Amorphous: A Trace in Ashes

Chapter 9 – Two Shadows

The moonlight spilled across the marble floor of the eastern corridor, pale and unfeeling. The halls, once bustling earlier that evening with noble footsteps and idle chatter, had fallen into a heavy, breathless silence.

Roxail stood on the balcony, one hand pressed against the cold stone railing, his sharp eyes locked onto the spot where the intruder had vanished. His face remained unreadable—calm, yet the tension along his shoulders said otherwise. Behind him, the door creaked open softly.

Darmire stepped out into the chill air, arms folded across his thin nightshirt, still damp from the water that had splashed him earlier. His hair, brushed but still damp, clung slightly to his temples. He hesitated before stepping closer.

"You're not… thinking of jumping, are you?" he asked, half-joking, half-hoping for reassurance.

Roxail didn't turn. "Two shadows," he said instead, voice low.

Darmire frowned. "What?"

"There were two of them. One came for me. The other… was watching you."

Darmire's brows drew together, the color draining from his face. "An… assassination attempt?"

Roxail finally glanced at him, the usual teasing lilt ghosting across his lips. "Failed, thanks to me."

The younger prince shivered, rubbing his arms. "So if you hadn't been here—"

"You'd be dead by now."

Silence.

Darmire's throat tightened. Roxail tilted his head and added, "Now get inside, Crown Prince. Or do you plan to sneeze your crown off by morning?"

Despite the cold and the fear, Darmire managed a breathy laugh and turned to go back inside. Roxail followed, locking the balcony doors behind them.

But just as he turned from the latch, a flicker—a movement in the crack under the hallway door.

A shadow.

Without a sound, Roxail crossed the room and checked the main door. Locked. He double-checked it anyway.

Darmire watched his brother move with quick, animal precision, a mixture of awe and discomfort twisting in his chest. Roxail didn't speak.

He doused the last candles with a flick of his fingers, blanketing the chamber in soft moonlight.

"Go to sleep," Roxail said flatly. "You'll be asked a dozen questions at the resumed banquet tomorrow."

Darmire groaned, flopping onto the bed. "I should've stayed unconscious," he muttered.

Roxail picked up a book from the desk.

"You can't read in the dark," Darmire said, squinting at him.

"My eyes are darker than the dark," Roxail answered without looking up. "I see through it."

Darmire let out a tired laugh. "So mean it's like a superpower."

"Mm," Roxail hummed, flipping a page.

Minutes passed.

"You can sleep here," Darmire offered quietly. "Like the old days."

"We're not children anymore."

Darmire didn't respond. He dried his hair with a towel, then pulled the blanket over his chest and lay still.

But Roxail wasn't reading. His eyes drifted from the book to the shadows. He felt it again—the watching. The kind that nestled behind a veil, that crawled through cracks.

He turned to the letter hidden in his pocket. The edges were worn, and on the back, numbers.

An encrypted message beneath.

He stared at it long.

"Brother…" Darmire's voice was sleepy now.

"Hm?"

"I'm glad you came back."

Roxail didn't answer. He placed the letter back in his coat.

He glanced toward the window, where the moon hung low. The numbers on the back of the letter echoed silently in his mind.

Somewhere in the silence, the letter still pressed against his chest pocket. A secret not yet deciphered. A message written in dying hands. A name scratched behind lies.

Four digits.

And a name forgotten.

Roxail turned his eyes to his brother. Then closes them.

They stayed like that, one asleep beneath warm covers, the other sitting watch in silence. 

Slowly, dawn began to stretch across the sky in threads of light.

Roxail rose, slow and deliberate, and with a soft click of the door ,he leaves Darmire's room, quietly without a sound.