again? Should we leave? It is almost darkening."
Caldris swallowed hard, a knot rising in his throat. The remnants of the vision clung to him like smoke—unwanted, choking, yet unwilling to release its grip. His grey frost eyes, still rimmed in red from the torment of memory, shifted to the high windows that ran along the hall. The day outside had already begun to sink. Shadows spilled like ink upon the palace walls, stretching long and thin, warning of the night to come.
For a moment, Caldris did not answer. His lips parted, but no words came. He clenched his jaw, shutting out the trembling that threatened to expose itself. His hand brushed unconsciously across his chest, as though feeling again for the heart that had shattered once and had never fully mended. Sevrin's name hovered on his tongue, but he bit it back, swallowing it like poison.
"Yes," Caldris said finally, his voice hoarse, the syllables dragged from some cavern of grief and discipline. "We will leave."
The servant stepped aside, falling into place behind him, his presence quiet and obedient as always. Caldris drew a breath and began to walk, his boots sounding against the marble floor in hollow echoes. Each step was heavy, yet steady, like the march of a man who carried not only the burden of his past, but the fire of a vow unbroken.
His mind burned with remembrance—the rooftop where Sevrin's lips had met his under a sky thick with stars, the quiet laughter that had once torn down his walls, the touch that had silenced every blade, every mission, every thought of death. The gods had stolen it from him, or perhaps fate itself had mocked him—but still, his vow remained. Revenge.
He would not falter.
As he moved forward, the flames of the candelabra flickered, casting long shadows across the walls, as if even the palace itself bowed to his grief and rage. The servant followed silently, loyal as shadow, and Caldris whispered under his breath—so low it was almost prayer, almost curse—
"I will not let you down, Sevrin. I swear it."