Chapter 59: The Young Master
Click.
The door swung inward.
They slipped inside.
Unlike the lavish hallway outside, the room was bare. Not what Nuri expected for a noble kid's quarters. The silence sat heavy on the air, making the place feel completely cut off from the rest of the house.
No pictures on the wood walls. No books on the tables. Just a bed and the bare minimum.
"Mother won't like it if she finds you here."
The voice was quiet, small, coming from the corner bed.
A boy was buried under the blankets, his frame tiny beneath the thick sheets. He slowly reached out and pushed back the curtain.
Nuri stared at his face. A weird spark of recognition hit him right in the chest.
Have I seen him somewhere before?
He couldn't place it.
The kid gave them a small, tired smile. "It's been a while since I talked to anyone who isn't Mother or the doctor."
"Sorry for barging in like this..." Alina said, stepping forward. For once, she looked genuinely bad about breaking in.
Truman blinked at them, confused. "Why are you apologizing? You're the ones who got dragged into this place against your will."
He took in their torn, dusty clothes.
"You look starved. Eat those," Truman said, pointing a thin arm toward a plate of pastries on the table. "Mother won't be back for days anyway."
Nuri froze, cautious, but Alina walked straight over and shoved a piece into her mouth without a second thought. If she wasn't worried about poison, it was fine. Her gut instincts were usually right.
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Truman just watched them chew. His smile was soft, way too soft. It looked like a mother watching her kids eat dinner.
A kid shouldn't look at people like that.
His face had the soft shape of a fifteen-year-old, but the skin was drawn tight over his cheekbones. Pale as a sheet, translucent enough that Nuri could trace the faint blue veins underneath.
"Thanks for the food," Alina said around a mouthful, perfectly natural about it.
Nuri stood there awkward, his hands stuffed in his pockets. Times like this, he really envied how his sister could just adapt to anything.
"You..." Alina started, then stopped herself.
Truman nodded like he already knew what she was going to ask. "I know."
His smile dropped a bit.
"You talked to Mother, right? I'm cursed." He looked down at his blanket. "Can't give you details, even if I wanted to. The curse locks my tongue if I try to explain the actual condition."
His tone was completely flat. No panic, no anger.
"That's why the doctors can't figure it out," he murmured. He paused, his breath rattling slightly. "Doesn't matter. I know what it is."
He looked back up, his eyes dead clear. "Even if they knew, they couldn't fix it. My time's already set."
He said it like he was talking about the weather.
How?
Nuri's hands clenched into fists in his pockets. How could anyone just accept dying like that? He hadn't even fought back! What was the point of dumping all your effort into giving up?
And his mother was burning down the whole world out there trying to keep him breathing, while he sat here waiting to stop.
Blood rushed to Nuri's ears. Heat flared in his throat.
Then Alina grabbed his wrist.
Hard.
Nuri looked at her. She felt it too.
"Is that it?" Alina asked. Her voice was steady, but her grip was tight enough to bruise. "You're just going to sit here and let it happen?"
"There's a lot you don't get," Truman said quietly. "If you saw the whole picture, you'd make the same call."
Alina's fingers dug into Nuri's arm until he winced, but her face didn't break.
"Then explain it to us."
Truman stared at her. "If you step into this, you don't get your normal life back."
His eyes filled with pity. Real, heavy pity.
"Once you go down this road, you can't leave."
"Pretty sure I passed that point weeks ago," Nuri muttered under his breath, staring at the floorboards.
He was already up to his neck in it. Ever since the temple fell, he didn't have a normal life to go back to anyway. Maybe that was why Lucien was keeping him around, he'd seen something he shouldn't have, and now he was stuck in the same boat.
Truman caught the look in Nuri's eyes and nodded slowly. He recognized that look.
He turned back to Alina. "Your brother's already tied to this. But what about you?"
His quiet mask cracked for a split second, his voice sharp. "You really want to drag yourself into this hell?"
"Don't care," Alina said instantly.
She pulled her hand off Nuri's wrist and balled it into a fist. "Whatever's going on here, I'm seeing it through. Even if it hurts."
Nuri looked at his sister, speechlessly.
She really was something else.