Illyen's steps echoed faintly as he left the garden, the sunlight giving way to the cool hush of marble corridors. His breath came steady, but within, the words Cael had spoken still pulsed like a second heartbeat. Dreams are not nothing… sooner or later, what is hidden will demand to be seen.
He walked quickly, as though distance could undo the weight of them. Yet the palace was treacherous in its vastness—every arch, every crest carved in stone seemed to look back at him with quiet memory.
Turning a corner, he nearly stopped short. The muted clang of steel rang through the air. Beyond the open arches to his right stretched the training grounds, alive with motion. Young knights crossed swords in drills, their armor gleaming under the late morning sun. Their shouts rose and fell in rhythm, discipline woven into each strike.
Illyen lingered at the edge of the archway, watching for a moment. The scene should have been grounding—real, solid, free from visions and riddles. Yet even here, unease lingered. The smell of iron, the sound of steel—it stirred something within him, faint but piercing, as though he had once stood in a place like this before, not as an onlooker but as someone fighting desperately for something he could not name.
"Distracting yourself?"
The voice was calm, unmistakable.
Illyen stiffened, turning slowly. Cael stood a few paces behind, hands clasped neatly at his back, his posture radiating command without effort. He had not followed with urgency, and yet his presence carried the inevitability of shadow to flame.
"I was passing through," Illyen replied, his voice measured.
Cael's eyes flicked toward the sparring knights before returning to him. "And yet you stopped."
Illyen did not answer. He shifted his gaze back to the grounds, where a knight stumbled and another pressed the advantage, their blades ringing sharp.
Cael stepped closer, his presence settling beside him. The air thickened, the noise of the training field somehow dimming beneath the weight of proximity. "You watch as though you remember," he said quietly.
Illyen's breath caught. His grip tightened faintly on the marble ledge before him. "I remember nothing."
"Nothing," Cael repeated, the word deliberate. His eyes searched him with that same unyielding intensity, as though silence itself might force Illyen to break.
Illyen turned away, the movement sharp, almost defensive. "If you followed only to continue this, Your Highness, you waste your breath."
But Cael did not relent. He moved with him, his stride unhurried yet constant, until Illyen's attempt at escape carried them both further down the hall. The clash of steel faded behind them, replaced by the quieter rhythm of their footsteps.
At last, Illyen stopped before the carved doors of the eastern hall. The crest of Serethis gleamed above, sunlight catching its golden edges. For an instant, his vision fractured—he saw not one emblem, but two: the present one, whole and bright, and another, shattered, glinting like broken glass across his memory.
His chest ached.
"You falter," Cael said softly, though his tone was not unkind.
Illyen steadied himself, forcing his gaze downward. "I falter at nothing."
A pause followed, weighted and alive. Then, in a voice low enough that it almost blurred into silence, Cael said: "You fear what you remember."
Illyen's head turned sharply, his eyes flashing. "And you speak as though you understand."
The crown prince did not flinch beneath the accusation. He held Illyen's gaze, unshaken, the light catching in his hair like pale fire. "Perhaps I do."
The words struck like a blow, subtle yet devastating. Illyen froze, the air around him pressing heavier with each heartbeat. He wanted to demand meaning, to push until Cael's composure cracked—but some instinct warned him what lay beneath would be too vast, too dangerous to face.
So instead, he stepped back, his voice brittle with restraint. "Then it is fortunate that understanding is not required of me."
Cael's expression shifted, just slightly—something sorrowful flickered before his mask of calm returned. "Not required," he echoed, softer. "But inevitable."
The silence that followed was suffocating. Even as Illyen turned, striding toward the deeper shadows of the hall, he felt it—the tether, invisible yet unbreakable, pulling tighter with every step.
And though he tried to tell himself it was nothing more than dreams, nothing more than visions, he knew the truth pressed closer with each passing day. The palace itself seemed to breathe with it, every corridor, every crest, every shadow whispering of a past that refused to stay buried.