Elara didn't know how long she had been sitting in the conservatory.
The air inside the glass walls was warmer than the rest of the manor, laced with the scent of damp soil and something faded but sweet—old roses, maybe. Sunlight slanted through stained panels above, shattering into soft fragments on the stone floor. Vines swayed lazily overhead, like green silk stirred by an unseen breath.
Her hands were folded in her lap. Still. Too still.
She didn't belong to this warmth.
She could hear her own heartbeat. Feel the breath catch just slightly when the wind brushed against her collarbone. It was beautiful here—but beauty never meant safety.
That feeling hadn't left her.
That presence.
She wasn't alone.
---
She shifted only slightly, fingertips grazing the worn edge of the stone bench beneath her. Her eyes tracked the slow fall of a single red petal. It danced as if uncertain where to land.
Then—
Footsteps.
She glanced up. He was already there.
Orlérian.
Half-framed in the archway, as though uncertain whether to enter or vanish.
He froze when he saw her.
A half-second pause. His expression flickered—not surprise exactly. More like something unspoken passing behind his eyes.
She tilted her head—not coldly, but with quiet curiosity.
Orlérian straightened and offered a lopsided, almost guilty smile. "Didn't think anyone would be in here."
His voice was gentler than she expected. Unrehearsed.
She said nothing, only offered a subtle nod.
He lifted a copper watering can slightly. "I come here to water the orchids. Well—pretend to. Mostly I escape the paperwork."
The corners of her lips twitched, almost invisible. His presence didn't press like the others'. It didn't claw at the silence.
He hesitated. Then took a step back, as if remembering who she was. "I'll leave you to it, Your Grace."
Before he could turn away, she spoke—quiet as a breath.
"It's Elara.. Mr. Orlérian."
He looked over his shoulder, something surprised softening his posture.
A real smile now. "Then I'm just Orlérian."
With that, he disappeared into the hedges, the sound of his footsteps fading gently into the distance.
---
But she was still not alone.
Behind the veil of ivy in the far corner, a figure had been there long before Orlérian arrived.
Alaric.
Arms crossed, shoulders drawn with quiet tension. He leaned back against the cold stone wall, half-shrouded in green shadow, his gaze pinned to her like a secret never spoken aloud.
He hadn't meant to stay. Hadn't meant to watch.
But something had rooted him there.
His chest rose slowly, one breath at a time. Her presence tugged at him in strange ways. Sitting there, touched by fractured light, Elara looked nothing like the girl from the chapel or the haunting dreams.
She looked real.
His jaw tightened.
What are you doing?
It should have been easy to turn away. To leave before she noticed.
But just as the thought passed—
A pain flared behind his eyes.
Not sharp. Not screaming.
A dull throb, like an echo from somewhere too deep to reach.
He pressed his fingers to his temple, not with urgency—but habit.
He had grown used to hiding these spells.
Used to lying about them.
Skipped breakfast again, he told himself with a hollow smirk.
As if hunger explained the way the world tilted slightly to the left.
As if it explained the weight pressing against his ribs—like something old had wrapped itself around him.
She didn't know.
She wasn't supposed to know.
Not yet.
He took a breath. Stilled the tremor in his fingertips. When he looked at her again, her silhouette blurred softly by green shadows and stained glass, something inside him wavered.
A word hovered on his tongue.
But it never made it past his lips.
He turned. Moved silently into the manor's depths, swallowed by the quiet.
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See you in the shadows…
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