The silence fractured—not by Zephyr, not by Oliver, but by the boy with the wild, murky yellow hair.
He stood lazily from his bed, stretching as if the heavy air of the room didn't weigh on him at all. His smirk never left. Even now, it clung to his face like a brand.
"Well, well," he drawled, voice soaked in feigned amusement. "If it isn't our little Oliver. Still breathing, huh?"
Zephyr turned his head slowly.
His eyes weren't on Zephyr though, instead they were trained on Oliver.
Oliver, who had stiffened. Whose jaw clenched tight enough that Zephyr could hear the faint grind of teeth.
He took a slow step forward, his boots crunching faintly on the leaf-floor. "I just don't get it," he mused aloud, tilting his head. "All that effort. All that sacrifice. And for what? You're still crawling back to this cursed tower with him?"
The temperature in the room didn't shift, but something else did. A tension. A flare beneath the surface.
Oliver didn't speak.
