VI
… After a long time of conflict and unresolved arguments, Matteo and Lydia, even through serious exhaustion (and fatigue that gnawed at them ever since they met Seraphine), made an important decision.
They needed to find a remote house — and Lydia apparently did. So the next morning they were already walking through the road of Eldermere Vale.
But it didn’t seem as maintained as it was before… Before it was a pristine passage between scattered settlements. Now it deteriorated into a bunch of uneven trails carved by constant changing — unstable weather and reek of human neglect of this structure.
Thin scratches of hardened earth disappeared beneath dead grass and damp soil, forcing the horse to slow more and more often as the carriage wheels caught against hidden stone.
They were exhausted but they needed to reach the destination; maybe there they would have the possibility of retreat and the luxury of rest. The farther they traveled from the main roads, the quieter the world became.
Abandoned buildings stretched in front of them, as if inviting them the embrace the stony silence. During that exact moment, Lydia sat near the edge of the carriage seat.
She rested her loosely against the wooden frame to steady her body whenever the wheels jolted too fast. Her soft fingers traced against the delicate bruises along her shoulders, which she tried to hide from others with the sleeve of her layered dress.
Every sudden or sharp movement could easily remind her of it. Respectively, she stopped flinching days ago, though Matteo still noticed it, unable to glance away from her petite body. Yet, he never commented regarding it. Understanding was becoming more common between them now.
Lydia silently observed the scenery, still feeling Matteo’s glance at her face: The forests surrounding the outskirts of the valley visibly thickened as the cold evening approached. Her eyes traced on the dark branches which folded over portions of the road, resembling human ribs closing around something very fragile.
Chilly drizzle drifted low through the trees, swallowing completely the path ahead and making the world in the distance feel uncertain. Neither of them had slept properly in weeks.
Even right now, after Seraphine’s disappearance from the center of events and after the collapse of the magical distortions that had spread across the Cardinale Kingdom, the rest of life remained difficult. It was so… strange!
Because the world has settled, the damage hasn’t been erased at all. She could distinctively remember the fact that there were still people wandering through the familiar, almost well-known streets with the kind of expression that suggested they were searching for something, but they didn’t know for what precisely.
The kingdom just continued working because it had no other option, they wouldn’t dare to ruin their own exalted reputation. Notwithstanding, everyone knew something irreversible had happened inside the grand rooms of the Palace.
Lydia slowly leaned her head against the carriage wall and closed her eyes briefly, trying to find solitude in the absence of the constant moving world around her.
Right as she was fading, Matteo decided to speak, nearly scarring Lydia off with his rough and hoarse voice from disuse.
“Lydia… We crossed the boundary hours ago.”
She regained immediately, forcing a natural tone, touching her temples, attending to regain control of her tired eyes, nearly shutting on their own. “Oh, I noticed.”
“I didn’t see any guards either.” Replied Matteo.
Lydia pouts for a moment in deep thoughts, thinking about the possible cause of why there is no surveillance.
“It could be purposeful.”
At her argument, Matteo let out a faint breath that almost sounded like dry humor. “Such a comforting thought…”
The carriage continued another mile before the road narrowed so severely they were forced to leave it entirely…
Matteo’s boots sinked slightly into damp earth as he checked the unstable ground ahead, climbing down first, The horse rears up uneasily in the cold air.
Lydia got down and followed behind him more slowly. The wind had a different scent, akin to pine and wet bark, though it was cleaner. The old smoke continued lingering in the frosty atmosphere.
Matteo looped ahead through the dense trees. “It is right there.”
At first, Lydia didn’t even see it. “Huh...?”
The structure blended almost entirely into the landscape around it, hidden behind overgrown brush and a partially collapsed fence line.
The roof sagged slightly near one corner, darkened by dirt and many years of weather exposure. Moss crept across sections of stone foundation.
One shutter hung crooked beside a narrow window clouded with age and mud. The house looed less discovered than forgotten. They approached carefully the structure; closer now, Lydia noticed signs that someone had once attempted repairs years earlier before abandoning the effort halfway through.
She noticed the reinforced beams near the side entrance, then a replaced section of roof tiles that no longer matched the rest. There were even old tools left beneath an overhang, rusted nearly beyond recognition that seemed like an ancient artifact.
The front door resisted when Matteo pushed forcefully against it. Then opened with a low groan. The interior smelled of dust, old wood, and cold ash.
The main room was small, dimly lit by weak evening light filtering through warped windows. An uneven and intact table sat near the center. The fireplace remained functional by the look of it, though it seemed untouched for months… possibly years.
Shelving lined one wall, mostly empty except for scattered jars and brittle cloth. Hmm… there seemed to be no signs of recent occupation, noted Lydia internally while she stepped inside first this time.
Then, Matteo entered reluctantly, setting one of the heavy bags near the wall before slowly looking around the room. His shoulders lowered in unexpected relief.
Lydia moved farther inside, fingers brushing lightly along the surface of the table. Dust clung to her pale skin.
“It’s decent.” Lydia said softly.
Matteo glanced toward the narrow staircase leading upward. “Hmph, barely.”
Lydia’s eyes narrowed slightly as she considered his words. “That’s more than we’ve had.”
Outside, the wind strengthened rapidly, rattling loose and brittle branches against the side of the house. The sound echoed strangely through the empty rooms.
Lydia turned toward one of the windows. Beyond the glass were visible open fields partially consumed by winter growth, bordered by dark forest at the edges where visibility disappeared entirely. She saw no neighboring houses. And also… no roads close enough for some passing travelers to notice them easily. The house was far from the official routes.
Matteo removed his gloves carefully, flexing stiff fingers afterward before walking toward the fireplace. He crouched near it, inspecting old ash with serious concentration.
“An old house indeed…” He said eventually.
Lydia looked at him tentatively. He met her gaze only briefly before returning his attention to the hearth.
“However, I think it is quite suitable for living.” Matteo’s words were calm and composed, yet Lydia’s mind couldn’t escape from the harsh realities from the past weeks.
Nothing had truly ended. Seraphine was gone from reach, but not erased entirely from consequence. Entire regions of Aurelion remained unstable socially, politically and emotionally.
And neither Lydia nor Matteo possessed enough strength left to continue moving endlessly through the wreckage of it all.
Lydia crossed the room slowly and sat near the wall, her exhaustion finally became heavier than pride or arrogance. Her body ached constantly now… in ways she had stopped trying to separate into categories. Everything… Hunger, cold, stress, memory, grief, survival. All of it had blended together until fatigue itself became physical.
Matteo lit the fireplace in silence with his first attempt failing. And only the second caught weakly. Orange light flickered unevenly across the room, insulating the old walls of the house.
Lydia watched the fire build slowly, the light shining through her hazel eyes. “You think anyone will come looking here?” She inquired patiently, watching Matteo.
Matteo considered the question carefully. “You mean… for us?”
She nodded warily, stroking her chin: “Yes, that’s what I mean!”
“I do not think so.” That certainty in his voice unsettled her more than reassurance would have. Meanwhile, the fire cracked softly.
Lydia’s gaze shifted towards the opaque windows, observing the deepening darkness across the fields. Eventually Matteo sat opposite her, resting his forearms against his knees. Lydia wondered about how would the next day pass in this house…
The next morning inside the house came. It felt odd and awkward. Because… For so long, Lydia had learned to wake up (every day) with a forced awareness of her obligations already suffocating her body before her eyes opened completely, the Palace taught her about this and then the streets did.
Even during travel with Matteo, there had always been movement waiting for them the moment dawn arrived—another road with another problem, and another conversation carrying consequences larger than either of them wanted to admit.
Strangely… in this house nothing waited for Lydia. The silence each morning remained intact no matter how long she listened to it. She was used to hearing constant background sound.
The first time she woke in the narrow upstairs room, she thought for several seconds that she had overslept some urgent obligation. That panicked sensation struck so sharply she sat upright immediately, with her pulse quickening before she fully understood why.
She looked at the space around her: Cold grey light filtered weakly through the old curtains. Dust drifted slowly through the air. The house creaked softly beneath the distant wind…
She no longer heard any footsteps inside or unexpected shouting. Lydia remained sitting there longer, still processing everything that just happened, staring toward the door as if expecting someone to burst through it with orders she had forgotten to follow.Wait… nothing really happened?
Eventually she stood up, hearing only the floor beneath her feet groaning quietly as she crossed the room and opened the door halfway. Her eyes moved automatically toward the staircase, then the front entrance below.
She was already in motion: checking possible exits, maybe even checking whether she could reach the nearest shotgun fast enough if someone entered unexpectedly.
Then, after several months she realized that it wasn’t normal. The habit, ultimately, began to irritate her more.
During that exact time, downstairs… Matteo was already awake (аnd besides, a long time ago).He stood near the kitchen counter with one sleeve rolled carelessly to his elbow while attempting to repair one of the cabinet hinges using tools he had found hidden beneath old cloth in the storage room. Judging by the expression on his focused face, the cabinet was winning.
Lydia paused near the bottom of the stairs. “Do you know that you’re going to split the wood if you keep forcing it like that?”
Without looking back, Matteo replied; “Good morning to you too.” He always seemed to tolerate that kind of “miss—I—know—everything” attitude, which was common in Lydia’s behaviour.
Yet, Lydia persisted stubbornly: “The hinge is crooked.”
“I swear, it was crooked before I touched it.” He tried to reply back, to give a good argument.
She sighed in faux exasperation: “Your words still lack any reason and do not improve your argument.”
“However, it improves my current emotional state.” He gave her a benign smile, almost earning a reaction from Lydia.
She moved past him toward the small stove near the opposite wall, wrapping a woolen blanket tighter around herself against the cold lingering through the house. Even with the fireplace lit most evenings, the rooms never held warmth properly. The entire house seemed to allow winter air to enter through its walls.
Matteo stepped back from the cabinet after another failed attempt. The door immediately fell sideways. He stared at it in silence…
Lydia watched him for a moment (as if studying a new specimen) before quietly reaching for the kettle.
“And now you broke it.” She observed coldly, assessing his every move, waiting for his reply.
“Hey, can’t you see? I improved its openness.” He replied back, his voice taunting and almost wry.
“I think you simply destroyed it.” Lydia commented impassively, stating obvious facts.
“… It was emotionally weak.” Matteo countered with a classic smart-aleck remark.
That time, the corner of Lydia’s mouth shifted slightly before she could stop it. She nearly snickered when he said that this cabinet hinge might be emotionally sensitive. He stole a glance from her, noticing her unexpected reaction. So he forced himself to say nothing about it.
And it became an often gesture in their relationship, no one wanted to acknowledge small things anymore (that we’re already clear).
In this rhythm, the next days of the week followed; usually full of tedious and exhausting routines that neither of them wanted to discuss. Matteo repaired what he could, or maybe he attempted to?
Most mornings he disappeared outside shortly after sunrise carrying with him scavenged tools, returning hours later with freezing hands and new damage to complain about.
Even after his work, the fence line surrounding the property had nearly collapsed entirely in some places, a part of the roof leaked during rain and one shutter refused to remain attached no matter how many times he tried to fix it.
Lydia occasionally watched him from the window while pretending not to… Whenever she caught him noticing her stares, Lydia would instantly dart back from the frame, a reaction that genuinely entertained him.
But he… approached every task with the same stubborn concentration regardless of whether he understood what he was doing. Sometimes he succeeded through persistence alone. Other times Lydia would discover his mistakes later and fix them herself without telling him about it.
The next Monday, she found him trying to repair one of the water barrels near the house using melted candle wax. She stared at him for several long seconds, with one of those scrutinizing stares that she always used when she looked at him.
“Matteo? What are you doing…? That cannot work!”
He hit her with a ridiculous question, already betting on whether she’d grace him with a real answer or just roll her eyes. “Oh, you always say these things with… very little optimism! Why?”
She glanced at him, genuinely stunned by his audacity: “Very simple: because it is an absurd idea. You cannot psychically seal a cracked barrel with melted wax.”
“It is surely an innovative idea!” He retorted with pride swelling in his chest, completely missing the stream of water currently soaking the grass.
Lydia smirked, pointing down. “Look! It’s leaking onto your boot.”
He glanced downward, his confidence faltering. Meanwhile, the barrel continued dripping steadily.
“Oops…” He muttered, barely audiable. Then, flashing a crooked and charming grin, he added: ”I meant… a temporary solution.”
Lydia sighed softly, she brushed past him, and disappeared into the storage room, returning moments later with a handful of old resin strips salvaged from the abandoned supplies. Matteo took then silently. He was ashamed to acknowledge that she had helped him. But… that too became normal.
After a week, the silence inside the house had carried tension. Both of them began to listen to each other very attentively. They were both waiting unconsciously for a kind of interruption. But after several days passed without immediate danger finding them again, the silence softened into calmness.
Living together meant, inevitably, that they had to feed themselves. Their early attempts at cohabitation culinary arts, were painfully and tragically simple.
Their first attempt at cooking together nearly filled the entire house with smoke after Matteo insisted he understood how to regulate the stove properly.
Their first real try nearly turned the house into a smokehouse, mostly because Matteo insisted he knew exactly how to regulate the old black stove. In truth, he absolutely didn’t…
Lydia frantically opened both windows, coughing through the haze, Matteo defended himself. “I'm telling you, it wasn't my fault. That pan clearly had a defect.”
“The defect,” Lydia replied flatly while scraping burnt remains into a wooden bowl. “was your complete lack of judgment.”
“That was a personal jab.”
He admitted, raising his hands in a gesture of peace, though the same defiant spark still danced in his eyes.
“But look on the bright side: at least I can multitask.”
Lydia spun around to face him, her back tense and her eyes narrowed with a mix of anger and distrust. She slammed the dishcloth down on the old wooden countertop, inadvertently splashing a few drops of water onto the floor.
“What are you talking about?” She burst out, raising her voice slightly as her cheeks flushed with indignation and something entirely else. “You almost poisoned us both.”
Matteo ran a hand through his tousled hair, leaving a fine streak of soot on his forehead that completely ruined his image as a misunderstood chef.
He made a casual wave of his hand, trying to downplay the disaster around them. “It was just one failed meal…”
He snorted, leaning casually against the edge of the table, though the smell of burning lingering in the air blatantly contradicted him.
“Those potatoes were completely black…” Lydia accused, pointing an finger at the pot where a few charred, unrecognizable lumps lay.
“I seasoned them.” He retorted quickly, raising his eyebrows with utter seriousness, as if that were supposed to save the day.
Lydia took a step toward him, placing her hands on her hips, her expression a mix of exasperation and laughter. “With what? Fire!?”
Even Matteo laughed quietly at that. … Later that evening they ate the salvaged portions anyway, seated across from each other near the fireplace while cold wind moved softly against the windows outside. The meal itself tasted terrible, thanks to Matteo; but they didn’t complain that much.
Maybe it was because there was something strangely tolerable about their shared failure when no larger disaster followed it (unlike before). Lydia found herself slowly becoming aware of the details she had never previously noticed during constant movement.
Matteo always tapped his fingers lightly against surfaces while thinking. He checked the locks twice before sleeping even though no one knew where they were.
Whenever a strong wind struck the side of the house unexpectedly, his attention moved immediately toward the sound without interrupting whatever conversation they were having. He was always listening and alert. Lydia recognized the behavior because, of course, she was doing the same thing.
… One night, well past midnight, Lydia suddenly woke from a deep sleep. The air in the room was cold, and the silence of the house seemed very heavy. What had jolted her awake was an almost imperceptible movement, it was a muffled rustling coming from downstairs.
For a few long seconds, pure instinct took control over reason. And because of that, her body reacted before her mind could process the situation. Before she was fully awake, she was already halfway between the bed and the door.
She stopped abruptly in the dark hallway, holding her breath. A muffled murmur drifted up from the ground floor, followed by a half-mouthed curse, full of resentment. It was Matteo’s voice.
The tension drained from his muscles instantly, leaving in its place a warm weariness and a slight irritation. Lydia descended the wooden stairs with slow steps, avoiding the spots she knew would creak.
When she reached the main room, the sight before her made her stop in the doorway. Matteo was kneeling on the stone floor, right in front of the fireplace.
… The dim light of a few glowing embers outlined his frantic and tall silhouette. He was desperately trying, with a piece of cardboard and a poker, to block the wave of gray smoke that uncontrollably poured back into the room instead of rising up the chimney.
The chimney was partially blocked. Apparently, last week’s repair had been nothing but an illusion. The soft sound of her footsteps made him start. Matteo turned toward her, his face partially lit by the reddish reflections of the embers and smudged with soot on one cheek.
He looked like a soldier defeated in an absurd battle with his own home. “Before you say anything at all.”
He muttered in a low tone, yet full of bitter resignation. “I want you to know that I am perfectly aware of how humiliating this situation is.”
“I wasn’t going to say something but… you practically burned the kitchen yesterday.” Lydia leaned against the doorframe, folding her arms across her chest. Although the room was beginning to smell of beechwood smoke, the corners of her mouth turned up in a subtle smile. “You nearly scared me.”
“That was an unrelated humiliation, Lydia.” He responded, still trying to fix the vent. Lydia crouched beside him, adjusting the vent mechanism with more force than he had been using. The smoke lessened slightly.
Matteo leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms as he watched her work for a moment. The firelight flickered, casting dancing shadows against the walls of the dusty room, illuminating the determined set of Lydia’s jaw. “You know…” He said eventually, his voice breaking the silence, low and laced with a teasing lilt;
“For someone who constantly criticizes my methods, you are suspiciously willing to fix them afterward. Does that mean something?”
Lydia didn't even look up from the fireplace, where she was currently battling a stubborn grate. "I just want us to survive a month in this house, Matteo.”
“That sounded almost affectionate… so affectionate.” He hummed, moving closer, his boots silent on the floorboards.
She paused, looking up at him with a sharp glare, though her eyes were tired. "I didn't mean it to be. Don't flatter yourself..."
Matteo chuckled, the sound was low and smooth, it seemed to fill the cold room. “Then, it might be very tragic — if we can not even survive a month in this house. Such a shame to waste all this… interaction.”
Lydia tried to glare harder, tried to summon the cold indifference she usually relied on… And then, unexpectedly, Lydia laughed sincerely.
It was just a brief and sharp sound that escaped her lungs before she could stop it, shattering the tension. The room immediately fell quiet afterward...
Lydia herself looked faintly startled, as if the reaction had belonged to someone else entirely. She looked away, her eyes widening, the breath catching in her throat as she realized she had let her guard down. The amusement vanished from her face almost instantly, replaced by a guarded and tense look. She turned her attention back toward the fireplace very quickly, overcorrecting and sending a fire poker clattering to the hearth.
Matteo said nothing: again. He didn't mock her laugh, nor did he rush to fill the silence with another tease. But something subtle changed after that... there was less tension between them.
He simply picked up the poker, handing it to her with a look that was, for once, entirely gentle. So there was still something human remaining intact even after exhaustion and distance?
"For what it's worth, you're doing a fantastic job with that fire." He said softly, backing away to give her room.
Lydia’s shoulders dropped half an inch, and a tiny, reluctant smile played on her lips that she didn't care to hide this time. “Just keep the coffee brewing, and we might actually make it."
In the middle of the second week, the weather worsened gradually, altering the atmosphere surrounding the house. The skies remained heavy most mornings, pale clouds stretched low across the horizon like an unfinished decoration hanging over the valley.
Frost gathered thicker along the windows now. Wind moved constantly through the trees surrounding the property, carrying with it the distant sound of branches scraping against one another in a never ending rhythm.
The world beyond the house continued to exist and this certain detail was becoming harder to ignore with each passing day. One morning, Lydia sat near the window, drinking her coffee (that Matteo made her — from yesterday's promise).
Then, her eyes focused… She saw a few travelers. Yet, the roads near the property remained too isolated for regular change of location, but occasionally distant figures appeared along the external paths marching through the valley toward smaller northern settlements.
It was mostly traders, sometimes messengers. Once, a family moving south with most of their belongings packed onto a single cart.
… One evening, after returning from the nearest trading post nearly two hours away, Matteo entered the house carrying a sack of supplies beneath one arm while brushing snow from his coat with the other.
Lydia sat stiffly in the high-backed chair near the fireplace, the dying embers casted hollow shadows across her face. Her needle moved with a sharp and obsessive rhythm, mending a blanket whose stitching had unraveled, it was a task that allowed her to avoid looking at him. Without raising her head, she asked, her voice tight and dangerously calm, “How bad was it this time?”
Matteo closed the door, moving with exaggerated care, as if he were trying to keep the silence of the room from escaping. He allowed his hand to linger on the iron door handle as he let out a long, shaky breath that seemed to deflate his entire frame while he crossed the entryway. “That depends.”
“On what?” She inquired, her voice holding a brittle edge of interest. She kept knitting, her gaze remained fixed entirely on the fraying wool, her knuckles were turning white around the needle.
“I could tell you… Whether you enjoy hearing reassuring news about social collapse.” He replied, his tone now serious, completely devoid of the mocking edge, present a few days ago.
Lydia’s hand paused in mid-air, for a second, before resuming its frantic pace. She glanced at him, a passing look that was devoid of warmth, searching his face for something she didn’t want to find. “So it is… worse than usual?”
“Considerably…” He murmured, his gaze falling to the floor. He approached and set the supplies onto the table before removing his gloves with slow movements stiffened by cold.
His expression carried that particular distance she had started recognizing whenever he returned from outside conversations… like concentration layered over unease.
Lydia froze, the needle suspended just a few millimeters from the rough blanket. The silence that fell between them was so heavy that all that could be heard was the crackling of the flames in the fireplace, devouring the dry birch wood.
She felt her throat tighten, dry, as if the dust from outside had filled her lungs, but she refused to cough. She forced her fingers to remain still on the weather-stained wool, though her heart was pounding with a muffled violence in her chest. “What happened?”
Matteo didn’t answer her right away. He peeled his back away from the heavy wooden door and began to move toward the hearth, but his steps were slow. The soles of his muddy boots left dark marks on the polished plank floor, but neither of them looked down.
He reached the blazing heat, but did not sit down on the empty chair that awaited him. He stiffly remained standing, His gaze was fixed somewhere above the flames, stubbornly refusing to meet Lydia’s eyes.
“There is one more district, near the southern part of Viremont, where the records have once again failed to match the people.”
He said in a controlled voice, from which he had stripped away any trace of panic.
Lydia felt a sudden tightening in her stomach, the feeling made her lose her focus for a second. Her eyebrows shifted slightly to the sides, forming a deep, fine crease between her eyes.
“I thought the situation had stabilized there.” She said, forcing her voice to sound firm.
“That’s what everyone thought.” Matteo replied without blinking, continuing to stare at the flames casting orange reflections on his tired, young face. His tone was devoid of any emotion,his reply was a simple statement of an absurd reality that was slipping beyond their control.
Lydia finally let the blanket slip from her lap onto the floor, completely abandoning her mask of indifference. She straightened her back, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Well?” She pressed seriously.
Matteo slowly pulled one hand out of his pocket and ran his fingers through his tousled brown hair. He took a deep breath.
“And now, it seems that three families are insisting that they have always lived in houses that, legally speaking, belong to completely different people.”
Lydia snorted briefly, refusing to accept the profound words; it was much safer for her own sanity to seek a logical explanation, however miserable it might be. She clenched her fingers on the fabric of her sleeves… “This could just be administrative corruption…”
She declared with false confidence. “Someone forged the documents to take their land. Am I right?”
“It could be.” Matteo agreed in a gentle whisper.
“Except that the owners themselves remember things completely differently every few hours.”
The room fell silent for a moment. Lydia lowered her eyes back toward the blanket in her hands, though her fingers had stopped moving. “How is that even possible now?”
“I do not know, but it shouldn’t be.” After his reply, he let out a huff. His wording appeared very strange…
“Shouldn’t”? But why not impossible? Lydia hated how uncertain language had become across the kingdom. Nothing remained trustworthy anymore. People were uncertain of how to respond or give others information.
Matteo finally collapsed into the chair across from her, slumping back with a weight that appeared to crush his bones.
“The merchants were avoiding the routes on the west as well.” He said with his voice being hoarse and flat.
Lydia froze, her fingers stopped sewing again: “Why?”
“I heard a rumor that a touring caravan disappeared.”
Lydia looked up sharply, feeling a cold shiver run down her spine. Her gaze locked onto Matteo’s eyes, searching for a trace of hesitation, a sign that he was joking. “How did they disappear?”
“I don’t know.” He replied, pretending as if he didn’t know the hidden motive for the sudden disappearance.
“Tell me the actual truth, Matteo.” Lydia retorted sharply, trying with all her might to mask her growing panic beneath a mask of rigid authority. The line of her shoulders tensed violently.
“They only told me about it…” He whispered, clenching his teeth.
Matteo slowly ran a rough hand over his face, covering his eyes for a few seconds, as if trying to wipe a nightmarish image from his mind. When he lowered his hand, his skin was pale in the dim light.
“It seems the wagons were found abandoned near the pass on the edge of Halden Ward.” He continued, forcing his voice to remain calm, though his fingers trembled slightly on the arm of the chair.
“The supplies were untouched. I saw… the gold and the goods — everything was there. The horses were still tied up, but they were left to starve in their harnesses. I didn’t even see a drop of blood, without a sign of a struggle.”
Lydia felt her breath catch. She couldn’t understand why the absence of violence was more terrifying than the bloodiest massacre and why it suggested a pure and absolute force.
“What happened to the people?” She asked, her heart pounding wildly in her chest.
Matteo fixed his gaze on her, locking her eyes in a visual grip that lasted a second far too long. “They are all gone.”
The fire cracked sharply between them. Lydia stared into the flames without really seeing them.
For several days now she had noticed small things that unsettled her enormously. Conversations in her mind repeated precisely, word by word, usually between strangers. Reports traveling across regions with details arranged almost identically despite supposedly unrelated circumstances.
Absences, instability… and always… always forgetting. She hated that it reminded her of Seraphine. Because there wasn’t any proof. Nothing directly connected back to her anymore. She didn’t discover any sightings, confirmations or evidence strong enough to build to tell the truth.
The Cardinale kingdom ignored everything. As though invisible hands had once rearranged too many pieces for the world to settle naturally afterward.
Lydia’s movements were agonizingly deliberate, her hands tracing the rough weave of the blanket, smoothing out wrinkles that didn't exist just to give her fingers something to do.
“Do you think that Seraphine is involved?
Matteo’s expression shifted, a tightening around the eyes, a muscle jumping in his jaw, but it was enough to make her heart stutter.
“I think.” He said, agonizing over the words before they left his lips, “That too many things are still behaving exactly according to her methods.”
“Stop talking like it is the same thing.” Lydia snapped, looking away from him, clutching her own elbows, trying to hold herself together…
“Yes...” His voice was flat, devoid of comfort.
“But you still think it is...” She turned back, glaring at him, desperate for him to deny it, to give her something, anything, else to believe in.
He didn't answer immediately. He leaned forward, the wood of his chair groaning under the sudden weight, resting his forearms against his knees and invading her space with his certainty.
“I think someone taught the kingdom how to adapt to unpredictable turns of events.”
He said, his voice barely a whisper now, yet it carried across the room like a cold draft. “And now? Even without her present, parts of it continue doing it on their own.”
The words settled heavily in the room, suffocating the air, sinking into the floorboards. Lydia hated how terrifyingly reasonable they sounded. She wanted to yell, to argue, to smash something, but his logic was a cage she couldn’t find the bars to break.
Then, Matteo glanced toward her hands, his eyes tracking the motion. “You stopped sewing ten minutes ago.”
“I noticed.” She replied calmly.
“And also… you’re holding the needle upside down.”
Lydia looked down, her gaze tracking the silver and sharp tip of the needle pressed into the soft and trembling flesh of her thumb. The dull end pointing up. He was right… Again!
She exhaled a shuddering breath, a half-sob, and set the needle aside, the small metallic clink sounding final in the awkward silence.
Matteo watched her with a fixed attention, analyzing every twitch of her tense shoulders. When he spoke again, his voice lost its political harshness and became intimate.
“Lydia… How long were you awake last night?”
Lydia didn’t know how to answer. She stared at the spot on the table where she’d left the needle, feeling the fatigue that had built up over the last few weeks weigh on her eyelids like hot lead. She could feel Matteo’s gaze on her skin like a painful burn… “Long enough.”
“This is no accident.” He stated, his tone changing to a more compassionate one.
Lydia retorted, rubbing her temples once more to soothe the never-ending fatigue. “I know…”
Her reply was sharp, a desperate attempt to raise the defensive walls again that he was tearing down so easily.
Matteo, however, didn’t flinch. He merely tensed, his concern deepened, mixed with the frustration of seeing her destroy herself. "I saw how last night you were wandering around the house again."
Lydia’s jaw clenched; her lips quirkled into a rigid line of stubbornness and betrayed vulnerability. She felt exposed, hunted in her own nocturnal isolation. “Did you hear that?”
“All I can say is that the floorboards heard it.” He replied, and his tone suddenly softened, becoming almost vulnerable. “I just happened to be nearby.”
His words implied more than mere coincidence; he was acknowledging, without saying so directly, that he, too, had been unable to sleep, watching her ghostly footsteps through the darkness.
Lydia turned her gaze to the window, avoiding his eyes, which read her far too easily — like an open book. Beyond the cold glass, the darkness of the night had already begun to swallow the fields outside… “Stop saying that. I wasn’t sleepy.”
“That’s not true.” He returned unexpectedly.
Lydia opened her mouth to protest, and to lie again, but the heavy air in the room and his overwhelming presence left her defenseless. Her shoulders slumped, even more exhausted.
“You are right.” She admitted after a moment’s hesitation, her voice losing all trace of defiance. “It isn’t.”
Silence settled between them moreover. This time, however, it was a pure silence, stripped of secrets… and painfully honest.
Finally, Matteo stood up, he walked over to the corner of the kitchen, where the heavy cast-iron kettle sat next to the stove. His footsteps echoed muffled on the old floorboards.
"I expected you to be a little more excited that you're safe."
Lydia leaned back slightly against the wooden chair, seeking a physical distance she lacked on an emotional level. Her back ached from so much stiffness.
“Who says that’s safety?”
Matteo paused for a split second, the kettle suspended above the burner and he placed the pot on the burner with a sudden move.
“Let’s suppose it is distance from the extern world.”
“That’s a completely different thing.” She shot back.
“I know.” He agreed, his voice so low it barely covered the crackle of the first sparks. He lit the stove with exaggerated care, focusing on the blue flame as if his life depended on it.
He continued speaking without turning toward her, refusing to give her the advantage of seeing the look in his eyes. “But you haven’t relaxed even once since we got here.”
Lydia opened her mouth with a defensive response already forming on her lips to dismiss his observation. Then she stopped, abruptly…
The words caught in her throat because her inner truth collided with his harsh reality. He was right! Every morning, before her mind was fully awake, her eyes instinctively scanned the exits from the room. They checked the windows, trying to find a possible way of how to escape and run away from her problems and worries.
Every unfamiliar sound (a creak of a beam or a louder rustle of the wind in the yard) instantly sharpened her attention. Even now, sitting in that miserable chair, in a house cut off from the world, part of her remained tense, like a bow drawn to its limit. But why? They had forgotten what it was like to live any other way. She simply no longer knew how not to be prey.
She was pathetic, helpless, because of this realization that hit her every day. Her rage against her own body increased; she refused to believe that the war was over.
Matteo turned his head slightly over his shoulder.
“You know what I think?”
Lydia pouted, letting out a sob along with it. She clenched her teeth and murmured: “That depends entirely on the likelihood that this conversation will turn into yet another lecture about my chronic inability to rest!”
“Hey—hey… Look, it is just an observation!” He replied, the corner of his mouth lifting in a faint attempt at a smile.
“How generous of you.” She hissed at him, clenching her jaw.
Matteo raised his hands in “that futile gesture” attempting to brighten her. “I’m just doing what I can.”
Lydia rolled her eyes weakly, this brief gesture meant to mask the fact that her heart had begun to beat faster.
Matteo turned back to the stove, adjusting the flame that now caressed the cast-iron base of the kettle. He let a few seconds of silence settle, allowing the tension to build before striking right where it hurt the most.
“I think you don’t know who you are when no one is watching you.” Then he giggled.
The statement took her breath away. She felt as if the floor had collapsed beneath her feet. Matteo wanted to tell her the truth. And it stripped her of all her excuses.
Lydia stared intently at the orange circle of the fire for a few long seconds, feeling the flames dance in her eyes, but failing to warm the ice in her soul. When she spoke, her voice had lost all trace of sarcasm, dropping to a vulnerable whisper.
“… And what exactly am I supposed to do with that?”
Matteo didn’t offer a quick answer. He weighed the question with solemn gravity; “I don’t know.”
She loudly snorted, nearly baring her teeth in agitation.“That’s extremely encouraging!”
“I didn’t say it was encouraging.” Between them, the kettle began to make a soft hissing sound.
Lydia crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself so tightly it was as if she were trying to keep the pieces of herself from scattering across the floor.
“My whole life...”
Lydia finally said, letting the words flow slowly, especially weighed down by the fatigue of the years she had spent as nothing more than a pawn on someone else’s chessboard, it was tragic — to say at least.
“…Has been nothing but reacting to orders I received. There was always another problem waiting for me just around the corner, before I collapsed. There was never an empty space where I could stop and breathe or even to rest.”
Matteo listened to her without interrupting, giving her for the first time the gift of his full attention, free of judgment…
“And now…?” She continued, feeling a painful yet familiar dryness in her throat that made it hard to swallow. That dryness usually occurred before she cried…
“Now it’s just...” She raised a trembling hand, making a vague, helpless gesture toward the entire isolated house that surrounded them like a prison of false peace. “Just that.” She sobbed.
Matteo shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “And that bothers you deeply?”
“Yes, it bothers me!” She exclaimed, ready to demonstrate her point of view.
Then, Matteo asked, sincerely: “Why?”
Lydia opened her mouth to reply, but the words had melted away before they took shape, because the raw truth paralyzed her: she didn’t know exactly why it bothered her so much. Or perhaps, in a dark and well-hidden corner of her mind, she knew exactly and hated that answer with all her heart.
Why? Indeed, why!? Because… Without the threat of the sword forcing her to act, an abyss had opened up inside her soul. There was too much empty space left in her own thoughts, which resulted in silence that brought all the memories of the past to the surface. She simply had to exist as herself, as Lydia, instead of being just a perfect pawn obeying the Cardinale Kingdom.
She had looked at herself in the broken mirror in the hallway over the last few days and seen a stranger with eyes drained of meaning and emption. She was beginning to realize that she had absolutely no idea who that person, in front of the mirror, stripped of her maid uniform, truly was.
Finally, the kettle began to whistle very loudly. Matteo turned quickly and took it off the stove before the noise grew too loud. Hot steam rose in thick waves, smelling of wild mint, dried herbs, and fresh earth. Yet Lydia still couldn’t forget the sharp odor of gunpowder and blood…
“You don’t have to figure all this out right away. It is alright.” He said after a long silence, watching the steam drift lazily toward the wooden ceiling.
Lydia let out a dry snort, devoid of any trace of humor, filled with a bitterness gathered over years of disillusionment. She was mad at his wishful thinking. “That sounds dangerously optimistic, Matteo. Even by your absurd standards!”
“I didn’t mean it to sound optimistic at all, Lydia.” He began slowly pouring the hot water into two old and thick ceramic mugs that were chipped at the edges.
“It could totally be a reassurance from me. Words that you can hold onto when you feel yourself falling apart.”
Lydia looked at him intently, trying to see what secrets lay behind that mask of absolute calm and kindheartedness. Matteo lifted the two mugs, turned toward her, and handed her the one with the fewest chips. He let the warmth of the ceramic pass directly from his calloused fingers to hers.
Then he sat back down on the wooden and cold chair on the other side of the table, maintaining safe physical distance. The light of the fire danced erratically across Matteo’s face again.
“Listen to me. I don’t think this state is permanent either.” He admitted in a faint voice, staring intently at the steam rising from his mug. “Do not fear the darkness and the unknown. We’ll face it…”
Lydia studied him with serious attention. She knew exactly what kind of mask he wore when talking to her. “Do you listen to the noises outside every night?”
Matteo cast a brief, instinctive glance at the black windows through which nothing could be seen but their own reflection and the glow of the flames in the stove. “Yes.”
“I know the fact that you still keep a scattergun hidden by the door.” Lydia insisted, raising an eyebrow at his permanent and sometimes, unnecessary vigilance.
“That’s also true.” He replied, not even bothering to hide the truth.
At least he was honest... Matteo wasn’t trying to console her with comforting lies or empty promises of safety, and this brutal honesty was the only real lifesaver Lydia had left in that confusing world.
But despite the confusion and despite the alarming rumors spreading like a noxious plague in the distant regions of the broken kingdom —
And regardless of how ludicrous it sounded, but: Matteo continued to repair the rickety chairs and old wooden tables in this abandoned house. He… even continued to make them tea every evening!
Matteo had understood that they needed to temporarily accept peace, maybe to enjoy the warmth of a deceptive cup of tea; it was something entirely different from blindly believing in chaos.
Lydia gasped desperately for air, her sudden intake of breath piercing the quiet as she bolted upright in a cold sweat. The memories rushed back in—yet, they felt as sharp as if they were happening right in front of her. She remained motionless beneath the blankets for a long moment, staring up at the pale ceiling as the last vestiges of the nightmare dissolved around her.
Every single day was the same harrowing loop... It was a never-ending cycle where the details played out in vivid detail. She could hear the rain splashing against the bedroom window and image Matteo sitting by the warmth of the fireplace, resting on his favorite old brown sofa. Just as the scene faded in her mind, the whisper came again, telling her:
“She’s doing it again.” It definitely was referring to Seraphine.
For days now, Lydia had desperately tried to break the loop. She still saw and heard the rhythmic tapping of the rain outside her window that felt like a timer counting down the moments until Matteo's disappearance from the room.
She pulled the heavy wool blanket closer to her chest, her knuckles turned white. She still saw the distinct memory of the fireplace's embers, the image brought her a physical ache. The scent of the burning cedar and the way Matteo used to trace the edge of his teacup before the shadows closed in on them.
Seraphine. That name had already changed Lydia’s life entirely. Her name was implied again. Lydia sat upright immediately.
The room was dim, as usual, washed grey by weak morning light filtering through frost-clouded glass. She heard Matteo downstairs; the sound of cabinet doors opening, followed by the scrape of wood against wood.
Her memory remained completely intact — but it wasn’t ordinary. Because most dreams blurred at the edges within moments of waking. Even mundane recollections softened slightly over time, details shifted naturally. However, this memory was totally preserved, and it felt real.
(…)
The fall of Queen Evelyne Ardent was marked administratively, like the final stamp on a long-outdated ledger. The kingdom, already fractured and exhausted from months of unrest, did not celebrate with parades or public executions.
Instead, the dethronement unfolded in the shadowed halls of the Nightfall Palace through closed councils, whispered agreements, and carefully worded proclamations that spoke of “voluntary abdication for the good of the realm”.
Lydia and Matteo learned of it through fragmented reports that reached their remote house in Eldermere Vale weeks after the fact. A traveling merchant, half-drunk on cheap wine, recounted the news while warming himself by their hearth one stormy evening.
“T—They say she stepped down…” He slurred, staring into the fire. “Uhmm… signed the papers. Handed the Crown to a regency council. After all the records started failing and people began remembering things they shouldn’t.”
Lydia sat motionless in her chair, the mending needle still in her hand. Matteo stood by the window, his back to the room, watching the rain lash against the glass.
The Queen had been accused of maintaining and abusing the “reality stabilization system”. The public narrative painted her as the architect of the quiet horror: the one who had altered records, shaped perception, and controlled truth for political dominance. She had become the face of the system that had quietly consumed generations of children to keep the kingdom from tearing itself apart.
But the deeper truth, the one only a few understood, was far more complicated. Evelyne Ardent had not created the system.
She simply had inherited it. She had spent decades trying to hold its failing machinery together, slowing the cycles, searching for a way to dismantle it without triggering total collapse. She had been a prisoner of the same system she was now blamed for building.
Her downfall was quiet. One morning the banners changed. The royal seal was quietly replaced. A regency council of nobles took control “until a suitable successor could be found”.
Evelyne was moved to a secluded wing of the palace under the polite fiction of “rest and recovery”. The kingdom pretended it was a peaceful transition. In truth, it was the final admission that the old lie could no longer be sustained.
The consequences arrived faster than anyone expected. Without the rituals and the quiet administrative suppression that had kept collective memory in check, the kingdom began to destabilize in ways no one had prepared for.
Memories resurfaced unevenly, violently. People woke in the middle of the night remembering children who had never officially existed. Villages discovered entire families listed as “never born” in the archives. Old lies unraveled too quickly, causing societal whiplash.
Riots erupted from raw, disoriented grief. Districts accused each other of hidden complicity. Nobles who had participated in the councils found themselves facing their own servants with new, haunted eyes. Records contradicted lived reality so often that trust in any official document collapsed.
Aurelion, already fragile, fractured hardest. Smoke rose constantly from the capital now. Bells rang at odd hours, some calling for order, others sounding like desperate warnings. Crowds moved through the streets in restless waves, searching for answers no one could give. The monarchy survived, but it was no longer untouchable.
Queen Evelyne, from her secluded wing, became a symbol of both guilt and reluctant necessity. She had held the dam together. Now the flood was coming.
Lydia and Matteo watched all of this from their remote house in Eldermere Vale, receiving updates through cautious travelers and encrypted messages from what remained of their networks.
The system they had helped break was gone. But nothing has replaced it yet. They had not saved the kingdom… They had simply given it the terrifying chance to become something else.
In the interim, Seraphine Wren had not been seen in months. Her absence was another form of theatrical presence. Lydia and Matteo began noticing it in small, disturbing ways.
A witness they had carefully cultivated in Aurelion suddenly changed his testimony, enough to cast doubt on key details. A document they had duplicated and hidden passed through a minor records node that bore the subtle fingerprints of Seraphine’s old methods.
They described a route they had planned to use for moving sensitive evidence that was “temporarily stabilized” by unknown intervention. Seraphine had never touched their experiment directly. But she had shaped the environment around it.
One evening, as they sat by the fire in the old house, Matteo finally voiced what they both feared.
“She didn’t survive the system. Even now, even gone, she’s still part of its environment. You can’t remove her influence without changing the entire landscape.”
Lydia’s hands tightened around her mug. “She’s testing us. Or protecting something. Or both.”
This realization birthed a deeper, more insidious danger than any direct betrayal. It was the slow erosion of shared reality, even between the two of them. Small disagreements began to appear.
“You said we should leave at first light.” Lydia would insist.
“I said we should wait until midday.” Matteo would reply, frowning.
… The news of the Queen’s quiet abdication reached them fully one cold morning. A traveler, half-frozen, stopped at their door seeking shelter. Over weak tea and stale bread, he recounted the details.
“I heard that the queen wasn’t dragged away. The council simply… restructured. She signed the papers herself.”
Lydia listened in silence, her face pale.
Matteo asked the question that mattered most: “And the people? What do they believe now?”
The traveler shrugged. “Some think she was the monster who kept the system running. Others whisper she was the only thing holding it together. Either way… the dam is now broken.”
Lydia stepped outside after the man left, standing in the cold wind, staring toward the distant horizon where Aurelion lay. The system was broken. But nothing had replaced it.
After some time, when Seraphine finally reappeared, nothing changed. She simply arrived one evening, slipping through the door as if she had never left. Her copper-blonde hair was longer, her red eyes sharper, her movements more precise. The theatrical flair was still there, but subdued.
She did not explain her long absence. Instead, she brought new maps, fresh intelligence, and a quiet warning.
“You know what? You’re both becoming dangerous for the system.” She said one night, sitting across from them by the fire. “Your bond and your shared purpose…. The world resists that kind of certainty now. I’ve been… changing things.”
Lydia’s voice was cold. “You’ve been interfering all this time.”
Seraphine smiled, her words strangely honest. “Of course I have. That’s what I was built to do.”
She did not deny it. She did not apologize. She simply continued shaping the environment around them, believing, in her own twisted way, that their growing attachment was another form of dangerous stability that the fractured kingdom could not afford.
