Aiden had never been good at controlling his thoughts. And from a certain point, it just... snowballed.
Fragments of memories and stray whispers clawed their way out of whatever dusty corner of his mind they'd been stuffed into, piling onto his already-cluttered psyche. He couldn't stop them. He couldn't even slow them. The more he tried, the louder they grew.
Was it guilt?
Was it all... guilt?
Charity, maybe?
He'd heard that one before.
When he was little, those whispers never really meant anything. The words floated past him—unregistered, uninterpreted, like wind rustling through leaves.
Except, they had registered. They'd simply been buried. Stored quietly in some hidden chamber of his mind, left there to fester until they were ready to resurface. Like now.
Elliott had been seventeen when he adopted Aiden—who was eight at the time. His reasons had been simple, publicly stated: he had no intention of marrying and needed an heir. Aiden, back then, had been too young to question it. It made sense. And more importantly, it had meant safety. A warm bed. A place to belong. A voice that didn't talk over him but to him.
And God, he missed that kind of naivety.
He missed the time when he didn't understand the whispers. When he hadn't learned to read the shift in someone's tone, the look in their eyes. When the comments bounced off instead of sinking in. When every word out of Elliott's mouth was gospel—truth, unshakable and pure.
The court had always whispered. In the beginning, they were bold about it, out in the open. As Aiden grew older—and grew dangerous—the whispers became quieter. More careful. But they never stopped.
And naturally, many had still found their way to Aiden's ears.
"The emperor's charity case," some had called him.
At first, it stung. But over time, Aiden almost made peace with that one. It made sense, in a twisted way. Elliott was soft-hearted. Aiden had been a tragic story: an orphaned noble child, parents murdered under murky circumstances, raised in silence by servants and shadows. There was pity there. Of course there was.
But then came the harsher ones. The ones that never truly left him.
"Atonement for his father's sins."
That one hit differently.
At first, he hadn't understood it. He was young. Elliott had always shut the gossip down quickly and decisively. But as Aiden grew, so did the whispers. More versions, more interpretations. He started to piece it together. Incomplete images, sharp words, side glances, overheard conversations behind fans and papered screens.
He hinted at the topic with Elliott a few times.
Elliott never answered.
The silence always followed—firm, practiced. Change of topic. Or worse, that look. The one where Elliott's eyes dimmed, just slightly, like something in him pulled away from the moment entirely. Like the door had been quietly, politely, locked.
Eventually, Aiden stopped asking.
But he never stopped wondering.
Was it guilt?
Was every kindness—a bedtime story, a hand through his hair, a smile from across the council table—just a way of paying back some inherited debt?
Was every touch, every lesson, every I'm proud of you, nothing more than a transaction wrapped in love?
Even thinking about it felt unbearable. Like peeling a bandage off a wound that had never healed in the first place.
Aiden's chest ached. Actually ached. There was pressure there, just beneath the skin—just under the ribs—like something was trying to break free. The kind of ache that made you want to scream, or cry, or just do something to make it stop.
But he couldn't ask Elliott. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Because even now—especially now—the thought of seeing Elliott's face fall, of watching that light go dim again at the mere mention of the past...
Aiden couldn't stomach it.
And yet the ache—the need—for the truth burned hotter than it ever had. Before, he'd been too young. Too secure in the comfort Elliott gave him. But now—now, with the letters, with Elliott unconscious and the empire fractured and the shadows of his past returning with new claws—
He wasn't sure he could suppress it anymore.
He needed to know.
He had to.
Because if he didn't, the not-knowing would eat him alive.
The flames inside him would consume everything.
God help him.
Aiden stood abruptly. His chair scraped against the marble with a grating screech that shattered the silence.
Elliott didn't stir.
"Damn you," Aiden whispered.
And then louder, "Damn you!"
His voice cracked from the strain—raw, sharp with an anger he didn't even know how to contain.
"You should've told me," he hissed. "You should've said something—anything!"
His hands tangled in his hair as he all but yelled into the quiet room. "But you didn't. You never did. You always shut it down. Always ran from it—like a goddamn coward."
He panted, chest rising and falling too fast, too hard.
"What were you so afraid of, huh?" His voice was hoarse.
"The truth—or me?"
The words echoed hollowly through the room, bouncing off velvet and gold, unanswered and bitter.
Elliott didn't move. His breaths stayed even. His face remained calm.
Aiden groaned, his hands falling to his sides in exhausted frustration. His fingers twitched. He wanted—needed—something to ground him, to anchor the storm inside. His mind was a mess of fire and fog, and his body was shaking with the effort of keeping it all in.
He wanted to shake Elliott awake. To demand answers.
To scream, "Did you take me in because you pitied me? Was that it? Was I just your penance? Just some charity case to your own goddamn conscience?"
But Elliott was still weak. Still recovering. Still the one who'd covered Aiden's eyes all those years ago—and never lifted the hand.
And Aiden...
Aiden was just like him.
A coward.
Too much of a coward to scream. Too afraid to demand the truth.
And yet, so greedy for it, so desperately consumed by it, that he was willing to walk straight into what was clearly a trap—just for the chance to know.
To finally know.