The mansion felt like a tomb after Alicia vanished.
Her absence hollowed the halls, leaving echoes where her laughter once dared to linger. For six months, no whisper of her whereabouts reached them. Search parties returned empty-handed, their torches extinguished long before hope itself. Servants muttered of her death, of her being taken by strangers, of her body swallowed by the wilds.
But it was Lady Damsel who suffered most. Once the sovereign of her household, she now lay frail in her bed, her body withering under the torment of uncertainty.
Marudas remained steadfast by her side. He fed her spoonfuls of broth with hands that had once wielded swords, adjusted her pillows when her breath grew shallow, and kept vigil when fever dragged her into fitful dreams. He had seen war, and the cruelty of men, but nothing broke him more than watching his mother decay under grief.
