Phew~
The sound was a soft, jagged exhaled that Hazel hadn't even realized she was holding. After the door to Aiden's room clicked shut, the weight of the world seemed to shift. She leaned her back against the dark wood, her legs feeling like they were made of water.
"What happened to him?"
She whispered the question to the empty, shadowed hallway. A soft, barely visible smile—something that hadn't touched her lips in years—tugged at the corners of her mouth.
It wasn't just that he had spoken to her. It was the way he had done it. Every other person in this manor spoke to her as if she were a piece of furniture at best, or a stain on the rug at worst.
Their voices were always laced with that sharp, stinging poison of disgust, or the heavy, suffocating blanket of pity.
But Aiden... his voice had been cold, yes, but it was a clean cold. Like a winter wind that sweeps away the filth. There was no disgust in his eyes when he looked at her. There was only an intense, terrifying recognition.
A soft shade of crimson began to materialize on her cheeks. It felt hot, almost stinging against her skin. She moved her hands quickly to cover them, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
'What is happening to me?'
The scene of Aiden clasping her wrist replayed itself in her mind with the clarity of a lightning strike.
She could still feel the phantom pressure of his small fingers—the way they hadn't trembled, the way they had anchored her to the floor when she felt like she was drifting away into the dark.
For the first time since her home burned, someone had reached out and grabbed her. Not to push her into a corner, but to tell her to stand.
She skidded alongside the wall, her strength finally failing as she slid down until she sat on her feet, huddled in the shadow of the door.
In the silence of the corridor, the hatred she had nurtured for the Veynar family didn't disappear—it just began to reshape itself. It narrowed, sharpening into a singular, obsessive point.
The Duke was a monster. Alaric was a threat. The other maids were insects. But the boy behind this door?
He was the only person who had looked at the ashes of her life and told her they were a foundation, not a grave.
"Young Master..." she whispered, pressing her forehead against her knees.
She stayed there, huddled against the door for a long while, listening to the silence of the room behind her. But then, a sound broke her trance—a faint, rhythmic shuffle from the other side of the wood.
Aiden's footsteps were approaching the door.
"Huh?"
Her heart skipped a beat. A sudden, frantic energy seized her limbs. She didn't want him to see her like this—weak, blushing, and loitering like a stalker.
Subconsciously, she scrambled to her feet and ran down the corridor, ducking behind a stone corner and pressing her back against the cold masonry to hide.
She held her breath, her eyes wide as she peered out from her hiding spot.
The heavy oak door creaked open, and the boy emerged.
But it wasn't the "Talentless Young Master" the rest of the house saw. He didn't just walk out into the hallway; he moved like a predator entering unknown territory. First, he looked left, then right, his eyes sharp and analytical, scanning the shadows as if he could see the very air moving.
Then, he stepped out. He walked incredibly softly, his feet touching the marble with a cautious, deliberate precision that made no sound. It was the gait of a ghost.
Hazel watched him, her fascination deepening until it became a physical ache in her chest.
'Is he...' she realized. 'He's hiding something.'
The thought of him being alone in the dark, performing this secret dance, made the protective instinct in her soul flare into a white-hot flame.
She waited until he turned the corner toward the servant passages, then she stepped out from behind her pillar.
On a nearby side table, a small, unlit lantern sat gathering dust. Just in case the darkness became too thick to navigate, she quickly grabbed it, her movements fluid and desperate.
She began following Aiden.
Even Hazel herself didn't know why she was doing it. There was no plan, no logic, and certainly no permission. She just did.
It was as if an invisible thread had been sewn into her heart, and as Aiden moved further away, the thread pulled, dragging her soul along behind him.
She followed him through the winding, damp servant passages where the air smelled of mildew and forgotten things. She watched from the deep shadows as he navigated the manor's skeleton, his small frame moving with a chilling, unnatural grace.
Every time he paused to check a corner, she pressed herself so tightly against the wall she felt she might merge with the stone.
Finally, she followed him to the attic.
The door creaked with a low, mournful groan that made her heart leap into her throat, but Aiden didn't turn back. He seemed possessed by a singular purpose.
Hazel waited at the threshold, peering through the gap. The attic was a graveyard of Veynar history—broken furniture, rusted armor, and piles of moth-eaten tapestries.
In the center of this chaos, she saw him. He wasn't looking for a toy or a place to hide. He was moving a heavy iron chest with a strength that shouldn't belong to a boy his size.
Then, he disappeared.
"Young Master?"