The breakfast was the same as usual. Dry bread and bland pottage. The three men sat at the table in raw silence. Was it from the leftover fog of sleep? Or was it reservations about something else entirely?
Darius' expression was unreadable, and that alone filled Cal with a sense of dread.
Does granddad know what happened yesterday? He was in the workshop the entire time. There wouldn't be a way for him to hear all the commotion, right?
"Where were you both yesterday after you finished carrying in the load?" Darius asked.
Cal's heart stilled in its movements. Vincent stared down at the meal, not saying a single word. Darius picked up on the silence, his eyebrows furrowing a tad.
"Well? This isn't rhetorical, you two!"
Cal cleared his throat quietly before answering, his gaze fixed on the table. "For a walk... around the south quarter."
Vincent didn't add anything to those words. Darius looked between the two of them before speaking again.
"And it took you that long?"
Cal nodded. "Yeah... We wanted to take our time and relax... after everything."
Darius didn't reply immediately. He just stared at them, his face expressionless. No anger, no calm. Like he was measuring the space between each word, each breath. Cal felt the weight of that gaze pressing on the back of his bowed head.
"You 'relaxed' for three hours? In the south quarter of all places?" Darius' tone was flat.
Cal swallowed. "We just walked. Talked a little..."
Damn it... You never gave a damn about what I did in my free time before! Why now?! Why-
He cut the thought short.
Darius' hands were clasped together, his body still, despite the atmosphere of the room. "Nothing unusual happened? At all?"
Cal's throat tightened. "No."
He hated how small that sounded.
The silence thickened. Vincent shifted in his seat, his knee bumping the table leg. The wooden cups rattled.
"Vincent?" Darius' eyes flickered to him. "Is this true?"
Vincent froze, shoulders tensing. He kept his gaze pinned to the pottage, jaw working.
"Y-yeah," he said. "Like Cal said. Just a walk."
Darius kept staring.
Vincent's grip on his wooden spoon whitened his knuckles. Cal could see the turmoil all over his face — the effort to stay quiet, to match Cal's lie. To not make it worse.
Then Darius' eyes narrowed slightly, which made Vincent flinch a bit.
Cal's pulse spiked higher than ever.
Don't... Don't say anything!
"There were..." Vincent began, then clamped his mouth shut.
Darius leaned forward a little, his gaze piercing through Vincent's eyes. "There were what?"
Vincent's resolve cracked. The words tumbled out in a rush.
"Messengers," he blurted. "From the kingdom. They came to the square! Said something about the Merlin Trials being announced this year..."
The air left Cal's lungs.
VINCENT! You idiot!
He turned slowly to see Darius' reaction, like a person who was afraid of taking off a bandage from a wound.
Darius was utterly still.
His expression didn't twist or flare with visible rage. It just… emptied. Whatever faint softness had been in his face drained away, until Cal couldn't read a single thing.
That was somehow worse.
Cal's fingers curled into fists under the table. His mind raced, bracing for the explosion, the shouted orders, the punishment.
Instead, Darius slowly pushed his chair back. The legs scraped against the floor with a low, dragged-out groan.
"Finish your food," he said. His voice was quiet. Too quiet.
Cal and Vincent stayed frozen, like any move they could make would result in catastrophe.
Darius stood up. "Cal. Once you're done, I'd like to have a word with you. In private."
No other glance was given after that as he headed toward the workshop, his footsteps heavy but controlled. The door creaked open before shutting with a muted thud.
Cal released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. His heart was still beating too fast.
"Sorry," Vincent whispered, not looking at him. "I... I thought he already knew. I think. I just-"
"It's fine," Cal muttered, although he knew that this was anything but fine. "It's not like the lie was gonna work anyway."
The pottage had gone cold. He forced down another mouthful, more out of stubbornness than hunger. The taste was like cardboard and ash on his tongue. No sustenance. No flavor.
Just bracing for what was to come next.
When he stood, he felt as if his legs were twigs that had to support the weight of a mountain. The walk to the back room felt longer than it should have. The door was closed. He hesitated for a heartbeat, then knocked.
"Come in," Darius said in response.
Cal stepped inside and shut the door behind him. The familiar scent of oil and metal greeted him, while the lack of lighting and the gait of his grandfather did the exact opposite.
Darius stood with his back to him, hands clasped behind him, facing the window.
"In the name of the Moon, what were you thinking?!" Darius asked, without even turning around.
Cal tried to open his mouth to speak, but nothing came. His innards felt dry and brittle.
"You didn't think to leave," he said, without turning around. "When the messengers arrived."
It wasn't a question.
Cal swallowed. "We were already there when they showed up. Leaving right away would've looked weird."
"And staying didn't?" Darius finally turned.
His gaze was sharp now. Angry — but the kind of anger that had been simmering a long time.
"You heard them talk about the Trials," Darius said. "You heard they were from the kingdom. And you stayed!"
Cal's own irritation, simmering since the previous night, flared. "We were in a crowd. It's not like they were there specifically for us!"
"You don't know that!" Darius shot back. "You have no idea how far their eyes reach and what they search for! The second you saw that sigil, you should've made your way home!"
Cal's jaw clenched. "You're right! I don't know! Because you never bothered to explain anything to me!"
Irritation mutated into anger. The urge to spill everything he'd swallowed down for years clawed at his throat.
"We didn't even do anything. We just listened."
Darius grit his teeth. "And that's more than enough to get you killed."
The words made no sense to Cal and filled him with a sense of incredulity. "Killed? Just for standing there?"
"For being involved! For being too close! For looking when you should've looked away!"
His voice was rising now, the cracks showing.
"You're out of your depth, Cal! And you're dragging an innocent boy down with you!"
Heat surged in Cal's chest, scorching his heart and lungs.
"Vincent? You think I'm ruining him?! Wow, what amazing faith you have in me! I'm touched."
"That's not what I meant, and you know it!" Darius replied.
Cal shook his head, his temper escalating higher and higher. "No, I don't know! Because you never bothered to say anything! You just snap the second I start to know anything about the world and expect me to toddle behind you like some mutt!"
A muscle jumped in Darius' jaw. "In this world, there are things you are better off not knowing."
"There it is again," Cal remarked, a bitter laugh escaping him. "The same line, every damn time!"
"You think I enjoy doing this?" Darius' voice roughened. "You think I enjoy watching you stumble blind to a cliff you have no idea is there?"
"What you do enjoy is treating me like a burden all the damn time! Like I'm some snot-nosed toddler that does nothing but spoil your life!"
The words hung in the dim room, heavier than the tools and metal piled on the shelves. Cal didn't even consider the implications of the words that left his mouth. Nor did he want to.
He wanted to be heard. And this?
It felt good.
Darius opened his mouth, then closed it. Whatever answer he had died behind pressed lips.
Cal waited. One heartbeat. Two.
Nothing.
The anger in his chest cooled into something sharper, hollower.
"Thought so," he muttered.
He turned, hand fumbling for the door latch. "If I'm such a problem, I'll try not to drag your precious shop down with me. I'm sure that's all you want, right?"
"Cal-" Darius started.
But Cal was already stepping out, the door thudding shut behind him before the rest of his name could leave his grandfather's mouth. As he left, he could've sworn he saw Darius' hands shake a little.
But he didn't care.
Cal thought of what he felt the last night. A spark.
A spark to get even one word of an answer. Maybe this time around, his grandfather would understand. That maybe he'd let go of the suffocating leash he's held onto for the past 17 years.
He'd be a fool to think otherwise.
------
Cal leaned his back against the door and let his eyes fall shut. The wood was cool against his shoulders, but it did nothing for the heat still burning in his chest.
The workshop's scent of oil and metal clung to him as he pushed away and stepped back into the living room, where Vincent sat at the dinner table. He looked as if he'd tried to sit back down and failed. His spoon lay abandoned in the now cool pottage; the handle streaked with dry barley. He looked up at Cal the moment he entered.
The apology was already forming in his eyes.
"Cal, I-"
"Don't," Cal said.
The word came out harsher than he meant. Vincent flinched anyway, shoulders curling in as if expecting a blow.
Silence draped over the room. The morning light coming in through the front windows was thin, dust motes drifting in slow patterns. The pottage had formed a skin.
Vincent swallowed. "I'm sorry," he said anyway, voice low. "I shouldn't have said anything. I just… I panicked, and I felt bad for lying to him."
Cal dragged a hand down his face, thumb pressing hard against the corner of his eye until it hurt.
"Doesn't matter now," Cal replied. "He would've squeezed it out of us, one way or another. I'm surprised he didn't do much else."
"Yeah... but not like that," Vincent said, his hand clenching and unclenching at his sides. "Not by yelling like that. If I didn't say anything, you'd-"
"You're not the problem," Cal said. "He is."
Vincent blinked, thrown by the sharpness of it.
Cal moved past him and dropped into his chair. The legs creaked. He stared at the cold pottage, then shoved the bowl away like it offended him.
"I didn't even tell him everything," Cal said, more to himself than Vincent. "I said nothing about the fact they talked to us specifically. I even lied about that. I said nothing about their questions, their answers, or anything else. I was going to. I was actually stupid enough to think maybe this time he'd explain something."
I wanted to mention my hand... I wanted to ask what it meant. But now... what's the damn point?
He let out a bitter laugh, humorless and thin.
Vincent shifted closer, hesitant. "Maybe... He's just worried. About you, about what's out there, about-"
"Worried? Vincent, you've scrapped by in Gravenmoor Hold all your life, right?" Cal asked.
Vincent's breath hitched, as if the question brought around dark memories that he wished were buried. "Y-Yeah... But that's different. I had no one. You... have him, no?"
Cal scoffed. "He's not worried about me in the least. It's a lot more like 'you're an idiot and you're ruining everything.'"
He spat the quote like a rotten seed. Vincent's gaze darted away, shame flickering over his features. It wasn't even directed to him and yet he felt condemned.
"He wouldn't have meant it like that." Vincent said quietly.
"And how else am I supposed to take it?" Cal retorted.
Vincent didn't answer. For a few heartbeats, the only sound was the faint tick of the warped clock on the wall and the muffled clang of metal from the workshop where Darius had gone.
Cal's fists slowly unclenched. He dragged in a breath, then another.
"I'm not a child," he said, his voice softer but no less hurt. "If something's dangerous, just let me know why instead of treating me like a liability."
Vincent sunk into the chair across from him. He folded his arms on the table and rested his chin on them, staring at the pottage as if it held answers.
For a moment, the two of them just sat there. Anger, guilt, and confusion weaved between them, like someone was trying to catch smoke with their bare hands.
"You didn't deserve that," Vincent said. "Any of it."
Cal's throat worked. The words shouldn't have mattered, yet they still did.
"Yeah, well," he said, staring at the center of the table. "Doesn't change anything, does it?"
Silence. It stretched for only moments, yet it felt like an eternity.
He was about to say more when a sound outside cut through the quiet.
A shout. Sharp, distant, and angry.
Both of them froze.
Another yell followed, louder this time. Not the usual market banter or Mr. Adams' baseless rambling.
There was a note of command in it. Followed by something more harrowing.
A thin, high-pitched cry. A child.
Cal and Vincent traded a look. Whatever had just been said between them dropped away, replaced by a different kind of tension.
"Did you hear-" Vincent started.
"Yeah," Cal said, already pushing himself to his feet.
They moved to the front window in tandem, steps quick and quiet. Cal brushed aside the worn curtain with two fingers and peered toward the street.
Outside, the air that had felt sluggish moments ago was now bristling. A small crowd had formed a loose ring near the well across from the shop. People stood just far enough away to say they weren't involved, just close enough to watch.
At the center of it, three men in dark, uniform coats blocked the way. The sigil of the Evervoid Empire was stitched over their clothes. The morning light caught on the metal of their pauldrons, their belt buckles, the sheathed blades at their hips.
One of them had a woman by the arm. She clutched a small boy to her side, his face buried in her skirt. The soldier's fingers dug into her sleeve as he barked something Cal couldn't make out. The boy gave another frightened wail.
Vincent's hand found the edge of the windowsill, knuckles whitening. "Are those-" he began.
"Men of the platoon," Cal finished for him. "What're they doing here in the south quarter?"
His stomach knotted. The remnants of his earlier anger twisted with something colder.
He watched as the second soldier stepped closer to the woman, gesturing sharply down the street, then to the clustered houses like he was demanding something. But what? Information? Valuables? Someone?
Behind them, the third man scanned the faces of the onlookers like he was searching for a specific shape in a pile of stones.
"We need to do something! They're harassing her!" Vincent said, voice tight.
Cal stopped, his gaze landing on Vincent. "Are you serious? After what just happened?" Cal said, though his own teeth were clenched.
He couldn't look away from the woman's face. From the fear there. From the boy's trembling shoulders. What was it with misfortune and this place? Why were they so... synonymous with each other?
Cal swallowed, throat suddenly dry again.
"The most we could do... is maybe find out what they want," he said.
Vincent flicked a glance at him. "You mean we sneak around and eavesdrop?"
Cal let the curtain fall back into place. His mind was warring with itself. He wanted to intervene. He desperately wanted to put an end to the screaming and the fear that took place right outside his home. On the other hand, an old man who was too deaf or blind to see the world was in the workshop, toiling away as Cal's grandfather.
Cal let out a deep exhale before closing his eyes, throwing a slew of insults at himself before turning back to Vincent.
"If you want to call it that, then sure. Now come on. Be quiet and make sure granddad won't notice."