***Cadiz***
The walk to the small dining room felt longer than usual, my steps felt heavy with disappointment.
The conversation I had overheard continued to play in my mind, but now it carried only torment rather than revelation. What good was knowing I might be something called a null omega if I could find no information about what that actually meant?
When I entered the dining room, Raizel was already seated at his customary place, the morning light filtering through the tall windows to cast sharp angles across his pale features. He looked up as I approached, and I caught something in his expression, a flicker of assessment that was quickly suppressed beneath his usual composed mask.
"You were in the library early this morning, again." he observed, his tone carrying no particular inflection yet somehow managing to convey both statement and question.
I took my seat across from him without meeting his eyes. "I couldn't sleep."
The servants had already laid out the morning meal, fresh bread, soft cheese, sliced fruit, and tea that steamed in delicate porcelain cups. It should have been appetizing after my long morning of fruitless research, yet the sight of food made my stomach clench with something that had nothing to do with hunger.
I picked up my fork and began pushing pieces of fruit around my plate, creating small, meaningless patterns in the juice that had pooled at the bottom. The pear was perfectly ripe, the cheese aged to creamy perfection, the bread still warm from the ovens.
But all of it might as well have been sawdust for all the appeal it held.
"The weather has been unusually mild for this time of year," Raizel said, clearly attempting to fill the silence that had settled between us like fog. "The mountain passes should remain clear well into winter if this pattern continues."
I nodded absently, stabbing at a piece of pear with more force than the delicate fruit warranted.
The conversation about weather felt surreal after the revelations of recent days. How could we discuss seasonal patterns when I had just learned that everything I thought I knew about myself might be fundamentally wrong?
Also, doesn't he usually talk about estate matters with his steward at meals? Why then did he choose to focus on meals and have small talk with me today?
Minutes passed in an uncomfortable quietness. I was dimly aware of Raizel's eyes on me, studying my face with an intensity that should have made me self-conscious.
But instead, I found myself lost in the spiral of my own thoughts, replaying every word I had overheard, every strange incident that had occurred since my arrival at Ravenshollow.
The barrier I had somehow created during the creature attack. The flickering light when I pass the hallways..If I truly was this null omega they had spoken of, then these incidents weren't random occurrences but manifestations of abilities I didn't understand.
I continuously tried to recreate a barrier again after then but I was never able to do it. Without knowledge of what a null omega actually was, I remained as ignorant as before. Perhaps more so, since now I was aware of my ignorance rather than simply accepting it as natural.
"Cadiz."
Raizel's voice cut through my brooding thoughts like a blade through silk. I looked up to find him watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read, concern mixed with something that might have been calculation, or wariness, or both.
"You've been staring at your plate for ten minutes without taking a single bite," he said quietly. "Is something troubling you?"
The directness of the question caught me off guard. In all the months I had been living under his roof, Raizel had never inquired about my wellbeing with such apparent sincerity.
His concern felt genuine, yet I could not shake the suspicion that it was motivated by something beyond simple kindness.
"I'm simply not hungry," I replied, setting down my fork with care. "Too much reading, I suppose. It tends to dampen the appetite."
His pale eyes studied my face for a while, and I got the uneasy feeling that he could see right through my calm act to how unsure I really was.
"Perhaps you should take some air," he suggested. "The gardens are pleasant at this hour, and the exercise might help clear your mind."
The suggestion was reasonable, even thoughtful. Yet something in his tone made me wonder if he was trying to distract me from whatever had been occupying my thoughts so thoroughly.
The possibility that he might know exactly what was troubling me, might, in fact, be part of the very conspiracy I was trying to unravel made my skin prickle with unease.
"Perhaps later," I said, rising from my chair with movements that felt stiff and unnatural. "I think I'll return to my chambers for now. The morning has been... taxing."
I left the dining room without waiting for his response, acutely aware of his gaze following me until I disappeared into the corridor beyond.
The weight of his attention felt like a physical thing pressed against my back, and I found myself walking faster than necessary, as if I could somehow outpace the questions that continued to multiply in my mind.
Back in my room, I sank into the chair by the window and looked out at the mountains surrounding Ravenshollow. They were wrapped in mist, their tops lost in the clouds, and it somehow matched how confused I felt. Somewhere in this fortress were the answers I was looking for, but they felt just as far away as those mountaintops.
The truth was here somewhere, hidden in books I hadn't read yet or things I hadn't overheard. I'd keep looking, keep listening, and keep putting the pieces together until I finally saw the full picture.
Even if that truth turned out to be worse than not knowing at all.