The castle did not sleep.
It never had.
He moved like a shadow stretched thin against cold stone walls—small and still, swallowed whole by the cavernous halls of the house itself.
Heavy velvet drapes, wine-red and faded with age, hung like mourning shrouds from tall, arched windows, muffling what little light dared to creep inside.
The polished oak floors were masked beneath thick carpets the color of spilled garnet, their threadbare patches whispering forgotten steps.
The air hung thick and heavy with the scent of smoke, damp wood, and the faint, acrid bitterness of neglect—a perfume soaked into every carved banister, every cracked molding, every shadowed corner.
The castle bore its sorrow with a slow, cold grandeur, as if mourning centuries of whispered cruelty behind its iron chandeliers and peeling frescoes. No one looked for him here;
no voice bent toward kindness or welcome.
Inside these walls, the world was silent in its cruelty—a cage not forged from iron bars, but from velvet darkness, endless cold, and whispered hatred.
The house did not hate him, though it remembered every slight and silence with cruel clarity. It was a vessel for sorrow, soaked in cold that never thawed, walls steeped in the slow decay of absence. Not haunted by spirits, but haunted by what was never given—the warmth, the touch, the word that could make a child whole.
His footsteps were careful, deliberate, barely there. He moved like a secret, folding into the deep folds of shadow cast by towering bookcases and heavy drapery, as if to disappear beneath their weight. So small, so silent, he might be overlooked entirely—a ghost among ghosts in a house that remembered him too well.
The father's heavy footsteps came first—a slow, deliberate thud echoing ominously on the polished floors, pressing down like a judge's gavel on a condemned soul. Then came the scrape of nails dragging over rough wood—a warning rolling like distant thunder before a storm.
"Get up. Now."
The command cracked like a whip through the stale, perfumed air scented faintly of extinguished candles and old leather-bound tomes.
He stirred at once, muscles tightening, breath shallow, bracing for a blow that always came but never changed the aching nothing inside. Obedience was his faintest hope—an escape from pain, from anger, from the relentless coldness that hung in the air like a heavy velvet curtain drawn tight.
His hands were rough and calloused from ceaseless labor—scrubbing floors that never gleamed, hauling heavy logs stacked near the hearth, tending beasts whose dull eyes held no flicker of affection. Each task was a grinding ritual, performed not with pride or hope but careful precision born of fear. Every motion measured, every breath held just so, as if a single misstep might unleash a torrent of wrath or expose him to the biting scorn he had learned to dread.
The brothers prowled the hallways like a murder of crows, circling with whispered jabs and pointed fingers. Their laughter was a cold blade, slicing fragile quiet like shards of broken glass scattered over crimson carpet.
"Clumsy," one sneered cruelly.
"Worthless," spat another, thick with contempt.
They shoved him in narrow stairways, tripped him in unseen corners, mocked the silence he kept as if it were a pitiful flaw. Their cruelty was loud in its silence—a cacophony of disdain spoken in sneers and subtle violence, each act chipping away at his fragile self.
But no blow from them struck as deeply as the one born from absence—the absence of love, the absence of belonging. The cold void where warmth should have lived.
In the shadows, his younger sister watched. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears—fragile and glistening like dew on frozen glass. Her breaths were shallow, trembling as though watching was torment.
She knew the cruelty that passed unspoken, the rage and fear that found no voice. But fear held her fast in chains of silence; no matter how much her heart ached, she dared not intervene. To speak or act would invite the same wrath—wrath never tempered, only sharpened.
So she wept quietly behind closed doors, her sorrow a solitary rebellion in the suffocating silence.
At night, when the castle stilled and the world settled into icy quiet, he sought refuge in places no one thought to look—a hollow beneath creaking stairs, a narrow gap behind the cold hearthstone, tucked beneath the heavy velvet curtains where the stale scent of mothballs lingered. Curled small and still, he folded into shadows like a wounded bird hiding from a merciless storm. The cold seeped into his bones, yet even the chill was preferable to the relentless heat of anger and scorn.
In that darkness, the castle seemed to breathe, sighing a mournful chorus of forgotten pain and broken dreams.
The darkness was no friend. It was a cruel mirror reflecting every silent fear the day tried to bury—the loneliness weighing on his chest like stone, the dread coiling tight in his belly like a snake ready to strike, the sharp ache of never quite belonging anywhere at all.
Time stretched thin and fractured, each tick of the night's clock marking the slow erosion of hope. He lay awake, listening to creaks and whispers, distant night birds, and the soft fall of snow beyond the stained-glass windowpanes. The silence pressed like a shroud, wrapping tight around his ribs, squeezing breath from fragile lungs.
Yet even in that merciless dark, he did not cry aloud.
Tears were a luxury he could not afford—not here, not in this place that swallowed him whole.
Only once did a single tear escape—slipping free to vanish into the night, stolen by shadows that wrapped around him like a shroud.
His sister's hand caught it.
Not with warmth.
Not with words.
But with a trembling stillness that said more than silence ever could.
It was the first and only kindness he ever knew in that castle—
small and fragile as the faintest flame flickering against a long, dark winter.
The castle watched.
Not with eyes, but with memory.
Its walls held every breath, every secret fear, every silent plea for love.
The worn velvet remembered the weight of restless footsteps pacing,
The crimson carpet absorbed whispered prayers left unanswered.
The stained glass framed a world beyond—cold, distant, unreachable.
This castle was a slow prison—not forged in iron, but built from absence.
A slow unmaking of a boy who never belonged anywhere.
The cold void where warmth should have lived.
A single tear.
One breath.
One flicker of light in the dark.
He was here.
He was real.
He was still… something.
✰✰✰
The floor cracked beneath him without warning—sharp and brittle, like a twig breaking in frost.
A jagged fissure split the stone beneath his feet, its sound loud and brittle as bone snapping in a frozen forest.
"Huh—"
The silence shattered like glass.
His breath caught in a sudden choke, a gasp swallowed by the vast hollow of the void beneath.
The world lurched violently—like ice cracking under the weight of all that is broken.
He was falling before he even knew he'd slipped.
Air tore from his lungs in a raw, ragged scream that clawed at his throat and fell away.
Cold rushed past him in a furious gale, sharp as shattered glass slicing skin—roaring louder than any wind, screaming in his ears.
Darkness unfurled beneath him—an endless, ravenous abyss hungry for everything he was, everything he might become.
His heart thrashed in his chest like a trapped, bleeding bird, claws scratching against ribs in a desperate, frantic beat.
He twisted in midair—helpless, frantic—hands clawing at the jagged edges of crumbling stone walls, searching for grip, for purchase, for a last thread to hold.
Rough and cold beneath his fingertips—then slipping away into nothingness.
No ledge.
No branch.
No edge.
Only endless, suffocating night.
Then they came.
Figures formed in the corners of his vision, slipping like smoke or shadow.
Tall and silent, impossibly thin silhouettes—half there, half vanished—blurring like broken reflections in dark water.
No eyes, no mouths, no faces—only hollow echoes of shapes that once were.
Yet their gaze was a weight pressing down, unblinking, unrelenting.
They drifted closer—long limbs twisting unnaturally, fingers too many-jointed, twitching like broken clockwork, reaching with a hunger older than memory.
A chorus of whispers erupted—words stripped of sound, hollow, muffled, as if spoken through thick water, voices drowning in a sea of silence.
The language was incomprehensible, yet the meaning tore into his bones with brutal clarity:
You do not belong here.
You were never meant to live.
Burn.
Fade.
Die alone.
"Please—stop."
His breath was ragged, jagged—a cruel rasp scraping his throat like broken glass.
"I don't want to die—"
The world exploded beneath him.
Bone shattered.
Flesh tore.
The ground rushed up, merciless and unforgiving.
His body slammed into jagged stone with the sick crack of splintering ribs.
Pain—white-hot, searing, burning through every nerve ending—erupted like wildfire beneath his skin.
Air blasted out of his lungs in a guttural crack—his scream a raw, ragged thing ripped from his throat and swallowed by the unforgiving silence.
Every breath after was a war.
"Hhh—"
"Ha…"
"Ha…"
His lungs seized, spasmed, gasped for purchase in a cage of shattered bones.
His vision blurred—dark spots blooming at the edges, twisting like black flowers in fire.
Pain flared up his legs, burning shards of agony exploding in his shattered thighs and hips, sending violent jolts through his broken spine.
His skull throbbed with every heartbeat—a dull hammer pounding against the fragile cage of his mind.
His fingers twitched uselessly, clutching at dirt and stone slick with his own blood.
The ground beneath him pulsed—breathing with a sick rhythm like a wounded heart, alive and mocking.
"Hhh… hhh…"
His breath came in jagged shards, each one a cruel rasp scraping deep inside—broken glass sliding across raw flesh.
The world spun, tilted, and threatened to swallow him whole.
"Ha… ha…"
Pain carved itself into his soul, and still the whispers clawed—burn—fade—die alone.
He tried to rise.
Fingers trembled, slick with blood and dirt, slipping as his body screamed betrayal.
His ribs screamed, fractured and useless.
Every movement was agony—sharp, fierce, and unrelenting.
But he would not fall—not yet.
"Hhh—ha…"
"Can't… breathe…"
Not yet…
Slowly, painfully, he dragged himself forward.
Every inch a crucible of fire and shattered bone.
His broken leg throbbed with jagged shards piercing through torn flesh—each movement sending hot, stabbing agony roaring up his spine.
Blood pooled beneath him, slick and sticky, mixing with dirt and stone, the iron scent sharp in his nostrils.
His breath came in shattered, ragged shards—rasps and wheezes that clawed like broken glass scraping raw inside his throat.
"Hhh… ha… ha…"
He tasted copper—blood thick and bitter on his cracked lips.
Ahead, the faint glow of a white door bled through the darkness, a sliver of fragile hope.
"Come back to me, my child…"
The voice was soft, trembling—like a distant lullaby pulling him from endless night.
The door creaked open slowly.
A pale hand reached out—warm, trembling, familiar.
Mother.
He stretched, trembling fingers slick with blood and dirt, aching to touch her, to hold onto something real.
"Hhh… Mother… please…" His voice cracked, broken and desperate. "I'm ha— here… I'm still… here…"
Her hand closed gently over his.
Warmth blossomed through the cold void, a fleeting ember against the dark.
"Shh… I'm here," she whispered, voice like fragile silk wrapped around his ragged soul.
"You're safe now, Lucius. I'm with you."
Tears welled, mixing with blood and dirt on his cheek. Hope stirred, fragile and flickering.
For the first time, she spoke his name—not as a summons or command, but as a quiet plea, needing him not to serve her, but to let her serve him; to hold him close, to be a shelter in his storm.
But then—
With a cruel snap—the door slammed shut.
Pain exploded like a thunderclap.
A wet, sickening rip.
His hand was caught, crushed between unforgiving wood and iron hinge.
Flesh tore.
Tendons snapped.
Bone shattered with a sharp, horrifying crunch—like dry twigs breaking underfoot.
Blood spurted, hot and thick, drenching stone and soil in a dark, glistening pool.
A scream tore from his throat—raw, desperate, filled with horror and disbelief.
"No—no, no, no!"
He clawed at the stump, the ragged edge searing, pulsing, alive with unbearable pain.
His vision blurred—tears streaming, mixing with blood, burning hot against his skin.
A voice inside him shattered into fragments, looping, fracturing, drowning in panic:
I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die.
The words echoed, pounding like a drum inside his chest—relentless, merciless.
His mind screamed, stripped bare, caught in the sharp claws of fear and pain.
I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die.
The world tilted, spinning through the storm of agony and terror.
He felt cold seep into the ragged edge where flesh once was—numbness creeping like poison, stealing warmth, stealing life.
His breath came in ragged gasps, sharp and shallow, each one a battle fought in the furnace of his breaking body.
His heart thundered wildly—a frantic prisoner trapped beneath ribs splintered and broken.
The shadows around him twisted, dark and suffocating, whispering cruel lies:
You belong in the void.
You belong in the dark.
You are already lost.
But inside, a fragile ember flickered—fear and pain gripping him tight, but somewhere beneath the chaos, a stubborn spark of will.
His fingers twitched uselessly, slick with blood and trembling uncontrollably.
The stinging, burning pain pulsed like a relentless storm, a wildfire raging where once was whole.
His mind looped, desperate and raw:
I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared.
I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die.
And it shattered, the world— it shattered— once again.
✰✰✰
The hand had lied.
It lied like brittle ice cracking beneath a dying winter sky, splintering with sharp, hollow cracks that echoed through a frozen world with no sun to soften the sound. That hand, cold and distant, was never his mother's—no warmth stirred in that touch, only the faintest chill of a shadow's breath. The warmth he imagined, the comfort he longed for, had been stolen by silence long ago.
His mother never cared.
Never reached beyond the walls of her silence, those thick walls built from frozen words and absence, where love starved and froze in the dark. The cold had seeped in, deeper than bone, deeper than blood. It had rooted itself in everything he was.
A fool.
He was a fool.
A foolish boy, soft as frostbitten flesh—fragile, shivering, cracked by bitter winds—believing in ghosts made of whispered promises and aching need. What madness gripped him, to clutch at shadows, hoping they might hold him when all they offered was emptiness?
Fragile as cracked bone—too brittle to bend, too broken to heal.
He wanted to believe—desperately, painfully—but the air tasted bitter, thick with old sorrow and forgotten lies. No one waited for those who fell beneath the weight of their own fractures. No hand would catch the falling. No voice would call him back from the edge.
Only the sharp scent of ruin, the cold sting of loneliness biting deep beneath skin and bone.
A cold breath, drawn from the hollow of a hollow world, whispered through the shadows—empty, mocking.
And he,
he would be forgotten.
Forgotten by the world the same way he was never in his mother's thoughts.
He lay broken, crumpled against the unforgiving ground—or the ceiling? The earth beneath him was no earth at all, but a void—dark and endless—pressing in like a weight that crushed breath and hope alike. The cold seeped into his shattered bones, relentless and cruel, gnawing beneath bruised skin.
His breath came in ragged splinters, sharp and uneven, each inhale scraping raw the hollow inside. It was hard to breathe at all—his ribs cracked and splintered like fragile wood, stabbing pain radiating through his chest with every shallow gasp.
His Hand—his right—was gone. Torn away in a sudden, savage pain that left a raw, ragged wound bleeding shadows. Where the Hand had been, now only empty air lingered, cold and cruel. The ache of loss was more than flesh deep; it settled into the quiet despair of all that was missing.
He tried to move. His body betrayed him. The impact of the fall had shattered more than his arm. Bones cracked beneath bruises that bloomed like dark flowers beneath pale skin. His legs trembled violently, joints buckling under the slightest pressure, making it impossible to stand. The cold wrapped itself tighter, seeping into every crack, every fracture.
Tears came—slow and unbidden—sliding down his face like molten sorrow. But his skin was too cold to feel them, and they left no warmth in their wake. They were not tears of hope or courage, but the weight of unbearable pain, loneliness, and a heart too weary to fight.
He cried because it hurt. Because he was broken. Because he was utterly, devastatingly alone in a world without mercy.
The silence around him was thick, suffocating, a void that swallowed sound and light alike. It pressed into his ears, whispered lies and mockery.
No one is coming.
No one ever comes.
No one ever wanted you.
And yet—beneath the crushing dark, something flickered.
A single tear fell from his cheek onto the shadowed ground. It caught a faint gleam—pale, fragile, blue.
At first, it was only a flicker—soft as breath, quiet as a sigh in frozen air. But it lingered, trembling in the void. A tiny flame, flickering with hesitant life.
He blinked, chest tightening as the pain stabbed sharp and wild beneath cracked ribs.
The flame was small—so small it might have been a trick of grief or frostbitten mind. But it was real.
Light—no louder than a whisper—hovered just beyond reach, pulsing faintly, waiting.
He wanted to reach. Tried to move again, legs shaking beneath him, limbs heavy with ache, trembling with pain that burned cold beneath bruised flesh.
He gritted his teeth and stretched trembling fingers toward the faint glow. The world shifted, ever so slightly—the endless dark pulling back, if only a little.
The blue flame pulsed with quiet insistence, a fragile heartbeat in the void.
It was no longer cold.
And then—
he whispered.
"Why…?"
His voice cracked, so soft it barely disturbed the dark. "Why wasn't I enough?"
A pause. His breath hitched. He swallowed pain.
"I didn't want… much. Just someone to come back. To say my name."
A shallow breath.
"To remember I was there."
The flame flickered, blue deepening to silver.
"I didn't want to be special. Just… not invisible."
He looked at his missing hand, at the place where light should have been.
"I don't care if they love me," he said, shaking. "But I—"
His voice broke.
"I don't want to disappear."
The silver flared, sudden and soft, and the dark recoiled.
He closed his eyes, and for the first time, said the words—not to the void, not to someone else, but to himself:
"I want—
to…
…live."
The words cracked something. Not the world. Not the dark.
But him.
A crack that ran along the ice in his chest, a fracture in the silence that had wrapped around his bones since he could remember.
Step by painful step, he pushed himself upward. His legs wobbled violently, muscles screaming in protest, bones thudding against bruised flesh. He barely trusted the limbs beneath him.
Every movement was agony—a slow dance between will and pain, a fragile becoming born of brokenness.
The void around him retreated, shadow folding back like dark tidewater leaving a cold shore.
The flame flickered—silver to white—responding to the small, defiant breath inside him.
It was no longer cold.
By the time he stood—shaking, breath ragged, heart pounding—the light had turned gold.
A golden flame.
Pure and quiet.
Not fierce, not angry,
but steady and sure.
It did not sear. It did not scream.
It simply was.
And as he looked into it, the flame gazed back.
Gold pooled behind his eyes, spilling warmth into the cold fractures of his soul. It did not burn away his sorrow—it acknowledged it, held it, made space for it.
And in that acknowledgment, it offered something far rarer than escape:
It offered becoming.
The shadows lingered still—coiled like old wounds waiting in the corners of the world.
But they no longer reached for him.
Not while he burned.
A quiet wind stirred—a breath neither cold nor cruel. It circled him, soft as a whispered song.
And in that hush, the world paused.
For just a moment, it listened.
To the boy who rose in the dark.
To the flame that was not given, but born.
To sorrow that did not destroy, but kindled.
He closed his eyes. A single breath slipped free—a golden wisp carried into the void.
It did not vanish.
It became a star.
And the darkness, vast and endless, would remember its name.
And, in the warmth of a stranger's hearth, beneath old snow and older
Grief,
he began to wake.