The palace thrummed with the quiet chaos of governance. Ledgers stacked like miniature fortresses, quills scratched across parchment, messengers moved in careful currents. Taxes, reports, troop movements. The kingdom breathing through ink and paper.
And yet beneath all that motion, something felt dimmed. Muted. Like a velvet curtain had been drawn over the sun.
The queen was nowhere to be seen. Knights moved in tight formations preparing for the Galesphire plan. Servants spoke in low voices and walked lighter than usual.
Most noticeably, one presence was missing.
Nikolai.
Aster spent the morning drifting around the palace like a restless shadow. He helped Eloise in the kitchen, dusting flour over the counter and earning a few scolding looks when he stole bites of dough. Rowan sat through his lessons nearby, scowling at textbooks as if they were sworn enemies.
By afternoon, Aster's patience frayed.
He started wandering. Courtyards. Hallways. Balconies. Anywhere Nikolai might be. But every servant he approached bowed politely and slipped away before he could ask anything useful.
By the time he reached the royal archives, he was already suspicious.
Elodie sat at a long table surrounded by towers of books, reading calmly as if the palace weren't behaving like it had swallowed a secret.
"You're searching for Nikolai, aren't you," she said without looking up.
Aster stopped. "…Was I that obvious?"
"He isn't here," Elodie replied, turning a page. "And he doesn't wish to be disturbed."
The bluntness hit like a closed door.
"What is he doing that everyone has to avoid him?" Aster crossed his arms. "People always avoid him, sure, but not like this. The entire palace feels… weird."
Elodie exhaled slowly. "You don't want to know."
Aster stayed silent. Stubborn. Waiting.
"Nikolai is feeling under the weather today," she said at last. "He has what the servants call a Veil Day." Her voice softened slightly. "On Veil Days, he doesn't like to be disturbed. He doesn't like to see anyone. He just… stays in his room."
Aster frowned. "Does he normally do that?"
"It started after our father died." Elodie closed her book gently. "He became more withdrawn. Some days he shuts everyone out. Even Mother."
Aster looked at her, concern clear in his eyes.
Elodie noticed. Of course she did.
"You can try bringing him brunch," she said with a sigh. "But be careful. On Veil Days his pheromones get… heavier. Even you might feel it, and you're recessive." She gave him a pointed look. "Don't say I didn't warn you."
Aster smiled anyway. Determined.
He went to the kitchens and asked for a tray. The servants handed over food with the solemnity of people sending someone into a lion's den.
"Be gentle," one warned.
"Don't irritate him," said another.
"And knock," a third added firmly.
Tray in hand, Aster stepped into the quiet corridor leading to Nikolai's wing.
The closer he got, the more the palace seemed to hush itself. Like even sound knew better than to cross the threshold of a Veil Day.
Each step down the corridor thickened the air.
Blueberry.
Not the gentle sweetness from the kitchens. This was deeper. Darker. A scent that clung to the lungs and curled behind the ribs. It grew heavier the closer Aster came to Nikolai's door, until breathing felt like wading through warm dusk.
He stopped outside the door and exhaled slowly.
Knock.
No answer.
He pushed it open anyway.
The room was dim, curtains half drawn. The scent hit him all at once, rich and dizzying, enough to make his head swim. It wasn't just pheromones. It was mood, memory, stormcloud and winter all tangled together.
On the bed, Nikolai sat hunched beneath a nest of blankets.
"I told you to leave me be," he muttered, voice rough, eyes dull and shadowed. His hair was unkempt, silver falling across his face like he'd run his hands through it too many times. Pale. Sulking. Worn thin.
Then he looked up.
Saw Aster.
His expression shifted instantly. Alarm. Embarrassment. Something almost like panic.
"Anyone could see me like this," he snapped, pulling the blanket tighter around himself. "Anyone but..." He stopped. His jaw clenched. "Leave me be."
Aster stood there, quietly taking in the sight.
This wasn't the crown prince who walked like a blade through courtrooms. Not the fox-smiling strategist who toyed with nobles and enemies alike. This was someone exhausted. Someone who had folded in on himself and stayed there.
Someone who just wanted the world to stop asking things of him.
Aster set the brunch tray down on the table without a word and walked closer. The scent intensified, thick enough to press against his skin, but he ignored it.
"I told you to get out," Nikolai said again, softer now, more tired than angry. "I don't want to see-"
He stopped.
Aster had stepped forward and wrapped his arms around him.
Warm. Steady. No hesitation.
For a moment Nikolai froze, like a startled animal. Then the tension in his shoulders cracked. Just a little.
Aster didn't speak. He only held him and gently patted his back, slow and grounding. Like he was telling his breathing to remember its rhythm.
Nikolai's eyes went glassy. Tears gathered without permission, blurring the edges of the room. He had expected distance. Avoidance. Polite retreat. Everyone else gave him space on Veil Days. Everyone else left.
Aster stayed.
That simple choice undid him more than any blade could.
Nikolai shifted closer without thinking, curling inward, forehead pressing against Aster's shoulder. The blueberry scent softened, turning less sharp, more tired. He didn't want to talk. Didn't want to move. Didn't want to be the prince or the heir or the weapon everyone expected.
He just stayed there, tucked against Aster, quietly stealing warmth.
And Aster let him.
For four hours, Aster didn't move.
The room shifted with the slow crawl of afternoon. Light slid across the floorboards, climbed the bedframe, then faded toward evening. Servants passed the corridor once or twice, quiet as moths, but no one knocked. No one dared interrupt a Veil Day.
Aster held Nikolai the entire time.
He didn't mind the tangled sheets, the crumpled blankets, the half-finished tray growing cold on the table. None of it mattered. The moment he saw Nikolai curled in on himself, something in Aster had simply… decided.
He looks so tired.
Not the kind of tired sleep fixes. Not the kind cured by tea or rest or a single quiet afternoon. The kind that settles into bone. The kind that lives there.
Aster didn't know every detail of what Nikolai had endured, but he knew enough. A dead father. A crown that felt less like inheritance and more like gravity. A mother forced into politics and remarriage. A kingdom watching. Waiting. Judging.
And Nikolai himself. Born a death-chanter. An Enigma. Titles that sounded grand in ballads but felt isolating in real life. People whispered. Feared him. Avoided him. Called him ruthless. Cold. Menacing.
Aster had heard all of it growing up in the outskirts. Stories that made Nikolai sound more storm than person.
Yet the one curled against him now felt painfully, quietly human.
He remembered the way Nikolai had knelt beside a crying girl in the village, gentle despite the chains at his side. The way he'd looked when Aster got hurt. That flicker of panic he tried to bury under composure. The quiet pride he held for Elodie, never spoken but always there.
He loved people. That much was obvious.
He just didn't know how to show it without armor.
Or maybe he did, but only in ways so quiet most never noticed.
Nikolai shifted slightly, breath evening out, forehead still resting near Aster's shoulder. He hadn't fallen asleep. Not fully. Just existing there, suspended in that fragile space between exhaustion and relief.
Aster kept one hand on his back, drawing slow circles through the fabric.
"You don't have to carry everything alone," he murmured softly, not expecting an answer.
None came. Only a faint exhale.
The blueberry scent had mellowed over the hours, no longer sharp or overwhelming. It lingered warm and subdued, like dusk settling over a field after rain.
Outside, the palace continued its quiet storm of duties and decisions. Plans for Galesphire. Letters. Strategies. Politics humming like distant thunder.
Inside the room, there was only this.
Two people sitting on a rumpled bed. One holding. One being held. Neither speaking. Both understanding more than they said.
For once, the crown prince of Eidralis wasn't a weapon or a symbol or a future king.
He was just a tired boy who needed someone to stay.
"You should get up and eat. Even a little," Aster said, voice low and even, like he was negotiating with a stubborn storm.
Nikolai tightened his hold instead. "No. I don't want to."
A pause.
Then, traitorously loud in the quiet room, Nikolai's stomach growled.
Aster bit his lip. Failed. A quiet snicker slipped out anyway.
Nikolai narrowed his eyes, pale and offended on principle. "I'm still not eating. I'm too tired to lift a finger."
"You don't have to," Aster replied calmly. "That's the beauty of this arrangement. You can sulk and chew at the same time." He nudged him lightly. "Sit up."
Nikolai clearly wanted to argue. Pride flickered. Then hunger won with all the dignity of a defeated general. He slowly pushed himself upright, shoulders heavy, hair a silver mess, blankets still clinging to him like reluctant clouds.
Aster retrieved the tray and set it across his lap.
"It's cold now," he admitted. "But we'll fix that. For now, eat the salad before your body files a complaint with the crown."
He scooped a forkful and held it up.
Nikolai stared at it.
Then at Aster.
Then back at the fork.
"…You're insufferable."
"Open."
A long-suffering sigh. But he did.
A few bites in, some of the hollow look left his face. Not gone. Just… less cavernous.
Aster set the plate down briefly, wiped a stray bit of dressing from Nikolai's mouth with a napkin, and handed him water. Nikolai drank obediently, too tired to maintain his usual sharp-tongued defenses.
"I'll get you something warm," Aster said, already moving.
He stepped into the hall and requested mushroom soup.
The servants froze.
"The crown prince… is eating?" one whispered like it was a palace omen.
"On a Veil Day?" another breathed.
Aster just nodded. "Quietly. Before he changes his mind."
They moved with the urgency of a royal emergency.
When Aster returned, Nikolai was exactly where he left him, sitting upright but slumped, blanket around his shoulders like a defeated king of pillows.
"You came back," Nikolai murmured, softer now.
"I said I would."
The warm soup arrived soon after. Steam curled upward, gentle and grounding. Aster took the bowl, tested the heat, then held the spoon out.
Nikolai accepted it without comment this time.
He ate slowly. Aster fed him without making a spectacle of it. Just small, steady motions. Spoon. Sip. Pause. Breathe.
Color crept back into Nikolai's face by degrees. Not much. Just enough to prove he was still there under all that exhaustion.
After a few more bites, Nikolai leaned forward slightly, resting his forehead against Aster's shoulder again.
"You're persistent," he muttered.
"You're dramatic," Aster returned.
A faint, tired huff of amusement. Almost a laugh.
The room settled into a softer quiet than before. Not the heavy silence of collapse, but the quieter one that comes after someone finally eats, finally breathes, finally lets themselves be looked after.
Outside, the palace still moved like a machine.
Inside, the crown prince finished his soup one reluctant spoonful at a time, held together by someone who refused to leave.