By evening, the fortress had fallen into a hush that didn't quite feel peaceful. Servants moved like shadows across the marble floors, lighting tall iron candelabras that threw long, trembling silhouettes along the stone walls. The scent of smoke and spice lingered — faint but deliberate, as if someone had tried to make the air less cold and failed.
The dining hall was vast, lined with banners that seemed too heavy for their poles. At its center stretched a long table of black oak, carved with intricate ravens.
Kael sat at the head, a position that looked both natural and reluctant. He carried that stillness again — the kind that draws eyes not because it demands attention, but because silence itself seems to bend around him.
My family took their places beside me — Father to my right, Mother across, Caelan near the end, and Elara beside me, fidgeting with the edge of her napkin. She was trying to look composed, but her eyes wandered everywhere — the dark windows, the armor-clad guards, the food that looked too rich and too foreign.
Conversation was scarce. Forks scraped lightly against porcelain, the softest sounds echoing off the vaulted ceiling.
It was Father who finally broke the silence.
"Your house holds strong, even in mourning, Lord Dravenhart. That alone speaks to your leadership."
Kael's gaze lifted briefly. "Strength is expected of us, Duke Evandelle. Especially when we have no luxury of falling apart."
His tone wasn't sharp — just matter-of-fact. But the words lingered like frost in the air.
I glanced at him, curious despite myself. His expression didn't move, but his hand tightened slightly around the goblet he held. Small tells, quiet storms.
Mother offered a diplomatic smile. "Your father must have been proud."
Something in Kael's jaw shifted. "He valued results more than sentiment, my lady. Pride was never part of his vocabulary."
Caelan muttered under his breath, "Sounds like half the Council," earning a warning look from Father.
Elara stifled a nervous giggle — too young to hide it completely. The sound was small but real, and for a brief second, it cracked the room's formality.
Kael's attention flicked toward her, then to me — quiet but unmistakable. "Your sister finds humor in grim company."
I set my glass down, meeting his gaze evenly. "Only that politics and grief make a terrible meal. Both leave a bitter aftertaste."
A pause. Then — very faintly — the corner of his mouth twitched, almost imperceptibly. "Perhaps," he said, "but they're the only dishes ever served in courts like ours."
It wasn't humor exactly, but it was close. Enough to draw a thin breath of ease from the room.
Dinner continued in restrained conversation — the kind that moved around meaning rather than through it. Elara, braver now, asked one or two timid questions about the fortress, and Kael, to everyone's surprise, actually answered — brief, measured, but not unkind.
By the time the plates were cleared, the nobles had retreated into polite murmurs.
Kael rose from his seat first. "You must be tired from the journey. I've arranged for your comfort. If there is anything your house requires, you may send word to the steward."
Father nodded his thanks. "You've been gracious, Lord Dravenhart."
Kael's eyes lingered on me again — steady, unreadable — before he inclined his head and left the hall.
Elara exhaled softly beside me. "He's... intimidating."
"Mm," I said, watching the doors close behind him. "Or careful. Sometimes it's the same thing."
---
Sleep never came easily in unfamiliar walls.
The Dravenhart fortress was unlike Evandelle — colder, quieter, every corridor built to swallow sound. Even the wind outside seemed to whisper differently here, carrying echoes that clung to the stone.
I wrapped a shawl around my shoulders and stepped out from my chamber. The torches along the hall had burned low, their flames shrinking and stretching in the draft. Every few steps, I passed portraits — grim men and women, their eyes following like sentinels.
Maybe it was foolish, walking alone at this hour. But the air inside my room had grown too heavy, filled with thoughts I couldn't still. So I let my feet decide where to go.
Down the grand stairway, past the long windows where the moonlight bled silver over the black hills. Somewhere far below, the river that split Dravenhart territory shimmered faintly.
I turned another corridor — and nearly collided with someone.
A hand shot out, steadying me before I could stumble.
"Careful."
The voice was low — even, but edged with something I couldn't place. When my eyes lifted, I found Kael Dravenhart standing there, half-shadowed, a dark cloak over his shoulders, candlelight catching the pale cut of his features.
For a heartbeat, neither of us spoke.
"Lord Dravenhart," I managed, stepping back. "You walk your halls like a ghost."
"And you wander them like one," he returned evenly. "I thought the Evandelles were better sleepers."
"Not when surrounded by walls that look ready to devour the living."
His gaze flicked to the hall — the looming portraits, the endless stone. "You're not wrong. My ancestors had a fondness for intimidation. It worked, apparently."
I folded my arms. "Does it still?"
Kael's expression didn't change, but there was the faintest pause. "Depends on who you're trying to intimidate."
There it was again — that dry, quiet sharpness. Not arrogance, exactly. Precision.
I tilted my head. "And tonight, who's the unlucky target?"
He almost smiled — almost. "Myself, perhaps."
That caught me off guard. "You?"
He looked away, toward one of the tall windows where moonlight spilled like frost. "Grief doesn't rest on command. Walking helps."
For the first time, the fortress seemed to exhale — or maybe it was just him, shedding the stiffness of a host.
"I understand that," I said softly. "Walking, I mean. Sometimes silence is louder in bed."
A small hum left him — not quite agreement, but not dismissal either. "Then we share a flaw."
A silence followed, quieter but not uncomfortable.
Finally, he turned to me again. "Your family will leave in the morning, I assume?"
"Soon, yes," I said. "Father's paying condolences. The rest of us are... incidental."
He studied me for a moment — too long for courtesy, too short for offense. "You don't sound fond of ceremony."
"Do you?"
That earned me the ghost of a smirk. "No. But in this world, ceremony keeps people predictable."
"Predictable is boring."
"Predictable," he said, "is safe."
I met his gaze, steady. "You sound like a man who's learned that the hard way."
He didn't answer. Just looked at me with that same unsettling calm — like someone measuring distance, not in feet, but in trust.
The silence stretched, and I felt the weight of his attention, not cruel, just... exacting.
Then, softly: "Lady Evandelle," he said, "I imagine you didn't come all this way to walk corridors at midnight. What is it you're really looking for?"
For a moment, I thought to lie — to claim restlessness, or curiosity — but something in his tone made the truth easier.
"Perspective," I said simply. "Your home carries a kind of... gravity. I wanted to understand it."
Kael considered that. "And do you?"
I hesitated. "Not yet. But I think I understand you a little better."
That earned a quiet, unreadable sound from him — somewhere between skepticism and amusement. "Then perhaps I should be worried."
"Perhaps," I said, half-smiling. "But then again, you don't seem easily shaken."
"Appearances are useful things."
"Are they?" I asked softly. "Or just armor you forget to take off?"
He stilled — and for a moment, the look he gave me wasn't polite nor distant. It was human, raw, but gone in a blink.
He stepped back, the faintest bow. "Good night, Lady Evandelle. Try not to lose your way again."
"Good night, Lord Dravenhart," I murmured, watching him walk away down the hall — quiet, composed, like he'd never been there at all.
And yet... something in the air had changed. The silence no longer felt empty. It felt like the beginning of something I wasn't ready to name.