The shuttered windows barred the world from entry, allowing only narrow, dust-mottled beams of light to slice through the room. In that singular, suspended moment, the distance between the sovereign and the heir seemed to collapse into the simpler and yet harder reality of a father and his son.
For a long, agonizing stretch, Alpheo simply watched the boy. A part of him cursed his own tongue. He wondered what madness had possessed him to lay his story bare.
It had been a reflex, a spur-of-the-moment surrender to a child's tears. He felt the cold prickle of regret; he shouldn't have been baited so easily. The secret was out, and secrets, once exhaled, could never be breathed back in.
The silence began to grate on his frayed nerves.
"So... what now?" Alpheo asked, his voice sounding hollow and metallic. The skull-cup sat forgotten on the desk as he pinned his child with a weary gaze. "You've found the key to the door. You've seen what is inside . What else is there to say?"
