The sunlight fell softly across the estate, a warm light that did little to chase away the shadows lingering in Lucian's chest. He walked through the quiet halls of the other Lowell manor, the one their family moved into when the original one was burned down. Lucian's each step is measured, each breath heavy. Today, he had come for answers—answers he had long avoided, afraid of the truth he might uncover. At last, he stopped in front of the old man who had shaped so much of his life, both through authority and absence.
"Grandfather…" Lucian's voice was low, controlled but brittle. "Forty years ago, you killed two people, didn't you?"
The words hung in the air like a knife. For a moment, the old man said nothing, his hands trembling as he gripped the edge of the polished mahogany desk. Then, the dam broke.
He sank into the chair, head in his hands. "Yes," he said, voice raw, cracking. "Yes, I did."
Lucian's chest tightened. The air seemed suddenly colder, heavier, as if the manor itself mourned the confession.
"I…" his grandfather began again, trembling, "I spent my life trying to make amends, to right what I had done to Lance. I thought that by growing old, by changing… by living with the weight of my sins… perhaps I could make some small restitution. But it never works that way. Nothing I do will ever undo that night."
Lucian's eyes burned with something fierce, a mixture of anger, grief, and the helplessness of watching time carry away what could not be saved. "You… you were supposed to turn yourself in," he whispered, voice cracking.
The old man's hands shook. "I was. But the Jiang family… they wouldn't let me. They said it would ruin everything, the family, the legacy, the alliances. And I… I believed them, foolishly, thinking that if I endured, if I lived to see another day, maybe I could make it right. But it was all vanity. All useless."
The confession hung between them like smoke. Lucian's hands curled into fists at his sides, and for a long moment, neither spoke.
"And Lance," the grandfather continued, his voice barely audible, "after that night, he burned the manor. He tried to erase the memories of Ellis, tried to bury the past. He left the country soon after. He could not forget. He came back only at the very end, when his life had run its course. I…" He swallowed hard. "I wanted to sprinkle his ashes in the sea near the manor. Perhaps… perhaps he would meet Ellis there, if there is a life after this one."
Lucian said nothing, the weight of all that grief pressing down on him. He felt the past stretch out like a storm over his shoulders, the impossible choices, the blood and fire and loss, the silence of those who could not speak anymore.
Then the old man spoke again, hesitantly, almost as if testing the waters of Lucian's attention. "A few days ago… someone reached out to me. The sister of Rohan."
Lucian's breath caught. The name lingered in his mind like a ghost he had never truly exorcised. Rohan—gone, yet present in every shadow of memory, every ache in his chest.
"She asked to meet you," the grandfather continued, "by Rohan's grave. There is something… something she wishes to tell you. Perhaps it is the final piece you've been waiting for."
Lucian left the manor without another word, his mind already racing. The path to Rohan's grave was silent, winding, flanked by hedges that whispered in the wind. When he arrived, she was there. She looked older than he expected—time had carved lines into her face, yet in her eyes and the shape of her mouth, he could see Rohan mirrored.
"I suppose you are Lucian," she said softly, and Lucian nodded, speechless.
"Forty years ago, on August first," she began, voice carrying a mixture of amusement and sorrow, "Rohan called and visited me for the first time… Then, that rascal told me I must deliver a letter to someone named Lucian of the Lowell family, but not until 2025. He said you wouldn't understand its contents until you turned seventeen."
Lucian's lips parted slightly, and she continued, a faint smile breaking her solemnity. "I thought he had finally lost his mind. But I could see… he was determined. So I took the letter."
Her eyes darkened, and the wind tugged at her scarf. "Days later, I heard he had died. The Lowell family sent me money, compensation for his death, I suppose. I refused. It was insulting. How could they… how could anyone measure such a life with a coin?"
Lucian's hands tightened, fingernails biting into his palms. The injustice, the finality, the cruelty—it pressed against his chest like a vice.
She looked away for a moment, then back at him. "Years passed. I had another son in 2006… and he resembled Rohan. I named him after my brother. Funny, isn't it?"
"And then… Two years later, in 2008, I heard madam Lauren Lowell had given birth to a son… and he was named Lucian."
Her voice was quieter now, almost reverent. "I remembered the letter, and what my brother said back in 1985. How could he have predicted that a Lucian would exist in the Lowell family twenty-three years later? Maybe… maybe it's destiny. Or maybe… it was just Rohan, always thinking ahead."
She sighed, hands trembling slightly. "Anyway, although Rohan asked me to give this to you… I thought he might have wanted to give it to you himself. So I brought my son with me, asked him to hand it to you himself."
Lucian's eyes followed the direction she indicated. He froze, as if the air itself had turned to glass. There, standing quietly, was a young man who reminded him impossibly of Rohan—lighter skin, yes, but the same presence, the same way the shoulders carried both strength and gentleness.
She handed the letter to Lucian, her eyes softening. "It's been forty years. I never opened it. The paper's old… be careful."
Lucian's fingers closed around the envelope as if it were a lifeline. He tore it open, and immediately, the world seemed to tilt. Tears welled in his eyes, threatening to spill over. His knees went weak, and he sank to the ground, the letter trembling in his hands.
He could do nothing but open it. Nothing but read. Nothing but let the weight of forty years, of a lifetime of love and loss, press down on him.
And in that moment, the sun felt both too bright and too dim, the air both too full and too still. Forty years had passed, but the threads of the past were finally in his hands.
Lucian's chest heaved. He was kneeling on the ground, the letter before him, the world silent, and everything that had been lost all at once close enough to touch.
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My beloved Luce,
If you are reading this, it means you went back — to your own time, to the world I will never see.
I am relieved. You made it out.
I write this not to be remembered, but to keep you from carrying more than you already do.
It was my mistake that I convinced you that perhaps you came back in the past to change it. I was wrong.
I hope by now you understand: the past does not need to change. It only needs to be witnessed.
When you vanished, I knew you would come back. You always would — the same way the sun always returns, even when the sky forgets it.
But I prayed you wouldn't. Not this time.
Because I have seen what waits at the end, and I don't want you to see it too.
Ellis and your uncle… they deserve their ending, however cruel.
As for me — I'll stay with them. It's where I belong.
There's a poem I love, by Salvador Novo.
"Amar es aguardarte como si fueras parte del ocaso."
To love is to wait for you as if you were part of the sunset.
So I will wait, not for you to return, but for you to live.
To drink coffee under a sky that no longer burns.
To smile when you think of us — not with grief, but with warmth.
If time is kind, perhaps when the sun sets in your world, you'll look west and remember me.
That will be enough.
— Yours, always,
Rohann Wynn
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