After retreating to his room, Askai did what any man with too many thoughts and too little peace would have done. He went looking for the bottle—the one he had foolishly abandoned earlier.
He should have drowned in it.
He sat hunched over the small bar counter beside the towering window, the glass cool beneath his forearms. Outside, the city had dissolved into a formless black void, lights distant and indifferent to the storm brewing inside him.
The room itself was a study in deliberate luxury and Askai quietly wondered who it could possibly belong to.
The question barely had time to settle before the lock clicked softly.
Askai didn't turn. He didn't have to.
The air shifted—subtle, unmistakable. Silent footsteps crossed the carpet, unhurried and confident.
Vance.
Strong arms slid around him from behind, drawing him back into a firm embrace. Not like earlier that day, when it had almost felt safe. Now it was different. It felt like restraint.
Askai stirred, restless, his fears dulled by the alcohol burning low in his veins. He was already far gone—dangerously close to the state he'd been in the first night they'd met.
He twisted free of Vance's hold with clumsy determination and staggered toward the bed. He was done. Too tired to fight, too drunk to think. Sleep was the sweet poison tempting him into oblivion now.
Rest could be dealt with tomorrow.
But Vance wasn't finished.
He hadn't gone far before a cold hand settled at the back of his neck. Not harsh but commanding. A slight tug, and suddenly Askai was pulled back against him, trapped once more in that familiar, infuriating circle.
There again.
"What are you doing?" Askai slurred, his forehead coming to rest against Vance's chest, embarrassingly close.
Vance snorted softly. "What am I doing?" His tone was lighter than it should have been. "More like—what's gotten into you? You were perfectly functional this afternoon, and now you're drinking like my crazy aunts!"
Askai tried to pull away but his feet tangled beneath him, and he pitched forward. The floor rushed up—then stopped.
"Hey—easy!"
Vance caught him by the shirt and hauled him upright with reflexive ease. A laugh escaped him before he could stop it. When Askai looked up, mortified, Vance had already schooled his face into something close to innocence—save for the telltale glint of amusement in those steel-gray eyes.
That look did something dangerous to Askai.
The world narrowed. The room faded. It was just the two of them again—no West, no East, no blood-soaked histories or looming walls. Just two men in a room, wrapped in identities that could almost pass for normal.
A respectable businessman. An irritable heir from a privileged family.
Life, briefly, felt simple.
The drapes had been drawn, muting the city's presence. Lamps cast a pale gold glow that softened Vance's sharp edges, gentled the severity of his features. In this light, it was dangerously easy to forget the man he truly was. To pretend he wasn't capable of cruelty delivered with a smile.
Warm hands moved along his back, slow and grounding, almost soothing.
And before he could stop himself, the thought slipped free.
"Why do you believe they're beyond redemption?"
The words hung there, fragile and misplaced.
Vance chuckled softly. "Who are you even talking about?"
He guided Askai toward the bed, easing him down despite his half-hearted resistance. "Let me at least get you settled. We can argue philosophy in the morning."
Askai frowned, clinging stubbornly to consciousness. "I'm talking about the ones in the West."
Vance paused, looking down at him. "Why are you stuck on that like a broken record?"
Askai's voice softened, losing its sharpness as the alcohol dragged him under. "Just humour me." A beat. "What if I was born on that side of the world?"
The question lingered, quiet but clearly uncomfortable.
And for the first time that night, Vance didn't answer right away.
"I would have taken you," Vance said quietly after a pause, gently kissing his knuckles. "Before the West ever had a chance to claim you. Just like last night."
He slid in beside Askai then, drawing him closer, an arm settling around him with deliberate ease.
"Mm… hmm." Askai hummed, the sound loose and unfocused, his mind struggling to keep pace. Somewhere in the haze, he realized Vance hadn't actually answered him.
"That doesn't answer it," he muttered stubbornly. "If I'd been born on the wrong side of the wall, I'd have been just as filthy—"
Vance stilled. His finger pressed lightly to Askai's lips, silencing him. Askai turned onto his side to look up at him, but his vision wavered, eyelids drooping.
Even drunk, Askai was relentless—still pushing at the one subject Vance despised most. Sometimes Vance wondered if Askai did it on purpose—if he prodded and pushed simply to see where the cracks were. Askai was reckless enough to try it.
The boy tried to sit up. Vance pressed him back into the mattress with barely any effort. Just a gentle nudge. That was all it took. He could keep him there all night if he wanted to—could toy with him until dawn.
"Are you going to say something?" Askai demanded, irritation cutting through the haze of drink.
There was a great deal Vance could have said. Too much, perhaps. And that had always been the problem.
So far, he had survived by leaving certain things untouched—memories set aside like abandoned rooms, sealed and left to gather dust. Time had done the rest, layering silence over them until even he no longer remembered where the doors had once been.
Reynold believed that Vance's hatred for the West had grown out of that same neglect. That the rot had sunk so deep, spread its roots so thoroughly, that Vance himself could no longer tell where it began or where it ended.
He wanted Vance to dig.
But Vance had left that land of betrayal and death behind long ago. He had locked every door that led back to it and thrown the keys into places even memory could not reach.
So how did one answer a question like that—without brushing against one of those doors?
And yet, another fear lingered beneath the surface. If he did not warn this boy—if he let him walk blind into the nature of the West—then one day Askai would be forced to dig graves of his own, burying truths no sane mind was meant to carry.
Vance exhaled slowly.
"My mother," he said quietly. "She was from the West."
The silence that followed was heavy.
Everyone knew Meredith Regale—the celebrated jurist, Kevin Regale's wife, a paragon of Eastern virtue and Vance Regale's mother.
She was not West at all. Not in any way the world acknowledged.
Askai stared at him.
Maybe I am not drunk enough for this conversation. Askai thought.