Tension wrapped around Zephyrion, thick and oppressively smothering. His hands, cold to his sides, shook as if his will would somehow force this storm back. But the cracks in his façade widened with no amount of effort that would mask the weight he kept harbored.
But Nihara was observant, as ever, and she caught the shake in his voice-the faint fracture in an otherwise strong wall. Something inside of her stirred, a twinge of mistrust, a touch of worry that began to crescendo with each second of his pause.
Her gaze tightened, narrowing into slits that seemed to shatter what little frail composure Zephyrion had. "Is there anything I need to know that you're hiding?" she asked, an accusing edge to her tone as her gaze locked onto him like a predator sizing up its prey.
Zephyrion's eyes flickered across the room, seeking any anchor as his confidence shrunk away from her piercing scrutiny. "Ye.No. Not at all," he burst with his hands weaving a quick nervousness in the air as though trying to disperse smoke carrying her suspicion.
Instead, it was the deepening cracks in his facade. Nihara leaned forward a bit, the flimsy frame of her trembling-from the condition or rising emotion was an unclear thing. "Fine then. There's apparently nothing. Please then-let me see my sleeping baby, and I can also retire." Her voice was light yet firm, a stream weaving into every syllable and resolve into it.
And it is then that Zephyrion's heart skipped a beat, the blood just seeming to drain from his face as if hit with a hammer across the chest. His eyes grew wide in barely veiled alarm-a reaction not to go unbeknownst to Nihara. Her previously collected poise started unraveling, a shaking voice laced with fear and anger. "Is there something wrong with that, or. has something happened to my son?" she demanded in an escalating tone, desperation cracking through her resolve.
Zephyrion, sensing the edge in her voice, scrambled to regain control of the situation. "No! What could happen to him within the castle?" he said in a rush, his voice thick with forced reassurance. He added hastily, "I just feel it's dangerous for your body to move right now." But his further betraying trembling hands, now clasped tightly together, fanned the flames of her suspicion.
The argument that followed was a clash of wills between the maternal instincts of Nihara and the desperate need for Zephyrion to protect her from the truth. Their voices rose and fell, filling the room with tension so thick it felt as if the air had turned into lead.
Finally, Zephyrion relented, the weariness in his voice almost palpable as the weight on his shoulders. "What about this-I will go out now and bring him here, but promise me you will not leave this room until I return," he ventured, rising slowly from his seat to his full height, joltingly stiff in his movements, as if weights of invisible chains tugged down his limbs.
Nihara stared him in the face, piercing her gaze through his words. Her trust was already hazy. Yet she nodded. "Fine. But only if you return quickly with the baby."
Zephyrion gave her a sharp nod, the gesture mechanical, as though forced. "Okay. I'll be back soon," he muttered, his voice barely audible as he turned toward the door. Each step away from her felt like a betrayal etched into the stone beneath his feet. As he closed the heavy door behind him, the sound echoed through the halls, a final punctuation to the turmoil left behind.
Outside the room, his mind was in a continuous whirlwind, secrets upon secrets piling high, like an incoming tide, which would drag him down into the depths. Every lie, every omission, was an anchor that pulled his spirit deeper into the depths. What he concealed loomed large, a shadow that followed him with every step, its weight threatening to consume him whole.
Zephyrion stumbled through the corridor, his steps precarious, a fight with chaos at every step. He looked around in both directions, seemingly seeking clarity, before turning to the path that would take him to the gathering room of the royalty. The echoes of his footsteps rebounded in the emptiness, hollow, as if a heart was left alone to beat.
Few moments later, he pushed open the heavy doors to the gathering room, his presence breaking the stillness like a crack of thunder. Inside, Old Man Obsidar sat as he had been since the incident, his figure unmoving, his hands steepled beneath his chin as though holding his wearied head upright. His aged eyes, shadowed with worry, flicked upward the moment the door creaked open.
Has Nyxander's search gone anywhere?" Obsidar asked low, yet taut with urgency, his eyes studying the marks of exhaustion etched in Zephyrion's features.
"No. nothing yet," Zephyrion said, falling into a chair as if weighed down by failure itself. His back slumped back in the clutches of the chair; he was still tense. He had lifted his right elbow to the armrest, supporting his head on his palm as if to restrain his thoughts, which were spiraling out of control.
"Nihara has started suspecting something's wrong," he revealed, his voice breaking under strain as he spoke. "I really wouldn't know where to begin right now." His words trailed off, and he buried his face in his hand as if to protect himself from his growing despair.
Obsidar's voice, old and cracked, shattered the heavy silence like fragile ice. "I believe that good news from this search is on the horizon," he said, his tone, however, a far cry from carrying hope; rather faint and waning.
"Yeah… I hope so," Zephyrion replied, though his voice was drained of conviction. The room was silent, oppressively so. It was the sort of silence that seemed to extend time, making every minute feel like an hour and every hour an eternity as it swallowed the two men.
It felt as if three hours dragged their limbs across the floor, eventually reaching the breaking point as sudden silence was shattered when the door burst open. In an instant, a nanny sprang into the room with alarm on her face, hurried breathing against the stillness loudly pronounced. The two raised their heads up, shocked, glances heavy with foreboding.
"Is everything all right?" Zephyrion asked sharply, an attack that set his nerves off for the surprise.
Not at all, sir," the nanny stammered, her every word tumbling out in a rush, more heavy than the last. "Madam has risen from bed. she is trying hard to come downstairs." Her quivering voice seemed to hold the portent of some dreadful weight about the message itself. "We tried to stop her, but she insists on seeing her son's face and..."
"What?!" Zephyrion cut through her voice, like a blade, sharp and full of urgency. He jumped from his seat, eyes wide in disbelief. "You mean she's walking here. in her weakened state?" His words were half-rhetorical, his panic mounting as he turned to Obsidar. "I need to stop her before this gets out of hand."
Without waiting for a reply, he whirled toward the entrance, urgency driving him forward like a storm. "Let's go!" he called over his shoulder to the nanny, though his feet had already carried him halfway down the corridor before her response could reach him.
Take it easy," Obsidar called after him, his voice growing faint, like a dying ember as Zephyrion and the maid disappeared into the hall. His words hung suspended, swallowed by the echoes of their racing footsteps-a futile attempt at tempering the chaos already afoot.