Despite the heaviness of facing once again the fate he had once rejected, time—merciless as ever—continued to move. The sun had climbed higher, its pale winter rays weak against the frost clinging to the windowpanes. Voices drifted through the silent estate: servants shuffling through morning tasks, metal trays clattering in distant kitchens, brooms scratching across marble floors. Life carried on, indifferent to the boy trapped in an isolated room at the far edge of the manor.

  The door burst open with a sharp crack, hinges groaning like an old creature in pain. A middle-aged nanny stepped inside, the scent of bitter tea and old perfume wafting with her. Her expression, carved with years of practiced disdain, twisted in disgust the moment her eyes landed on him.

  “Young Miss,” she snapped, her tone clipped and cold, “it is time for you to awaken and prepare. The Madam is waiting in her tea room.”

  Her voice dripped with false formality—venom wrapped in silk. She made no move to step fully into the room, as though contamination lurked in the dust that veiled every surface. Her gaze flicked to the peeling wallpaper, the cracked mirror, and the thin sheets tangled around the small figure in bed. Disgust deepened.

  A servant should show respect to a noble heir. But Sairael was not respected. He was endured.

  The house had long decided he was an embarrassment. A flaw. A reminder of something the Lord wished had never been born.

  Sairael rose in silence, feet touching the cold wooden floor that bit at his skin like ice. He moved to the small cabinet serving as a wardrobe. The faded dresses inside—silks in name only—were threadbare, dulled by time and neglect. He pulled one free, fingers grazing over the stitching he had learned to fix himself. Even the lace at the cuffs bore tiny imperfections he had mended with quiet, careful hands.

  Clothing meant to hide him. Not display him.

  The nanny’s eyes lingered on his delicate features—far too refined for a child left to rot in dust. His small frame barely reached her knees, a fragile doll that someone had forgotten to polish. A pretty blemish. Something unwanted yet unavoidably graceful. The nanny’s lips tightened into a scowl.

  “Unfair,” she muttered under her breath. “Waste of beauty…”

  But Sairael did not react. He never did.

  She seized his arm with a grip meant to bruise and dragged him into the corridor. The manor’s inner halls contrasted sharply with the isolation he’d been kept in—polished floors, warm lanterns, perfumed air, and tapestries embroidered with gold thread. Every step deeper into this world reminded him where he stood in it:

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  present,but not permitted.

  He walked quietly behind the nanny, tuning out her muttering, her complaints, her bitterness. His mind strained to recall where in time he had returned. What moment this was. What cruelty would greet him behind closed doors.

  He realized it only when they reached his mother’s door.

  Glass shattered inside—sharp, ringing, violent. A choked cry followed, then the guttural curses of a woman too far lost in her own spiraling madness. Sairael’s breath stilled. His small hand shook as he lifted it to knock.

  The door flew open so hard it slammed into the wall.

  His mother stood there, draped in luxurious silks the colors of deep wine and stolen rubies. Perfume clung to her like a suffocating fog. Yet beneath the elegance, insanity simmered—fever in her eyes, tension in the twitch of her fingers, a smile too sharp to belong to sanity.

  “Get. In.” Her nails, long and lacquered, dug into his tender arm like hooked claws. She dragged him inside, ignoring his stumble, ignoring the way his breath hitched. The moment the door slammed shut, the world shrank to the room’s oppressive walls.

  The air reeked of spilled wine, fear, and the metallic sting of blood.

  A whip lay coiled on the carpet, a smear of red glistening wetly along its edge. His arm throbbed where she had struck him—multiple times, it seemed, judging by the line of fire running from shoulder to wrist.

  “Even after everything I’ve done to give him his heir,” she snarled, pacing with jittery steps, “you had to be born a failing one. A useless—”Her teeth clicked shut mid-rant as though she remembered something forbidden.

  Sairael lay still where she’d thrown him, hair falling in messy strands over his eyes. He did not cry. Tears were useless here. They only pleased her.

  “He brings that slut home,” she hissed again, voice cracking with hysteria, “with the bastard child she spawned—and expects me to raise her as my own daughter? My daughter!”Her laugh was sharp, unhinged. “All because she resembles his precious first love? No… no. This is your fault. All your fault.”

  She stalked closer, shadows twisting across her face, whip held loosely in her trembling grip.

  Sairael lifted his head slowly, eyes dull, body limp from experience—not defeat. He had learned early that resistance only fueled her rage.

  Something in her expression softened—not with love, but with delusion.

  “Remember,” she whispered, crouching before him, tracing his cheek with a trembling finger, “you are the true heir. The one I sacrificed so much to gain…”Her hand jerked into a grip on his chin, forcing his face upward.“Sit up. Smile. Don’t let the pain show. Pretty children don’t cry.”

  Her breath was warm and sour.

  “Yes… yes…” Her voice gained an eerie sweetness. “The Saint’s test is coming. You will pass. You must pass. You’ll be chosen. You’ll prove that slut’s daughter inferior. You’ll make me proud.”

  So he did as he always had.

  He sat upright. He smiled—empty, perfect, practiced. He hid the shaking in his hands and the sting of torn skin beneath his sleeve.

  A beautiful doll, polished for display, crafted for another’s ambition, the puppet of a mother drowning in her own madness.

  And as always…he made no sound. He simply endured.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.