The dinner unfurled with the usual grace of noble expectation. Pheasant glazed with fig, root vegetables in honeyed herbs, and roasted duck lay between them. Servants moved like ghosts.
"You've changed, August," Everin murmured as he carved a slice of meat. "You don't flinch like you used to. Even your silences feel heavier."
"Time has its price," August said simply.
Everin smiled again, but his eyes did not. "I look forward to understanding the new you."
As the final course arrived — wine-soaked pears — August's head began to ache. It wasn't exhaustion; it came fast, sharp, and somehow… thick. Like fog behind his eyes. He blinked and reached for his glass, but his hand trembled.
Mirensa rose. "Castellan and I have matters to attend to. Everin, see to our guest."
Everin nodded graciously. "With pleasure."
August made to rise, but staggered slightly. Tylemont, his faithful butler, moved instinctively — but Everin's hand raised lightly. "He's just tired. The road has been long."
Castellan's deep voice added finality. "Let Everin show him to the study. You can discuss tomorrow's matters in private."
August wanted to argue, but his vision swam. A warm wave passed through his chest. He let himself be guided by Everin, whose grip on his arm was oddly firm.
The hallways blurred, lit by golden sconces. As they entered the study, the door shut quietly behind them with a click.
August's breath was unsteady. He reached for the desk to steady himself.
Everin turned slowly, watching him.
"Sit," Everin said, voice low. "We have so much to talk about."
August's knees buckled. He barely made it into the leather chair. Everything felt distant, too warm, too slow.
Everin stepped closer, the smirk gone. What remained was something far worse — hunger, yes, but not for food. Something vile had awakened behind those sharp, golden eyes.
"Did you really think I'd let you come here and you'll leave again... untouched?" Everin whispered.
August tried to stand, but the room tilted, and his vision stuttered. His pulse thundered in his ears.
Everin's hand moved to his shoulder. "You never knew how beautiful you looked when you child."
The scene froze there — heavy with threat, a twisted lull before the storm.
And somewhere outside that door, the world continued on — unknowing, unwarned.
There was a weight to the room—a breathless, creeping density that clung to the walls and stained the air with something darker than silence.
August sat in the antique armchair, slumped slightly to one side. His skin glistened faintly with sweat beneath the delicate firelight. The chandelier above glimmered with a dozen cold stars, reflections scattered in the polished floor like shattered glass. His silver hair lay tousled across his forehead, and his smoke-grey eyes, usually so sharply aware, were now dulled and heavy-lidded.
The drug pulsed through him. His head throbbed, not with pain, but with distance. The room felt far away, as though viewed through thick water. He blinked once, then again, slower this time.
Everin stood nearby.
The cousin's silhouette was lit from behind, his form casting long shadows that writhed over the lacquered floor. He was dressed too perfectly—his shirt unbuttoned just enough to be deliberate, his hair combed back, eyes glittering with an emotion far from sanity.
He poured another glass of wine—this time not laced—and took a slow sip before placing it aside.
"You always looked best in candlelight," Everin said softly, his voice like silk stretched over a blade. "Do you remember, August? The winter garden. You fell asleep under the glass dome after reading. I watched the frost melt off your lashes. That was the first time I knew."
August didn't answer. He couldn't.
Everin stepped closer. The floor creaked beneath his boots. He crouched beside the chair, one gloved hand brushing against August's knee—lingering.
"I should have told you then. I should have taken you away before Elias ever saw you." Your smile was sad, but eyes were not. "And I waited. Because I thought you'd come to me on your own. That you'd know."
August's hand twitched. His breath trembled.
"But you chose him," Everin whispered.
He reached up, undoing the front clasp of August's coat with too much care. The silver buckle made a soft clicking sound.
"And now look at you. Pale. So quiet. So perfect again. Just like then."
He touched the hollow of August's throat with two fingers, tracing the sharp bone beneath. August flinched, but couldn't move further.
Everin exhaled deeply. "You're still mine. You just forgot."
A gentle knock interrupted the moment. Soft, barely pressing.
Everin stood tall again, smoothing out his sleeves.
"Yes?" he called.
It was the voice of a butler—measured and polite. "My lord, is Lord August feeling unwell?"
Everin opened the door a crack, enough for his composed expression to show in the warm hallway light. "He's only tired," he replied smoothly. "The journey must have drained him. Let him rest."
The butler gave a respectful nod. "Of course, my lord. Lord Castellan requests you in the study for a matter of state."
"I'll be there shortly."
The door closed once more.
Alone again, Everin looked back to August.
His smile returned, slow and poisonous.
He lowered himself onto the settee across from August, watching him closely.
"Rest, dearest. I'll only be gone a moment," he said. "And when I return, perhaps you'll finally remember everything we never said aloud."
He walked away, footsteps slow and echoing down the corridor.
---
The study walls were lined with shelves, the smell of oak and vellum thick in the air. Lord Castellan looked up from a scroll as Everin entered.
"You're late."
"Apologies, father. I was with August. He's—tired."
Castellan raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
Everin crossed the room and poured himself another drink, his hand shaking just slightly. "What matter required urgency?"
They spoke of borders, of alliances fraying like moth-bitten silk. Of taxes too steep and loyalties too shallow.
But through it all, Everin's mind remained behind a door, beside a chair, in the stillness where the candlelight danced on silver hair and sleeping lashes.
And somewhere inside that silence, obsession curled like smoke beneath his skin.
The true nightmare had not ended.
It had only just learned how to whisper.
The door was closed. The air pressed in like cloth soaked in heat.
August's chest rose and fell in uneven waves. His body sagged under the weight of invisible chains, breath heavy, skin glistening as though drenched in the fever of something unnamed. His shirt clung to him, damp and translucent at the collarbone, and his jaw trembled faintly.
He tried to stand. He managed an inch—then collapsed against the armrest with a low exhale, trembling.
His hand reached out toward the door handle.
Fingers missed.
Tried again.
Missed again.
He let out a sound—not a word, not a cry—just a breath caught on the edge of despair. The fire in the hearth flickered with a mocking light. He pressed his forehead to the edge of the armrest, where the carved wood had cooled, trying to anchor himself.
But the world blurred.
The carpet beneath his shoes rippled like water. The gold lines on the curtains seemed to slither. His tongue felt thick. Something warm dribbled from the corner of his mouth—he tasted iron and salt and the betrayal of his own body.
He clawed the edge of the chair again. One foot pushed against the ground.
Another inch.
A stumble.
The floor welcomed him like an old ghost.
He coughed, and his lips parted to form a name—half-broken.
Elias.
He tried to say it again, but his mouth no longer listened. His limbs no longer obeyed.
There was a stillness that began to take root in his spine. A warmth too heavy to be natural. A drowsy, humming kind of ruin.
The fire crackled.
His lashes fluttered.
And as the shadows lengthened, August lay curled near the foot of the chair, like a fallen statue still trying to breathe.
The silence, once soft, had teeth now.
And somewhere beyond the door, a heartbeat waited for his return.
But he—he had not yet found the strength to rise.
Not yet.
The corridor whispered with the hush of night, heavy with the scent of varnished wood and old ambition. Lord Castellan's study door closed behind Everin with a quiet click, leaving the flicker of candlelight behind him. His boots echoed softly over the velvet runners laid along the estate's shadowy hallways. A single glance at the crimson curtains drawn tight across tall windows revealed the night had deepened, and the moon cast long, deliberate silhouettes.
Everin's face was unreadable at first—bland nobility worn like a familiar mask. But as he moved deeper into the hall, his shoulders relaxed, the tight restraint on his lips slipped. A twitch began at the corner of his mouth. Then came the smile.
Not the charming curl he had worn over supper.
Not the one he wore before his father.
This was something else entirely—something that ripened in the dark. The kind of smile that might bloom across the face of a man watching a flower finally unfurl from the grave he buried it in. A smile not made of joy, but of silent, expectant madness.