Boren didn't even realize he had started walking. His feet moved on their own, leading him out of the inner garden, across the pale stone bridge, past the flowering walls and whispering chimes, away from the place where he had finally voiced the words he had buried for a lifetime.

Sunlight filtered through the leaves above him, casting gentle patterns on the paved path, but none of it reached his eyes.

They were unfocused and dim, clouded with memories of his sister's face, her voice echoing in his mind, and the sharp finality of her words.

Each step felt heavy, as if the estate itself was pressing down on his shoulders, reminding him of where he stood, who he was supposed to be, and what he could never escape.

His chest burned, not just with anger but with something far more corrosive: a slow suffocation of resentment, sorrow, confusion, and fatigue that had been building inside him for as long as he could remember.

Why?

The question rose again, uninvited and unwanted but impossible to silence. Why had it always been like this? From the moment he was born, he felt like a stranger in his own home.

A guest without an invitation. A presence that soured rooms, a reminder nobody wanted.

He walked past trimmed hedges and marble statues depicting heroic ancestors of House Stonehelm, men and women immortalized in stone, cloaked in dignity and triumph.

Their eyes were carved to gaze eternally forward; their chins lifted; their expressions resolute. Boren had passed these statues countless times throughout his life but never once felt that he belonged among them not even as a joke.

His heart twisted. His father didn't want to see him, that much he learned early on. Not through words; his father never wasted even that much on him but through absences, doors that never opened.

Gatherings from which he was excluded, servants who stiffened when he wandered too close to the Patriarch's routes, conversations that stopped when he entered a room only to resume once he'd left.

His siblings hated him not loudly or openly but in ways that mattered: through avoidance; cold politeness; eyes sliding over him as if he were furniture placed awkwardly in a hall meant for beauty.

All of them.

Why?

Because his mother died giving birth to him, a woman he'd never seen; a voice he'd never heard; warmth he'd never felt; a face he'd never been allowed to look upon. No one in the family would show him her portrait, not even once.

Not when he asked as a child. Not when he begged as he grew older. Not even when he'd knelt and lowered his head to say all he wanted was to know what she looked like. It was as though she existed only as a wound and he was the blade.

Somewhere along the way, without a single word being spoken, the family had come to an unspoken agreement.

If she had lived, he would not exist. If he existed, she could not live. And so, deep in their hearts, in their glances, and in their silent cruelty, they decided that he was responsible for her death.

Not fate. Not the fragility of childbirth. Not even the choices of the man who had put a child inside her.

No. It was him, the newborn. The living consequence of decisions made long before his arrival.

Nobody dared to confront the Patriarch about his role in this tragedy. Nobody suggested that if he had restrained his desires or chosen differently, none of this would have happened.

It was simply easier to blame the one who couldn't defend himself, the one who came into this world already burdened with a debt he could never repay.

Boren's vision blurred as his steps slowed. He found himself beneath a towering old tree whose branches spread wide like a cathedral ceiling, leaves whispering softly as they swayed above him.

The trunk was thick and ancient; its roots broke through the pale stone like veins beneath skin.

He sank down against it. The moment his back touched the bark, something within him gave way. His shoulders shook as tears welled up and spilled over, refusing to stop.

They streamed down his cheeks in hot, humiliating rivulets, soaking into his robe and dripping from his chin, blurring the immaculate world around him into shapeless color and light.

He lifted a hand to his face, pressing hard against his eyes as if trying to force memories back in.

But it didn't work. All his life… he had never known what it felt like to be loved. He belonged to a family that numbered in the hundreds, uncles, aunts, cousins, servants, knights, all living under the same banners and sharing the same bloodline.

Yet he walked among them like a ghost, seen but never acknowledged; fed but never welcomed; clothed but never embraced.

He watched siblings receive praise and protection while he remained invisible, observing them being taught and mourned when they were hurt.

And when he fell or cried or struggled under an unbearable weight in his chest? The world simply continued on without him.

He wasn't beaten or starved or chained and somehow that made it worse because nothing hurt quite like being treated as though you didn't exist at all.

Boren clenched his teeth as he drew in a shuddering breath; he would have preferred never having been born at all, truly preferred nonexistence over this strange half-life where he was present yet unwanted; breathing yet unacknowledged; alive yet unloved.

His fingers dug into the fabric of his robe.

But then… the Guild happened. The Gryphon District came alive with noise, the shouting, the laughter, the mingling scents of sweat, ale, ink, and metal.

For the first time in his life, people looked at him and didn't see a funeral; they saw a man. They joked with him, argued with him, complained to him.

They trusted him. They called him Fatty Boren, a name that now carried humor instead of contempt. They slapped his shoulder in camaraderie.

They thanked him. They cursed at him. They relied on him. He mattered here. And now they wanted to take that away, the one place where he had finally felt… real.

Boren's jaw tightened as hatred stirred within him. He had thought, perhaps foolishly, that even if everyone else despised him, his sister might be different.

That maybe beneath her distance, there was still something left of family. Today, that illusion shattered.

Even she didn't see him as a brother anymore, only as a liability.

A stain. A piece out of place. Something inside him cracked quietly,not loudly enough for anyone to hear but thoroughly nonetheless.

At first, he didn't notice the footsteps approaching, soft and measured, trained in their precision. It was only when a shadow fell across his blurred vision that he realized he was no longer alone.

"Young Master."

Just then a voice sounded, it was old, calm and refined.

Boren stiffened and hastily wiped his face with the back of his sleeve, scrubbing away tears though the redness remained and his breathing betrayed him. He forced himself upright, heart stuttering when he recognized the man before him: William, the main butler of House Stonehelm.

William stood tall in pristine black attire; despite his age, his posture remained straight and dignified. His silver hair was neatly combed back, exuding an authority that even high-ranking servants and minor nobles dared not dismiss.

He bowed slightly. "The Patriarch seeks your audience."

Those words landed like a hammer blow.

Boren's breath caught in his throat as panic surged through his veins. "T-The Patriarch?" he stammered before he could stop himself. "William… I mean..fath..no..the Patriarch is looking for me?"

William's expression remained neutral as he inclined his head slightly. "Yes."

Silence hung heavy between them as Boren's mind raced with questions: Why? What had he done? Had his sister already spoken against him? Had someone reported something? Was this about the Guild? About his refusal? About simply existing?

A familiar fear crawled up his spine, cold and practiced, as his hands trembled slightly at his sides. After a moment's hesitation, he swallowed hard and nodded resolutely.

"Lead the way."

William stepped aside gracefully and gestured with one gloved hand for Boren to follow down the pale path ahead of them.

William walked ahead, but after several paces, his gaze shifted briefly, glancing back. For the first time, something flickered across his eyes.

Pity.

So faint it might have been imagined and so real it hurt.

"What a poor lad," the old butler murmured quietly.

Boren didn't respond, he only walked.Toward the man who had never once called him son.Toward the house that had never felt like home.Toward a meeting he did not want, but could not escape.

And behind him, beneath the great old tree, the stone remained damp where tears had fallen, as if the estate itself bore silent witness to a pain it had never cared to understand.

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