A voice interrupted Alaric's focus on the parchment.
The door swung open, and a figure stood there perfectly calm and composed. It was none other than Volt.
He walked toward Alaric with a steady gait and stood over him, observing with intense focus.
Alaric was shaking. He avoided looking at the paper, his eyes darting constantly to his own index finger.
His knuckles turned white as he stood up, locking eyes with Volt. He opened his mouth and managed to ask, "What did you do back then?"
Volt clicked his tongue. "You dare to meet my eyes?"
In that moment, Alaric realized he was a businessman not a pig yet he had dared to look someone like Volt in the eye.
The air grew cold, not from the winter outside, but from the sudden realization of the gap between them.
Alaric had spoken as a man seeking answers, but Volt's retort reminded him he was merely a merchant standing before a force of nature.
The "pigeon" within Alaric's chest fluttered against his ribs, begging him to lower his gaze.
The tension wasn't just the threat of violence; it was the crushing weight of authority demanding total submission. Alaric retreated and looked down.
Volt walked toward the window. As he reached it, he spoke. "Alaric... what happened to you?"
Alaric looked dumbfounded, shocked that Volt had referred to him by his name for the first time.
The room seemed to shrink, the walls drawing closer as if exhaling. Framed by the window, Volt stood in the pale, sickly light, his silhouette sharp and immovable.
The obsidian lamp on the desk cast long, distorted shadows like grasping fingers reaching toward Volt's boots, yet they didn't dare touch him.
Outside, the wind let out a low, mournful howl against the glass, but inside, the air remained unnaturally still, frozen by Volt's presence.
The atmosphere of the study seemed to hold its breath, waiting to see if Alaric would shatter or find the voice to answer.
Alaric tried to remain calm. "W-what... what do you mean?"
Volt chuckled slowly a whisper of a laugh. "I mean many things... but after you fell asleep, what happened to you?"
Alaric answered with a flat expression. "Nothing."
"So, are you saying the rumors about your nightmares were wrong?" Volt spoke in a mocking tone.
However, Alaric sensed a completely different vibe from Volt.
It was as if Volt had turned gloomy, as if he related to the struggle and felt a quiet sadness. Alaric knew lying would only cause more problems. "No, they are true. I suffered through them here as well."
"Does this affect you physically in any way?"
This time, Alaric chose to protect the truth.
"No."
Volt didn't answer. He simply stood there, glaring out the window. Alaric had a gut feeling that he might finally get some answers. "Why did you react so weirdly when you saw the moon?"
Volt didn't move, yet the atmosphere around him warped. His reflection in the windowpane usually a sharp, haughty image of a man in control seemed to flicker for a fraction of a second.
His fingers, resting near the sill, tightened until the wood groaned in protest.
He didn't turn around. Instead, his shoulders slumped a fraction of an inch a microscopic surrender of his usual rigid posture.
The gloom Alaric had sensed intensified, transforming from a mood into a suffocating shroud of ancient, weary grief.
The silence stretched, agonizingly long. Alaric could hear the frantic rhythm of his own heart, but from Volt, there was nothing: no breath, no shift in weight just a terrifying, hollow stillness.
The question hung in the air like a bared blade. By asking about the moon, Alaric hadn't just crossed a line; he had stepped into a graveyard Volt had spent a lifetime trying to wall off.
When Volt finally spoke, his voice wasn't mocking or commanding. It was a low, rasping sound, like stones grinding together in the dark.
"There are some things," Volt whispered, glaring at the horizon, "that you will only realize when you become a conduit user."
Alaric gulped, but he took the opportunity to push further. "What happened to you last night?"
Volt chuckled again. "How can I explain color to a blind person?"
This was different from the Volt Alaric knew. The man was being poetic, yet Alaric remembered his true nature.
This was the same man who called the killing of child slaves "inefficient," and now he was speaking in metaphors?
His thoughts were interrupted by Volt's calm voice. "So now... tell me what actually happened in the cathedral?"
Alaric's ears twitched. He had momentarily forgotten the reason he had come here with Volt.
He gulped. "I already told you... I was praying when all of a sudden—"
Alaric couldn't finish before Volt glared at him. "Our conversation ends here."
The crushing pressure and the weight that had made the walls feel like they were closing in evaporated in a heartbeat.
Alaric's lungs, which had been drawing shallow, panicked sips of air, suddenly expanded with a sharp, ragged breath. It felt like emerging from the "viscous ink" of his nightmare into the biting cold of reality; it was painful, but he could breathe.
His shoulders slumped with leaden exhaustion. The "pigeon" in his chest stopped its frantic battering, leaving behind a dull, hollow ache. Despite the relief, a cold residue remained.
The weight was gone, but a lingering chill stayed in his marrow. Volt's cryptic words about color and the blind swirled in Alaric's mind like a stain.
He had avoided the trap of the cathedral questioning for now, but the silence Volt left behind felt less like peace and more like a stay of execution.
He stood there, his legs feeling like unspun wool, watching the back of the man who viewed child slaves as "inefficient" and the moon as a "soul-burning light."
The tension hadn't vanished; it had transformed into a looming question mark.
The next question in Alaric's mind came out immediately. "I can go home, right?"
Volt, still observing the horizon, whispered loudly enough for Alaric to hear, "I'll drop you off."
Alaric's mouth fell open. How had this man changed so much?
Volt didn't offer a smile or a nod of reassurance. He simply turned away from the window, his movements fluid and precise, like a mechanism clicking back into gear.
"Follow me," he commanded. His voice was no longer a whisper; it had the sharp, undeniable edge of a blade.
Alaric scrambled to his feet, trailing behind the noble. They moved through the silent hallways of the police station, the only sounds being the rhythmic clack of Volt's boots and the frantic, uneven scuffing of Alaric's own.
Every shadow they passed seemed to recoil from Volt's presence, yet Alaric felt as if they were reaching out for him, reminding him of the horrors he had recently escaped.
As they stepped out of the front door, the teal car sat waiting a shimmering, predatory omen in the dark.
Volt opened the door with a casual tap of his signet ring, the obsidian glass reflecting the pale winter moon with a clarity that made Alaric's stomach turn.
"Get in," Volt said, already sliding into the driver's seat.
Alaric sank into the deep charcoal leather. The cabin was an opulent fusion of luxury and cold, clinical power. Beneath his boots, the midnight-blue wool carpet swallowed the sound of his nervous tapping, while the dashboard's amber runes pulsed with a low, rhythmic hum.
The engine began to purr not a roar, but a low, melodic vibration like a predator waiting for the hunt.
The car pulled away, gliding between worlds. They left the decaying timber and shivering laborers of the Eastern Sector behind.
Volt rested his hands on the wheel, his eyes fixed not on the road, but on the rearview mirror, tracking Alaric's every flinch.
"The Vath Hills," Volt murmured as the car accelerated, the scenery blurring into streaks of shadow. "A place of perspective, Alaric. From the heights, it's easier to see who is a man and who is merely a ghost pretending to live."
The car surged forward, climbing toward the jagged silhouettes of the hills. Inside the silent cabin, the violet light of the dashboard cast long, hollow shadows over Alaric's face.
He realized then that the weight hadn't truly lifted; it had just shifted. He was no longer being interrogated in a room; he was being delivered to a destination from which there might be no return.
The car crested the final incline, tires crunching over the jagged shale of the plateau.
Here, the wind didn't just howl; it screamed, buffeting the teal frame as it came to a halt at the edge of a sheer drop. Below, the Vath Hills plummeted into a lightless abyss, the valley floor hidden by a swirling mist of frost.
Volt killed the lights.
The rhythmic amber pulse of the dashboard died, plunging the cabin into a suffocating, violet-tinted gloom. Without a word, Volt stepped out.
The sudden rush of freezing mountain air bit at Alaric's skin before the door clicked shut with a finality that felt like a tombstone settling into place.
Alaric watched through the reinforced glass, his breath hitching as he saw Volt's silhouette move toward the front of the vehicle.
Volt didn't look back.
He leaned against the hood for a moment, staring at the horizon where the pale moon hung like a dead eye. Then, he reached down.
A low, mechanical whirring vibrated through the chassis. Alaric reached for the door handle, but it remained flush against the panel locked.
He pulled again, harder, his heart hammering against his ribs. Through the window, he saw Volt press his signet ring into a concealed indentation on the exterior pillar.
The engine didn't purr this time. It let out a violent, subterranean roar that shook the marrow of Alaric's bones.
Inside the cabin, the dashboard suddenly flared with a blinding, malevolent crimson.
The runes didn't pulse; they bled.
Alaric slammed his shoulder against the glass, his eyes wide with a realization that turned his blood to slush.
Volt was standing on the gravel, a calm, spectral figure retreating into the darkness as the car began to roll.
There was no driver. There was no brake.
The front tires left the solid earth first, spinning uselessly in the thin air.
For a heartbeat, the car hovered a shimmering teal jewel suspended over the maw of the valley. Then, gravity reclaimed its prize.
The horizon vanished, replaced by the dizzying, spinning darkness of the fall.
The last thing Alaric saw through the rearview mirror was Volt, standing perfectly still on the edge of the peak, a small shadow against the stars.
Then came the weightlessness the terrifying, stomach-flipping void as the car plummeted toward the jagged teeth of the Vath Hills.