Chapter : 93 "The Man With Broken Memories"

The carriage rattled over the stone road, wheels whispering across the gravel as tall trees leaned in like sentinels. Blackwood Manor loomed in the distance—its pointed spires silhouetted against a waning sky, the windows like eyes long without sleep.

Inside the carriage, Everin sat with his hands clasped tightly in his lap, knuckles white.

His heart was drumming an erratic rhythm, louder with each passing second. Please be there, he thought. Please let him be there.

As the carriage slowed before the wrought-iron gates, he leaned forward, breath caught between hope and dread.

The doors creaked open.

Stillness greeted them.

Three maids stood just beyond the tall archway—young, pale, neatly dressed in midnight-blue livery with silver trim. As Everin stepped down, they bowed their heads in perfect unison, like petals folding beneath wind.

"Lord August has not yet returned," one said softly.

A sentence like a blade.

Not returned.

Everin stood frozen. The wind tugged at his coat, but he barely felt it. His chest tightened. Not because August wasn't home—but because for a single dreadful moment, he believed August might never return. That the kidnappers still held him. That they'd lost him all over again.

He turned to go.

But then—

From the far end of the courtyard, a figure emerged.

Tall.

Unhurried.

With a hand pulling back strands of black hair that had fallen into his eyes.

Everin froze.

Elias?

It couldn't be.

But it was.

Alive. Walking. Uninjured. Here.

How…?

His breath hitched.

His steps quickened.

And then he was in front of Elias, voice trembling with disbelief.

"Elias," he said, "Where—where is August? Why isn't he here? You—weren't you supposed to save him?"

Elias paused.

He looked at Everin like one might look at a misplaced letter.

Blank.

Detached.

His brow furrowed slightly as he tilted his head.

"…Who are you?" Elias said.

Everin blinked. The words hit him harder than the news from the maids.

"What?"

Elias stared. "I said—who are you? And what are you going on about?"

Everin took a step back, stunned. "What am I—? I'm asking you about my cousin! August! who was taken—you were supposed to save him—how can you be here if he's still in danger?"

Elias frowned, lifting a hand to his temple like a man warding off a headache.

"Oh… the sick boy," he said slowly. "August. Yeah. That one."

Everin reeled, eyes narrowing in disbelief. "That one? That one?!"

He stepped forward again. "How dare you insult my beautiful cousin like that? He's not some footnote in your memory!"

Elias's expression flattened into irritation.

"What do you want from me?" he asked coldly. "Are you here looking for a fight?"

Everin's voice rose. "I want to know where he is. Where's August?"

"I don't know," Elias said with a shrug. "Probably being fussed over somewhere, like the fragile thing he is."

Everin stared at him as though the world had tilted.

"…You're not serious."

Elias narrowed his eyes. "You're starting to sound like a lunatic."

"I'm—what?!" Everin's voice cracked in disbelief. "What do you mean you don't remember anything?! You—you're speaking to me like I'm some stranger!"

Elias leaned closer. "Because you are a stranger."

Silence.

That word. That truth.

It knocked something loose inside Everin.

He stepped back unconsciously, heart hammering.

The guards behind him—four tall soldiers in crisp navy panoply—immediately formed a protective semicircle around him, their hands hovering near sword hilts.

And still, Elias didn't flinch.

He only tilted his head, expression unreadable.

Then Everin spoke again, this time quietly. Coldly.

"I'm asking you one last time, Elias. Where is August?"

Elias's lip twitched into something like a smirk—sharp and humorless.

"Oh, so we're giving ultimatums now?" he murmured. "Well then…"

He stepped forward, and the air around him shifted—heavy, electric.

"Are you looking for a fight?"

Elias's stare was sharp as winter steel.

His eyes, usually vibrant with flickers of fire, now held only frost—unmoving, unblinking, deathly still. The soldiers behind Everin stiffened beneath that gaze, their grips tightening on polished hilts.

But just before words turned to violence, a sound sliced through the heavy air:

The creak of carriage wheels.

All heads turned.

The tall gates groaned open again.

The three maids at the entrance stepped forward in unison and pulled the wrought iron wide with practiced grace. Their movements held an eerie silence, like dancers in a dream.

Outside, the carriage had come to a final stop.

Giles stepped down, crisp in his dark tailcoat. He adjusted his gloves, then moved with reverence to the door, his gloved hand resting briefly against it before pulling it open.

And out stepped August Everheart D'Rosaye.

Light pooled at his feet like spilled silver. The ivory shirt clung neatly to his slender frame, the grey coat sweeping behind him in long, elegant lines. His eyes, smoke-grey and solemn, swept across the courtyard as though returning to a place that no longer knew his name.

But then—

He heard it.

A voice. Familiar, but not. Heated, accusing, echoing from just beyond the threshold.

His brows furrowed.

He stepped forward with Giles at his side, boots striking the flagstones softly—one step, then another, toward the manor's main hall.

Inside, the tension thickened like rain before a storm. Elias and Everin stood nearly chest to chest, seconds from igniting.

Until the door swung open.

And August entered.

The hall shifted. Breaths halted.

August's gaze fell first on Everin.

Then on Elias.

And for a heartbeat, time cracked.

"Hey, you," Elias called, pointing toward August with casual annoyance. "Who is this lunatic screaming outside your gates? He nearly had his soldiers draw steel over a conversation."

August stopped walking.

His breath hitched.

Not because of Elias's words—but because of Everin.

He's here. Standing. Real. Beautiful in that reckless, sunlit way of his—honey-brown curls falling into sky-blue eyes. But all August could remember… was the night. The scent of drugged wine. The loss of control. The betrayal.

The ache in his chest bloomed like something sharp and endless.

And without a word, he strode forward.

Everin's heart surged, hammering like a war drum. He opened his mouth to speak—to say finally, you're here, I thought I lost you forever—

But the words never came.

Because August struck him.

A loud, clean smack.

Everin's head whipped to the side. His curls caught the morning light like molten gold. The sound rang through the manor like a cracked bell.

Silence crashed after it.

The soldiers blinked.

The three maids gasped.

Giles stood frozen, eyes wide.

Even Elias looked stunned, not at the violence—but at the force behind it. This sickly boy?

August's voice, when it came, was low and cold.

"How dare you," he said. "How dare you step into my manor."

Everin stood there like a broken statue, tears already beginning to rim his lashes.

"I…" he whispered, voice cracking "you were alive. I thought they still had you. I—I'm so sorry…"

He dropped to his knees.

Tears spilled down his cheeks freely now—glimmering, childlike, raw. He clutched at August's coat as though anchoring himself to something real.

"I didn't mean it," he sobbed. "That night—I lost myself. I hated the idea of you with someone else. I—I couldn't bear it."

Elias stiffened. His jaw tightened.

"…What did he do?" he said, low and wary.

August didn't answer.

Everin raised his face, eyes red and wet. "I'm sorry, cousin. I—I didn't mean any harm. I was just…"

His eyes flicked to Elias.

"…I was just jealous of him."

Elias blinked.

"Me?"

"If you hadn't come between us," Everin said, standing again, trembling,

"I would've married him.

I would've loved him before anyone else could put their hands on him. But you—you took him from me."

Elias's fists clenched.

August's ears were glowing red now—not from fury, but from mortification.

"Enough," "of you."

he hissed through clenched teeth.

The air quivered. Everyone had heard it.

Every maid. Every soldier. Giles. The walls.

Elias stood stunned.

The maids lowered their eyes politely—though they'd always suspected, always known. Giles merely bowed his head, silently affirming what was already written between pages of glances and unspoken moments.

Elias looked at August, really looked at him—and for the first time, shame flickered across his face.

Not because of Everin's accusation.

But because…

Is it true? he wondered. Is this the kind of boy I loved? But how can I love a male?

His breath faltered.

And then—without a word—he turned.

And disappeared into the manor's shadowed corridors.

Leaving August behind.

Standing in the hall where love had been spoken, exposed, and broken.

Everin wiped his face and said nothing more.

And August, heart bruised from both sides, only stood there in the silence.

Like a ghost in his own home.

Elias moved through the halls of Blackwood Manor like a shadow—silent, aimless, directionless.

He didn't run.

He didn't storm.

He simply walked.

But each step echoed too loudly in his ears, as though the walls themselves were listening.

His breath was shallow. Tight in the ribs. Each corridor he passed, each archway, each pane of stained glass—it all felt suddenly too close. Too ornate. Too heavy with history he didn't remember but now realized he might have lived.

The manor, once strange and silent, had become familiar to him in these past days. He had eaten beneath its candlelit ceilings. Slept in its linen-draped beds. Washed in its quiet marble baths. Lived like he belonged.

But now… now it suffocated him.

How can I love a male?

That single thought rang like church bells in his skull, over and over, louder and louder until it drowned out reason.

He reached his chamber. Shut the door quietly behind him.

The silence inside was immediate.

Thick.

Stifling.

He stood in the center of the room, fists clenched at his sides, the dawn light from the high window catching in his black hair and casting shadows on the floor like broken wings.

He looked toward the tall mirror in the corner—the one he had ignored every morning since arriving.

Slowly, as if drawn by gravity, he walked toward it.

And stared.

The man who looked back at him was young. Strong. Broad of shoulder, proud of jaw.

But the eyes…

The eyes looked lost.

That sick boy? he had said.

He remembered saying it. Clearly. Casually. Like it was nothing.

But then he had seen it—the flush on August's cheeks. The shock in Everin's voice. The silence that followed.

And something in him… twisted.

Elias placed both palms on the mirror's frame, leaning closer.

His voice was hoarse when he spoke aloud. "What kind of man was I?"

The mirror gave no answer.

"Was I cruel?" he asked the glass. "Was I… in love?"

He winced at the word. Like it burned his tongue.

Because what terrified him wasn't the idea of loving someone.

It was the idea of loving him.

That boy. That sickly boy. That delicate, ghost-pale figure with silver hair and stormcloud eyes.

A boy who didn't flinch when the world did.

A boy who had just slapped his cousin like thunder from a clear sky.

A boy who had looked at Elias—even now—with something unspoken still buried in his gaze.

And Elias had felt something back.

Something he didn't want to name.

"Why you?" he whispered, pressing his forehead to the glass.

"Why… would I love you?"

He closed his eyes.

But it was no use.

Behind his lids, he saw a blurred image— beside a candle. August working non stop. August looking up at him with a small, quiet smile that asked for nothing and offered everything.

A smile not for the world.

Just for him.

And suddenly it wasn't the idea of love that frightened Elias.

It was the possibility that he'd already given it.

And lost it.

Without remembering when.

He opened his eyes again and stared at his reflection.

His own face looked unfamiliar now.

Like a mask he hadn't taken off yet.

With a groan, he pushed himself away from the mirror, dragged his hands through his hair, and sat at the edge of the bed like a man too tired to lie down.

The manor creaked softly in the dark—old wood shifting like bones.

He felt trapped in it.

Trapped in someone else's past.

And worst of all…

trapped in a story where he might be the one who left love behind.