1 Year 5 Months and 9 Days Until the Fall of House Romulus

  The next morning, they woke him with a knock.

  The same two guards stood outside. They did not chain him, even though he expected it. They did not speak. They just turned and walked, and he followed.

  They crossed the frost-brushed gardens, the air biting at his cheeks, until they reached the edge of a packed dirt yard marked off by white stones. A man in white stood there, sword in hand. He had a short beard and narrow eyes, and his posture was like a drawn bow. A fencing master.

  Mikhael did not wait for an invitation. He stepped into the circle and took the wooden blade offered to him. It felt wrong in his hand, too light and too clean, but his fingers closed around it anyway.

  "Today, and from now on, I will be your teacher, young man," the master said. His accent was noble, clipped and precise. "To be honest, I have not had the pleasure of training a commoner. But I presume our bodies are not that different. I am sure you will do fine."

  His lips twitched, something not quite a smile.

  "I hear you possess quite a talent. Now, shall you give us a glance?"

  Mikhael said nothing. His arms still felt hollowed out from the chamber below. His legs were not steady. But something inside him still moved when he raised the sword. He had never fought for real. Only rough play with Lionel and the boys from the village. Sticks instead of steel.

  This was different.

  But it still felt right, like his body had been waiting for this shape all along.

  They trained until his arms burned and his shirt clung to his back. Footwork. Guard. Strike. Again. Again. Until each movement blurred into the next and his shoulders screamed.

  Only then did the master lower his blade.

  "That will do," he said. "For today."

  The guards took him back inside. Not to the chamber below. Not to the cells. To a room with shelves and scrolls, ink and paper.

  A man sat behind a desk there. He was thin and older, with clean nails and soft hands. The hands of someone who had never known fieldwork.

  "You cannot read, I imagine," the man said without looking up.

  Mikhael did not answer.

  Reading had never been expected of him. Commoners were not taught. Most were not even allowed near books unless it was to carry them. He had never thought much about it before. Out there, it had not mattered.

  Here, with shelves of words behind the man's back, it did. Heat crawled up his neck. Shame.

  "Good," the man said, opening a book. "Then we will begin properly. Lord Duke Romulus has instructed me not to go easy on you, Mikhael."

  He said his name like it was an entry in a ledger.

  Mikhael sat. The letters on the page looked like nothing at first. Hooks. Slashes. Knots of ink.

  He stared.

  "I will learn them all. Then more. Then everything."

  They went slowly. Sound. Shape. Word. The tutor's voice was dry and patient, a steady scrape of instruction. The symbols stopped being nonsense. They began to repeat. They began to mean.

  By the time the man finally closed the book, Mikhael's head ached worse than his arms. But something else pulsed under the exhaustion.

  Interest.

  He did not leave right away.

  Most of the ink shapes had stopped being strange. They had started to speak. The words-built pictures in his mind, clearer than memories, sharper than anything he had seen in the fields or the villages. For a brief moment, he forgot the collar and the seals and the crystals. There was only the page.

  If someone had asked him whether he preferred reading or fencing, the answer would have been easy. Reading.

  "Not that anyone will ask. I do not get to choose. If I want to survive here, if I want to do anything at all, I have to master both. No, I have to excel."

  The thought almost made him smile. He pictured Lionel swinging a stick at boys twice his size, shouting about glory.

  "He would choose the sword without thinking. All heat and pride and swinging for the head."

  Mikhael left the room without waiting to be dismissed. No one stopped him. No one guided him.

  He walked the corridors, half aimless and half restless. The manor was quieter now. The sun had dipped low, throwing that strange golden light that turned dust into stars and made even polished stone look alive.

  He passed one room where the door stood slightly open. Warm light spilled through the gap and cut a bright stripe across the floor.

  He slowed.

  And looked in.

  He hesitated. Then stepped in.

  It was a sitting room. Or something like it. Soft chairs. Shelves. A table in the middle. And on it, a board. Square. Checkered. Small figurines placed in precise rows.

  Mikhael walked closer. He didn't recognise the game, but he knew it wasn't decoration. The figures were too deliberate. He picked one up, studying its shape.

  "Put those down," came a voice behind him.

  Mikhael turned quickly.

  A boy stood in the doorway. His age was hard to place. Maybe younger. Maybe not. Bookish. Dressed in dark layers too formal for the hour. He looked annoyed.

  And he was beautiful. Like something carved from ivory and white marble. Skin so pale it almost glowed, white-blond hair falling soft and straight over his brow, eyes so light they shimmered pink under the lamplight. Everything about him looked delicate. Too delicate for the weight of the house he lived in.

  "I do not want you disrupting my board."

  Mikhael lowered the piece onto the table. Not where it had been. He was not sure of its place.

  The boy sighed and stepped past him. He moved the piece back with a small sound of irritation.

  "It was not there."

  "I am sorry for touching your things. I will go."

  "You are Mikhael, right?" the boy said, stopping him in his tracks.

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  "Yes. Why?"

  "No reason. I was just curious about the new member of our household. My name is Valentin, your master's son."

  Mikhael did not answer. He was not sure if that was a question, or a warning.

  "For someone they claim has such strong talent, you are very quiet," Valentin went on. "Well, you are a commoner, after all. I imagine if you had been born a noble, there would be no end to your pompousness."

  "I do not really know what I am talented in," Mikhael said. "They keep saying that I am, but I do not quite get it. All I know is that they could harvest me more than the others."

  Valentin chuckled softly. "Well, you make it sound rather inconvenient to have that talent of yours."

  He moved to the board and sat beside it, fingers resting lightly on one of the pieces.

  "But that is not what it is. Not for noblemen, at least. For lacking it, they do what they did to you. And what they continue to do."

  He looked Mikhael straight in the eyes. Not with contempt. With something closer to pity.

  "Be careful with it," he said. "I do not know what my father has planned for you, or with you, but you will not be free to use it the way a nobleman would."

  Mikhael held his stare for a moment, then looked down at the board.

  "Even here," he thought, "even in his own house, they speak of him like he is above them."

  "Thank you," Mikhael said, unsure of why the words came out so naturally. A small warmth stirred in him. He didn't trust it. "Why is he showing me kindness? Warning me? I don't doubt he'd do to me what his father does to the rest of the slaves if he were Duke. Maybe he just hasn't shown me his true colors yet."

  Mikhael straightened, remembering who he was speaking to, bowed, and turned as if to leave.

  "Would you not like a game?" Valentin said, almost too casually. "You seemed rather interested in it a moment ago. It gets tiring playing alone most of the time."

  "A game?" Mikhael repeated.

  "Yes. Chess. Sit down and I'll teach you."

  Mikhael hesitated. His first instinct was to decline. This was not a game to him. Nothing here was. But Valentin was already resetting the board, not waiting for an answer. His fingers moved with practiced ease, placing each piece exactly where it belonged.

  Mikhael stepped closer and sat across from him.

  "These ones are pawns," Valentin said, gesturing. "They go forward one square at a time. Except on their first move, then they can go two. Diagonals only when attacking. Got it?"

  Mikhael nodded slowly.

  "This is your king. If you lose him, the game ends. So do not." He pointed to the pieces, naming them off. "Rook. Knight. Bishop. Queen. Each moves differently. You will forget most of it at first, but it will come back if you are not an idiot."

  Valentin did not sound cruel when he said it. Just matter of fact, like someone who was not used to talking to people who did not already know.

  They began.

  Mikhael lost the first match quickly. Too many mistakes. He moved pawns like soldiers, straight forward without care, and they died fast. Valentin did not gloat, but he did seem to enjoy the easy win. He simply reset the board.

  "Again," Valentin said.

  The second match lasted longer. Mikhael watched more, moved less, let the boy come to him. He still lost.

  They played again. And again.

  Mikhael did not enjoy it. Not the game, not the losing. But he wanted to get better.

  There was something in the silence. In the way Valentin focused.

  The board didn't speak, but it meant something. Strategy. Prediction. Power. This wasn't just a game. It was how people like this thought.

  They finished the fifth game. Mikhael had lost all of them. Still, Valentin didn't smile.

  "You're better than I thought you'd be," he said, already resetting the pieces. "Still terrible. But not hopeless."

  They had just begun a new game. Valentin was explaining some idea about controlling the centre of the board, but Mikhael wasn't keeping up. He was still learning how not to move like a fool. Still pretending he didn't care.

  Then the door opened.

  No knock. Just the whisper of silk over stone. Heels clicked once on the marble and stopped.

  Mikhael turned slightly.

  She stood in the doorway like someone had painted her there. Hair coiled tight, not a strand out of place. Eyes sharp, not cold, exactly, but too calculating to be warm. Her skin was pale as winter light, hair like untouched snow, lashes almost invisible, irises a washed-out pink. She wore it all not as a flaw, but as a crown. Proof she was something rare, untouchable. Cold-blooded by design.

  A lace fan rested in one hand, though she didn't seem to need it. She didn't look surprised to see them.

  "Valentin." Her tone was soft. Precise.

  "Mother," he said, glancing up. "We're just playing."

  She stepped into the room without so much as a glance at Mikhael. Her attention stayed on her son.

  "I see."

  A beat. Then her eyes shifted. Slow as ice melt.

  They landed on Mikhael like weight.

  "And I suppose no one told you that feral dogs don't belong inside."

  Mikhael went still.

  Valentin frowned. "We were just—"

  She lifted her hand. He stopped at once.

  "I don't care what he was doing," she said. "He doesn't belong here. You may think this is harmless, but it isn't. You're not playing with a boy, you're inviting a rabid dog to your table."

  Mikhael didn't respond. Didn't move. But he knew this feeling.

  Being looked at, not as a person, but as a problem to measure, sort, and discard.

  "I've been a lot of things," he thought, "but at least the dogs bite back."

  He wished, just for a moment, that she would hit him instead. Kick, punch, anything. Bruises faded. Words like hers did not. The certainty in them made every insult sound like a fact the world had already agreed on.

  "Let her talk," he thought. "I'll make her choke on every word."

  "You don't know what they're capable of," she went on, still speaking only to her son. "They'll smile. They'll bow. And then they'll take your hand the first time you're not looking."

  "Mother," Valentin said quietly. "He hasn't done anything."

  "No. Not yet."

  She stepped closer to the board and looked down at the pieces, expression flat. "And the next time he touches this set, I'll have it burned. Along with whatever else he's laid his hands on."

  Then she turned to Mikhael.

  The first full look.

  "I know what you are," she said, voice low and controlled. "And no matter what seal you wear, or whose favour you carry, even my husband's, you will never be one of us."

  Mikhael didn't flinch. Didn't bow. But he said nothing.

  She straightened, closing the fan with a soft snap.

  "Come, Valentin. It's late. You need to wash."

  Valentin rose slowly. He gave Mikhael a look on his way past, not pity, something quieter, sadder, but he didn't speak.

  "And you," she added, flicking her gaze back to Mikhael, "don't linger in this room. Go back to your kennel. The one we have so graciously provided."

  Mikhael stood. His head dipped in a small, stiff bow he didn't remember choosing. Then he left.

  He didn't say a word on the way back to his room. He walked past the servants like a dog on an invisible leash. Not chained. Not dragged. But still going exactly where he was told.

  He didn't look at the paintings on the walls, or the gold trim on the mirrors, or the silk runners under his boots. He hated all of it. Every perfect corner. Every polished surface. Every breath of lavender in the air.

  The door shut behind him.

  Alone.

  He stood in the centre of the room for a long time, staring at the bed, at the fire, at the soft, safe place he was supposed to be grateful for. It didn't feel like comfort.

  It felt like a grave with pillows. A box padded so he wouldn't hear himself die.

  He sat on the bed and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fingers digging into his scalp. He wanted to scream. To rip the sheets apart, smash the mirror, set the bed on fire and sit in the smoke.

  He wanted to tear this house down with his bare hands, seal by seal, board by board.

  He wanted Romulus to bleed. Not fast. Not clean. But slowly. The way Mikhael had. Every day since the wagon. Since the collar. Since the lie.

  "Enjoy it while you can," he thought, knuckles whitening in his hair. "All of this is already burning. You just can't see the flames yet."

  Lionel was alive.

  He had to be.

  Romulus had said it too casually, tossed the words out like a hook just to see what Mikhael would do. Just to see if he'd sink.

  He wouldn't forget that. Ever.

  But even if Lionel lived, the fact stayed the same: Mikhael had bowed. He had taken the apple. He had bent the knee. Not to the Reaper. Not to a seal. To the man who had tried to break him.

  He buried his face in his hands and let the tears come. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just hot and helpless. He hated himself for crying. Hated that his body was betraying him again. He was supposed to be stronger. But his throat burned, his breath hitched, and the crackle of the fire sounded too loud against the quiet snap of whatever was left inside him.

  The damned tears just kept coming. His shoulders shook, not from fear, but from frustration, from rage, from grief that had nowhere to go.

  Then: three soft knocks at the door.

  He didn't move.

  He wiped his face with his sleeve, stared at the fire, and forced his jaw to lock.

  Another knock. Quieter.

  The door creaked open.

  Valentin stepped in, holding something flat and square under one arm. His eyes flicked to Mikhael, red-rimmed, tired, then away again like he hadn't seen a thing.

  "I brought the board," he said. His voice wasn't smug. It wasn't gentle. Just… steady.

  Mikhael said nothing.

  Valentin shifted, clearly uncomfortable. His gaze ran over the room, then down to the chessboard in his hands, then finally back to Mikhael, as if he'd only now realised how stupid this might look.

  "I figured maybe…" He cleared his throat. "I don't know. You seemed interested."

  Mikhael stared at him. Still nothing.

  "Why are you here?" he thought. "To ease your conscience? To keep your pet entertained?"

  Valentin didn't press. He stepped forward, set the board carefully on the small table near the fire, straightened one of the pieces that had tipped, and turned to go.

  "Just in case," he said over his shoulder. "If you're not too tired. Just make sure my mother does not see it."

  Then he was gone.

  The silence swallowed the room again. Mikhael sat there, feeling the tracks of drying tears on his face, the heat of the fire on his skin, the weight of the day in his bones.

  He looked at the board.

  At the perfectly carved pieces waiting in their places.

  He hated this house.

  But he was going to learn every inch of it. Every corridor. Every room. Every habit.