The corridor stretched long and solemn before them, its silence broken only by the echo of their boots upon polished stone. Torchlight guttered in the sconces, scattering thin flames that licked against the marble as though straining to overhear their secret words. For a while, both men moved in silence, each captive to his own thoughts—the duke's orders, the shadow of the murders, the whisper of a phantom assassin unseen.
At length, it was Stellan Grimshaw who broke the quiet, his voice low yet laced with mischief, as though he sought to tug them back from the weight of grim tidings. "Montrose," he said, a faint grin curling upon his lips, "tell me true—how hard was it, standing before His Grace? He is no gentle lamb when wrath takes him. Many tremble beneath that gaze."
Cedric's jaw tightened, his stride unbroken. He did not grant him the satisfaction of a glance. "Hard enough," he replied curtly, though his tone carried steel rather than weariness.
But Stellan pressed on, his eyes glinting with playful challenge. "And yet, when you were near, I confess it seemed not so dreadful. Your poise, your polish—it steadied the room itself. Almost as though you were carved from marble, Montrose, and the duke could do little but thunder against stone."
Cedric's lips thinned; a muscle flickered in his cheek. He turned his head slightly, the Olive of his eyes catching torchlight like oil. "Stop your daydreaming, Grimshaw. This is not time for fancies."
Stellan laughed—a soft, unrestrained sound that rolled into the still corridor like a forbidden song. He knew well how such words struck the man beside him. "Ah, but it is far too easy to fluster you. A single jest, and you draw your shoulders straighter, as though to prove marble truly does not blush."
Cedric clenched his jaw harder, standing taller, his composure wrapped about him like a cloak of iron. Yet the faintest tint, that betraying heat that rose despite his will, brushed the cold set of his features. He spoke again, each word clipped, as though carved. "You waste your tongue, Grimshaw. Discipline should be your companion, not… frivolity."
But Stellan, unfazed, leaned closer in his stride, his gaze lingering openly. "And yet it is your calm I admire most, Cedric. Even when you scold, your voice cuts like silk, sharp and soft all at once."
"Enough," Cedric snapped quietly, though not with true anger. His tone was restraint incarnate, an effort to maintain the order that Stellan delighted in unraveling.
Stellan's grin deepened, and he let the silence return, though the mischief in his eyes burned bright as ever. He had found his sport: the art of drawing warmth from marble, of teasing color into a face carved by discipline.
Side by side they walked on, shadows entwined, their steps carrying them deeper into Thornleigh's veiled corridors—two hunters bound by oath, and by a bond neither spoke aloud.
The night had descended with a peculiar hush upon Thornleigh Palace. Its marble steps gleamed beneath torchlight, and the soldiers—more numerous than before—stood in doubled ranks upon the courtyards, their polished helms catching the flame's tremor. Their hands lay solemn upon the hilts of their blades, eyes fixed ahead, guardians of a realm suddenly shrouded in peril.
Cedric Montrose strode forth from the palace doors, his tall figure carved of stillness, his cloak whispering across the flagstones. Behind him, half a step slower, came Stellan Grimshaw, his violet eyes glinting like liquid twilight beneath the fall of his dark hair. The soldiers bowed as the spies passed, a wave of iron and obedience bending before their grace.
Yet for all the weight of silence, Stellan broke it with his playful murmur, his voice carrying a shy tremor, though mischief was threaded within it.
"Montrose," he said softly, almost conspiratorially, "if this murder was not the doing of Eclipse Elite, then tell me—who is this other hand, this infamous phantom that dares their likeness?"
Cedric did not falter. His olive-green eyes remained fixed upon the horizon, his expression as immovable as the statues carved in Thornleigh's gardens. His tone, when it came, was clipped but resonant, the voice of a man unyielding.
"We know nothing of this assassin. We have mapped only half the Eclipse Elite and even that knowledge is fractured. But this one—" his gaze sharpened— "this one is more cunning still. His hand leaves no trace, no signature, no shadow we may follow."
Stellan tilted his head, lashes lowering in feigned innocence.
"Then… where do we begin? From the corpses once more?"
Cedric shook his head once, a grave, deliberate motion.
"No. Not the bodies. We begin from Argentum, from the city itself… and from Blackwood Manor."
The name hung between them, heavy as fate. Stellan's brows knit.
"The manor? The last victim—the one who still breathes?"
"Yes," Cedric answered with unshaken calm. "He is nineteen now. His name is August Everhart D'Rosaye. I have heard whispers that his parents were got slaughter when he was four."
At this, Stellan grew uncharacteristically silent. His boots slowed, his lips pouted, his cheeks tinged crimson. He halted outright, standing in the torch-glow like a sulking boy. Cedric turned, his stern face darkening further as he beheld the pout.
"What is it this time?"
His voice was edged in impatience, though beneath it a softer concern lay veiled.
Stellan glanced aside, his lips quivering, his violet eyes brimming with something raw and unspoken. Finally, he whispered, almost sullenly,
"You… you know someone else's full name."
Cedric's jaw tightened, his teeth clenched. Shock flickered briefly through his mask of composure, only to harden again into reprimand. Yet when he spoke, his words were not cruel but sternly measured, softened only because they were meant for Stellan.
"Are you out of your mind? We are spies, Grimshaw. It is our work—our duty—to know names, faces, bloodlines. Nothing more."
But Stellan's lashes lowered, silver with unshed tears. His lips trembled as he dared again, his voice trembling like a string drawn too tight.
"Then… did you ever see him? This August? Tell me, Montrose—what is he like? Is he beautiful? Too beautiful?" His voice cracked. "More beautiful than me?"
Cedric's hand moved within his cloak, drawing forth a slender leather-bound journal, worn by weather and marked by secrecy. He flipped through its brittle pages until his eyes caught upon the name. His voice was cold, clinical—yet each word was a brushstroke upon Stellan's heart.
"August Everhart. Fragile. His skin pale as ivory. His hair, long and curled, platinum as moonlight. Eyes of smoke-grey, lashes of silver—long. He is the firstborn of the Everhart line. Alone, without siblings."
When Cedric at last lifted his gaze, Stellan was staring—staring as though Cedric had just summoned a rival ghost to stand between them. The violet of his eyes glistened, framed by the dark braid that fell upon his chest, its loosened strands softening his flushed, jealous face. His lips trembled, his breath shallow.
"He… he is too pretty, then. Is that it?" Stellan's voice was a broken whisper. "Too pretty… and I—I am not?"
Cedric arched one brow, his olive eyes steady, his face composed into its usual stone. "Hmm." The sound was low, dismissive, unreadable.
That single syllable shattered Stellan's fragile control. Tears spilled, violet eyes blurring. He pressed his fists against his breast as though to hold himself together.
"Then… then I am not worthy of your gaze," he stammered. "I—I do not deserve even to stand beside you."
Cedric's eyes widened, olive irises catching a rare light of surprise. His jaw clenched again, but his voice, when it came, carried an edge of urgency, of something truer than his disguise of indifference.
"Who told you such nonsense?"
Stellan only shook his head, his tears running freely, his lips quivering like a boy lost in his own storm.
Cedric clicked his tongue. "Tch." His boots struck against the stone as he closed the distance in a single step. His arm swept low, firm, drawing Stellan to him. His hand pressed to the small of his waist, anchoring him; his other hand rose, fingers tilting Stellan's chin upward with disarming gentleness.
"What more proof do you need, Grimshaw?" Cedric's voice, though hushed, was molten with a fire rarely seen in him.
"What more proof… that my gaze is only yours?"
Stellan's violet eyes glistened as he blinked up at him, lips trembling with words unformed. "I… I—"
But he did not finish. For Cedric he silenced him in the oldest, truest language. His lips descended, firm yet tender, claiming Stellan's trembling mouth with a fervor that allowed no denial.
At first, Stellan stiffened—shocked by the heat, the impossible softness of a man thought all stone and silence. But then, slowly, his tears dissolved into the kiss, and he melted against Cedric, surrendering all his fears. His fingers curled into Cedric's cloak, his heart thundering like a captive bird loosed into flight.
The soldiers, still stationed by the gate, averted their eyes as shadows swallowed the two figures. Only the torches bore witness, their flames swaying with the wind as though to applaud the union of steel and silk, of sternness and longing.
Stellan's breath still trembled as Cedric at last broke the kiss, though his lips lingered close, as if reluctant to abandon the sweetness he had seized. Their foreheads nearly brushed, the air between them warm and fevered. For the first time in years, the mask of the implacable Montrose fractured—his olive eyes softened, and upon his stern cheekbones bloomed the faintest hue of crimson, betrayed by torchlight.
"So," Cedric murmured, voice low yet steady, "I have given you the proof. Who dared whisper to you that you are not beautiful, hm?" His tone was not scolding but protective, edged with quiet ferocity, as though he would strike down even the thought that Stellan could be deemed less.
He drew him closer, his arm tightening until Stellan felt as though every fracture of his own doubt was bound together in Cedric's unyielding hold. The spy, all stone and silence before, now clutched him with the desperation of a man unwilling to relinquish what was his.
Stellan's mouth parted, words tumbling forth in innocence that pierced Cedric deeper than any blade. His violet eyes shimmered, wide and searching, as he whispered, "So… you do not like anyone else? Only me?"
The question was fragile, childlike in its purity, yet it stole Cedric's composure. For an instant, silence reigned between them; even the torches seemed to hush their crackle. Then Cedric bent lower, pressing his lips not upon Stellan's trembling mouth this time, but to his brow—soft, reverent, as though sealing a vow into his very skin.
"Nothing in this world," Cedric said, his voice no longer cold but molten, trembling with truth, "nothing holds beauty for me but you. Only you… and those eyes of yours, violet and bright, which shame the very heavens."
It was no grand declaration shouted into halls, but a confession wrought in whispers, rare and raw as gold mined from stone. Cedric Montrose, who had never bent to sentiment, had surrendered himself at last in the language of touch, of breath, of gaze. And Stellan, stunned into stillness, could only stare, his lips trembling, his heart unmoored, as if the earth itself had shifted beneath him.
Stellan, still trembling in Cedric's hold, blinked through the haze of his own tears, his lips parting once more with the guileless innocence that so maddened and enchanted the man before him. His voice came soft, faltering, as though he scarcely believed his own words.
"But… but there are so many things in this world," he whispered, lashes lowering like dark shutters against the violet brilliance of his eyes, "that share the colour of mine. Amethysts, twilight skies, violets in bloom… How could you mean it, Montrose? How could you call me singular when the world is filled with reflections of me?"
For a heartbeat, silence yawned wide between them. Cedric's jaw tightened, the tendons of his throat strained as though struggling to cage a tide of exasperation. His olive eyes burned—not with cold disdain but with the molten fury of a man whose patience was being toyed with by the very creature he adored.
"Grimshaw," Cedric growled, the name escaping his lips like thunder rolling over iron hills.
And with sudden, unrestrained tenderness veiled in sternness, he raised a hand and seized Stellan's cheeks between his calloused fingers, dragging them together with the authority of a master silencing foolishness. The motion was not cruel, but it carried the weight of command, halting the cascade of insecurities before they could drown him.
"Enough of your dramatics," Cedric said, low and fierce, each word cut like a blade through velvet. His brow furrowed, his lips set in their habitual line of discipline, yet his gaze betrayed him—fire and worry entwined, devotion cloaked as scolding.
Stellan froze, caught between the indignity of being so suddenly silenced and the giddy warmth of Cedric's nearness. His heart fluttered like a caged bird, and the corners of his lips quivered, as though torn between pouting and smiling. The spy's hands, firm against his skin, were warmer than fire, and Stellan felt as though he might melt beneath their grasp.
"Look at me," Cedric demanded, his voice roughened with restraint. "Amethyst stones may glimmer, skies may pale into violet, flowers may bloom and wither—but none of them burn as you do. None of them make my chest ache as you do. Do you understand that, foolish one?"
The words struck Stellan's heart like a blade of light, sharp yet radiant, cutting through his foolish doubts. His violet eyes widened, shimmering now not with tears of despair but with the dawning glow of being wholly seen, wholly claimed.
And though Cedric's hand still clasped his cheeks in stern command, Stellan's lips broke into the faintest, shyest of smiles—a smile that, against all Cedric's discipline, threatened to unravel the last threads of his restraint.