A short while later, a knock sounded from the thick wooden door on the side of the room. The noise broke Azariah's reverie and the tension coiled within him. He rose at once from his chair, his loose white tunic swaying as he walked toward the door.
When the door was opened from the outside, a brighter oil-lamp glow spilled in, dazzling eyes long accustomed to the dimness of his chamber.
Standing at the threshold were two maidservants. They wore the standard palace uniform: black dresses with white aprons and collars. Their faces were pleasant in an unremarkable way, their expressions flat, their eyes carefully avoiding direct contact. One carried a covered food tray; the other held the oil lamp that had provided the light.
Azariah did not recognize them. The servants assigned to deliver his meals were constantly rotated, perhaps as part of a protocol to prevent attachment or collusion with him—afraid he might influence them.
'Most likely,' he thought bitterly, 'because no one wants to be stationed in this cursed tower for long. The rumors about me are frightening enough.'
"Thank you," Azariah said, his voice slightly hoarse from lack of use, as he accepted the tray.
Before the servants could leave, an idea surfaced in his mind. A little awkwardly, and with a tone that came out rough from years of solitude, he asked, "Do you have scissors? Or… a knife?"
The servant holding the lamp shifted her gaze from its vacant focus to Azariah. Hesitation was plain on her face. "For… what purpose, Young Master?"
"To cut my hair," Azariah replied shortly, crossing his arms over his chest.
The servant looked at him once more, then to his silver-white hair cascading freely down to his thighs—far longer than either of theirs. After a few seconds, she nodded. "I… will ask the Lord first."
The "Lord" in question was either Azariah's father or mother, or perhaps the household overseer. Everything concerning him required approval.
Azariah merely nodded in return, then handed over the empty tray from his previous meal that he had gathered near the door. The exchange took place in an awkward silence.
Then, before Azariah could say anything else, the door was closed once more. The click of the lock turning and the scrape of the lever sliding into place sounded unnaturally loud to his ears.
'Ah. It's their tower-cleaning schedule,' he thought as he stared at the closed door.
Once a week, in addition to books and meals, came the cleaning ritual. Several servants would be sent to sweep dust from the tower's corridors, clean the high windows, and ensure that his place of exile remained inhabitable by certain standards.
Of course, Azariah's own messy, book-choked room was not on their cleaning list. That particular chaos was his own to manage.
During this cleaning, he would be locked inside his chamber, a clear precaution to ensure he didn't use the commotion and open doors to escape.
Not that Azariah had never tried.
In the early years of his confinement, when the fire of rebellion still burned hot, he had attempted to slip out several times. But the result was always the same: he was easily caught by guards who were ever vigilant and physically far stronger than him, then escorted back to his room with a warning.
Azariah let out a weary sigh and turned, intending to carry his meal tray to the table.
Then, from beyond the thick iron-bound door, voices began to drift in. Not footsteps or the scrape of brooms, but conversation. The servants were talking, and they were not whispering.
"…Every week we have to climb up and down these stairs. My whole body aches," one female voice complained irritably.
"I'd rather be assigned to clean the guest wings. This is just a waste of time, cleaning an empty tower," another replied, her tone sharper.
"How could it not be empty? The only thing living here is that curse," the first voice scoffed, now openly disgusted. "I get chills just walking past his door. They say he's cursed by the Sun Goddess—his hair, skin, even his eyes are all white, like a ghost. I heard his true form shows itself when he's exposed to sunlight."
"A ghost would be better. Ghosts are just stories. This one's real, an actual family disgrace," the second voice added coldly. "From what I hear, Lord Theron and Lady Calista have completely given up. They just haven't figured out the proper way to get rid of him yet."
"Yeah, they say they want to send him off to some remote monastery or something, so people won't find out their second child is… defective like that. Embarrassing, right? They've already told important guests that their second son died young. So the one here is basically… a real ghost, socially speaking."
"Oh gods, that's kind of pitiable—"
"Pitiable? He's the reason we have extra work every week. He should just run away or… well, never mind."
"But I heard from a servant who accidentally overheard Lord Theron... apparently he's considering a way to… resolve this problem permanently."
"Really. They want to kill him?"
"Who knows. But one thing's certain, they want him gone."
The conversation flowed casually, like idle talk about the weather or dinner plans. They made no effort to lower their voices. Why should they? As one of them had bluntly put it, "The Lord doesn't care about Azariah."
Azariah froze where he stood. His hand gripping the tray trembled faintly, making the plates rattle softly against one another. His face, usually expressionless, hardened; his jaw tightened.
A dull ache twisted in his chest. Hearing that neglect spoken so openly, in such a casual, contemptuous tone, felt like salt being poured into a wound that had never truly healed.
Then, as a cruel contrast to the pain he'd just felt, Medeia's cheerful voice surfaced again in his mind.
[My dear~] she cooed, as if unaware or uncaring of what Azariah had just overheard.
[Are you really going to cut that beautiful hair of yours? Such shimmering silk? Don't you want to grow it until it reaches the very bottom of the tower? Just imagine, when your beloved thief comes, he can climb it like a ladder to rescue you, and then the two of you…]
"SILENCE!" Azariah snapped, his voice exploding outward, louder, harsher, and more furious than he'd intended.
That joke, which at another time might have earned nothing more than a scowl, now felt like a spark thrown onto fuel already soaked through. His pent-up anger at the world, at his parents, at his cruel fate, suddenly found a clear and immediate target.
His shout echoed through the book-filled room, louder than the servants' voices beyond the door. Outside, their conversation halted for a moment, followed by a few forced, nervous giggles that quickly faded away.