The nights had become a predictable torture for Zaliyah.
The dream did not change. It was the same hallway, the same floors that felt cold and rough against his skin and the same faceless silhouette dragging him toward a precipice. He gasped awake, his chest heaving under a layer of cold sweat. He sat in the dark for a long time just listening to hum of the insects.
Why now? he wondered, pressing his palms to his eyes. What is my mind trying to scream at me that I have forgotten?
"Good morning, Your Highness," the maids whispered as they entered with the first light of dawn.
Zaliyah nodded, His mind was still racin with thoughts about the dream.
"The bath is prepared,The herbs have steeped for the full two hours."
Zaliyah stood, watching his reflection in the tall silver mirror. He looked pale and skeletal, almost translucent. As the maids slowly peeled away his night silks, he felt exposed-not just physically, but spiritually. He walked toward the steaming tub, the scent of the warlock's herbs rising in a thick, earthy plume that smelled of crushed roots and old earth. His silver hair swayed against his back like a silken shroud.
"Bring me a book," he commanded, stepping into the water. "If I am to be a prisoner of this tub for two hours, I refuse to be a bored one."
While Zaliyah soaked in the North, the Human Realm was drowning in a different kind of silence.
In the Ruo Han Residence, Karas lay in Zaliyah's bed. He didn't sleep so much as he haunted the space. His journal lay open near his hand, a record of a conversation with a man who had been stolen by the underworld.
Riosuka stood by the door frame, her eyes dull and rimmed with the red of exhaustion. She felt a crushing weight of depression watching her son. Karas had become a shell-a hollowed-out version of the vibrant man he once was. His happiness had been dismantled, and yet he remained, clinging to the remnants of a life that was slipping through his fingers like dry sand.
She walked into the room, her footsteps silent on the thick rugs. Everything was the same. The flowery patterns on the walls were vibrant . The bookshelves were freshly dusted, updated daily with new novels that Zaliyah would never read. She moved to the closet, touching the clean, pressed clothes. She saw the antique hand-fan sitting atop the cupboard, a delicate thing that Zaliyah used to flutter with such grace.
Her gaze drifted to the window, settling on the pond and garden Karas had built. The flowers were blooming with a cruel, beautiful persistence. The stone seats sat empty, gray and cold in the afternoon light.
A memory flashed behind her eyes : Karas and Zaliyah sitting on those very stones. Zaliyah reading aloud from a book of poetry, while Karas sat beside him in a trance of adoration, his eyes never leaving Zaliyah's face.
How did the sun go out so quickly? she wondered, her heart breaking anew.
She sat on the edge of the bed, ruffling her hand through Karas's hair. The white strands were brittle under her touch. She understood his grief because it was hers, too. She missed the silver-haired boy who had brought light into this house, the son-of-her-heart who had been torn away by a destiny that didn't care about love.
A maid appeared at the door, her voice a hushed whisper. "Mistress... Master Caius requests your presence in the study."
Riosuka sighed, smoothed her dress, and went to meet her husband.
Caius looked up as she entered. His eyes were hollow.
He didn't look at her, he was looking at a letter on his desk.
"I received a letter from my friend in the neighboring province," Caius said,. "An engagement. Between Karas and his daughter. It would secure the trade routes and solidify the lineage." He looked at her, "So? What do you think?"
Riosuka stared at him, her blood turning to ice. "You are joking, you must be joking."
"I am quite serious."
"Karas is not in his right state of mind to get married, Caius!" she snapped, her voice trembling with shock. "He is mourning. He is dying! I can't believe you even let the thought enter your head. Have you no heart left?"
"He is not growing any younger, Riosuka," Caius countered, his voice rising, "He needs to continue the family business. He needs a future that isn't a tomb."
"He knows his responsibilities! He is smart, and he will carry on the business just fine when he is ready. But he doesn't even know this girl! He is a grown man, Caius. He should be free to decide who he marries. I cannot believe you are bringing this up now."
Caius let out a sarcastic laugh. "Free to decide? And who do you think is 'suitable' for him to marry, Riosuka? Zaliyah? Is that who you're waiting for?"
Riosuka went silent, her fists clenching at her sides so hard her knuckles turned white.
Caius began to pace around her like a wolf circling a wounded deer.
"I don't know how many times I have to tell you this. He is never coming back. Zaliyah is in hell, dining with demons. He is lost to us."
"Because you kicked him out!" Riosuka screamed, the rage of a mother who had lost her child finally erupting.
"If you hadn't sent him away that day, none of this would have happened! You did this! You destroyed this family-the family I gave up everything to build!"
She broke down then, her knees giving out as she sobbed into her hands. The weight of Karas's fading life and Zaliyah's absence felt like a mountain crushing her lungs.
Riru stood behind the door, eavesdropping with teary eyes. Since Zaliyah left, her world had shattered. Her brother was a shadow, her parents fought like enemies, and the house felt haunted. She began to cry silently until Rica, the chief maid, scooped her up. Rica whispered soft words of comfort, whisking the girl away from the sounds of the argument.
"No," Caius's voice echoed through the door. "Karas is dying because he wanted to play the savior. And it's your fault. If you hadn't sent him to that hermit, things wouldn't have turned out this way."
Thwack.
The sound of Riosuka's hand meeting Caius's cheek echoed in the study. She stood over him, breathing hard. She didn't regret the hermit. She would never regret Karas's happiness, even if it cost the world.
"Slapping me won't bring him back," Caius said, his voice cold. He turned and walked away, leaving his wife weeping on the cold floor.
Back in the Northwest, Zaliyah stepped out of the bath.
He felt... different. The herbs hadn't just cleaned his skin, they had reached deep into his marrow. He felt a pure, strange energy rotating around him, a humming vibration in the air that seemed to react to his every breath. He felt lighter, as if the gravity of the Northwest had lost its hold on him.
The maids moved with quiet reverence, wiping his skin and dressing him in robes of blinding white-the color of rebirth. They braided his hair into a single, long, intricate braid that hung to his waist.
He hurried to the nursery, his heart fluttering. When his eyes fell on Sylaris, the image of Karas flooded his mind with such intensity he nearly lost his breath. He scooped the girl up, cradling her close.
"I've been thinking of your father a little too much lately," he whispered into her hair.
As he sat to feed her, his eyes clouded with longing.
"Do you think he misses us, Sylaris? Is he even aware that I managed to bring you into the world? I miss him so much I feel like I could die from the hollow of it. Every day I pray to a god I don't believe in, just hoping he's safe."
"How sweet," a voice drawled from the doorway.
Zaliyah rolled his eyes without looking up.
"You have an incredible amount of time for a Commander, Xulthas. Thalassa is out there doing all the heavy lifting while you haunt this castle like a bum."
Xulthas walked into the room, leaning against the wall.
"Technically, you're the bum here. I wonder how Sylaris feels, her father is a deadbeat in another realm, and her 'Daddy' is an exiled consort. Tough luck for her."
Zaliyah rolled his eyes looking at Xulthas with an annoyed expression.
"Shouldn't you be off somewhere engaging in vulgar intimacy?why have you come to annoy my daughter and I?.
"Jealous it wasn't you?" Xulthas grinned.
Zaliyah gagged, a look of genuine disgust on his face. "I think I'd rather eat glass."
The maids stood with their backs to the wall, pretending to be statues as the air sparked between the two men. Xulthas finally straightened up, his tone shifting into something professional and grave.
"The tutor that has been assigned to you is coming. He is powerful, the same man who guided Malachi and me when we were children. Be respectful. Do not mess this up."
Zaliyah paused. "Malachi grew up here? In the Northwest?"
"Yes," Xulthas said, his gaze drifting to the window. "After the late Empress died, he was exiled here."
"Why?" Zaliyah asked
"The late Emperor wasn't fond of him. Malachi was the product of a forced marriage, a political chess move that the King loathed. When the Empress died, the Emperor finally had the opening he wanted. He threw Malachi here to die in the snow."
Zaliyah tilted his head. "Why didn't the Empress's family take him?"
"The bullying from the Emperor's concubines and the King's mistreatment drove the Empress to a state of madness before she died. She started seeing Malachi as a reflection of the man she hated, so she turned on her own son. When she passed, her family blamed the child for her misery. They wanted no connection to him. He was alone, no backing or connection, an exiled royal whom was as pathetic as the highclass demons."
Zaliyah sat in silence, digesting the information. It was a tragic story, a cycle of rejection that explained Malachi's disgusting soul. But as he looked down at the blue eyes of his daughter, his heart didn't soften.
"It doesn't change anything," Zaliyah said coldly. "He is still a beast. He still ruined my life. I don't care how many people hated him; he chose to become the monster they said he was."
Xulthas merely nodded and exited the room.
As night fell, the day blurred into a quiet evening. Zaliyah sat by the fireside in a rocking chair, Sylaris asleep in his arms. Iruna stood behind him, gently brushing his silver hair.
He began to narrate the nightmares that had been haunting him-the dragging, the claws, the faceless man.
Iruna and Harun exchanged a look over Zaliyah's head, their expressions tight with dread. Zaliyah's fractured memory was returning. They feared that if he learned the truth of what had happened at the banquet-the true nature of his fall, his mind would finally break under the weight of it.
Zaliyah sat quietly, the burning embers of the fire reflecting in his purple eyes, unaware that the ghost in his dreams was a memory clawing its way back to the light.