UNSEEN LOVE

The afternoon sunlight pooled through the tall manor windows like spilled honey, lazy and golden, spilling across polished floors and dust-kissed drapery. Somewhere far beyond the velvet silence, a bird called once and fell quiet again, as if even it understood the reverence of the moment.

Inside, she moved through the room like a prayer answered. Her arms were gentle and sure as she lifted the boy from the couch where he had been sitting—legs tucked beneath him, small fingers curled in his lap, too still for someone so young.

August did not protest. He never did.

There were no tears on his lashes. No whimper. No demand to run outside like the other children he sometimes saw through the manor gates. He only tilted his head slightly, that strange, silvery curtain of hair falling aside as he looked up at her, his smoke-grey eyes unreadable.

He wasn't crying. He simply looked... fragile.

And that was enough.

She cradled him slowly, as if even time should not jostle him. Her arms curved around him like a fortress, and he folded into her embrace with the familiarity of someone who'd never known another home. His body was light—far too light for his age—and when he leaned his head into the curve of her neck, she tightened her hold instinctively, fiercely, as if some hidden wind might try to take him from her.

"You don't have to be strong," she whispered into his pale hair, brushing a hand over his back in steady, circular strokes. "You only have to be."

He said nothing. He never did when she held him like that. His silence wasn't cold—it was soft, like snowfall at dusk, settling in gentle layers. He breathed in the scent of her skin—rosewater and warmth, the ghost of cinnamon—and let the world blur around them.

She rocked him, slow and quiet, as the light shifted and shadows drew longer along the walls. Every now and then, her hand would pause against his back, fingers resting flat as if counting the beat of his heart. A fragile little rhythm, so easily lost.

He was not a loud child. Not wild or stubborn. But there was a stillness in him that frightened her sometimes—the kind of stillness that doesn't come from peace, but from having already seen too much, even if she couldn't understand what.

And so, she didn't let him play alone. Didn't let him run beyond her reach. Not because she feared scrapes or tumbles. But because he was spun from something finer than bone and blood—like frost on morning glass or the last line of a lullaby.

Outside, the wind stirred the trees. But inside the cradle of her arms, August was untouched. Unbroken.

She held him as if she could stop the world from ever pressing in.

And for a little while, she did.

The day was quiet, the kind of hush that settled over old places with long histories—where footsteps echoed softer and time itself seemed to move at a slower, more deliberate pace.

Blackwood Manor stood as it always had, timeless and towering, its stone walls weathered like the pages of a well-worn book. Ivy curled along its pillars in slow, green spirals, and the scent of summer roses drifted faintly through the corridors like a memory still blooming.

High above the garden, in a room framed by heavy curtains and pale wallpaper, a boy stood in silence.

August.

He was four years old, and looked like something dreamt, not born. His long silver threads of hair—so soft they whispered when they moved—had grown past his shoulders, cascading down his back in gentle waves, almost longer than the small figure they adorned. They shimmered faintly in the sunlight that spilled through the window, like strands of moonlight pulled loose and laid across porcelain.

His gown was ivory, long enough to gather at his tiny feet like a pool of quiet silk, trailing slightly behind him as though the fabric itself was reluctant to let go. The sleeves hung loose around his wrists, and every part of him looked like it belonged in a painting that should never be touched. Pale, silent, and utterly still.

He stood by the window with no toys in hand, no books to distract him. His expression was unreadable—calm, distant, and yet somehow deeply alert. Those large smoke-grey eyes, too ancient for a child, were fixed downward.

Below, in the blooming heart of the garden, his mother stood among guests.

Annalise D'Rosaye was dressed in lavender silk, her beauty not just in her face but in the way she carried stillness like power. Her voice, warm and precise, floated up now and then through the open air, carried by the breeze. She laughed lightly at something a gentleman said—though even her laughter was measured, each note placed like a stone in a quiet river.

August said nothing. He only watched.

The garden was alive with conversation, the rustle of parasols, the clink of crystal, the swish of skirts brushing against marble steps. But all of it, for him, was distant. He did not wave. He did not call. He simply observed, like a ghost watching the living through a pane of glass.

A butterfly drifted past the window, its wings the color of spilled ink. It hovered near him for a breath, as if uncertain he was real. Then it fluttered away.

Still, he did not blink.

The sky above was a soft, blurred blue, but within the room, August stood in his own private dusk—half in shadow, half in light. The fabric of his gown caught the gold of the sun at its hem, making him look like a fading flame held in still hands.

He tilted his head slightly, watching as his mother turned toward one of the women and gestured toward a rosebush in full bloom. Her smile was gentle, practiced. She was speaking of something small, something forgettable—a recipe, perhaps, or an upcoming visit.

But August kept watching as if trying to hear something else beneath it all. Something invisible.

He did not yet know why the world felt so far from him. Only that it did.

And in that moment, as the breeze lifted a single curl of his silver hair, the boy remained unmoving—a quiet sentinel framed in lace and shadow, gazing down on a garden that bloomed like a secret never meant for him.

The halls of Blackwood Manor stretched on like corridors of a cathedral—vaulted, echoing, and endless. For a child so small, they were a world unto themselves: staircases spiraling like labyrinths, archways leading not to rooms but to realms, shadows shifting like half-remembered dreams.

August wandered through them with quiet steps.

He was no more than four, a slender wisp of a boy swathed in a pale ivory tunic that trailed like fog at his heels. His silver hair shimmered as he walked, long curls catching the stray light that filtered through stained glass windows, painting him in colors that didn't belong to this earth.

Up and down, then down again. Through doors slightly ajar. Past portraits whose painted eyes followed. Across carpets that muted his footsteps into nothing. The house, vast and unmoving, did not notice him. But he noticed everything. The hush of old wood. The hush of locked rooms. The hush of being small.

Somewhere, he had meant to find the garden. Or perhaps the music room. Or perhaps nothing at all. A child's journey doesn't always have a destination. But now the house had folded in around him, and every corner looked like the last. The world was too big.

Eventually, his little legs gave way.

He sank into a corner beneath the grand staircase, where dust gathered in soft drifts and the light was dim. His back pressed against the wall, knees pulled close, arms looped around them like a fortress built from silence.

There he stayed.

Minutes passed. Then hours.

The sun shifted across the windows, turning gold into amber, amber into dusk. Somewhere, voices called faintly, but they were too far to reach him. He didn't cry. August never cried. But there was a fragile sag to his shoulders, like parchment curling at the edges from too much sun.

Then—footsteps.

Light at first. Then firmer. Two sets. Then a third.

He lifted his head.

From around the corner came Giles, the old butler, brows furrowed, and a maid holding her skirts as she hurried. Between them walked a figure that caught the last bit of dying light and turned it to fire.

His mother.

Annalise.

The moment her eyes landed on him, she stopped short. The color drained from her face and came rushing back as fire.

"August!"

Her voice was both relief and panic, sharp with love.

"Where—where were you, my boy?" she cried, already rushing toward him.

He rose slowly, stiff from sitting too long, but his eyes—those great smoke-grey pools—lit with sudden warmth. The tiniest spark behind the stillness. And then he moved.

He ran, small arms open, silent but swift, straight into the folds of her gown.

She caught him mid-stride, scooping him into her arms like one might gather something long-lost and infinitely breakable. His tiny fingers clung to the silk at her shoulder, face buried into the crook of her neck.

"Oh, my darling," she whispered, her voice breaking into a thousand shimmering pieces. "My heart, my precious heart."

She pressed a kiss to his forehead—firm, trembling, desperate—as if trying to make up for every hour he had vanished into that yawning house.

"I looked everywhere," she murmured. "The whole world turned dark without you."

August said nothing. But his arms tightened around her.

And for that single, fragile moment, Blackwood Manor—grand and cold and endless—became small again. Became just walls. Just a house. Because he was found. And she was there. And nothing else mattered.

Evening had folded gently over Blackwood Manor, casting a warm velvet hush across its halls. The golden light of the dying sun filtered through gauzy curtains, brushing soft glows onto the polished floors and catching in the embroidery of tapestries hung like silent witnesses to centuries past.

Inside one of its grandest chambers, the world had slowed to a lull.

Lady Annalise reclined upon a velvet chaise near the hearth, her silken gown cascading around her like a spill of moonlight. In her lap rested the weight of something far more precious than any jewel in her family's coffers—a small boy, pale and quiet, with hair like spun silver and lashes that looked as if frost had kissed them.

August.

He lay curled on his side, his head nestled comfortably against the slope of her thigh, one arm loosely draped across her lap. He wasn't speaking—August rarely spoke when words weren't needed—but his large smoke-grey eyes were open and fixed on the book in her hands, its gilded pages spread wide like the wings of an old dream.

She read aloud in a soft, melodic tone. Her voice wove through the air like silk thread:

"Once upon a time, in a kingdom far beyond the sea, a brave knight crossed fields of fire to rescue a princess locked in a tower of stars..."

August blinked slowly, every word folding into him, tucking into the quiet corners of his mind like a lullaby written only for him. His breaths grew slower, his eyelids heavier. Still, he didn't interrupt. He never did. His silence was its own form of reverence, as if listening to his mother was a sacred ritual, not to be broken even by sleep.

By the time she reached the part where the knight raised his sword to the moon and declared his love, August had drifted into slumber.

With practiced care, Annalise closed the book, set it aside, and gently shifted her son from her lap. She lifted him—light as a plume—and laid him down beside her on the great canopy bed, the sheets cool and silken beneath his ivory gown. He didn't stir. His pale lashes brushed his cheeks like fallen petals.

She smiled softly and reached down to pat his tiny belly, a tender, circular motion—more habit than gesture, something she had done since he was only months old. A silent promise of safety.

And then—

The soft creak of a door opening.

She turned.

Raden stepped into the room.

His presence was quiet, but undeniable—the kind of man who carried a storm beneath calm waters. He was tall, his shoulders broad beneath a charcoal waistcoat, and his face bore the same features now echoed in miniature upon the child sleeping beside the bed: those angular cheekbones, that sculpted mouth, the deep smoke-grey eyes.

He paused for a moment at the threshold, eyes falling upon the boy. A breath left him slowly. And then he crossed the room in long, soundless strides.

Annalise's expression softened as she watched him.

Raden leaned over the edge of the bed and brushed his lips gently against August's forehead. His fingers lingered for a second longer, as if memorizing the shape of his son's fragile brow.

"How is he these days?" he murmured, voice low and warm, not wanting to disturb the hush.

Annalise folded her hands in her lap, her gaze returning to the sleeping child. "Becoming more and more interesting," she whispered with quiet amusement. "He's started asking for stories before sleep. But not just any stories. He wants knights and princesses now—wants the sword and the kiss and the rescue."

Raden's smile bloomed slow and proud, like a secret he was pleased to keep. He looked down at the boy with something soft shining in his eyes. "Is that so?"

She nodded. "He listens to every word like it's the truth of the world. He never interrupts, not once. And when the knight wins… he sighs, like it was always meant to be."

A silence passed between them, but it was not empty. It was full—of love, of longing, of all the things parents never say aloud but feel with every breath.

Raden glanced once more at the boy, and then at his wife. "We'll have to find him a knight of his own someday," he said, half-teasing, half-true.

Annalise smiled as she gently tucked the edge of the blanket over August's narrow chest. "Or perhaps," she murmured, "he'll become one."

And in the golden hush of their chamber, beneath the canopy bed and the stories still lingering in the air, the little boy slept on—wrapped in dreams of sword-bearing heroes, starlit towers, and a world where every story ended with love.