The morning sun filtered through the high, arched windows of the palace, painting the marble floors in stripes of gold and ivory. Illyen moved through the corridors with careful precision, his fingers brushing along the stone railings, though his mind remained tangled in the remnants of the night's vision. The library, the book, the faint image of a boy laughing beneath an oak—they all pressed upon him, persistent and unrelenting.
He could not understand why a mere emblem and a few lines of text had unsettled him so profoundly. And yet, the echo of that crimson ribbon, the flash of pale hair, clung to him as he passed the hallways, as though the palace itself whispered reminders he could not ignore.
His steps faltered outside the sunlit dining hall, where servants scurried to set tables and polish silver. He had thought the morning would bring clarity, a balm to the uneasy pulse of the night. But instead, he felt the same tension coil in his chest, a restless thread tugging at him.
"Illyen," came a familiar, even voice behind him. He froze. The sound carried a weight of command and familiarity that made the hairs along his neck rise. Slowly, he turned.
Cael stood there, upright and immaculate, the pale blue of his uniform catching the morning light, and for a moment, the palace seemed to shrink around him. Cael's eyes, sharp and steady as ever, met his, and something unsaid passed between them—a flicker of recognition, a silent question neither dared voice.
"You've been wandering the halls early," Cael said, his tone calm, almost casual, but underneath it hummed a subtle note of curiosity. "The garden, then the library?"
Illyen's jaw tightened, and he forced a neutral expression. "Just… couldn't sleep," he murmured, though it was a half-truth at best. The vision, the book, and the emblem remained lodged in his mind, refusing to be dismissed.
Cael's gaze lingered, lingering too long for comfort. There was something in the prince's eyes that unsettled him—not authority, not superiority, but a strange, almost knowing familiarity. Illyen wanted to avert his gaze, to retreat behind the walls he had built around his heart, yet he found himself rooted to the spot, caught in the subtle gravity of that glance.
"May I accompany you for a while?" Cael's voice was soft now, almost gentle, but there was an insistence beneath it, a quiet command that Illyen could not ignore.
Illyen hesitated, but the motion of the prince's hand toward the corridor seemed less a request and more a silent invitation, one that tugged at the edges of his carefully maintained composure. With a reluctant nod, he allowed himself to follow.
The corridors opened into the palace gardens, bathed in morning light. Dew clung to the blades of grass, shimmering like scattered gemstones. The air was crisp, carrying the faint scent of jasmine from the hedges and the earthy perfume of the soil beneath their feet.
Illyen's thoughts refused to settle. The broken crest, the tree, the echo of laughter—the fragments of a memory he did not yet understand—pushed forward unbidden. He found himself walking beside Cael, their steps falling into a rhythm that felt both natural and charged with unspoken tension.
"Why are you so restless?" Cael asked, his voice low, measured, but threaded with an edge of concern.
Illyen forced a laugh that felt hollow even to his own ears. "Restless? Perhaps the night was… long," he said vaguely, eyes fixed on the cobblestone path before him. He did not dare mention the library, the book, or the vision—the weight of it was too strange, too fragile to voice.
Cael's gaze softened, but there was a quiet intensity beneath it, as though he sensed more than Illyen would ever admit. "You've been avoiding the library lately," Cael said, almost casually, though the subtlety of his observation did not escape Illyen. "Something there has captured your attention."
Illyen's stomach tightened. He could not lie—at least, not convincingly. And yet, the truth felt impossible to reveal. He shook his head lightly. "It is nothing. Just… old records, of little interest."
Cael's expression did not shift. Instead, he fell silent, walking beside Illyen with the quiet patience of someone who did not need words to understand. The silence between them was heavy, yet not uncomfortable. Instead, it carried a strange intimacy, an invisible thread binding them across space and thought.
A sudden breeze rustled the leaves above, and Illyen's mind flickered again, involuntarily conjuring that boy beneath the oak, the ribbon tangled in his pale hair. His breath caught. He forced himself to focus on the present, to the solid reality of Cael at his side, whose presence was undeniable, whose attention pressed against him with an invisible weight.
"You worry too much," Cael said suddenly, startling him. His blue eyes, sharp as ice, softened for a fraction of a second. "Some things cannot be forced. You must trust… yourself, and perhaps others."
Illyen's lips parted, but no words came. He wanted to ask, to demand, to confess the turmoil within him—the vision, the emblem, the thread that seemed to pull him inexorably toward something he did not yet understand. But fear stopped him. Words felt too frail, too insufficient to capture the storm within his chest.
Instead, he nodded silently. The ache in his heart remained, a subtle pulse of recognition that he could neither name nor ignore. He walked beside Cael, the sun casting long shadows across the garden path, each step echoing the unspoken truth: something ancient, fragile, and unbreakable lingered between them, threaded through time itself, waiting for the moment when memory would awaken fully.
And as they walked in silence, the wind carried the faint scent of earth and leaves, and Illyen felt, for the briefest instant, the shiver of a memory he could not yet place, and a warmth that was not his own, entwining around his chest, refusing to release him.
The garden stretched on endlessly before them, and with each step, the threads pulled taut, drawing him closer to a truth he was not yet ready to face, yet could not escape.