Morlith woke to warmth.
Not the heat of roaring flames or the hush of cloistered stone, but the quiet warmth that lived between two bodies sharing a narrow bed. Sunlight pooled across the sheets in gentle bars, catching dust like drifting pollen. The air tasted of linen and soap and a faint trace of iron from a pipe somewhere in the walls. Beneath all of it, a steady heart beat close by, measured and calm.
Kieran lay on his side facing him, one arm tucked under the pillow, the other strewn across the covers as if he'd fallen asleep protecting a shoreline. His lashes threw small shadows over his cheeks. He looked unguarded, almost ordinary. It made no sense at all that Morlith felt safer with this human at his back than he had in centuries of silence.
Thou liest, and yet— He silenced the thought before it turned bitter.
He had not been fooled. The careful way Kieran had spoken, the ease with which he had moved around relics no normal soul would dare touch—the boy had not stumbled into fate. He had sought Morlith, learned the whispers, found the portrait. The lie was a gift, then, a fragile bridge offered in the dark. For now, Morlith allowed it. If the past had taught him anything, it was this: truth shattered too soon could maim more surely than any blade.
He listened. The house, even at rest, carried a pulse. Not breath exactly, but memory—old vows layered beneath fresh paint, iron woven into beams, salt burned into thresholds long ago. When he'd crossed the door the night before, a cold dread had slipped beneath his skin—for an instant he had been certain the walls themselves would lunge. Yet under that chill had come the whisper of something familiar, not welcome, but known. This place had been a hunter's den once, and houses remembered.
Morlith studied Kieran's face until the heartbeat quickened by a fraction. The boy's eyelids fluttered, then opened. Brown eyes, soft and surprised, focused on him. For a breath, neither of them moved.
"Morning," Kieran said, voice rough with sleep. "Are you... all right?"
"I am upright," Morlith said, and the old cadence shaped the words. "And I am... not devoured by the night. 'Tis enough."
Kieran's mouth tilted into a smile. "That's one way to put it." He pushed himself up on an elbow, then seemed to realize how close they were and made a gentle space, leaving the bed's edge warm where he'd been. "Do you need water? Food? I can make something simple."
"I hath no need of..." Morlith said, too quickly. He saw confusion flash over Kieran's face and softened his tone. "Forgive me. I meant... I require not that which many of my kind covet. Plain fare shall suffice."
"Okay," Kieran said quietly. "Then plain fare it is." He swung his legs over the bed. "Don't move too fast. If you get lightheaded, call me. I'll only be in the next room."
"I shall endure," Morlith murmured. He watched Kieran stand, watched the line of his shoulders, the small careful gestures of a caretaker who did not wish to startle a wounded animal. The thought made something inside him loosen, then tighten again.
When Kieran left, the house pressed in with its layered histories. Morlith sat up slowly. No pain bloomed from the sunlight streaming through the window; it laid over his skin like warm cloth, no more threatening than a hand held over a candle. Still, the brightness made him squint—the world had noise and color he had not remembered, edges too crisp after centuries of being painted into silence.
He stood and crossed to the window. Gardens lay beyond, wild at the borders but tamed close to the house. New glass in the panes. Fresh plaster. In the reflection he caught his own face: light brown skin, hair dark and loose about his shoulders, eyes hazel and ordinary again. No trace remained of last night's flare—no gold, no crimson. He touched the glass. It was cool. He was here.
Kieran's footsteps returned, quieter than most. Morlith sat again, arranging the blanket over his knees before the human could rush him. It was an old habit, dignities salvaged from broken rooms.
Kieran set a tray on the bedside table—bread, butter, soft fruit cut into careful pieces; a steaming cup that smelled rich and bitter. "I didn't know what you'd like," he said. "So I guessed."
"Thou guessest kindly," Morlith said. He took the cup, breathed in the scent, sipped. Warmth unfurled from tongue to chest. He tried the bread, the fruit. His body accepted them with thanks. "This house," he added, when Kieran had settled into the chair, "it hath bones of age disguised by fresh raiment."
Kieran's gaze flicked toward the doorway, then back. "It's an old family place," he said lightly. "I cleaned it up. Tried to make it livable."
"Thou hast succeeded." Morlith let his eyes stray to the ceiling beams, to the sliver of iron that flashed near a lintel—tastefully hidden, finely placed, something only a trained eye would know. He kept his expression smooth. "It remembereth those who dwelt here afore."
Kieran's fingers stilled where they had been worrying the hem of his sleeve. "Houses do that," he said.
"Aye," Morlith said, as if speaking only to the cup. "Some remember kindly. Some remember with teeth."
He did not look at Kieran when he said it, and so he only heard the soft exhale, the way a man breathes when he decides to walk an edge and pretend it is a path. "You slept," Kieran said. "That's something."
"A light dormancy," Morlith said. "Mine eyes may close, yet the ear remaineth watchful. I have not forgotten the craft of surviving."
"That sounds exhausting."
"Tis breath," Morlith said, and let a small smile show. "Thou growest used to it, or thou perish. There is little middle road."
Kieran studied him openly for the first time, and Morlith felt the attention like a hand just above skin—no contact, only heat. "Do you remember," Kieran asked, "the last thing before the... portrait?"
Morlith laid the cup down with care. The steam drifted between them like someone else's sigh. "I remember a father's hands," he said softly. "I remember a promise made in haste and in love. I remember the sound of a seal becoming a cage." He lifted his gaze. "And I remember that I did not expect to wake."
Kieran's throat moved. "I'm... I'm glad you did."
Morlith inclined his head. "As am I." Then, as if the thought had only just occurred: "Thou saidst thou didst find me by fortune's whim."
Kieran nodded, fast. "Yeah."
Morlith let silence work. He watched the boy's shoulders, the small flinch that ran beneath the skin like a fish beneath water. He did not press. Pressing made cracks, and cracks broke vessels you still wished to drink from.
Instead he asked, mild as weather, "What year is this?"
"2020," Kieran said. "It's... different from what you knew. I can help you catch up." His voice steadied as he spoke, grateful for something he could offer that did not graze the blade of truth. "There's a lot to explain."
"Then explain little, and well," Morlith said. "The world did not become thus in a day; I need not learn it so." He finished the fruit and set the plate aside. "I would walk. Slowly. I would learn the paths of thy home."
Kieran stood at once. "I'll show you. Just... lean on me if you need to." He offered an arm, not presumptuous, only present.
Morlith did not take it. He rose unaided, testing his weight. His legs obeyed. "I shall call if I falter," he said. "But let us see what the house will say to me." He paused, then added more gently, "Thy arm shall be near, if needed."
They moved through corridors bright with new plaster and quiet with old restraint. The floors had been sanded and oiled; the carpets cushioned steps that once had creaked warning. Kieran spoke of doors and rooms—the study, the kitchen, a small library reborn from dust. He named none of the old things, the things that lingered in the seams.
At each threshold Morlith felt the same twin sensation: a brush of cold under the skin, and beneath it a second current, the familiarity of the road taken often by enemies and kin alike. Near the back stairs, where two halls joined, something pricked like a thorn. He paused.
Kieran halted beside him. "You okay?"
"A knot in the weave," Morlith murmured. He lifted his hand and did not touch the plaster. "Once, a line was drawn here. Salt. Iron. Prayer. 'Tis mended now, yet memory leaveth a bruise."
Kieran's jaw tightened before he forced it to loosen. "If... if anything in here hurts you, we can change it. I mean that."
"Thou wouldst unmake thy inheritance for me?" Morlith asked, not mocking.
Kieran met his eyes. "I would make this house safe for you. Whatever that takes."
The words fell with weight. Morlith stood inside them, testing their give. He felt the tug in his chest, that unhelpful wanting to believe. "Generous," he said finally. "And dangerous."
"Why dangerous?"
"Because vows bind," Morlith said. "And the world collecteth on them."
They reached the library, a small room dressed in clean shelves and rescued volumes. Sunlight found a table near the window. Morlith rested a hand on it and let the light bathe his knuckles. He did not burn. Kieran watched him like a man witnessing a heresy and finding comfort in it.
"Tell me," Morlith said, still gazing at the bright grain of wood beneath his skin, "Why didst thou come to that forsaken place? Few seek dust for sport."
Kieran swallowed. "I heard rumors," he said. "About an old painting. People said it was... strange. I was curious."
Morlith turned his hand palm-up, as if weighing the words. Curiosity could be true. It was not the truth. He allowed the smallest nod. "Curiosity, then."
Kieran exhaled, relief too quick to conceal. "Right. And I'm glad I did."
Morlith's mouth tilted. "As am I." He moved to the shelf and let his fingers ghost over spines. Titles meant little yet; letters had bent like branches in the years he had been elsewhere. "There will be those who search, now that the seal is sundered," he said, not looking back. "Eyes that watched my father will turn again."
Kieran's voice lowered. "Then we'll keep you hidden." The we landed between them like a choice already made.
"We," Morlith echoed softly. "Thou usest a binding word with ease."
Kieran flushed, then steadied. "It's still the right one."
Morlith looked back at him. Something in the human's stance—hips set, shoulders square, chin lifted—spoke not of accident but of decision. He picked me from time and brought me into his house. He maketh a wall with his body and names it help. The old instincts stirred, distrust flexing. And yet the pull beneath it did not lessen.
"Very well," Morlith said. "We shall attempt this 'we' upon thy word. For now."
Kieran's smile reached his eyes this time. "Okay." He hesitated. "Do you... want to rest more later? Or we can sit in the garden for a bit, if you'd like the air."
"The air I shall take," Morlith said. "Rest I shall steal where it can be had." He paused, then added, as if against better judgment, "Thy bed was... not unkind."
Kieran laughed under his breath. "High praise."
"Do not clasp it too tight," Morlith warned, though his tone gentled the words. "Praise and trust are both skittish beasts."
They walked the garden paths slower than the corridors. Bees worried at late flowers. Somewhere a dog barked twice and fell quiet. Beyond the hedge, the world moved—unseen, but felt in a shimmer of distance. Morlith stood at the edge of a bed where herbs grew, neat and green. He pinched a leaf and brought it to his nose, frowning thoughtfully at the sharp, honest scent.
"Basil," Kieran offered.
"Not by that name when last I trod earth," Morlith said. "But the tongue remembereth even when the ear faileth." He released the leaf and faced Kieran full. "I know thou didst not find me by stumbling feet."
Kieran's breath caught, but he did not look away.
"I shall not demand thy cause," Morlith continued. "Not yet. But know this: I am not helpless, and I am not prey. If thou keepest me, thou keepest also the teeth of my past. Dost thou understand?"
Kieran nodded, once. "I do."
"Good." Morlith let the warning settle, then—perhaps because the morning was kind, perhaps because the bed had been—he let the edge soften. "And yet," he said, almost to himself, "though the lie offendeth, thy presence... stills a part of me I had thought forever unrested."
Kieran's reply was very small. "Mine, too."
Silence lapped between them like a shallow tide. Morlith turned his face to the sun and closed his eyes. The light stroked his skin, harmless. He could hear Kieran's heartbeat again, closer now, the rhythm steady and good.
He lies, Morlith thought, and I let him. He is danger shaped like shelter. He is shelter shaped, perhaps, like fate. He opened his eyes.
"We shall break our fast again at noon," he said, as if this were a household already. "Thou shalt tell me of the city's borders and the names of its gates."
"We don't really have city gates," Kieran said, smiling despite himself. "But I can tell you how to get everywhere."
"Then do so," Morlith said, and could not help the smallest echo in his chest when Kieran stepped to his side without being asked.
They went back inside together. The house felt them pass and said nothing, but its old memory pricked at Morlith's skin, a stitch he could not yet unpick. He would learn its seams soon enough. For now, there was a table and a window and a human who lied with care and held him as if he were the only true thing left in the room.
By afternoon, Morlith suspected, the world would begin to remember him out loud. For the length of this morning, he would allow the quieter truth: he did not wish to leave.