Silence did not merely linger.
It settled.
Like ash after a fire that had not yet burned out.
Elara stood in the corridor, the thin silver of morning light sliding across the stone floor, pooling between them like something fragile and breakable. The estate had awakened around them — distant footsteps, the muted clatter of service doors, the low murmur of voices that never traveled near the east wing.
Yet here, time held its breath.
Alessandro had not answered her.
Not fully.
Not truly.
Truth had been given in fragments, in careful omissions, in words that revealed shape but not substance.
She studied his face, searching for the thing he refused to name.
"What are you," she asked again, softer now, "when you stop choosing restraint?"
His jaw tightened.
He did not look away.
But he did not answer.
Her pulse ticked faster.
"Tsk," she murmured. "That silence… is not comforting."
He inhaled slowly, as if the air itself required discipline.
"Elara."
