The morning after tasted like ash.
Auther woke long past noon, the aberrant sun already high and merciless through his windows. His body had shut down from exhaustion sometime before dawn, but sleep had brought no relief—only fragments of her voice, flat and final: Get out.
He rose, dressed mechanically, and descended to the great hall for a late meal. The long table stretched empty before him, three places set out of habit: the head for a father long dead, the right for a mother who might as well be, and his own, isolated in the middle. Servants hovered at the edges, silent. He ate alone, the clink of silver on porcelain the only sound.
Afterward he wandered the gardens, boots crunching on gravel paths still damp with dew. The air smelled of cut grass and distant roses, but none of it reached him. He kept seeing her—back arched, mouth open on a cry she hadn't meant to give, eyes wide with something that looked like fear the moment the pleasure ebbed.
He told himself it was for the best. She had made her choice. He was nineteen in this body, but forty-two in memory; he knew what rejection felt like. Better to let it scar over quickly.
He settled eventually in a shaded gazebo overlooking the eastern lawns, gaze unfocused on gardeners trimming hedges and maids hurrying between wings. Viola's absence was a weight in his chest. He had not seen her since the door closed behind him, and part of him hoped he wouldn't for days.
A hesitant footstep on the wooden steps pulled him from the haze.
A young woman stood at the entrance—pink hair tied in a messy knot, sulphur-yellow eyes darting everywhere except directly at him. She clutched a small leather satchel to her chest like a shield. Pretty in an unpolished way, but her whole posture radiated unease.
Auther blinked, dragging himself back to the present. "Yes?"
She flinched as if he'd shouted. A mumble followed—too low to catch—then louder, forced: "I—I was just… I'll go."
She turned to flee.
"Wait." The word came out sharper than intended. He softened his tone. "You're not disturbing me. Sit, if you want."
She hesitated, eyes flicking to his face, then away. Finally she perched on the far edge of the bench, leaving an ocean of space between them.
Silence stretched. Auther studied her idly—lab-stained fingers, ink smudges on one sleeve, the faint scent of minerals and something acrid clinging to her clothes.
"You work in the alchemical wing," he guessed.
Her head snapped up, surprise overriding fear for a moment. "How—? Yes. Lana. Apprentice. Two years." The words tumbled out, then she clamped her mouth shut, cheeks coloring.
Auther almost smiled. She reminded him of old lab partners from his first life—brilliant when talking reagents, hopeless when talking people.
"I've never spent much time there," he said. "Tell me what you do."
Lana blinked, suspicious. "Why?"
"Because I'm curious. And because no one else ever explains it without sounding like they're selling miracles."
That earned a tiny, reluctant huff of laughter. She relaxed a fraction. "It's… studying how things change when they meet other things. Properties. Reactions. Finding patterns." Her voice warmed as she spoke, hands gesturing now. "Most people think it's just turning lead to gold. It's not. It's understanding why things are the way they are."
Auther leaned forward, genuinely interested. "Sounds like chemistry."
She tilted her head. "Chemis—what?"
He caught himself. "An old word from… a book I read once. Same idea. Controlled reactions, predictable outcomes."
Lana's eyes lit. "Exactly! If you know the rules, you can bend them. Not break—bend." She paused, then added bitterly, "If you have the talent for it."
He raised a brow. "Talent?"
She shrugged, picking at a loose thread on her satchel. "Everyone's born with a class and a grade. Classes decide what paths are open to you—Common for basic trades, Uncommon for skilled crafts, Rare and Extra Rare for specialized roles like court alchemists. Higher than that—Unique, Mythical, Phantasmic, all the way to Divine—and you're basically legend before you start."
Auther nodded slowly, piecing together fragments he'd overheard over the years.
"And the grade?"
"That's raw potential," Lana said, voice dropping. "Insectile at the bottom—barely enough mana to light a candle. Then Ghostly, Human, Epic, Legendary, Heroic. Most palace staff scrape in at Human with Extra Rare class. I'm… right on the line. Human-grade, Extra Rare class." She laughed, short and self-mocking. "Neon Gold—my master—he's Legendary Unique. One of maybe forty-five in all humanity. He never lets me forget I'm the minimum they'd let through the gates."
Auther felt an old, familiar anger stir—the kind he'd known on Earth when talent was measured by grades, connections, luck. "Sounds like a rigid system."
"It is," she said simply. "Your class sets your ceiling for mana and lifespan. Your grade decides how high you climb inside it. Someone Insectile Common might live sixty years and struggle to boil water. A Heroic Mythical like… like the queen…" She trailed off, glancing around as if the hedges had ears. "They say she could outlive nations."
They talked longer than he intended—about catalysts, about the frustration of experiments that refused to repeat, about the way court politics mirrored lab hierarchies. Lana grew animated, forgetting to be afraid. Auther found himself relaxing for the first time since the night before, the knot in his chest loosening just enough to breathe.
When she finally stood to leave, bowing awkwardly, he almost asked her to stay. Instead he nodded. "Thank you, Lana."
She fled, pink hair flashing in the sunlight.
Word traveled fast, as it always did in castles.
By evening, whispers threaded through the corridors: the prince seen deep in conversation with the pink-haired alchemist's apprentice. The nobody. The bare-minimum girl.
Lana heard them in the labs—snickers behind hands, Neon's cold amusement. She kept her head down, cheeks burning, wondering why the prince had bothered.
Viola heard them in the armory, polishing a blade she had no intention of using that day.
"The prince spent the afternoon with that little alchemist girl," a maid confided, wide-eyed. "In the gazebo. Alone."
Viola's hand stilled on the whetstone. The scrape of metal on metal stopped.
"Which girl?"
"The shy one. Pink hair. Lana something."
Viola resumed polishing, harder now. "He's allowed his distractions."
The maid lingered, eager. "They say she's only Human-grade. Can you imagine?"
Viola set the blade down with deliberate care. "I can imagine many things."
Alone later, in the quiet of her chamber, she stood at the window and watched the gardens fade into dusk. The gazebo was empty now.
A sharp, unexpected ache bloomed beneath her ribs—possessive, childish, unwelcome.
He was nineteen. Boys that age moved on quickly. She had pushed him away; she had no claim.
Still, the thought of his quiet voice, his patient attention, turned toward someone else—someone younger, softer, uncomplicated—felt like a blade sliding between plates of armor she hadn't realized she wore.
She pressed a hand to the cool glass, breath fogging it briefly.
Across the castle, Auther lay awake again, staring at the canopy above his bed.
Lana had been a pleasant distraction—bright, uncomplicated, easy to talk to. But as the night deepened, his mind returned inexorably to scarred arms in moonlight, to a cry swallowed against his shoulder, to a door closing with finality.
He had not moved on.
He wondered if she had.
The aberrant moon hung low and gold outside both their windows, indifferent to the distance growing between them—one careful conversation, one rumor, one unspoken regret at a time.