CHAPTER 55: NO LONGER CALM

Levan lay slumped against the broad cushion of the armchair, but there was nothing restful in his posture. His arm while covering his face betrayed nothing of the way his jaw clenched, his shoulders rigid, his breath sharp as though it had nowhere to go but back into his chest.

Dead.

The word gnawed at him mercilessly until he thought it might drive him mad.

Dead. Dead. Dead!

Five years of waiting. Five years of following whispers, chasing scraps of hope through shadows and silence. And at last, when the veil had nearly lifted, when the answers had been within reach, she was dead. Just like that, the truth he had clawed toward had vanished with her last breath.

A curse seared the back of his tongue, but he swallowed it. His hand twitched once as if tempted to sweep the heavy books from the table and hurl them into the fire, but he stayed still, forcing the anger down. His temple throbbed with the pressure of restraint.

"...Damn it all," he cursed anyway.

"Well, that’s a welcome to make even a friend feel cherished." Came the sudden voice from the doorway, it was smooth and disarming, the kind that carried humour even where it did not belong.

Levan shifted his arm just enough to glimpse at the man standing at the door. Lysander leaned there with his usual poise, parchment tucked beneath one arm with the faintest grin tugging at his lips as though he had walked into anything but a storm.

He groaned and let his arm fall back over his eyes. "Not tonight, Lysander."

"Exactly why tonight." With unhurried grace, Lysander crossed the room and dropped into the chair opposite him, stretching long legs out as if he owned the place. "You sulk far too well when left to yourself. The books would suffocate on your silence if I didn’t come to rescue them."

Levan scoffed.

"Don’t worry, I won’t ask ’stupid questions’, I’ll simply sit here and speak nonsense until you either strangle me or relax."

"Get lost."

Lysander ignored him entirely, leaning his chin into his hand with the kind of patience that was all too deliberate. "I need some opinions. Do you think the Librarian would notice if I rearranged the scrolls by colour instead of date? Blue beside red, red beside gold— ah, the chaos would be delicious."

"Try it and I’ll have your fingers cut off."

"Mm, poetic justice. A man silenced for meddling with parchment." He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Or perhaps I should line the codices by weight instead, let the poor apprentices snap their spines lugging them around."

Levan dropped his arm just long enough to glare at him. "You truly came here to be an ass."

"As always," Lysander said cheerfully. "It’s my finest art."

Then casually, too casually, Lysander added, "Speaking of art...it was quite a shame the princess didn’t attend the banquet last night. She was radiant when she was preparing, or so I heard. Almost enough to outshine the lanterns."

Levan’s voice was rough with dismissal. "If you came here to gossip like an old woman, go back to the kitchens where you belong."

The retort snapped out of him before he could stop it. But when the silence that followed stretched too thin, the Archivist’s words began to replay in his mind, sinking in like a hook belatedly lodged deep.

He blinked slowly, arm sliding down from his face as though gravity itself had shifted. A slow, reluctant awareness clawed through the haze of his frustration that he could not help but ask,

"She what?"

Lysander’s lips curled, sly and satisfied as he had been waiting for that exact crack in the crown prince’s composure. "Ah, so you are listening." He leaned back with ease, folding one ankle over his knee.

"I was delivering scrolls to your chamber last night as you so graciously demanded. Imagine my surprise when I found a rather radiant princess standing there instead, speaking to your guards."

Levan’s head turned, sharp as a blade.

"Radiant," Lysander repeated, savouring the word like wine. "She had the look of someone preparing for a banquet she was denied. Hair done, dress gleaming, a smile trying so very hard to hold. But then..."

He lifted a hand, miming the small, pitiful gesture, "...she pressed her head into her palm, turned on her heel and walked away. A tragic little portrait, really."

Levan’s stare darkened, but Lysander only raised a brow, smug as ever. "Woah, don’t look at me like that. I’m not the one who left a lady waiting. You, my prince, managed to make a woman cry without even being present," he scrunched his nose. "Hardly what I’d call gentlemanly

."

"...You’re wandering dangerously close to being thrown out that window, Lysander."

Unbothered, Lysander tipped his head back and laughed, the sound light and maddening in the heavy room. "Threats, how original. You bruise easier than parchment when the truth so much as brushes you."

"I said get lost."

"Not in the mood," Lysander went on smoothly, plucking at the cuff of his sleeve, "if you’re in need of guidance, the archives are rich with wisdom on your dilemma."

He looked at him, eyes glinting with mischief. "Tomes on courtship, on chivalry, even a delightful little manuscript entitled ’The Husband’s Proper Conduct.’ Shall I fetch you a copy, or will you continue perfecting the art of breaking your wife’s heart in silence?"

Levan’s glare could have scorched the shelves, but Lysander only smiled wider, utterly immune.

Silence stretched between them. The words Lysander had dropped so carelessly burned in his skull like hot iron. She was at his door, but she turned away because he already left. The image of Ilaria with her palm pressed to her face with eyes downcast rose unbidden.

His chest constricted again. He hated how easily her face came to him, how guilt hollowed through his ribs sharper than fury ever could. He imagined her in his chamber now with the bun gone cold in her hands, and it was almost too unbearable.

Without another word, he pushed to his feet, the suddenness of it made the Archivist blink in surprise. His movements were curt and restless as if the air itself had turned suffocating. Lysander lifted a brow but did not stop him, only lounged back with that insufferable smile of his.

Levan stormed out of The Ivory Study, his steps hard and fast like a man who finally admitted he had somewhere he needed to be.

The corridors blurred past him, torchlight bleeding across marble, but the closer he drew to his chambers the heavier his steps became until the weight of his own chest nearly slowed him. When he reached the carved doors, he lingered longer than he cared to admit, the silence beyond suddenly felt more daunting than any battlefield.

He took a step inside.

The room was dim, the air faint with the trace of her warm bread and the soft sweetness of jasmine oil she favoured. His gaze swept the chamber once, and there she was: the small form curled upon the sofa, head pillowed against her arm, her shoulders rising and falling with the shallow rhythm of sleep.

Levan stood in the doorway for a long time. In fact, too

long for a man who had marched into enemy lines without pause. His hand curled into a fist at his side, jaw clenched against something that felt far too much like shame. There it goes again, that damned feeling of vulnerability.

He took one step forward, then another, until the sofa loomed before him. And still...he hesitated. He did not even know why, it was just his wife. But all he could do was look at the bun that had gone cold on the table and at the way she had clearly waited for him until sleep claimed her.

It was in human nature to look for someone to blame on when overcome by anger. He could have cursed Lysander for meddling where he did not belong. He could have faulted Ilaria for taking his words to heart. But Levan knew. He knew exactly where the blame belonged.

It was squarely, irrevocably, on himself.

Because none of this would have happened if he just—

He let out a sigh, refusing to let the thought finish. It was already too heavy and he feared it would just cut him open if he lingered.

At last, his steps carried him forward, slow and reluctant, like a man wading into deep water he was not sure he deserved to enter. Each shift of his boots on the floor seemed loud, unequivocally announcing the guilt he carried. He stopped just before the sofa, standing over her with a hesitation so raw it nearly undid him.

She looked so small there, curled lightly against the cushions, her hair loosened from its pins, her breathing even in sleep...Levan’s chest ached. Physically. He did not even try to deny it anymore. For all his strength, all his iron, he had no armour for this — his wife, waiting until her weariness swallowed her whole.

"...You really waited..."

Before he could think better of it, he lowered himself to the floor, the weight of his body settling into a kneel before her. For a man who had bowed to no one, who had faced kings and monsters without flinching, it felt strangely humbling, almost humiliating, to kneel here now.

From this closeness, her face seemed even softer, her lashes casting delicate shadows across her cheeks as her lips parted in sleep. Amidst it all, he searched her expression for the traces of the hurt he had caused.

But what he found was even worse.

It was not the clear mark of sorrow, nor the echo of anger, no...it was the absence of either. There was no trace of pain on her face, no shadow of resentment. Only serenity, as though the storm he had unleashed upon her heart had already been forgiven in the quiet of her dreams.

And that was the part that finally undid him. That she would forgive when he had done nothing to deserve it.

Truthfully...He had always noticed the way she looked at him ever since eight years ago. Those small, obvious signs of her affection that she never quite managed to hide. The way her eyes sought him out in a crowded room, the way her smile lingered when he spared her even the briefest word.

It was no secret, not to him.

And yet, he had dismissed it all too easily. Chalked it up to girlish infatuation, just a passing fancy born of her sheltered world. He had told himself she would outgrow it, that her heart was too young to know what it truly wanted.

So he took it for granted. All of it.

Her patience. Her warmth. Her endless way of reaching for him even when he gave her nothing in return. And now here she was, still reaching even in sleep with nothing but forgiveness in her solemn expression.

"Damn it..." he sank with a quiet breath, frustrated, controlling his voice just enough so that she would not stir.

Slowly, as if afraid of waking her up, his hand lifted, hovering near her arm, then faltered. The gulf between his intent and his courage had never felt wider. But instead, his hand fell back to his knee, clenched tight enough to tremble with his head hung low.

Not knowing what to do, he stayed there, kneeling before her as if that alone might absolve him of the distance he had put between them.