The corridors of the palace stretched endlessly before Illyen, their polished marble reflecting the wavering glow of lanterns. His footsteps echoed too loudly in the hush, each strike of heel against stone carrying the restless weight of his thoughts. He had left the garden in haste, yet the silence of the night followed him still, pressing close, as though the air itself sought to hold him accountable for the words he had spoken.
You don't. You can't. All you see is a boy you think beneath you.
Illyen winced at the memory, his jaw tightening. Why had his tongue shaped such barbed words? They had cut more deeply than he intended—though perhaps he had meant for them to cut. Better to drive the prince away than let himself be swallowed by that gaze, that suffocating, unreadable gaze that made his composure falter.
He stopped at the curve of the hall, his palm braced against the cold surface of a stone pillar. Closing his eyes, he tried to steady his breathing. It was foolish. To be unsettled by the crown prince of Serethis was expected—Cael was a man born of power, sharpened by expectation. Yet what rattled Illyen now was not Cael's authority, nor his arrogance. It was the way he had looked at him, as though he knew him. As though every sharp word Illyen threw was nothing more than a shield, transparent to his eyes.
The thought made Illyen's chest tighten. He pressed his lips together and pushed away from the pillar, resuming his pace with quickened steps. He should have returned to his chambers, locked the doors, and forced himself to sleep. Yet his feet moved of their own accord, carrying him down a narrow passage that led not to rest but to the palace library.
The great doors gave way beneath his hand, their hinges sighing as though reluctant to break the night's quiet. A hush fell deeper still as he entered, the air thick with the faint perfume of parchment and ink. Shadows stretched high along the shelves, and rows of forgotten tomes loomed like silent sentinels.
Illyen wandered between them, his fingers trailing along cracked leather spines. He had no reason for this intrusion; still, something within him compelled him onward, as though the echo of his unease had found an answering whisper here.
At last, he paused before a shelf tucked deep into the corner, where dust lay thickest. One volume caught his eye. Its cover was worn, the leather darkened with age, yet upon it, beneath the dust, glimmered a crest faintly etched in gold.
Illyen's hand hesitated, then brushed the dust away. A crown split down its center gleamed faintly, entwined with the faint engraving of a tree whose branches sprawled outward like veins.
A shiver ran through him. He could not recall ever seeing this symbol, yet his chest ached with the sight of it. His breath came unsteady as he lifted the book free. The cover creaked, reluctant to open, but at last the brittle pages whispered apart.
Lines of forgotten histories spilled before his eyes—tales of kings and vows, of blood and betrayals, of bonds forged in silence and broken in shadow. His gaze skimmed until a single passage caught him, the words striking with unnerving clarity:
There are threads no blade may sever, spun beyond time itself. They endure though kingdoms fall, though names are lost. They endure, though memory fails.
Illyen's fingers tightened on the page. His throat closed around a breath he could not release. The words burned with a familiarity that defied reason, a truth that stirred deep in his marrow though his mind could not explain it.
Abruptly, he snapped the book shut. The sound cracked through the silence, sending a shiver of dust into the lantern glow. His heart raced, pounding as though he had glimpsed something forbidden.
He returned the book to its place with unsteady hands, but the emblem lingered in his mind's eye—the broken crown, the sprawling tree, the promise that endured beyond memory.
Turning away, he caught his reflection in a nearby windowpane. His own red eyes stared back at him, sharp and unyielding. And yet, for the briefest of moments, another image overlapped his own: a boy with softer features, standing barefoot in grass, a crimson ribbon tangled in his pale hair. He was laughing. Laughing beneath the shade of a great oak.
Illyen staggered back, his breath caught. The vision vanished as swiftly as it had come, leaving only his reflection in the glass and the cold echo of his pulse.
"What… was that?" he whispered to the empty library.
No answer came. Only the groan of old wood and the distant stir of the palace settling deeper into the night.
Illyen drew a breath and forced his composure back into place. It was nothing. A trick of the eye, the mind's mischief when shaken by words best forgotten. He told himself this as he left the library, but his hand lingered near his chest where an ache pulsed faintly, as though reminding him of something he was not yet ready to face.
Behind him, in the silence of the library, the forgotten book lay undisturbed, its broken crest catching the lantern light like a secret waiting to be found again.