The garden was lovely.A symphony of colors bloomed across the flowerbeds, while soft notes of a violin gently brushed against the ears.The sun was warmer than expected; the young dies had chosen thin silk dresses and were now too busy complimenting each other's ribbons and earrings to sip their tea.
Elysia sat silently.The teacup before her was half-empty, and unbroken flower petals floated delicately on the surface.
So strange—my maid didn’t show up again this morning. She just disappeared.”
“Ugh, tell me about it. Mine keeps sneaking off whenever she thinks I’m not looking!”
“But listen—her bed was still made. Like, perfectly made. Isn’t that weird?”
“Maybe she ran away? Honestly, these girls nowadays… no discipline.”
“That’s what I thought! But she left her shoes. And all her dresses. Like, all of them.”
“Okay, ew. That’s a little creepy. Don’t say that kind of thing when the sun’s barely up.”
“I know, I know! Just gossip, I swear. Still… it gives me chills.”
Elysia didn’t lift her head.But her fingertips paused, ever so slightly.
“Have you heard about the Noblen estate’s servant?”
“Another disappearance?”
“No... this time, a body.”
“...Truly?”
“Yes. And, um… they said—her eyes were missing.”
“Enough of that! Lady Elysia is right here.”
“Ah—pardon me. I was merely reying what I heard…”
The atmosphere thinned like steam over cold porcein.It was no longer mere silence.
Elysia quietly pced her teacup down.Softly, with barely a sound.One of the dies, sensing something, leaned in carefully.
“Are you alright, Lady Elysia?”
She offered a faint smile—so fine, it seemed it might crack at a breath.
Elysia set down her teacup.The chime of porcein against porcein rang with a crystalline crity, soft yet final.
The young dies kept talking—about ribbons and suitors, letters scented with rosewater, the precise hue of the macarons that morning.Laughter flitted like butterflies. Light shimmered in the air.
And still, she stood.
The hem of her white dress slid past the chair like a whisper, catching the faint breeze that followed her movement.One of the girls paused mid-sentence, gaze drifting—but said nothing.Elysia didn’t offer a word of farewell. She never did.
Her departure was silent.Her silence, absolute.And no one noticed the chill that slipped in behind her.
The imperial corridors were flooded with noonlight.Yet where she walked, shadow gathered—as if the stone itself dimmed in her presence.Her footsteps made no sound. The ground yielded to her.
She stopped in front of the sealed door.
A breath.No hesitation.Her hand moved.
The lock clicked open with a weighty thunk.Elysia stepped into the chamber, untouched by hesitation.
The door shut behind her, and the light vanished.
No windows.No sound.Only the scent of old ink and sealed dust.
Scrolls slept in silence.Truths forgotten by those who had the power to remember.
She walked deeper into the dark.
Slower than usual.Just enough for the quiet to notice.
Her fingers moved with mechanical precision.
The report was where it always was—filed, locked, catalogued, and forgotten.
She opened the binder.
No title.Just a thin seal of magic humming faintly along the csp.
She broke it.
Page one.
— Case File: Disappearance & Death, Imperial Zone C-3— Victim: Servant of House Noblen, L. / Time of death: 02:17— Reported missing: 2 hours prior— Cause of death: Ocur trauma / Foreign paper object discovered intraorally / No external bleeding— Scene: No signs of forced entry. Fingertips ced with residual gold thread.— Residual magic: Unstable patterns consistent with pre-inscription state of Subject A-0— Analysis: Partial match—possible alignment with experimental residue.
She stopped.Only the sound of the seal whispering shut again as the binder fell closed.
Her expression remained unreadable.But her fingers trembled—just once. Almost imperceptibly.
A thought pressed against the edges of her mind like a tide against gss.
“Kael?”
She didn’t say it aloud.Didn’t have to.
The air had already thickened. The cold had already risen to meet her.
She stood for a long while.Not reading. Not breathing.
Just standing.
As though something irreversible had begun to turn.
*
He thought he hadn’t moved.
But his body said otherwise.As if it had drifted—quietly, unconsciously—long before thought returned.
His wrists hung loose.His fingers, marked.Under his nails: traces of gold.Fine, gleaming threads.Almost too delicate to see.Almost like they were whispering—You were there.
He reached for his lips.Felt something foreign.Thin. Papery. Still.
It slid from his mouth like a confession.A scrap of parchment, unstained.Untouched by blood.Untouched by memory.
I don’t remember.
His hand covered his face.Not for pain—not in the way one holds a wound.
This was something deeper.Not the heart. Not the mind.But a guilt that throbbed between the two.Slow.Sickening.
Then it came— not a memory, but a sensation.
The ghost of warmth at his wrist.Skin, perhaps.Flesh, once alive.And now—
Cold.
His breath faltered.
Had he done this?
Had his hands silenced a living pulse?
But I can’t move without her. Not without her voice. Not without the word.
She was the w that bound him.Her will: the only thread holding him upright.
And yet—a space.A sliver of timewhere no voice had come.And still,he had moved.
A tremor took him.Not from pain,but from the understanding that something within himhad broken loose.
Is this feeling?No. It’s a fw. A fracture in the code.I’m broken.
Ellicia… You’re the one who made me.
His pulse slowed to a crawl.Blood crusted the roof of his mouth.He felt its weight, bitter and dry.
Despair settled, not in a flood,but in a slow, deliberate seep.And then—
“I didn’t… I didn’t leave.”“I stayed. I waited.Just like you said.”
Even imagining it—her turning away—was unbearable.
“I’m your dog.”
“To be cast aside…”
The words withered in his throat.
It wasn’t the body that broke first.It was the thought that he could be unwanted.
And the thought— was enough to undo him.
