The next morning dawns unnaturally quiet.
No birds.
No servants calling out orders.
The world feels paused.
Valen wakes early, expecting his usual routine — sword drills, Leon's jokes, his sister's voice echoing from the corridors.
But there's no sound.
When he opens his door, the hallway is lined with servants in black.
Their eyes are red, and none of them can meet his gaze.
He knows.
Even before anyone says the words, he knows.
The Door That Wouldn't Open
Valen runs through the halls barefoot, the cold stone slapping against his feet.
He stops in front of the white room — the one he'd been forbidden to enter for months.
Two knights block the door.
"Move," Valen says, voice shaking.
"Young master—"
"I said move!"
They hesitate, but his command carries the weight of his bloodline.
He pushes past them, shoving the door open—
—and freezes.
The room smells like lilies.
The bed is empty.
Only the faint indentation of a body remains on the sheets, and a vase of flowers stands wilting beside it.
Valen takes one step in. Then another.
There's no one to stop him now.
He picks up one of the lilies, the same kind he'd brought her every morning.
Its petals crumble in his hand.
"Mother?"
…
"Mother, please."
No one answers.
Only the whisper of the wind through the open window.
The family gathers in the great hall.
Black drapes cover the banners of House Noir.
The servants stand in silence.
The Patriarch, Auren, is a shell of himself — dressed in ceremonial black, eyes hollow, hands trembling despite his effort to look composed.
He does not weep anymore. His tears had already run dry.
Valen stands beside Isolde and Darian.
His siblings cry quietly, but Valen… doesn't.
He stares at the coffin.
His mother's name is carved into white stone.
When the priest's final words faded through the great hall —
"May her soul return to the light that once guided her heart" —
the crowd lowered their heads.
But Valen didn't move.
He just stared at the white coffin as if waiting for her to open her eyes again.
The sound of the candles burning was louder than anything else in the room.
After the ceremony, he slipped away without a word.
No one followed.
No one noticed.
He walked until his feet carried him to the garden — her garden.
The same place where she once smiled under the sunlight,
the same place where he once promised to become her knight.
Now, the lilies were withered, bending under the cold wind.
He knelt beside them, the earth damp beneath his hands.
"...I said I'd protect you,"
he whispered,
voice trembling, fading into the breeze.
A single tear traced down his cheek — not burning, not heavy — just empty.
Behind him, Leon appeared in the distance.
He stopped when he saw Valen kneeling among the dying flowers.
He wanted to speak, to reach out — but he couldn't.
There were no words that could fill the silence between life and death.
So he stood there, helpless.
Watching.
Valen didn't notice him.
He just sat there, surrounded by the stillness,
his heart echoing with a pain too quiet to scream.
For the first time in his life, he felt nothing —
no anger, no warmth, no air.
Only a hollow space inside him,
a void he didn't know how to fill.
The garden that once bloomed with light now felt like a grave.
And in that emptiness, something silent began to grow —
not rage, not hate,
just a wound too deep to heal.