Darkness broke.
Solvane's eyes snapped open to blinding light. The void he had drifted through — the faceless woman, her tears, the wave, the roar that shook existence — all of it dissolved like smoke. Yet the ache it left behind lingered in his chest, heavy and unexplainable.
He gasped, his throat raw, his body screaming as if it had been torn apart and stitched back together by unsteady hands.
Pain.
Real, suffocating pain. His chest burned with every shallow breath. Instinctively, he pressed a trembling hand to his ribs — only to feel something hard, cold. Not bone. Not flesh. Something foreign lodged within him.
The movement of healers filled the silence moving back and front trying to make the crown prince comfortable . Tubes fed into his arms. The sharp scent of medicine clung to the air. His body was alive, but it felt alien, like it no longer belonged to him.
He tried to think. Tried to remember.
But his mind was smoke.
The last clear memory he had was… nothing. A hall? A shadow? A face? His thoughts scattered before they could take shape. Whenever he reached for the truth, it slipped away, leaving only the hollow echo of the dream. The faceless woman's smile. The wave. The roar.
"What… happened to me?" His voice cracked, hoarse. "Why can't I… remember?"
The infirmary stretched around him — too white, too empty, too clean. It looked less like a place of healing and more like a place meant to erase.
Loneliness pressed down on him. And beneath it, unease.
The door opened.
King Aubrean entered.
He was immaculate, every step measured, every fold of his robe precise. His presence filled the room like a tide, but his face carried nothing — no warmth, no relief, no joy. Only cold indifference.
At his side walked another man. Familiar, yet blurred in Solvane's mind. The escort from somewhere — though where or when, he couldn't place. The man kept his gaze lowered, his hands folded, his posture neutral.
Solvane swallowed hard. His voice trembled. "Dad… what happened to me? How did I get here?"
The king studied him with detached eyes.
"You don't remember?" His tone was flat, neither surprised nor concerned.
Solvane shook his head weakly. "No… I… I tried to, but it's all… blank." His chest tightened. "Please. Tell me."
Aubrean's answer was simple. Final.
"You fell off the balcony."
The words hit like a blade to the heart.
For a moment, Solvane just stared, lips parted, unable to process. His chest rose and fell sharply, though whether from pain or disbelief, he couldn't tell.
"I… fell?" he whispered.
The king's eyes did not soften. "Yes. That's all."
No comfort. No reassurance. No fatherly embrace. Only indifference, as if the matter carried no weight.
The escort shifted slightly at his side, his jaw tightening. His eyes flickered up for the briefest second, then dropped again. Solvane caught it, though he couldn't understand what it meant.
Silence swallowed the room.
Solvane's hands clenched weakly at the sheets, nails digging into the fabric. He wanted to demand more. To argue. To scream. But his body was too frail, his mind too clouded. All he had were fragments of a dream he couldn't explain — a faceless woman waving goodbye, a roar that shook his soul — and a father's cold lie that left him empty.
Fear crept into him.
Not of death. Not of pain.
But of the man standing before him.
The king. His father.
Aubrean.