The word had already been spoken.
"Dismissed."
Kel had bowed, turned, and taken three steps toward the door.
The guards beyond waited, motionless silhouettes against the corridor's pale light. His hand reached for the iron handle—cool, solid, an exit and a beginning all at once.
But his fingers did not close around it.
Something tightened in his chest—not doubt, not fear.
Resolve.
He exhaled slowly through his nose, the slightest cloud of breath leaving him in the chill of the study's air. His shoulders rose… then settled.
Kel lowered his hand from the door.
He turned back.
The motion was unhurried, deliberate—like a knight sheathing his sword only to draw it again, not in panic, but by choice.
The Duke, who had already shifted his gaze toward a document lying unopened on the desk, paused. His eyes lifted, following the sound of soft footfalls as Kel turned to face him once more.
Storm-grey eyes met steel.
Kel stood again in front of the desk, at the same distance, in the same room. But his presence felt sharper now—less like a child being dismissed, more like a will refusing to fade.
He bowed slightly. Not as deeply as before—a narrower incline of the head, a gesture that balanced respect and defiance with thin, precise line.
"Before I leave, Father," Kel said quietly, "I have something more to say."
His tone was calm as still water.
But within that calm… there was iron.
Arcturus regarded him in silence, his expression faintly unreadable.
"It may seem rude to you," Kel continued, "so I ask forgiveness in advance."
The Duke's eyebrow rose by the smallest margin.
"Rude?" he repeated, voice devoid of irritation. More curiosity than warning.
Kel straightened from the small bow, his posture once again perfectly aligned, hands resting at his sides. The fabric of his black coat draped over him like soft darkness, his cravat still immaculate, not a thread out of place—yet his eyes had the look of someone prepared to let blood spill if necessary.
"I cannot agree," Kel said, "to your second condition."
The study stilled.
The ticking of the old clock on the shelf behind Arcturus suddenly seemed louder.
Tick.
Tock.
The Duke's gaze sharpened.
The faintest ripple of pressure stirred in the air, subtle yet unmistakable—like the quiet draw of a great beast's breath.
"You refuse," Arcturus said slowly, "the conditions set by your Duke and your father."
Kel's jaw tightened for a brief instant, the muscle along the line of his face tensing before he forced it still.
"Yes," he answered, steady. "That, I cannot accept."
Arcturus did not slam a hand on the desk. He did not raise his voice.
He simply watched.
Waiting.
Kel inhaled, letting the air fill his lungs carefully, as if controlling even the rhythm of his breath. When he spoke again, his voice was the same—calm, but with a core so solid it felt carved from iron.
"You say," Kel began, "that the name Rosenfeld will protect me."
He lifted his gaze slightly, eyes fixed on his father's.
"But in truth, Father… that same name will also announce me."
The Duke's fingers, resting loosely atop the desk, twitched.
Kel did not look away.
"If I travel with the Rosenfeld name openly," he said, "every noble who bears a grudge against our house will be informed I am beyond your walls. Every opportunist, every rival, every snake lurking in the Empire's underbelly will see it as an invitation."
He let the thought settle.
His tone did not rise, but each word landed with quiet weight.
"You call it a shield," he continued. "But outside these lands, it is also a beacon."
Arcturus's eyes narrowed, but there was no overt anger there—only calculation, sharpening like a blade upon a whetstone.
Kel took a tiny step forward. Barely more than a shift of weight. The gesture was small, but symbolically… he closed the distance between them.
"I understand your desire to ensure my safety," he said. "To send me with retainers, with records, with reports. To know where I tread."
His throat moved with a controlled swallow.
"But if I am to walk into the world, I must walk it without my enemies being guided by lanterns bearing my family crest."
He exhaled.
His eyes darkened.
"So I ask you," Kel said softly, "do not inform anyone that I am leaving."
A quiet request.
A dangerous one.
"You want to leave," Arcturus said slowly, "without the estate knowing. Without the vassals knowing. Without even your retainers knowing."
Kel nodded once.
"Yes."
The Duke's stare hardened.
"You would have them all believe," he went on, "that you remain within these walls. Eating from this table. Sleeping under this roof. Training in the inner courtyards, unseen as usual."
Kel's lips curled faintly—not in humor, but in recognition.
"For everyone," he said, "I will be at the Rosenfeld estate, doing my indoor training. That is what I wish them to believe."
He lifted his hand slightly, fingers open.
"But only you," he added, "will know that I am outside. In the world. Roaming."
The words fell like a shadow over the room.
The Duke's eyes sharpened further.
The lamplight flickered, casting long, fractured patterns across the floor, stretching Kel's silhouette into something lean and strange.
"You seek to become…" Arcturus murmured, "…a ghost."
Kel's faint smile faded, replaced by complete composure.
"Yes," he said. "I want to leave like a ghost that never existed."
His gaze deepened, as if looking beyond the walls, beyond the winter-wind, beyond the Empire itself.
"If I am to move," he continued, "I want no records of my footsteps. I want no messenger carrying my logs. No letters. No reports for anyone to intercept."
He lowered his hand.
"Informing you regularly," he said, voice quieter now but not weaker, "means conversation. Conversation becomes record. Records become leaks. If I report my movements, someone, somewhere, will have a chance to piece together my location."
Arcturus's jaw tightened.
Kel did not relent.
"I cannot afford that."
He breathed in.
Held it.
Released it.
Then spoke again, each word measured, each syllable carrying the weight of a vow formalized in his own mind long before this conversation.
"I ask you, Father," Kel said, "do not inform anyone that I am leaving. Let the world believe I am still within your walls. Let them laugh and mock and scheme, thinking I am training safely inside."
His eyes burned faintly with a strange, controlled light.
"I will roam the world," he went on, "as a wanderer under a different name."
He paused… then added, with quiet finality:
"A name even you do not know."
The study fell utterly silent.
Even the ticking of the distant clock seemed to halt for a moment, disappearing beneath the suffocating stillness.
Duke Arcturus von Rosenfeld stared at his son.
Not as a father.
As a Duke.
As a man who had commanded armies, broken rebellions, stared down cult leaders across blood-soaked fields. A man who had seen boldness in many forms—rash youth, desperate men, calculated monsters.
But this boy before him…
This son…
Was not begging for permission.
He was setting his terms.
Softly.
Unflinchingly.
Arcturus's lips parted slightly, then closed. His fingers flexed once atop the desk, knuckles faintly whitening before he relaxed them.
When he finally spoke, his voice was very low.
"You would walk into the world," he said, "with no banner, no guard, no visible chain tying you back to this house."
Kel's eyes did not waver.
"Yes."
"You would have me, your father," Arcturus continued, "pretend ignorance of where you go, with no reports, no letters, no aliases on record."
His gaze sharpened—cold now, razor-edged.
"You would have even me blind to the name you wear beyond these walls?"
Kel's pulse thrummed against the inside of his ribs.
But his voice remained steady.
"Yes."
A pause.
He dipped his head slightly—not in submission, but in acknowledgment of the weight of what he said.
"Not out of distrust," Kel added, "but out of necessity."
Arcturus's eyes narrowed.
"Explain," he said.
Kel inhaled slowly.
"You are Duke Rosenfeld," he said. "The world watches you. Every move you make resonates through courts and councils. Letters addressed to you are monitored, intercepted, read. Not all—but enough that patterns form."
He glanced briefly toward the stack of documents on the desk, then back at his father.
"If I send you reports, somewhere, someone among our enemies will notice a rhythm. A courier traveling at strange intervals. A coincidental arrival of letters from remote places coinciding with certain disturbances in the world."
He shook his head.
"I do not want my life to become a puzzle they can piece together by studying your table."
The Duke's gaze remained fixed on him, unblinking.
Kel's voice grounded itself again, the iron at its core now fully visible.
"If I am to be a ghost," he said quietly, "then I must even pass through your shadow without leaving a trace that others can measure."
Arcturus leaned back slowly, the chair creaking faintly—one of the few times it had ever betrayed sound in his presence.
His eyes did not leave Kel's face.
"You ask much," he murmured. "Too much, some would say."
Kel nodded once.
"I know," he replied simply.
The Duke's lips curved—just barely.
Not a pleasant smile.
Something darker.
"You claim this is not born of distrust," Arcturus said. "Yet you ask your father to relinquish his ability to know your name while you walk under another sky."
Kel met that gaze straight on.
"You do not need my false name to know I am yours," he said. "Blood does not vanish if ink does."
For the first time, Arcturus's eyes widened by a fraction.
Kel continued.
"You are not a man who can afford to look at details that others may read through your eyes," he said quietly. "If I give you an alias, it becomes another weapon for your enemies to pry from you—through spies, through forged documents, through deceptive informants."
He shook his head once.
"I will not be a blade they can twist in your hand."
A low, breath-like sound escaped the Duke—almost a laugh, yet without warmth.
"You think like a man who has already walked in too many snares," he said. "For someone who has never left these walls… your paranoia is well-developed."
Kel's lips curved faintly.
"Paranoia," he said, "is just survival in advance."
Their gazes locked again, the silence between them dense, heavy with something old and unspoken.
Arcturus's expression… shifted.
Barely.
The hardness in his eyes remained, but beneath it, something like reluctant respect flickered to life.
"You would trust me," he said softly, "only with the knowledge that you have left. Nothing more."
"Yes."
"You would trust no one," he added, "to watch over you. No guards. No shadows. No silent knights in the distance."
Kel's answer came with no pause.
"If I walk this path knowing someone will catch me when I slip," he said, "I will step expecting to be saved."
His gaze darkened, voice dropping.
"I do not want that."
He straightened his shoulders further, the line of his back a silent declaration.
"I want every choice I make on the road to either keep me alive or kill me by its own weight," he said. "No hidden hand. No unseen shield."
He thought for a moment, then added in a tone almost too soft:
"For once in my life… I want the consequences to belong only to me."
The Duke stared at him.
The lamplight coiled around his features, deepening the shadows beneath his eyes, across the strong lines of his face. He looked… older, for a moment. Not in weakness, but in accumulated wars and decisions.
Finally, he spoke.
"You presume much of yourself, Kel."
Kel inclined his head slightly.
"I do," he agreed. "If I do not, this curse will finish what it began long ago."
Another pause.
The wind scratched at the window again, like a restless spirit seeking entry.
Duke Arcturus von Rosenfeld exhaled, slow and controlled.
When he spoke again, his voice had lost none of its authority—but there was a different quality to it.
He was no longer merely the Duke questioning an heir.
He was a man assessing an untempered sword that had decided where it wished to strike.
"Very well," Arcturus said at last.
The words were soft.
But they carried the impact of sealed command.
Kel's heart tightened.
He lifted his gaze, unable to fully bury the faint shock that passed through his eyes.
The Duke noticed.
A thin, dangerous smile touched the corner of Arcturus's lips.
"You wish to leave as a ghost," he said. "You wish the world to believe you are still within these walls, while you walk outside them under another name."
His fingers curled lightly atop the desk.
"Then I will not announce your departure. I will not summon retainers under your banner. The estate will continue as before, assuming you are training within the inner grounds."
Kel's breath escaped him, slow and controlled.
"However," the Duke added, voice cutting cleanly through the moment, "do not mistake this allowance for blindness."
His gaze chilled.
"I may not know the name you use. I may not receive your letters. I may not be able to trace your path on a map."
His hand shifted, tapping once on the desk.
"But understand this, Kel: there is nowhere in this Empire where the consequences of your actions will not, eventually, press against my door."
Kel met his father's gaze, the faint tension in his shoulders easing in minute degrees.
"I know," he said.
The Duke studied him for one more long, measuring heartbeat.
Then he nodded once.
Final.
"Go, then," Arcturus said. "Sharpen yourself in the dark where no eyes follow. See the world that exists beyond polished floors and silk diplomacy."
His eyes glinted.
"But remember this: ghost or not, wanderer or heir… blood does not forget its origin."
Kel bowed.
This time, the gesture held more than formality.
It held acknowledgement.
And something like… gratitude. Quiet, restrained, but real.
"Understood," he said.
He turned.
Walked toward the door again.
Hand on the iron handle.
He paused only once more—not to turn, not to speak.
Just to breathe.
Then he opened the door.
The corridor's cold air rushed in, washing over him like the first taste of a different sky.
The Duke watched his back until the door closed.
Only then did Arcturus let his gaze fall to the map spread behind him on the wall.
He said nothing.
But his hand moved to the desk, fingers tracing an invisible circle over the polished wood—around nothing, and yet…
Around the space where a ghost's road might one day return.