The banquet wound down slowly, not with a single ending but with a series of small retreats.
Some guests left early, citing the cold.
Others lingered, speaking in low voices near the pillars or vanishing behind heavy curtains to more private rooms.
Kaizlan followed his father through the marble corridor that led toward the inner gardens.
The sound of their steps echoed faintly, the air cooler here, scented with pine resin from the torches.
They passed two nobles mid-conversation.
Their words were soft but quick—like daggers drawn without showing the blade.
"…the tariffs will not hold another season."
"Then it's not tariffs we should be concerned about."
Kaizlan glanced back, but they didn't acknowledge him.
In the gardens, snow lay thin over trimmed hedges, the moonlight silvering the stone paths.
A small group of guests stood near the fountain, laughing too loudly for the hour.
His father approached them with polite nods, exchanging pleasantries about weather and trade.
Kaizlan drifted to the edge of the courtyard, where he could see into the eastern hall through an open arch.
There—Elian Griffin again.
Standing beside Lord Seraphiel Mortani, listening without interrupting as another man spoke.
Elian's posture was calm, his gaze steady, but there was something in his stillness—a kind of restraint, as if the room were a board and every piece had its place.
A voice broke Kaizlan's focus.
"You're far from your table."
It was the blond youth from earlier, the one in the green cloak.
He leaned casually against a column, sipping from a glass.
"And you're far from yours," Kaizlan replied.
"Yes, but I'm supposed to be. My father says you learn more from shadows than from speeches."
The boy tilted his head toward Elian.
"That one… doesn't waste his shadow."
Kaizlan looked again, but by then Elian was moving toward the far exit with two other men.
They disappeared into the deeper corridors of the estate.
Later, back in the guest room, Kaizlan loosened his collar and sat by the window.
The city beyond the walls was silent, its lights dimmed for the night.
Yet he couldn't shake the sense that conversations were still being held somewhere—
in locked rooms, under low voices, shaping things he could not yet name.
And in the middle of it all…
faces like Elian's, whose meanings were still hidden from him.