The fire in the hearth cast a dusky glow across the room, painting the bookshelves in hues of copper and blood. A hush wrapped the walls like a velvet curtain, every corner heavy with waiting. Everin stood at the threshold of his study, wine glass forgotten in his grip. The scent of amber and smoke lingered, curling around him like memory.
From the side room, behind those drawn curtains of midnight velvet, came a sound.
Not the silence of sleep.
Not the stillness of surrender.
But something strained, gasping—alive.
He stepped forward.
August was not unconscious. No—he was trembling, half-folded against the chaise like a fallen swan, all alabaster skin and drenched silk. His long hair clung to his neck, wet with sweat. His breath came in short, shuddering draws as though even the air betrayed him. One hand braced against the wooden frame. The other trembled, reaching toward nothing.
His eyes, smoke-grey and blurred with fever, darted toward the door as Everin entered.
The drug hadn't conquered him.
Not completely.
Everin exhaled, the slow, terrible smile unfurling again. "Still fighting," he murmured, setting the wine glass down without looking. "Of course you are."
August staggered upright. He looked like something unmoored from the world, like his soul had been pulled from its foundation and set afloat in flame. His knees buckled, but his grip on the chair held—if barely. Every breath burned in his lungs, every movement betrayed by the fever seething through his veins.
"Don't," he rasped. "Don't come near me."
Everin paused, head tilted. His voice was silk over a blade. "You should rest."
"Did you…" August's words faltered, the syllables broken by heat and dizziness. "Did you do this to me?"
"No," Everin whispered. "I merely helped you forget—for one evening—how to carry the weight you wear like armor. Look at you now. No cold eyes. No clipped words. Only the truth of your body." He stepped closer. "You are beautiful when you suffer."
August's legs finally gave way.
He collapsed forward—whether by accident or instinct, he didn't know. His vision stuttered with darkness, and his body burned with every inch of motion. Everin caught him, arms closing around him like iron wrought into the shape of affection. August groaned, the sound low and helpless, as if his body betrayed him with every heartbeat.
"You should not fight it," Everin whispered into his ear. "You were never made to bear the world alone. Let someone else hold your weight. Let me."
But August shuddered and tried again to push away. Even as his strength faltered, his soul still clawed against submission. His mind screamed no, even as his muscles failed him. His body was burning, but his will—his will was still steel.
And that, perhaps, made him more dangerous than Everin had imagined.
Still holding him, Everin looked down with eyes not of pity, but of reverence twisted into madness. "You're like a bird someone has stolen the sky from," he said quietly. "But even without wings… you still try to fly."
He drew August closer. The fevered warmth of him seared against Everin's coat, trembling like the last note of a dying song.
"I could keep you like this," Everin whispered, "forever."
The fire roared in the hearth. Shadows danced on the walls.
And August—burning, breathless, and barely standing—gathered what strength he had left.
Because even clipped wings remember the sky.
The hearth crackled softly in the parlor of Blackwood Manor, casting flickering shadows across the polished marble floor. Elias sat in a high-backed chair near the fire, his posture rigid, fingers tapping rhythmically against the carved wood. Though the manor was silent, his thoughts were a tempest.
August hadn't returned.
The door creaked open. Giles, the senior butler whose presence had long preceded even August's birth, entered with his usual quiet dignity. He bore the weight of generations, his steps deliberate, hands folded behind his back.
Elias turned sharply. "Giles. What kind of man is Everin?"
Giles did not immediately answer. He moved to the sideboard, pouring tea into a delicate porcelain cup—an old habit from years of service, even when he knew the cup would go untouched. The fire hissed, but the room had grown cold.
After a long pause, Giles finally spoke. "He is a man I cannot bring myself to acknowledge."
Elias stood, slowly. "Why?"
Giles's eyes were shadowed with memory. "When Lord August was merely six, Lord Everin demanded he be sent to his estate. Claimed he wished to oversee the boy's education himself. But there was nothing fatherly in that request. No warmth."
He paused, and something flickered in his expression. Bitterness. Regret.
"Lord August refused. He wept each morning, clinging to the stair banisters. But Lady Annalise approved it. She said it would 'toughen him.'"
Elias clenched his fists. "Why would she do that?"
"Politics," Giles said quietly. "Everin's father, Lord Castellan, was an old power. Connections mattered. But none of us saw… the way he looked at August."
The silence grew heavier.
"There was a gathering," Giles went on, voice distant. "Nobles filled this house, speaking of gold and war and sons. Everin, only a few years older, took August's hand in front of them all and said, 'I shall marry this one.' Everyone laughed. Thought it charming. But August didn't."
Elias's eyes darkened. "What did August do?"
"Nothing," Giles said softly. "He stood still. Too still. His eyes were blank. He didn't cry. He never cried. Not even then."
Elias turned away, trying to silence the fury bubbling in his throat.
"I always feared this," Giles added. "That one day, Everin would find some excuse to draw him back."
Elias pivoted, his voice quiet but iron-bound. "I should've stopped him from going."
"Tilemont went with him. So did two of our finest soldiers."
"That won't stop a man like Everin," Elias said, the words biting. "Not if he's still obsessed. Not if he's still waiting."
He stood motionless for a breath, then turned to Giles with sudden resolve.
"Get my horse ready."
Giles blinked. "Sir?"
"I'm going to him."
The old butler searched Elias's face, then gave a slow, solemn nod. "I will bring your coat."
Elias left the room with long, urgent strides. Each footfall echoed in the vast corridor as thunder echoed inside his chest. He had no proof, no call. Only instinct. And dread. If Everin had dared to harm August—even touch him—
Then Elias would bring fire and vengeance to that cursed estate.
And he wouldn't stop until August was in his arms again.
August lay slumped on the chaise near the hearth, breath shallow, skin pallid, eyes half-lidded but gleaming with residual defiance. Sweat clung to his forehead in translucent beads, and a soft flush colored his high cheekbones. His pale fingers twitched against the upholstery, struggling to find anchor in a world spinning without mercy.
August swallowed hard, but the words refused to obey him. His throat burned, not from thirst, but from fury, from shame, from helplessness. His smoke-grey eyes locked on Everin, but his vision blurred and doubled. He looked like he wanted to speak, to curse him, but his lips barely parted.
Everin leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Do you remember that summer at Blackwood, August? You were four. I was twenteen. You used to wear that absurd blue velvet coat and chase dragonflies in the garden. Everyone adored you, called you a little princess. But I—"
He paused, exhaling as if the memory stirred something deep, something diseased. "I saw what you were even then. Not just pretty. Not just noble. You were... untouchable. A flame behind glass. I wanted to break that glass, August. I wanted to touch you where no one else dared. And I never got the chance. Until now."
August groaned low in his throat and tried again to move. His limbs dragged as though submerged in syrup, every muscle sluggish and trembling. He slipped halfway off the chaise, catching himself on one trembling arm, chest heaving.
Everin stood and approached, kneeling beside him with a slow, reverent grace. His fingers hovered near August's chin but didn't touch.
"Even like this, you resist. You never cried—not even when your parents died. That always fascinated me. You held the grief inside you like a precious thing. But this isn't grief, My Dear Cousin". This is surrender."
August's body jerked suddenly, a spark of motion defying the numbing heat spreading through him. He tried to lift himself, to shove Everin away, but instead stumbled directly into his arms. Everin caught him with a twisted sort of tenderness, holding him close as though the moment was sacred.
August's head lolled to the side, cheek brushing against Everin's shoulder, heart pounding in uneven staccato. His mind screamed, but his body was failing, dragged downward into the undertow of whatever poison Everin had slipped into his veins. And yet, even now, some sliver of defiance flared in his fading consciousness—fragile, but unyielding.
Everin rocked him gently, eyes wide with something between madness and reverence. The fire in the hearth crackled louder than before, its golden glow dancing across the walls, casting both men into flickering silhouettes. Outside, the wind clawed at the windowpanes, unnoticed.
This was the calm before the storm.
And August Blackwood was not broken yet.