The moon lingered high in the ink-black sky, casting a ghostly sheen across the winding path as Elias and Giles began their slow return to Blackwood Manor. Hooves struck damp earth in rhythm with the stillness, and the night, hushed and heavy, seemed reluctant to release them from the glade they'd just left behind.
Neither man spoke. There were no words to do justice to the echoes still rippling in their minds. The memory of Lirael—of his haunting beauty, of the sorrow draped like silk across his voice—clung to them like mist. Even the horses moved with caution, their breaths forming clouds in the cool air, as if they too sensed something had shifted in the fabric of the world.
The road back was no longer the same. It curled like a memory—half-formed, half-felt. Shadows stretched long and thin, branches shivering against each other as if whispering secrets. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called out—a long, lonesome sound that stirred Elias from his reverie.
"He was like August," Elias finally said, his voice breaking softly through the silence. "So similar it was painful."
Giles didn't respond at once. He tilted his head back, eyes scanning the stars. "There are people the world tries to repeat. When one is broken, it creates another—hoping this time someone might protect them better."
Elias's fingers tightened slightly on the reins. He wasn't sure if the ache in his chest was guilt or clarity. Perhaps both. He thought of August's eyes—the way they dulled when pain overtook him, how they turned from him when Elias pushed too hard. And he thought of Lirael, standing like a fallen star beneath the heavens, whispering stories of betrayal draped in affection.
As they crested a low hill, Blackwood Manor emerged from the night, its gothic arches and looming towers silhouetted by the moonlight. The ivy along its stones looked like veins etched into the stone, pulsing with memories of every footstep it had ever heard.
The journey back to Blackwood Manor unfolded beneath a velvet sky, soaked in deep indigo and pierced only by the slow flicker of starlight. The hooves of their horses met the earth with muffled thuds, rhythmic and mournful, like a dirge played only for them. Elias rode in silence beside Giles, but the world outside barely registered. He was somewhere else entirely—somewhere deep in the folds of memory.
The wind was soft against his cheek, brushing him like a hand from the past, and it carried with it the scent of rosemary, old parchment, and a distant summer that no longer belonged to time. His fingers clenched around the reins as his mind wandered further—not to the present, not to the delicate vial of medicine hidden within his coat, but to a boy with moon-pale hair and eyes like melted silver.
August.
He saw him as he had once been, just eight years old. Those were the days that shimmered with an innocent quiet—days that lived in the private corners of Elias's heart. August had always been poised, elegant even then, with the stillness of porcelain, but he allowed Elias close. Back then, Elias loved to braid his long curls, weaving them with gentle patience while sitting beside the boy on sun-warmed stone steps or inside the library where time moved slowly.
August never laughed—not the way children often did—but he never stopped Elias, either. He simply sat there, his face calm, his limbs still, letting Elias twist and shape strands of white gold as though each braid were a spell only the two of them understood. When Elias looked back now, he knew August hadn't smiled because of the braids or the ritual itself. He had smiled softly, silently, because Elias had been there.
But the moment Elias would rise—when the call came for training or duty—something shifted in August. He would not beg him to stay; he never did. Yet those pale eyes dimmed a little. His small hands would curl in the folds of his tunic, and he would retreat to the window or the garden, watching the path Elias disappeared down. Elias remembered looking back more than once, catching that solitary figure behind the glass, the light in his expression fading as though the boy believed himself forgotten the moment Elias left his side.
Three days. That was all they ever had between seasons of absence. Three fleeting days together. And yet to Elias, those days had never felt short. They had held the weight and memory of entire years. Three days with August had felt more real than months of training or campaigns. Those hours had shaped the boy Elias had become, had marked his heart like wax stamped with an eternal seal.
Now, as the manor rose in the distance—its towers silhouetted against the starlit sky—Elias whispered into the cold, damp air, almost like a prayer.
"Give him back to me. Just for a while... the old August. The one who waited. The one who let me braid his hair and sat beside me as if that was enough."
His voice cracked, the wind carrying it away.
He turned to Giles, but the older man said nothing, only watched Elias with that quiet, knowing gaze. He didn't need to speak. He, too, had seen the change in August. The sternness that had hardened. The way pain had folded into him like a second spine. The delicate, stubborn boy had become a distant, haunted prince, and only Elias seemed to mourn the version of him that the world no longer recognized.
The hooves slowed as they reached the gates. Elias tightened his grip around the reins again—not because of fear, but to stop himself from trembling. Inside his coat, the vial clinked gently with each movement of the horse. It held more than a tonic. It held hope.
They passed beneath the archway, lanterns casting golden halos over the stables. Servants stirred within. Someone opened the great door ahead, spilling amber light across the courtyard. Elias did not move to dismount immediately. He lingered there, the air thick around him.
He turned once more to look back over the path they'd come—the woods, the darkness, the silver ribbon of the road that had taken them to Lirael. And still, in the back of his mind, a younger August sat quietly with a braid slipping down his shoulder, waiting for him to return from training with nothing more than a glance.
And that was enough.
Even if now, it no longer was.
The manor did not sleep.
Its windows glimmered faintly, as if waiting.
Their arrival was not met with fanfare or noise. Only the soft whinny of the horses and the muffled steps of their hooves upon the gravel path. Elias dismounted with a quiet urgency, handing the reins to a stablehand who appeared like a shadow from the mist. Giles followed, slower, older, more composed—as always.
The interior of the manor was lit by soft candlelight. Shadows played against the tall walls and carved wood panels, and somewhere in the distance, a clock chimed the hour. Elias paused just inside the foyer. The silence pressed in now, deeper, heavier.
"Will he be awake?" Giles asked.
"No," Elias said, but his feet were already moving.
He ascended the stairs two at a time, heart hammering in quiet worry. The halls were familiar, yet every painting, every portrait seemed to watch him differently tonight. The echoes of Lirael's voice haunted him:
He believes care is control, and kindness is a trap.
When he reached August's chamber door, he stopped. His hand hovered just above the knob. He didn't want to wake him. He only wanted to see him—to be sure that he still breathed the same rhythm.
He opened the door.
Inside, moonlight poured through the tall window, silvering the room in stillness. The fireplace had burned low, casting soft orange against the cold stone floor. August lay on the bed, half-turned toward the window, his arms curled slightly as if caught in a dream.
His platinum hair spilled across the pillow like threads of silk, catching glints of moonlight in every strand. Elias stood there for a long while, watching the rise and fall of his chest.
It was such a fragile thing.
He didn't wake him.
Instead, he stepped quietly back, closing the door without a sound.
Downstairs, Giles waited in the study, where a single lamp burned beside a stack of unread books. He didn't look up when Elias entered. Instead, he said, "He is still fighting, then?"
Elias nodded, voice low. "In ways no one sees."
Giles placed a hand upon the stack of books, tapping it thoughtfully. "Then we must prepare. Lirael will come. But we must be the ones who hold the rope until he gets here."
Elias poured himself a small glass of brandy. He stared into its depths like it might yield a vision. "He won't forgive me. Not easily."
"Forgiveness isn't the goal," Giles replied. "Understanding is. And time, Elias… time is the soil where both forgiveness and love learn to grow."
Outside, the wind picked up. It swept along the manor walls, rustling the ivy and setting the old trees whispering once again.
The night had grown deeper, darker—but Elias did not retreat to sleep. He sat beside the fire in the study, He would wait till dawn.
And maybe—just maybe—tomorrow, August would open his eyes and choose to stay a little longer.