Trafalgar was fifteen now.
For the last three years, ever since that day, he had locked himself away. He stopped training, stopped striving—stopped living. The boy who once pushed himself harder than anyone had turned into a shadow, drifting through time without purpose.
Mayla had changed too. She never intended to grow cold toward him, but a barrier had risen between them, built from wounds she could not heal and silences she could not break. It was not his fault, nor hers, and yet the distance remained—heavy and suffocating.
Whenever she entered his quarters, the sight hollowed her chest. Dust clung to the corners, cobwebs spread across the ceiling, and insects crawled freely over his sheets. The air itself carried the staleness of neglect. Trafalgar seemed indifferent to it all. He lay there among the filth as though it made no difference whether spiders shared his bed or not.
