The west parlor hadn't been touched in years.
The steward had said so in passing—something about sunlight damaging the tapestries, about the draft from the tall windows. But Thalric knew better. Rooms like this weren't closed for preservation. They were sealed like wounds.
So when he entered, cane trembling beneath his palm, the hush that met him felt less like silence and more like breath held beneath a locked chest.
The room was warm with fading autumn light. Dust motes stirred mid-air like ghosts learning how to dance. Gold velvet chairs. A porcelain tea set for three. A harp, strung but unplayed, near the curtained window.
And her.
She stood by the hearth, cloaked in soft gray with a veil of pale lilac draped lightly over her hair. Not formal mourning—just the memory of it.
Lady Miriset DuMore.
Her profile was angled toward the dying fire, though she could not have missed his arrival. She had always been delicate—he remembered that from the half-memories that still pulsed like bruises. Hair the color of dark tea, eyes rumored to be violet though none dared meet them long enough to check.
She turned only when the door clicked shut behind him.
"Percival."
His name. Spoken like a punctuation mark.
Thalric said nothing.
The room was too small for pretense.
She regarded him for a long while. Not with affection. Not with disdain. Not even curiosity. It was more like she was waiting for something. Or mourning it.
"I heard you collapsed again," she said finally. "They said your heart nearly failed."
Still, he did not speak.
He watched her watching him, tracking the subtle changes in posture, the careful modulations of her tone. She had always spoken as if someone were taking notes—measured, effortless, untouchable.
"I thought I would never see you again," she added.
And still… no warmth.
No grief.
Just acknowledgement.
Of course. He had written her letters. Dozens, perhaps. Never sent. She never knew.
Or she had known. And chosen not to speak.
"Would you like to sit?" she asked, gesturing to the nearest chair.
Thalric did not sit.
"Have you forgotten how?" she asked softly.
He blinked. Slowly. Once.
"I died," he said.
Her brow furrowed.
"I died," he repeated, "and they brought me back into a body that does not belong to me. If I sit, it is because it still permits me to. Not because I've remembered how."
Silence. Not shock. Something worse: confusion.
Then, gentler: "You look… different."
Thalric studied her as a tactician might study an enemy's lines for weakness, not affection. But what he saw wasn't cruelty. Not even condescension.
It was the same emptiness he'd seen in his own portrait. The same disinterest that had followed Percival through corridors, dinners, and dances. That subtle, suffocating kindness reserved for broken things.
He turned his cane toward the door.
"Thank you for visiting," he said at last. "It was kind of you. I don't need kindness."
And then he left, the cane tapping behind him like the ticking of a clock he no longer wished to hear.