When the Gate Opens

The air outside was colder than the rain had suggested. It pressed against Aster’s face like a damp cloth—cleansing, suffocating. He stepped down from the carriage without help, collar glinting under the gaslight from the estate's lantern posts. The gravel crunched beneath his boots like old bones. Behind him, Elian hesitated.

The footman who’d opened the door didn’t speak. He merely stepped aside as Elian finally emerged, eyes darting to the towering façade of the manor, then to the neat line of silent servants awaiting them like mourners at a graveside.

No one greeted them. No one bowed. The silence was too complete to be accidental. It was a silence crafted, cultivated.

Aster looked toward the end of the line—toward the one figure who didn’t match the others.

The young man wasn’t in uniform. He leaned against one of the stone columns, arms folded, watching them with a gaze that wasn’t cruel but wasn’t safe either. He had the calm stillness of someone who could move fast if he wanted to. His eyes were dark—not like coal, but like something deeper, something with weight. When Elian looked at him, the stranger didn’t glance away. He simply tilted his head the smallest degree, as if to say, I see you. All of you.

Elian blinked, startled, and looked down quickly.

“Come,” someone said. The voice belonged to a man in a charcoal waistcoat, older than the rest. The head steward, perhaps. He didn’t introduce himself. “You will not speak unless given permission. You will not address the sons unless prompted. You will be obedient. You will answer to your assigned handlers and no other.”

Elian’s breath caught. Aster didn’t move.

The steward continued, gesturing to the main staircase of the estate. “The heirs will receive you now.”

“Elian Rellhart,” he said, nodding to the right.

Elian flinched. “That’s not my name—”

“It is now.”

Two guards approached. One took Elian’s arm—not harshly, but firmly. Elian looked back at Aster, panic mounting in his eyes.

“Aster—wait—please—” His voice cracked.

Aster didn’t move toward him. He knew better. Elian was being taken. That part was done.

Elian twisted to look over his shoulder as he was led up the steps. The stranger by the column had not moved, but his gaze followed him, not with curiosity, but with something sharper—something close to pity.

“Aster,” the steward said now.

He turned toward the left wing of the estate.

“Come.”

The guards did not grab him. Aster walked himself, gaze forward, features still.

As he passed the silent line of servants, he caught a murmur. Someone whispered, just under breath: One Universe. A woman. A sneer in her tone, but nervous too. Like saying the words might bring something with it.

He kept walking.

The man who stood at the end of the line—the one who didn’t belong there—turned his eyes from Elian, now gone inside, and met Aster’s stare. For one sharp moment, neither of them blinked.

Then the stranger looked away.

They entered the estate.

The doors closed behind them with a sound that was not a thud, but a seal.

And Aster knew, without a vision, without a tremor, without blood on the tongue, that nothing outside these walls would save them now.

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