EPISODE 5
The walls of the Sylvan estate were silent.The stone-cold corridors echoed beneath Cassius’s footsteps. It wasn’t a mansion—it was a fortress carved from power, lineage, and silence. The ceilings arched high with gothic indifference, draped in shadows rather than chandeliers. Everything about the place—its greystone walls, the cold marble floors, the silence thicker than smoke—spoke of intimidation, not warmth. Of authority, not love.
Cassius stood tall—Stoic as marble--
Butler
*A butler approached and bowed with stiff precision*
"Your father awaits in the study, sir."
He didn’t sigh. He didn’t scoff. He simply nodded and walked.
The study, deep inside the heart of the castle, felt more like a war chamber than a room for books. His father sat behind a sprawling desk of blackened oak, the kind that had absorbed centuries of decisions.
His mother stood by the arched window, hands clasped, eyes downturned—not submissive, just exhausted from years of dignified silence.
Gaze faraway—almost as if watching her younger self walk away in another life.
Cassius Sylvan (ML)
“You called?”
*Satius asked, his voice polished but cold. No warmth. No rebellion either. Just the practiced tone of a man who never had the luxury of being a son.*
Lucius Sylvan (ML's Father)
*His father didn’t waste time.*
“You’re to marry.”
Cassius blinked once. Not out of surprise—he had always known this day would come. Only, he expected more warning. Maybe even a choice.
Cassius Sylvan (ML)
“Who?” he asked, more out of necessity than curiosity.
Lucius Sylvan (ML's Father)
"Irene Wynter."
"A girl from the Wynter line. Clean family. Distant from our world, but respectful. Far from the underworld, but old blood. Have formal ties with the Sylvan family.”
Cassius Sylvan (ML)
*Cassius narrowed his eyes subtly.*
"The Wynters'? That was new. Oddly close, oddly strategic."
*He whispered to himself.*
Cassius Sylvan (ML)
“And if I refuse?”
* He said with a hope. Knowing He doesn't stand a chance but still couldn't convince himself from saying that loud.*
Lucius Sylvan (ML's Father)
“You won’t,” his father said, folding his hands. “You don’t have that luxury. Legacy doesn’t run on feelings. It runs on alliances.” *cold*
Cassius Sylvan (ML)
.......*Nodded slightly*
Cassius Sylvan (ML)
“Then what’s the next step?” *he asked dryly.*
Lucius Sylvan (ML's Father)
“We will be visiting their estate,” his father said. “A formal introduction. See if the girl’s tolerable.”
Cassius Sylvan (ML)
“You want me to meet her?” *He asked dryly.*
Lucius Sylvan (ML's Father)
*His father leaned forward slightly.* “This isn’t a merger of empires. Not yet. It’s tradition. It’s legacy. You’ll meet her, and if she doesn’t fall short of reason, the engagement will be announced within a week.”
Cassius Sylvan (ML)
“And if she does?”
*cold*
Lucius Sylvan (ML's Father)
“She won’t,” *he said flatly.* “I’ve already seen the dossier.”
Julia Sylvan
*His mother turned slightly.*
“She seems like a good girl,” she said gently.
The only thing she’d said since he entered. She always tried to soften the edges, even though her own life was a living monument to restraint.
Cassius looked between them. His parents—bound by duty, not affection. He’d grown up inside a cold contract and now, he was being handed one of his own.
Cassius Sylvan (ML)
Cassius breathed in the cold air of the study—tasting the weight of inevitability.
“Fine,” he said, adjusting the cuffs of his suit. “Tell me when and where. I’ll make sure I don’t embarrass the dynasty.”
*He said coldly as he stood up and left.*
Behind the Closed Doors – The Sylvan Study
The heavy door shut with a soft thud. Silence lingered in the air like dust on old bookshelves.
Lucius Silvan leaned back in his chair, eyes fixed on the door long after Cassius had gone. He exhaled—slow, weary—rubbing the bridge of his nose with fingers calloused by decisions, not time.
Lucius Sylvan (ML's Father)
“He doesn’t understand,” *he muttered.* “Still refuses to.”
Julia remained by the window, her silhouette cast long against the stone wall, soft and still. She didn’t look at him, only listened—like she always did.
Lucius Sylvan (ML's Father)
“I’m not the villain he paints me to be,” Lucius said after a moment. “Everything I’ve done… every alliance I’ve signed, every silence I’ve endured—was for him. And yet he walks around as if legacy is a burden I shoved onto his shoulders.”
“He’s colder now. Talks less. Looks at me like I’m some relic.”
His voice cracked slightly, almost hidden under the weight of pride.
Julia Sylvan
*Julia finally turned. Calm. Composed. Distant, but never absent.*
“I’ve noticed it too,” she said, her voice even. “The way he drifts through the halls. The quiet. The way he looks at the world—like he’s already tired of it.”
Julia Sylvan
“But some things,” she continued gently, “take time to settle in a man’s bones. Even for someone like him.”
“He’ll understand… eventually. Maybe not the way you want him to, but he will.”
Lucius Sylvan (ML's Father)
Lucius scoffed under his breath—not dismissively, just tiredly.
“I raised him in iron. You’d think that would’ve made him sharper.”
Julia Sylvan
“It made him resilient,” Julia replied. “But not invincible to ache.”
There was no softness in their marriage, no intimacy in the room—but there was a strange kind of understanding. An alliance not just of names, but of endurance.
Julia Sylvan
“He’s your son, Lucius. And mine. He’ll find his way, even if it’s through the shadows we left for him.”
Lucius Sylvan (ML's Father)
"He better be. The earlier, the better it will be for him. The crown, the throne won't wait for him to understand."
The fireplace crackled quietly in the background, casting flickering light over the stone walls. The silence between them lingered—not heavy, just familiar.
Lucius’s gaze shifted to her. His voice, when it came, was quieter this time. Stripped of command. Almost… human.
Lucius Sylvan (ML's Father)
“Have you eaten?”
Julia paused, her eyes reflecting both tired resolve and a flicker of warmth.
A slight, almost imperceptible shake of her head answered him.
Lucius Sylvan (ML's Father)
He nodded slowly, looking at the dying fire for a beat.
Then, without looking at her again, he said with a composed calm:
“Join me, then."
His words gentle but formal.
A small pause passed between them.
Julia didn’t smile—neither did he. But something settled in the space. Not warmth, not love… but a quiet companionship born from years of standing beside one another in silence and storms.
She stepped forward, and walked beside her. Wordless, as though this had always been part of their rhythm—two people who never shared affection, but never lacked presence.
"I survived. That’s all I know how to do."
Lucius Silvan was a man forged in precision and power. His height, 6'2, he stood not by warmth, but by presence—unyielding, exacting. In his late fifties, Lucius bore the weight of the Ivory Talon legacy with cold pride. A Don once feared and never questioned, he led with an iron fist and an unbreakable sense of order.
Marriage, for him, was a formality—an alliance bound by names, not hearts. He was distant from both wife and child, not by accident, but by design. Love was never part of the equation; perfection was. He raised Cassius not with affection, but with structure, discipline, and expectation.
Lucius was a provider, yes. But never a father in the way Cassius might’ve needed. He was a mentor, a strategist, a commander—crafting his son into a weapon that mirrored his own cold, calculated legacy. Work came first. It always had. Emotion was a distraction, and Lucius Silvan had no time for distractions.
He didn’t raise a boy. He built a successor.
"I stopped asking for light. I learned to move in the dark."
Julia Sylvan stood at 5'4, not towering in frame, but unshakable in presence. She was not soft—never had the luxury to be. Her life was a series of quiet sacrifices, bound by a fate she no longer questioned. Once content, once warm in her silences, she had long let go of the girl she used to be. The alliance had brought her into a world she never belonged to, a world that demanded she shed her softness for survival.
She looked after her husband and son not out of affection, but out of duty—out of obligation stitched into her spine. Her eyes no longer glowed; they only held the weight of endurance.
A homemaker, yes, but not a nurturer. She stood present in her son’s life, but never mothered him.
Like Lucius, she taught him to never cry, never bend, never show weakness. In raising him, she passed down the same coldness that once bruised her—never out of cruelty, only because she knew no other way.
She doesn’t regret it. She’s simply… tired.
Comments