The chamber was quiet, veiled in the hush of early evening, where the scent of lavender and old books still lingered in the air like a memory left too long in the sun. Elias stood by the window, his silhouette cut in gold by the soft light. But his thoughts were not with the view—they were with August. That fragile frame. Those trembling fingers. The way his face had gone pale at the sight of food, and the bile he could no longer keep inside.
Elias had changed into something lighter—an off-white linen shirt with the sleeves loosely tied at the forearms, dark breeches fitted close, his hair still slightly damp from his bath. But there was no ease in him, only the echo of August's words: "Get out. I don't want to see you now."
His hand clenched at the fabric near his ribs, teeth grinding behind closed lips as he left the bedchamber and made his way through the corridors of the estate. The walls stretched tall and ancestral, like silent judges. But Elias paid them no mind. He needed answers. He needed to understand what was happening to August.
He found Giles in the study, arranging sealed letters into neat piles. The old steward looked up with calm eyes, his face always unreadable, as if nothing in this world could disturb the still pond of his wisdom.
"Giles," Elias said quietly, stepping into the room like a storm on the edge of restraint. "Something's wrong with him. This isn't just weakness or grief. He's—he's wasting away."
Giles studied Elias for a long moment before answering. "Then we should visit him."
Elias blinked. "Visit who?"
"The man who gave Lord August his first blessing." Giles returned to sorting parchment as if he'd said something utterly mundane. "When the boy was born, he foretold his fortune. Called him beautiful—but said something else, too. That he would suffer. That he would burn bright, but burn alone unless someone pulled him back."
Elias's heart thumped against his ribs. "You believe in that sort of thing?"
Giles didn't look up. "I believe in the old ways because they have never failed us. The man lives just beyond the hollow woods. A few hours' ride."
"Then we'll go," Elias said without hesitation, his voice like a blade unsheathed. "At first light."
But Giles finally looked up, his expression unreadable. "We go now."
The moon hung like a quiet witness over the world as Elias and Giles rode in silence, hooves striking soft rhythms into the mossy earth. The sky was in the midst of surrendering its blue to black, and with each passing mile, shadows grew bolder, stretching like the memories Elias could not shake. His thoughts swirled, not with politics or plans, but with August—the boy curled up in the bed hours ago, eyes shimmering with the kind of pain one does not speak aloud.
They passed through low woods and scattered villages, lamps flickering in distant cottages, the wind carrying hints of rosemary and old smoke. Giles said little, his mind as occupied as Elias's, though he wore that habitual serenity like a second skin. But when the hills parted to reveal a starlit field surrounded by ancient stones, even Giles drew in a breath.
There, nestled in a secluded glade where nature had been left untouched by man, stood a small wooden house, its windows glowing faintly with candlelight. Just beside it, seated upon a flat stone that looked older than time, was a figure wrapped in pale, flowing robes that shimmered slightly under the moonlight. He looked more spirit than man, otherworldly in the silver haze of twilight.
His hair spilled like a thousand threads of sunlight down his back and over his shoulders—light blonde, nearly white, catching the moonbeams like gold dust. His skin was smooth, porcelain-pale, unmarred by age or care. His body, slender and poised, was cloaked in priest-like attire stitched with quiet symbols of protection and fate. But it was his eyes—those strange, luminous orbs of rose and flame—that caught Elias most. They were as if someone had bottled the sky at dawn and set it aflame.
Elias's breath caught in his throat. The resemblance was uncanny. The delicate jawline, the lashes like painted feathers, even the way he tilted his head with a subtle defiance. He looked like August—if August had been forged in myth instead of pain.
"Is that—?" Elias began, but Giles only nodded.
The man on the stone opened his eyes fully, gaze like twin suns stirring awake. "You have come," he said, and his voice was soft—softer than silk, yet strong enough to silence the world around them. It rippled through the trees, stirring leaves as though they too leaned in to listen.
Elias stepped forward, his chest inexplicably tight. "You knew we would?"
The man smiled, faint and unreadable. "Fate does not ask. It summons."
Giles bowed slightly. "Master—if I may still call you that—this is Elias."
"You are quite Handsome," the man murmured, his gaze sharpening. "Yes. I remember. The fire. The curse that never was."
Elias stiffened, unsure whether to feel honored or haunted. "You gave August your blessing."
"I did," the man said, finally standing. Even standing, he seemed weightless, like he could vanish into mist at will. "Because I saw what others did not."
Elias's voice lowered. "What did you see?"
A pause. The man walked slowly, barefoot over the soft grass, until he stood before them. The scent of jasmine clung to him. "A boy born with beauty meant not for admiration, but for undoing. A spirit forged from fire and grief. I saw in him the curse of remembering everything and the pain of forgetting nothing."
"And you blessed him?" Elias asked, unable to keep the anger from his voice. "Knowing what he would become?"
"I blessed him," the seer said calmly, "so he might survive it."
A silence fell like a veil. Then Giles asked, "Can he be healed?"
The wind drifted softly through the garden, brushing over the moonlit plain where Lirael sat, golden strands of hair lifting like threads of light caught on the breeze. He was still, unnaturally so, like a statue carved from ivory and twilight. The silence around him was holy—untouched—and the night, cloaked in silver gloom, seemed to pause with him.
His slender fingers, resting on his lap, curled slightly as if remembering a touch too distant to hold. Then his eyes—those strange, melancholy pinks—rose to the heavens. Stars blinked coldly overhead, impassive, eternal. But his gaze wasn't searching for them. It went further. Beyond.
"I know everything," he whispered.
The words didn't need an audience. They floated, reverberating in the hush like a sacred truth the earth itself had been waiting to hear again.
"I know," he said again, softer. "Because he is no different from me."
The sky, as if listening, did not answer. But a gentle cloud passed before the moon, dimming its light.
"They all lied to me," he continued, voice faltering like the wind. "And yet… they said they loved me."
His breath trembled. A faint glimmer welled in his eyes, but no tears fell. Lirael had long forgotten how to cry. His beauty had earned him envy, desire, obsession—but never, not truly, love. And when they could not possess him, they cursed him. They ruined what could not belong to them.
He touched his chest lightly, right where the heart lay. "I see it in him… the same weight. The way he holds it all and lets no one see. The world calls it pride." He shook his head slowly. "But it is not. It is fear. A fear too ancient for a boy so young."
Behind him, Elias and Giles watched in respectful silence, neither daring to interrupt this quiet unraveling. Elias's heart clenched. He felt, deeply and inexplicably, that this man—this hauntingly delicate priest—held something vital. A truth. A key to August. Or a mirror.
Lirael turned his head slightly, not looking at them yet. "You came because he is dying. And I will help. But you must understand… you are not only saving him."
He finally stood. And even in that, there was grace—unbending, weightless grace. His robes, white and gold trimmed, fell in soft layers like woven mist. Moonlight kissed his cheekbones, making him seem not of this world.
"You are saving me too."
Then he turned his gaze toward Elias at last. And the wind carried a final whisper from lips that still ached from the memory of all that was once lost:
"Tell him, if he wakes… that I never stopped watching."
His voice came soft, nearly lost in the hush.
"They all said they loved me," he murmured, as if to the heavens, not to the men behind him. "But none dared speak the words."
Elias paused, hand tightening on the reins. Giles turned quietly, watching the man whose beauty eclipsed myth.
"They said I was theirs," Lirael continued, his eyes now faraway, shining with something deeper than memory—like sorrow carved into light. "Their muse. Their angel. Their prize. But not one of them asked who I was… Not one of them saw me."
He stepped down from the flat stone, feet brushing the moss with reverent quiet.
"I gave them smiles. I gave them stories. They wanted the face, the body, the bloom of something they could not name." He touched his own chest, just over the heart. "But never the soul. No one wanted to hold the truth. It wasn't beautiful enough."
He looked to Elias then, eyes catching the moonlight like silver opals.
"August… he carries the same weight."
A long pause bloomed in the silence, filled only by the rustle of the trees.
"I will visit him myself," Lirael said finally, voice steady now, as if a decision had settled in his bones. "He may not remember me. But I remember him. I remember the way he looked at the world—like he knew it would one day betray him."
Elias stepped forward, his throat tightening. "Will he let you help him?"
"He won't have to," Lirael said, tilting his head with that strange, knowing grace. "I won't ask for permission. I will simply be there. And when he's ready to fall, I will be the wind that carries him instead of the earth that shatters him."
Giles, ever the observer, folded his hands before him. "You speak as though you see the future."
Lirael gave a sad smile. "No, Giles. I only remember too much of the past."
He walked a few paces forward, the night rippling gently around him, and then turned his face upward again.
"The world can only break what it fears. And the world fears beauty it cannot own."
His voice was lighter now, softer, almost like a prayer. "So let them fear us."
Then he looked down again, his eyes dimming like a candle about to sleep.
"Go," he told them. "Return to him. Tell him nothing. Let him hate you if he must. It means he still feels."
Elias, reluctant but trusting, nodded once. "I'll be waiting for you."
"I know," Lirael whispered.
As they rode away, Elias looked back only once—and saw him still standing there, framed by the halo of his own pale hair and the hush of the night. A man carved from longing. A seer touched by ruin. And yet still beautiful beyond reason.