(Caldris Rheyne's Point of View · Cinematic · Poetic · Author Style)
The chamber was dim—lit not by fire, but by the wan glow of lanterns that swayed gently from the stone arches, as if breathing with the room.
Here, time did not tick. It watched.
Caldris Rheyne stood before the tall, warped window, hands clasped behind his back, his gaze resting on the distant mountains where mist crowned the peaks like ghosts refusing to part.
His robes were midnight-blue, embroidered with thread so dark it caught light only when it chose. A man of many names and only one face—sharp, unreadable, ageless.
Behind him, the servant stood still.
But no—not just a servant.
A presence draped in a cloak of ash-grey, face hidden behind a two-toned mask—half black, half white, split clean down the center like judgment itself. He did not move. He did not speak.
But his eyes—
Jade green.
Unmistakable.
Unsettling.
So alike to Elias's they seemed plucked from the same soul and placed into a different story.
Caldris turned.
His voice was low. Steady. But beneath it lay something rarely heard from him: concern.
> "He's still a child," Caldris murmured, eyes narrowing slightly. "Reckless. Brave to the point of madness."
He walked toward the masked man, each footfall measured.
> "You know what he means to this world. And more importantly… what August means to him."
A flicker passed through the masked man's posture. Not resistance. Not obedience. Something quieter—recognition.
Caldris stopped just before him, close enough for breath to touch fabric.
> "Before Elias reaches Elarith Vale, you must reach it first."
The fireless light caught the white half of the mask.
> "Do not let them fall. Not either of them. Do not let grief win."
For a long moment, the masked figure said nothing.
But then he lifted one gloved hand, fingers slow, and formed a single gesture—pressed palm to heart, then to forehead, then opened it to the sky.
A vow.
Without words.
Caldris nodded once, only once.
> "Go. And may the path remember you."
With that, the grey-cloaked figure stepped back, turned, and moved through the heavy doors like a shadow summoned by purpose.
He did not speak.
He did not look back.
But the wind that stirred behind him smelled faintly of wild herbs and cold steel—like the forests Elias had once wandered through as a boy.
And Caldris, alone now, returned to the window.
His reflection flickered faintly across the glass.
> "May the world forgive me," he whispered. "If I've sent him too late."
Outside, the clouds stirred.
Somewhere between mountain and memory, the road was shifting.
And a hidden piece had entered the board.
The forest rushed by in streaks of dark and silver, a blur of trees bowed in reverence or warning.
Wind roared past his ears—yet he heard nothing but the beating of hooves.
The rider did not look back.
He did not blink.
He leaned forward into the neck of the great black steed beneath him, and whispered something too old to be called language.
The horse—Kareth—answered with speed.
Muscle and grace thundered beneath the masked man like a living storm, hooves slicing the earth with merciless rhythm. The beast was midnight silk with a mane of white-blond fire, and eyes as wild as the wind itself. No saddle weighed him, no reins restrained.
Only trust guided the path.
And the man upon his back—
Cloaked in grey, face split between shadows and moonlight, jade-green eyes glowing through the slits of a black-and-white mask.
He rode like vengeance. Like protection. Like prophecy cracking its knuckles.
"Faster," he whispered again, and Kareth obeyed.
The trees thinned.
The cliffs began.
Far ahead, the path to Elarith Vale slithered along the ridge like a forgotten scar—barely visible, nearly lost beneath the thick fog and bramble. It was a road that devoured the uninvited.
But he was not uninvited.
He was summoned.
By a key. By a command. By a name he had not spoken in years—Elias.
The wind shifted.
And for the first time since he left Caldris's chamber, the masked man reached into the folds of his cloak and drew out a small silver token—a half-moon etched in old script. He looked at it only briefly, then tucked it away again.
His heart beat calmly. But beneath the mask, something shimmered.
I won't let them fall, he thought.
Not Elias.
Not the boy with silver eyes.
And not the world that would burn if either of them did.
He spurred the horse once more—no need for whip, only the silent press of heels—and Kareth shot forward like a shadow breaking free of gravity.
The fog of Elarith Vale stirred ahead.
And the phantom rider vanished into it.
The path narrowed beneath the carriage wheels, lined with trees that stood like silent judges, branches low as if in mourning. The mist thickened—slow, deliberate, as though the world itself meant to drown every step in secrecy.
But Elias didn't see any of it.
Not truly.
He sat motionless, back straight, eyes glazed with memory.
A knight carved from obsidian focus.
Yet his mind was aflame.
"August…"
The name flickered in his chest like a candle in a cathedral—fragile, holy, dangerous. It glowed in every corner of his thoughts, burned behind his eyes.
"His Beauty."
Elias did not remember when he started calling him that—not aloud, not even in whispered breath. But it had settled there, deep, and it would not leave. Not even in the darkest moments. Especially not now.
"I will do everything," Elias murmured, voice a blade sheathed in vow. "Everything. To bring you back."
He pictured August—not broken, not bound, but as he was in the quiet moments no one else saw. Eyes of smoke-glass staring out from firelight. Hair like moonlight thread spilling down slender shoulders. That cold composure masking tremors Elias never dared name.
But he saw them.
He saw the way August's hands tightened when he was frightened but wouldn't admit it. How his back stiffened when emotions threatened to leak from the seams.
"So proud," Elias thought, lips curling faintly with something like reverence, "So stubborn. So heartbreakingly brave."
His fists clenched.
August was many things—icy, distant, sharp-tongued. But he was not meant to suffer like this. Not to bleed in silence behind dungeon walls. Not to be a pawn in someone else's nightmare.
Elias's heart beat harder.
Not out of fear. But fury.
"They will regret touching him," he said, more to himself than to the air. "I'll tear the walls of that place down. I'll drag Elarith Vale into the sun if I must."
His hand brushed the hilt of the blade beside him.
The steel was cold.
But he burned.
Outside the window, the trees parted briefly, revealing the dark veins of cliffside trails—the last known road. Beyond it… unknown land. The start of the vale.
So close now.
And yet Elias knew—something had shifted.
He felt it.
A breath in the wind.
A heartbeat not his own.
Eyes watching from the dark.
He wasn't alone in his race to Elarith Vale.
But that didn't matter.
"Let them come," Elias whispered. "Let the whole damn world come. But nothing will keep me away from him."
The wheels struck rock.
The carriage lurched.
And Elias's hand flew to the door, already rising before the driver could stop.
He would walk from here.
He would find August.
And he would end whatever dared stand in the way.
The carriage stopped at the mouth of nowhere.
Elias did not wait.
With the leather satchel slung over one shoulder and steel humming low at his hip, he stepped down onto soil that felt older than memory. He adjusted the strap of his sword across his chest, checked the weight of the hidden daggers on each thigh, then pulled up the hood of his dark cloak—not to hide, but to silence the world outside him.
Each motion was measured. Not rushed.
For war, one did not run.
One arrived.
The trees behind him breathed no farewell. The mist curled like pale fingers around his boots as he walked forward—toward the gate.
It loomed from the fog like the mouth of a beast too old to sleep.
Elarith Vale.
The entrance stretched tall and wide, stone carved with cruel, ancient motifs—faces twisted in agony, thorns tangled into crowns. But no guards. No footsteps. Not even a whisper of breath behind the walls.
The gate was already open.
Not swung wide.
Just enough.
As though someone had expected him.
As though someone wanted him inside.
Elias stepped through.
And the silence deepened like water over his head.
The manor was a monolith of decay. Not crumbling—preserved. Like something embalmed, made to look whole even as its soul rotted beneath the marble.
There were no flowers.
No wind through windows.
No birdsong.
Only a great hall lined with black stone, and on either side of the corridor—thrones. Dozens of them. Cold and jagged, draped in cloth the color of dried blood. Empty, yet waiting. As if each once held a king of ruin.
Elias passed between them with slow, steady steps.
His breath barely stirred the air.
The deeper he went, the more the silence howled. It curled around him, wrapped his ribs, clung to his throat.
Where are they?
No guards. No assassins. No cries in the dark.
Only the stillness of a place that fed on fear.
He reached the main door—taller than most city walls, carved in the shape of two wings closing. One side was ajar.
Another invitation.
He stepped forward—
But then—
"I almost thought you wouldn't come."
A voice.
Behind him.
Smooth. Sinister. Polished like something dipped in wine and poison.
Elias turned.
And there he stood—Killian Vesper.
Silken black hair that covered half from, his cloak lined with silver and gold, but it was his eyes that lit the gloom—
Red.
Like rubies split with flame.
His smirk was quiet cruelty, carved into a face too calm to be kind.
"And here I thought love made men foolish," Killian said, stepping forward with casual elegance. "But it seems it makes them predictable too."
Elias didn't draw his blade yet.
But his hand was already resting on the hilt.
"Killian," he said, voice like iron warming in a forge. "Still hiding behind doors you didn't build?"
Killian chuckled. "Still bleeding for a boy who won't survive you?"
The fog behind the gates curled in like breath exhaled.
And between them, the manor held its silence—watching. Waiting.