Chapter 6 - Unraveling

The chair was cold.

Not dramatic, not symbolic—just unpleasant. My spine met it and didn't approve.

I settled anyway. Slowly. With the practiced grace of one accustomed to seating that adjusted itself to my posture. This did not. It received me indifferently. As if my weight meant nothing.

The pod did not close.It did not whisper.It did not shimmer.It simply existed.And waited.

I waited with it.

The chamber around me held still. No hum. No pulse. The orb hovered where I'd left it, static in the upper air like a forgotten stage prop. No one spoke. Not the Lord. Not my sister. Certainly not the walls, which should have had the good sense to murmur something divine by now.

I tilted my chin upward, expecting applause.None came.

And still, I smiled.

Of course I smiled. That was the correct thing to do when seated in a machine clearly designed to glorify me. My fingers rested elegantly on the armrests, which were slightly too wide. The angle was wrong. The armrests weren't designed for a lord.

They were designed to keep someone still.

I didn't move.I didn't blink.Not out of composure.Because I couldn't feel my face.

The smile remained, but it felt… attached. Applied. As if someone had painted it across my skin and forgotten to blend.

The silence persisted. Too long now. No ceremonial cue. No lightshow. No voice intoning "Subject confirmed." No ambient flourish to mark the beginning of my inevitable apotheosis.

I flexed my fingers. Slowly. One by one.

They responded. That was good. Control, even minor, was a form of royalty. But they felt slow. Like my thoughts were passing through gauze. Thin enough to pretend at clarity. Thick enough to dull the shape.

I tried to breathe in.

It caught.

Not entirely. Not a gasp. But something snagged, somewhere below the ribs. A softness that shouldn't have been there. A hush in the lungs.

I swallowed.

That, too, felt wrong.

Not painful. Not obstructed.

Just… incorrect. Like drinking tea that looked perfect but tasted like warm stone.

I stared forward.

The orb hadn't moved. Nor had the Lord. His face remained calm. Still, almost—no. Not almost. It was blank. Not serene. Not stern. Just absent.

Why hadn't I noticed that?

Why hadn't I said anything when he arrived?

Why had I simply—accepted it?

My mouth twitched. Not visibly. Internally. A small, electric pulse behind the upper lip.

That wasn't me. I don't twitch.

I speak. I perform. I command.

I—

I didn't speak when the orb hovered.I didn't demand to know what the pod was.I didn't even ask why it existed.I just stepped in.

Like a servant answering a knock.

The smile stayed.

I hadn't told it to.

And that was when the first thought, a real one entered.

Not a line. Not a quote. Not a divine whisper.

Just a question, soft and terrible:

Why didn't I react?

I shifted my weight.

The seat did not accommodate. No invisible mechanism rose to support my posture. No alignment recalibrated to emphasize my better angles. The armrests remained fixed. Solid. Unimpressed.

The kind of quiet that settled wasn't reverent. It was indifferent.

I looked left, then right. Slowly. The pod interior was seamless, curved in a way that suggested intentional design—but not beauty. No rose motifs. No clan script. No sign this place knew who I was.

I touched the wall beside me.

It was warm. Not alive. Just… recently used.

Had someone sat here before me?

The question emerged too easily. Too suddenly.

I tried to kill it. Questions like that bred context. Context bred chaos.But the warmth remained.

I let my hand fall. Not elegantly this time. It thudded softly against the side of the chair.No one corrected it. Not even me.

For the first time since childhood, I wanted noise. Not silence, not ceremony, not stillness dressed as grace.I wanted something to interrupt me.

I opened my mouth. Just slightly.

No words came.

I don't mean I chose not to speak. I mean: none arrived. There was no internal flourish of thought to deliver as monologue. No divine phrase to offer the walls.

Just a hollow.

A smooth, sculpted hollowness that looked like Dorian from the outside.And beneath it, nothing.

I closed my eyes.

That was a mistake.

The moment I did, I saw it.

Not a memory. Not a vision.

Just… fragments. Out of sequence. Unfiled.

The girl's blood on my hand.The blood vanishing.The mirror smiling before I did.The leaf rising.The chair not fitting.The pod not greeting.The Lord's voice not arriving.The Lord's face not moving.

My eyes snapped open.

I touched my chest. One finger.

I didn't feel anything.

No heartbeat. No panic.

I should have panicked.

I should have stood and demanded answers.I should have spoken aloud.I should have done anything.

Instead, I sat.

Because sitting was what the moment seemed to want.

And now, I couldn't remember why I thought that was acceptable.

I turned to look at the door.It hadn't closed.

That was the worst part.

The pod hadn't trapped me.It hadn't begun some unspeakable process.I wasn't being erased or scanned or drained.

I was just sitting there.

Choosing to stay.

And the longer I stayed, the more the silence thickened. Not around me. Inside.

As if I had been echoing this entire time. And the echo had finally stopped.

Silence used to adore me.

Now it watched.

Not reverent. Not passive. But with the tight, clinical stillness of something that had been waiting for me to notice. The walls, the floor, the edges of the pod — they no longer felt curated. They felt constructed. Recently.

I sat perfectly upright. Because I always did. Because posture was a form of dominion.

But I had the sense — no, not the sense, the certainty — that I had sat this way before. Not just now. Not yesterday. But many times. Too many times.

Had I always sat here?

Had I ever stood?

The thought passed through me like a thread pulled tight through silk. Not tearing. Aligning.

My lips parted. A smile remained. But it belonged to no expression I had chosen.

That was when the pod responded.

Not with a sound. Not with light. With closure.

The door slid inward. Not mechanical. Not ceremonial. It closed like a secret — slow, soft, inevitable.

I did not flinch. But my hand gripped the armrest.

Too wide. Still wrong. Still indifferent.

The pod sealed with no hiss. No dramatic intake of air. Just the vanishing of exits.

The orb above me glowed. Not blue. Not white.

Red.

A warm, breathing red. A red I had not earned. A red that had no place in the Rose Clan. A red that did not recognize me — but expected me.

I turned toward the Lord.

His eyes met mine.

They were empty.

Not blind. Not cold.

Just... unafflicted.

As if he saw nothing unnatural in any of this.

And then she entered.

My sister.

Alaria.

That was her name.

Wasn't it?

She stepped into the room as if she'd been summoned, robes trailing behind her like theater curtains. Her braid was immaculate. Her expression, unreadable. As always.

But something had shifted.

Her eyes.

They didn't search for me. They searched the Lord.

And she smiled.

Not the soft, dutiful smile I had always found flattering. Not the quiet curve of a girl who knew her place behind mine.

She smiled like an equal.

"Lord Ascendant," she said, with something like delight.

He nodded. "Alaria. You're just in time."

Time.

Time for what?

I tried to speak.

Nothing came.

Her name echoed in my mind like a dropped plate.

Alaria.

Alaria?

That wasn't… right.

That wasn't what I called her. That wasn't what anyone called her. Was it?

Had I ever said her name before this day?

Had she ever said mine?

A memory stirred — fogged, unfinished. The way her mouth would move. Always: Brother. Always: yes, Brother. No, Brother. Forgive me, Brother.

Had she ever said Dorian?

Had anyone?

My fingers twitched. This time visibly.

She turned toward me. Slowly. Like she hadn't expected to find me awake.

Her smile didn't falter.

And then I asked it.

The question that unspooled something vital.

"What is my sister's name?"

Silence.

She looked at me, expression composed, but the pause was wrong. Not confused. Calculating.

The Lord spoke instead.

"You're disoriented. Expected. The sedation should have held longer."

Sedation.

I laughed.

Not audibly. But inside. A hollow, keening thing that felt like my throat had tried to remember how to exist.

"I've never said her name," I whispered. "Not once."

Alaria tilted her head.

"My name is Alaria."

"No," I said, teeth showing now. "That's not what I called you. I never called you anything."

I tried to stand. My body did not agree.

The restraints had never risen. There were no visible cuffs. No bars. But my spine remained glued. My arms obeyed with slowness I hadn't noticed becoming worse.

"Why is the chair warm?" I asked. "Why doesn't it fit me?"

Neither answered.

The orb brightened.

And then it began.

The low, thrumming pulse beneath the seat. The shimmer of invisible mechanisms aligning. The wall behind me hissed with something chemical.

Not mist. Not gas.

Sound.

Soft. Invasive.

Like memory being rewritten.

The Lord stepped back.

Alaria stepped forward.

She looked down at me, not like a sister. Not like a servant.

Like an actor meeting her scene partner for the first time without script.

Her eyes met mine.

And she said, gently, "You were never meant to wake up yet."

My heart did not race.

It did not beat at all.

And for the first time in my life, I didn't care how I looked.

I was afraid.