A soft stillness lingered in the room, heavy as breath held too long. The fire crackled somewhere in the background, its glow casting golden shadows over silk-draped mannequins and polished floors. But August felt none of it. Not the warmth. Not the silence. Not even the air.
Only Elias.
Only the closeness that had ignited and pulled the world to a stop.
The kiss still burned on his lips like the aftertaste of lightning.
He stood unmoving, the cup of milk now forgotten on the tray, his fingers faintly curled at his sides as though they didn't know where to go. Elias was still so close—close enough that August could count every eyelash, every breath. The room pulsed with the weight of the moment, time measured not by seconds, but by the rise and fall of his chest.
August's voice, when it came, cracked slightly against the air.
"Y-you... kissed me. Again."
He said it like an accusation, but his tone lacked any true fury. It trembled more with confusion than anger. More with surprise than disdain.
Elias didn't move. He watched him quietly, eyes soft, a smile flickering just at the edge of mischief.
"I did."
August's brow furrowed, pale lashes fluttering as if blinking might steady the way the floor tilted beneath him.
"Without asking," he added, voice quieter now, as though any louder would break him.
"Would you have let me if I asked?"
August blinked. The question struck too close. He turned his head slightly, eyes dropping to the floor, heart tripping over itself in a race it hadn't prepared for.
"Th-that's isn't the point."
Elias stepped closer—just a breath, a whisper of distance. "Then what is the point, August?"
August exhaled sharply, jaw tensing, but it wasn't defiance. It was restraint. Every emotion pressed beneath the surface, desperate to stay composed. His voice dropped to a whisper.
"I don't understand you."
"I know."
"And I don't understand... this."
"I know that too."
August's hands clenched into soft fists at his sides. "Then why are you keep... doing this?"
Elias tilted his head, one corner of his mouth lifting. "Because I want to. Because you don't stop me. Because when I do—"
He reached out, and his fingertips brushed the edge of August's sleeve.
"—you look at me like the world has just fallen apart and been made new in the same breath."
August flinched.
Not from fear.
From truth.
"You're cruel," he whispered.
"Only a little."
The fire cracked again.
Outside, wind stirred the branches of the trees beyond the high windows, but inside, everything was still. Heavy with silence. Heavy with everything unsaid.
August slowly stepped back, only a pace, but enough to breathe.
He turned his back to Elias.
"I need to think."
Elias's voice didn't chase him. It stayed behind, steady and low.
"Then think. But know this: I'm not sorry."
August's eyes fluttered closed. The embers inside him—years frozen in grief, in silence, in pain—shifted. Something cracked.
Not fully.
But just enough to feel it.
He pressed a hand to his own chest, fingertips splayed, as though trying to still his heart. But it was useless. The rhythm had changed.
Forever.
August left without a glance back.
His footsteps were measured, soft against the wooden floor, the trailing hem of his robe brushing like a whisper behind him. He didn't slam the door—he never would—but the soft click as it shut behind him echoed louder than any anger.
In the quiet of his own chamber, he stood still for a long time. The moonlight had slipped across the floor in silver bars, spilling through the arched windows and touching the ivory curtains with a ghostly sheen.
He inhaled.
Exhaled.
And began to move.
Methodically, August undressed. Layer by layer, the fabric fell away. He pulled on his nightgown, the silken material cool against his fever-faded skin. With practiced fingers, he sat at his vanity, picked up his ivory comb, and began brushing through the long waves of white-gold hair. Each stroke slowed him. Grounded him. The bristles whispered through the strands, catching slightly at the ends before gliding free.
When he finished, he braided it loosely, tying it with a soft ribbon at the nape of his neck.
But even as his hands worked, his thoughts betrayed him.
Elias.
The way his voice had dropped just before kissing him. The warmth of his palm at August's waist. The impossible nearness.
The kiss.
August moved to his bed, slipping beneath the covers with slow precision. The room was quiet now—eerily so. The fire in the hearth had gone out. Only the faint flicker of candlelight remained.
He lay on his side, facing the wall.
Then, slowly, almost unwillingly, he raised his fingers to his lips.
They rested there, motionless.
Right on the spot.
The place Elias had kissed.
His breath caught in his throat.
This is where he kissed me.
The thought came like a whisper. A confession.
He let his hand fall and buried his face into the pillow, dragging the blanket up over his head as if hiding could undo the moment—erase the heat still blooming in his chest.
But it was no use.
The fire had already been lit.
And it would not go out.
Down the corridor, Elias stood unmoving for a moment longer, listening to the fading echo of August's retreating steps.
He didn't stop him.
Not because he didn't care—but because he understood. The moment his lips had brushed against August's, he knew something would shift, something delicate and easily frightened. Still, he had kissed him. Had taken the risk. And now…
He exhaled, a laugh escaping his lips—low and warm.
"Blushing," he murmured to himself, shaking his head. "I made him blush."
There was something endlessly satisfying about the image. Not just the flush across August's pale skin, but the way his composure had cracked like fine porcelain, just for a moment. Elias hadn't expected a full confession, not yet. But the silence, the flushed cheeks, the trembling voice—it was enough.
His boots echoed softly on the polished floors as he turned away and made his way to his own chamber.
Once inside, the quiet wrapped around him like an old friend. He moved through the room with practiced ease, loosening the ties at his collar, removing the layers of his garments until only skin remained, golden and scarred from past battles.
Steam billowed as he stepped into the bathing chamber, the water already drawn—still warm. He sank into it with a content sigh, letting his head fall back, dark hair slicking against the edge of the porcelain tub.
His eyes drifted closed.
But his mind wandered.
To the way August had looked tonight—still pale from recovery, but draped in silk, his eyes sharp despite the soft rasp to his voice. The memory of his narrowed eyes, the slight pout of his lips, the way his voice broke when he tried to sound unaffected.
Beautiful.
Elias stayed in the water longer than usual, not for weariness—but for peace.
Eventually, he rose, the droplets catching the candlelight as they slid down his skin. He dried off, dressed in a simple black linen shirt and loose trousers, then padded barefoot across the room.
The bed waited, crisp sheets turned down by unseen hands.
He lay back, folding one arm beneath his head, staring up at the high wooden beams above.
And smiled.
He had kissed August.
And August hadn't pulled away.
Not really.
The blush alone was answer enough.
Eventually, sleep came—but it came with a quiet pulse in his chest.
A rhythm that wasn't there before.
A heartbeat echoing a name he hadn't dared speak aloud just yet.
August.
But for August, sleep was not a refuge.
The weight of Elias's kiss still lingered on his lips—warm, bewildering, and impossible to forget. Yet deeper than that warmth lay a colder truth, one that tugged at him with spectral fingers as he lay under the blanket, lashes fluttering shut against the slow, creeping tide of sleep.
And as dreams pulled him under, the world changed.
He stood not in the safety of his chamber, but in the long-forgotten halls of his childhood home.
The manor.
The candlelight flickered with the same amber glow he remembered from that night, and the scent of burning firewood mingled with something darker—iron and ash. The carpet beneath his feet felt too familiar, worn in the middle from years of footsteps.
He was small again. Barely more than a boy. And yet... aware. This was not merely memory. It was more.
It was truth.
He walked slowly, each footstep echoing far too loud in the stillness. The door loomed at the end of the corridor—the one he remembered so well. The one he had opened on that night.
But now, he wasn't frozen.
Now, he stepped forward.
He opened it.
And there they were.
His mother, golden-haired and fierce-eyed, standing between a shadowed boy and the man in a cloak with blade. She was shouting something—no, whispering, barely audible over the rising storm outside.
"Go hide... the wardrobe... Don't let him see—"
Then the blade. The scream.
August stumbled back, heart lurching, but his eyes remained locked. The assassin—no face, only a black cloak with silver Gold threads —moved like a shadow, swift, merciless. His father entered a moment too late. The clash of steel. The cry. Then silence.
And death.
But this time, the dream did not end there.
The hidden boy.
The one in the wardrobe.
August's dream-self stepped closer, now fully grown, now with hands that trembled.
The door to the wardrobe creaked open slowly.
Inside, a face.
A child with familiar eyes.Wide. Terrified.
No—too young. A trick of the mind?
The child looked up at him, lips parted, whispering:
But the image shifted again, and he was standing in a study now—his father's. Bookshelves lined the walls, scrolls and maps, royal seals, coded letters. His mother journal lay open on the desk.
"she has written. She says they're in danger.
"I fear what he might do. He grows obsessed."
"If anything happens, protect the boy. He must never know what blood flows in him."
August's breath hitched.
The pages turned on their own, faster and faster.
"They've found us."
"We can't hide them both."
"Tell Annalise—take the children's—"
Then flames.
The dream burned around him, collapsing in on itself.
The assassin rose from the fire, staring with no eyes through that .
"You were never meant to live."
And then—
August awoke.
Sweating, trembling beneath his blanket.
The dawn had not yet broken. Only the silence of the hour before light.
But the shadows in the corners of his room no longer felt like shadows.
They felt like truths waiting to be seen.
And August, for the first time in years, knew where to look.