Night at Castle Lanser possessed its own voice.
Not the howl of Götthain's wind, wailing like a lone wolf. Here, the air was heavy—seeping through granite crevices in low, constant groans, like the breath of some titan sleeping within the mountain's core. Albert woke in a bed too soft, beneath furs too warm, and listened.
Beyond the narrow casement of his chamber, Lanser's towers bled black against the night sky. No moon reigned. Only stars, sharp and cruel as scattered shards of glass flung across obsidian velvet.
The morning's duel still clung to his skin like frozen sweat.
He had defeated Roland. No—that wasn't the right word. He had finished Roland. The way a mechanic finishes a leaking pipe. Clean. Efficient. Thorough.
And now the entire castle whispered.
Those whispers stalked him through every corridor, every meal, even as he drew breath in the frozen gardens. Servants fell silent when he passed, then resumed in lower registers. Cousins who had mocked him yesterday now regarded him with that carefully studied blend of curiosity and caution.
The new hound had shown its fangs.
Albert rose from the bed, crossing to the window. His hand drifted to his waist, searching for something no longer there. The phantom grip of a cigarette holder he hadn't touched in well over a decade. The craving ambushed him—sudden, absurd, agonizing. Addiction was a patient monster. It would keep screaming.
He pressed his forehead to the pane. Cold radiated outward, but not enough to cauterize memory.
Outside, somewhere above the frozen moat, that drone still hovered. Still recorded. Still waited.
***
"You're not sleeping?"
The voice came from the threshold. Alena stood there, wrapped in thick woolen bed-robe, her crimson hair unbraided and loose—the first time Albert had ever seen her so. In her hands, two ceramic cups exhaled slender ribbons of steam.
"How did you know I was awake?" Albert didn't turn from the window.
"Because Roland returned to his chambers at one in the morning with his arm still numb, screaming at his valet that you're a sorcerer." Alena entered, setting one cup on the windowsill. "And because I couldn't sleep either. I thought you might share the affliction."
Albert took the cup. Not wine. Not the sweet herbal tisanes they served at Götthain. Black, viscous liquid, bitter, barely warm. Coffee. Or this world's approximation—chaga, ground from the black root of a certain plant, brewed for night-watchmen who needed to defy sleep.
"You slipped into the lower kitchens?" A sip. Bitter. Perfect.
"I didn't slip. I descended and requested it." Alena settled onto the low stool near the dead hearth, her face half-devoured by shadow. "The servants here are accustomed to my eccentricities. They don't question."
Silence. Albert drank again. Outside, mountain wind dragged bare branches across the glass like fingernails.
"You humiliated him," Alena said at last. Her voice carried no accusation—only the recitation of fact.
"He requested the duel."
"You know what I mean. Not whether you fought, but how." Alena's gaze was fixed on him. At the tips of her fingers curled around her cup, her nails were short and unpainted—unlike most noblewomen. "My father noticed. My cousins noticed. Even Roland himself, beneath his rage, noticed."
"And what did they see?"
"That you didn't defeat him the way boys defeat boys." Alena leaned forward. "You defeated him like… like an executioner at work. As though it weren't combat, but condemnation. And it frightened them."
Albert lowered his cup. "Did it frighten you?"
Alena did not answer immediately. She stared at the cold ash, then said, "I don't know. Perhaps. It was the first time I'd seen such a look in your eyes… but more than fear, I felt curiosity."
"Curiosity?"
"Where did you learn to fight like that?" Her eyes—warm brown, capable of mischief in daylight—were now dark and serious. "Sir Gregor is an honorable knight. I've watched his students train. They're strong, swift, brave. But they fight with honor. They seek fair duels, roaring audiences, glorious victories—like true nobles."
She paused. "You aren't like them. You fight as though you wish to leave the moment you enter. As though applause and honor mean nothing. As though your only concern is… survival."
Albert sipped his drink. Cold now. He didn't answer.
"Was that what Sir Gregor taught you?" Alena pressed, gentle.
"Sir Gregor taught me how to wield a sword, a bow, various other weapons." Albert's voice was flat. "How to grip them, swing them, parry. How to stand so you're not easily thrown. How to strike so your opponent doesn't rise."
"But?"
But Gregor never taught me what it felt like to sleep in a trench with waist-deep water while mortars fell every ten minutes.
Gregor never taught me how to stay alive when the men to your left and right erupted into mangled pulp and you had to crawl over their fragmented remains to reach cover.
Gregor never taught me how to stare at the drone hovering overhead and know that in five seconds, the bomb would fall—and the only question was: how fast could you die?
"I read," Albert said, selecting the most convenient lie. "Many books on warfare. On formations. On the vulnerabilities of the human body. On how great soldiers survived unfavorable battlefields. And I practiced. Repeatedly, until the movements became reflex."
A lie. But Alena had no way of knowing that. She could only nod, not entirely convinced, yet unwilling to press further.
"Tonight," Alena said abruptly, changing course, "Cedric and the others are holding a midnight hunt. Wild stag in the northern forest. They didn't invite you."
"Naturally."
"I think it's because they're afraid." A small smile curved her lips—the first of the night. "Afraid you'd kill the stag with a single thrust and make them all look like novices."
"Or," Albert countered, "they're afraid I'd kill one of them."
Alena stared at him. Then a small laugh escaped—not nervous, but genuine, warm, crinkling the corners of her eyes. "You're dreadful, Albert vin Götterbaum. Do you know that?"
"No."
"No. You're dreadful." But she was smiling. "And I don't know whether that relieves me or unsettles me further."
"Perhaps both."
Alena nodded slowly. "Yes. Both."
They sat in a different silence now. Not taut. Not watchful. Just two people sharing bitter drink in a dark room, in a foreign castle, on a cold night.
"You know," Alena said, her voice lower now, almost hesitant, "when my father first told me of this betrothal—I was six years old. I didn't understand what it meant, except that I would leave somewhere, marry someone I'd never met, and become 'mistress' of his castle." She shook her head. "I imagined a boy with rumpled hair and misaligned buttons. Someone who'd laugh at my accent and ask me to sew badges onto his coat."
Albert nearly smiled. "And you were disappointed?"
"I don't know. I never thought about it again until a few years ago, when my mother began teaching me the duties of a nobleman's wife. Managing households. Receiving guests. The… obligations." A faint flush crept across her cheeks, barely visible in the darkness. "I thought, well. Perhaps it wouldn't be so terrible. Perhaps he wouldn't be too hideous."
"Thank you."
"Hush, I'm not finished." But she was smiling. "Then I grew curious. Genuinely curious, not merely resigned."
She looked at him. "And then I met you, and you… you were nothing I'd imagined."
"Better or worse?"
"Stranger," Alena answered honestly. "You're like an old man. You see what others don't. You speak of history and metallurgy the way most boys speak of horses or hunting. You offered me freedom in the gardens, then made my father and yours dance to whatever tune you composed."
She paused, choosing her next words with care. "And today, you fought Roland, and I realized something."
"What?"
"That beneath all of it—the intellect, the strategy, the patience—there's something else." Alena met his gaze directly. "There's a wound. One… very deep. One you conceal so skillfully that almost no one perceives it. But I see it, Albert. Tonight, when you stood at that window, I saw it."
Albert froze. The cup in his hand suddenly weighed far more than ceramic.
"I don't know what it is," Alena continued, her voice barely a whisper. "I don't know its origin. But I want you to know—you need not hide it from me. Whatever it is."
Silence. The night wind howled beyond the walls. The fire Albert had rekindled without conscious thought crackled softly.
"You're right," Albert said at last. His voice was hoarse, altered. "There is a wound. But it's not something I can speak of. Not now. Perhaps never."
Alena nodded. No disappointment. No offense. Simply acceptance.
"Very well," she said. "But remember—a wound borne alone festers. A wound shared—"
"—is still a wound," Albert interrupted. But his tone carried no cruelty. Only exhaustion. "Thank you, Alena. For the drink. For… this."
"We're a team, remember?" Alena rose, taking the empty cup from Albert's hand. "Teams need not share every secret. But teams must be present when needed."
She walked to the door. At the threshold, she paused, glancing back. "Tomorrow, Cedric may attempt a different approach. More subtle, more dangerous. Be careful."
"Always."
Alena smiled, half-teasing. "Yes, I know. That's precisely what unsettles me. I worry you'll show him no mercy."
She departed, leaving Albert alone with the crackling fire and the ceaseless voice of the wind.
***
Albert settled onto the stool still warm from Alena's presence. He stared into the flames. Orange tongues danced across the timber, devouring, transmuting solid into gas, wood into ash.
He thought of Alena. Her keen eyes. Her courage to ask questions. Her silence when receiving unsatisfactory answers. She was not merely an ally. Not merely a friend. She was—
Don't.
The voice came from within, cold, pragmatic. Don't grow close. Don't grow attached. You will leave her. Sooner or later. Either you'll die again, or this world will destroy you again, or you'll realize you don't deserve happiness after everything you've done, everything you failed to protect. You will leave her. Like Dmytro left Diana. Like you left your parents.
You must never tether your heart to anyone. Not now. Not ever.
He closed his eyes. The faces emerged, as they always did. Mother with her weary smile. Father with that worried furrow between his brows when he embraced Albert at the airport. Dmytro, who still owed his daughter a pink bicycle. Ghost, endlessly sharpening his knife.
Forgive me.
The whisper left his lips soundlessly. He didn't know who he was apologizing to. His parents? Dmytro? Alena, whom he would one day wound?
Or himself—for continuing to live when he should have perished among the ruins of Donetsk?
Albert opened his eyes. The fire still burned. The wind still howled. Beyond, Castle Lanser still stood, black and vast, drinking starlight.
He was still here. Still alive. Still fighting.
For what? For whom? Why?
He lay down on the bed that was too soft, pulled up the furs that were too warm. Outside, the mountain wind sang its low, eternal note—the same song these peaks had sung for millennia.
Albert closed his eyes.
He closed his eyes, but war never slept.