Rain kissed the manor that morning—not in gentle sprinkles, but in long, deliberate lines that traced down the glass like fingers trying to pull memory free from stone.
Thalric watched it fall from a velvet chair beside the reading room hearth, wrapped in a wool blanket he refused to acknowledge. His cane rested within arm's reach, though his hand hadn't strayed toward it once in nearly an hour.
He had spent three days in near silence since the tomb.
Not out of grief.
But calculation.
If the estate buried its second son in dust and neglect, how long until someone beyond its walls noticed he'd risen?
The answer came sooner than he expected.
By midday, the steward arrived—shaking, but not weeping—with a scroll tube clutched in trembling fingers.
"She wrote," the man said, placing the tube on the nearby tray as if it might scorch the wood. "For you."
Thalric said nothing.
The steward bowed and backed away, his eyes wide with a strange blend of awe and guilt. As if part of him believed the prince was truly returned… and another part wished he wasn't.
Thalric waited until the door clicked shut behind him before reaching forward.
The scroll was bound in ivory silk. The seal was pressed with rose wax. The emblem of the royal household still shimmered faintly despite the courier's haste—a phoenix crowned in iron thorns.
He peeled it open slowly.
The script was elegant. Precise. A hand long practiced in diplomacy and restraint.
To my beloved son,
They tell me you live. That you walk, speak, and even eat again with dignity. Forgive me if I do not find joy in this news as quickly as others.
I buried you, Percival. Not in dirt, but in memory. I sang your songs long after you stopped composing them. I watched your brothers outpace you, then forgot how to name the silence you left behind.
I do not know what miracle visits our house. I do not trust it. But I will not ignore it.
In two weeks' time, you will dine at court. Privately, with myself and your father. No announcements. No audience. Simply truth, as best as we can recognize it.
Be warned: your father's hope comes packaged in suspicion. And my suspicion... wears your name more easily than my affection ever did.
If you are truly reborn—come prove it.
– Queen Aldira of House Worthing
Thalric finished reading and let the scroll fall limp across his lap.
It wasn't affection.
It wasn't cruelty.
It was a mother's confession made through ink because the voice had long since failed.
He stood slowly, letting the blanket fall away, and moved to the window as the rain traced arcs along the glass.
Two weeks.
He had two weeks to shape the wreckage of this body into something presentable.
Not for them.
For himself.
A knock sounded at the door again—softer, uncertain.
It opened without permission.
The healer stood on the threshold, eyes sharp despite the tray of medicine she cradled like a newborn. "You were meant to rest this morning. And the broth—"
"I have no need for it."
She didn't argue. Only entered and placed the tray down with barely concealed scrutiny.
"You read the letter," she said casually.
He nodded.
"She loves you, you know. In her way."
Thalric glanced up, a single brow raised.
"I've served at court," she said. "Not for long. Not in positions of power. But I've watched her watch you from balconies she thought no one saw her use."
He said nothing.
She turned to leave, then paused at the door.
"For what it's worth," she said without looking back, "she mourned. Just… not loudly."
Then she disappeared down the corridor.
Thalric stood alone for a long while after that, the scroll still curled like a dead thing on the windowsill, the thunder beginning to gnaw faintly at the hills beyond.
He didn't know if he hated her.
He didn't know if he cared.
But he knew one thing clearly:
This world, however fractured, had eyes.
And they were turning toward him.