Night draped itself over Ashthorn Manor like a velvet shroud. The halls were silent, save for the faint, muffled notes of a child's dreaming. Elinor murmured something about foxes from across the corridor. Somewhere deeper inside the manor, Kaelric's snoring rattled a doorframe. Serenya slept like a blade—still, quiet, deceptively soft.
The peace was almost enough to make someone believe the world was simple.
Lucian sat alone at his desk, the candle beside him burned low, its flame flickering against a neat stack of ribbons Elinor had bullied him into buying. He hadn't changed yet—still in his dark market clothes, collar loosened, hair falling over his eyes. He looked like any young heir up too late.
He wasn't.
A light knock tapped against his window.
No servant knocked like that.
Lucian didn't sigh—he just went still. A tiny shift in posture, barely a breath, and the entire room sharpened around him.
He unlatched the window.
A small messenger boy stood outside, panting, clutching a folded letter sealed with House Velcor's crest.Lucian accepted it wordlessly. The boy bowed and sprinted off, relieved to escape the presence of someone he didn't quite understand.
Lucian broke the seal.
Inside, the letter was—of course—chaos.
Crooked handwriting slanted across the page.Insults scrawled in margins.A dramatic sketch of a horse kicking someone.A doodle of what looked suspiciously like Lucian with devil horns.And in the corner, a detailed rant about losing a bet to a baker.
Lucian stared, expression blank.He didn't bother reading it.He flipped the page once, glanced at the nonsense, then set it aside as casually as someone discarding a grocery list.
"Subtle as always," he murmured, tone flat.
The candle guttered.
Another sound whispered behind him.
Not a knock this time—a soft, calculated tap-tap on the balcony railing.
Lucian opened the door.
Wisp stood there, small and slight, wrapped in a plain cloak that hid her shape. She could have passed for a street orphan at first glance. Her eyes, though—quiet, sharp, and hollow—didn't belong to a child.
"Sir," she said softly.
He stepped aside. She slipped in like smoke.
"What do you have?" Lucian asked.
Her voice carried no emotion. "Three Veyra caravans were delayed tonight. All marked with an unfamiliar symbol carved into the wood. Someone shadowed the twins outside the training halls this morning, but vanished before Ironhand arrived. The lower district is tense."
Lucian processed all of it without a flicker.
"Cause?"
"Unclear. Harrow is tracking the mercenaries involved."
"Good." He closed the balcony drape behind her. "Anything else?"
Wisp hesitated—barely a heartbeat, barely a breath.
"Will you be present tonight, sir?"
Lucian didn't look at the discarded letter.He didn't need to.
"I will." His voice was quiet, steady. "Tell the others."
Wisp nodded once, the motion almost ceremonial. Then she stepped backward toward the balcony, and by the time the curtain fluttered in the breeze, she was gone.
The manor settled again.Still.Silent.
Lucian stood alone in the dim candlelight.
For a long moment, he didn't move. His eyes rested on the ribbons Elinor loved so much—soft little things in pale silver and violet, purchased with more coin than they were worth simply because she asked.
Then his gaze shifted to the harmless pile of nonsense Dorian had sent.
To anyone else, the two objects were opposites.To Lucian, they were the same:a reminder of the world he had to protect beneath two different masks.
He reached for the drawer beneath his desk and pressed his thumb into a small recess carved in the wood.
A quiet click answered him.
The floorboards beside the desk groaned softly and slid apart, revealing a stairway descending into cold, waiting dark.
Lucian stepped toward it without hesitation.
Above him, Ashthorn Manor slept in peace.
Below him, the night waited to be shaped by his hands.
"Whispers at the window," he murmured to himself with a humorless smirk. "Always the beginning of trouble."
And without another word, he vanished into the shadows beneath his home.