Chapter 41: Pariah 

Elias buried himself in the glow of the monitors like they might be enough to drown out the rest of the world.

The first day bled into the second, and the second bled into the third, the hours stretching long and strange inside the hushed, curated quiet of the manor.

He woke when the sun was already high, dragged himself from the slate-gray sheets, and sat at the desk that had been tailored to him so perfectly it felt like an accusation. The triple‑monitor setup was always ready, waiting, patient in a way Victor never was. Data scrolled endlessly, a river of simulations and archived research he hadn't touched in months. He threw himself into it, calculations, notes, revision after revision, until his eyes burned and his thoughts frayed.

It didn't help.

The work filled his head but not his chest, and that was where the ache lived.

Every so often his gaze would catch on the faint reflection in the glass of the terrace door, his own outline, sharp and tired, and behind it the memory of Victor's crimson eyes, too close, too certain.

He told himself he was staying sharp.

That this was temporary.

That he was here because he had chosen it.

But on the third day, the phone lit up with a name he didn't want to see. 

Anna Clarke.

Elias froze, fingers hovering over the keyboard. His stomach tightened, cold and low, as if some old wound had been ripped open without warning. The screen kept ringing. The name kept glowing.

He considered letting it die into silence.

But habit, or guilt, or some reflex he hadn't yet killed, made him swipe.

"Elias," her voice burst through, sharp and bright and grating with the kind of practiced intimacy that made his skin crawl. "Elias, what the hell are you doing?"

He didn't answer at first.

He watched the data crawl across the center screen, numbers pulsing like heartbeats, pretending for a few seconds more that her voice was just interference on the line.

But Anna never liked silence.

"Why," she demanded, clipped and rising, "why am I hearing from Father that you're living in Victor Numen's manor?"

The way she said it, like it was a scandal, like it was a choice meant to humiliate her, scraped against his nerves.

"You left," she went on before he could speak, that familiar, polished rhythm of hers, entitlement sharpened into music. "You vanished. For years. And now you show up on his side like nothing happened? Like you don't have a family? Like you don't have me?"

Elias let his hands fall into his lap, fingers lacing together tightly enough that his scraped knuckles ached. The monitors kept glowing. The hum of the PC filled the silence she left for him, thin and brittle.

"I didn't know we still counted as family," he said finally, his voice low, flat, and drained of heat.

"Don't you start with that," Anna snapped, and there it was, her real tone, the one that lived under the Clarke polish. "I called you every year, Elias. I checked in. I made the effort when nobody else would. And you never told us that you are near our god? Do you understand what an honor that is for a pariah like you?"

Elias's fingers curled tighter in his lap, nails biting into half‑healed skin.

There it was, that twist of the knife, wrapped in a ribbon and handed back like a gift.

An honor.

Like being watched, caged, and claimed by something that shouldn't walk as a man was some divine favor he was supposed to bow for.

He let the words settle, tasting them, letting them sting the way only family could. When he spoke, his voice was quiet enough to make her lean into the silence to hear it.

"An honor," Elias repeated, soft and flat. "Is that what we're calling it now? You cut me out of every thread, stripped my name off every account, and left me with nothing but my own shadow, and now it's an honor because I've caught the eye of something dangerous enough to terrify even you?"

Anna's breath hitched, but she didn't retreat. "You don't understand what he is," she said sharply. "What he could do for you…"

"What, he's already done?" Elias cut in, still calm, still low, though something in his chest trembled hard enough to make the words sting. "You think I asked for this? That I woke up one morning and thought, 'You know what would be fun? Being a bargaining chip in whatever game you and Father are still playing.'"

"You're not a chip," she snapped, fast enough to betray herself. "You're—"

"I'm nothing," Elias said, and this time there was no softness left, just truth, raw and bitter. "At least that's what you made me. Until now, suddenly, I'm useful again."

On the other end, silence. He could almost see her, lips pressed tight, eyes cold, searching for the next line that would cut the deepest.

"You're lucky, Elias," she said finally, voice clipped, brittle. "And if you can't see that, then you deserve whatever happens next."

The line went dead.

Elias stared at the screen, at the reflection of his own face in the dark monitor, and for a long moment he didn't move, didn't breathe, just let the words hang in the quiet like smoke that refused to clear.

The silence in the room was still thick, clinging like humidity, when a soft knock broke through it, polite, almost delicate, but carrying the weight of someone who didn't need to wait for permission.

Elias didn't answer. He just sat there, staring at the blank screen, feeling the phone still warm in his palm, Anna's voice echoing faintly in his head like a hymn he'd spent years trying to forget.

The door opened anyway.

Victor leaned casually against the frame, one hand in his pocket, the other resting lightly on the edge of the door as if he'd been standing there long enough to catch the last edges of the call.

He didn't look like the man who had caged Elias on the terrace, crimson eyes burning in the dark.

Not tonight.

Tonight he was dressed in a pale cream that should've looked soft but somehow didn't, pants pressed sharp at the seam, a dark polo shirt that hugged his frame with the kind of quiet luxury Elias had already learned not to trust, and house slippers that made him look almost domestic. Almost.

But the way he leaned there, posture relaxed, eyes glinting faintly in the light of the monitors, it was all the reminder Elias needed that nothing about Victor was ordinary.

A slow smile curved Victor's mouth, not wide, amused, the kind of amusement that saw far too much.

"She never changes, does she?" he said softly, as though they'd been having this conversation all along.

Elias's jaw tightened. "You were listening?"