The rain had started sometime after dusk, soft at first. Just a mist hanging over the vineyards and drifting through the hills in silver sheets. By midnight, it had turned vicious.

Oliver pulled his coat tighter around himself as his boots slipped against the muddy road, lantern swinging weakly from one hand while the other kept hold of the satchel tucked beneath his arm. The letters inside were probably ruined already. Command would complain about the ink bleeding through. Someone always complained about something.

“Brilliant,” he muttered to himself, squinting through the rain. “Really excellent work, Ollie. Get lost in the middle of nowhere carrying paperwork nobody even wants.”

Thunder rolled somewhere beyond the hills.

The southern roads of Valmont had always felt strange at night. Too quiet. The vineyards stretched endlessly into the dark like rows of crooked shadows, interrupted only by the occasional cypress tree swaying violently in the storm. Every few miles there were signs of the war—collapsed stone fences, burnt-out transport trucks abandoned near ditches, distant flashes along the horizon that came several seconds before the sound ever did.

Artillery.

Far enough away not to panic over. Close enough not to ignore.

Oliver exhaled sharply through his nose and adjusted the rifle slung over his shoulder. The outpost should have been another hour east if he’d stayed on the correct road.

If.

At this point he wasn’t even entirely certain he was still on a road.

Rainwater dripped from the ends of his hair into his eyes. His gloves were soaked through. Cold had settled into his fingers hours ago, leaving them stiff around the lantern handle.

Then, through the curtain of rain, he saw it.

At first it barely looked real.

A manor sat overlooking the vineyards farther up the hill, enormous against the dark landscape. Most of its windows were black. Part of the roof had collapsed inward on the western side, leaving jagged silhouettes exposed to the storm. Ivy had crawled over portions of the stone walls unchecked, and one of the front gates hung half-open crookedly like it had been forced years ago and never repaired.

Abandoned.

Had to be.

Oliver stared at it another moment before laughing quietly to himself.

“Well,” he said under his breath, “either I’ve found shelter or the beginning of a ghost story.”

The gravel path leading up toward the estate was flooded nearly ankle-deep in places. By the time he reached the entrance hall, he was dripping rainwater onto cracked marble floors.

The inside smelled faintly of damp wood, dust, and old smoke.

His lantern cast long shadows through the manor as he moved carefully farther in, boots echoing softly through cavernous dark rooms filled with covered furniture and abandoned remnants of another life. Portraits lined portions of the walls beneath layers of dust. One had fallen entirely sideways.

The place felt less abandoned the deeper he went.

Not alive exactly.

Just... paused.

Like someone had left in a hurry and never returned.

Eventually he found what must have once been the main sitting room. A massive marble fireplace dominated the far wall beneath a soot-darkened mantle, old velvet chairs arranged around it in tired silence.

Oliver let out a relieved breath.

“Oh, thank God.”

He shrugged the rifle off carefully and rested it against the marble mantle before crouching near the fireplace, setting the lantern beside him. The wood stacked nearby looked old but dry enough if he could get the damned thing lit.

For the next several minutes the room filled with the sounds of him fumbling unsuccessfully with firewood and muttering increasingly offended commentary under his breath.

“Come on.”

Nothing.

A spark. Then smoke.

Then nothing again.

“You survived artillery and this is what kills you? A stubborn fireplace?”

Another attempt.

A cough as smoke puffed directly into his face.

“Oh, that’s just humiliating.”

By the time the fire finally caught weakly along the edges of the wood, Oliver was half-sitting against the hearth, exhausted and damp, sleeves rolled messily to his forearms.

The room glowed gold for the first time in what looked like years.

And that was when he noticed the figure standing silently on the staircase above him.

Oliver froze immediately.

For one terrible second his brain failed to process anything beyond: Not abandoned.

Then he straightened so quickly he nearly knocked the lantern over.

“Oh—shit. Sorry. Sorry, I didn’t—I thought this place was empty.”

His eyes flicked toward the rifle leaning against the mantle before immediately lifting both hands slightly away from himself in surrender.

“I’m not here to rob you, I swear. I got turned around in the storm and saw the house from the road.” He paused, glancing once toward the struggling fire behind him before adding, with a tired crooked smile:

“Though in my defense, this place does look aggressively haunted.”

The rain had stopped sometime before dawn, though the vineyards still glittered silver with it beneath the early morning light.

Oliver nudged the manor gate open with his shoulder, balancing far too many things in his arms at once. A paper sack tucked beneath one elbow. Another smaller parcel dangling from two fingers. A bundle of firewood strapped poorly together with rope. And, rather unfortunately, a handful of pale wildflowers sticking awkwardly out from beneath the crook of his arm.

One of them slipped loose and fell into the mud.

“Damn it.”

He stared at it for a moment before sighing dramatically to himself and crouching to pick it back up. The flower was slightly crushed now.

“Still counts,” he decided quietly.

The estate looked different in daylight. Less frightening than it had the night he first stumbled across it in the storm. Now it simply looked tired. Sections of ivy had overtaken entire walls unchecked, and several upper windows remained shattered from older bombings farther north. Parts of the vineyard below had gone wild without proper tending, rows growing uneven beneath the hills.

But smoke curled faintly from one chimney now, which meant the fireplaces were still working.

Mostly.

Oliver stepped inside without knocking this time. Not because he considered himself invited exactly. Just... because after several weeks of repeated visits, awkward dinners, repaired lanterns, and nearly setting the kitchen curtains on fire (it only happened once!), the manor had begun to feel strangely familiar to him.

The entrance hall greeted him with its usual silence.

His boots echoed softly across the marble as he moved farther inside, setting the wood down near the wall with a relieved exhale.

“Brought supplies,” he called out absently into the manor. “Before you accuse me of trespassing again, I’m aware I could’ve left them at the door. But then I wouldn’t get to complain about the hill.”

No response.

Oliver smiled slightly to himself. The place no longer felt abandoned anymore.

Cold, yes. Lonely, sometimes. But lived in now in small, stubborn ways.

A coat draped over the back of a chair. Books left open in the sitting room. Fresh ash in the fireplaces. Candles burned low near the staircase.

Signs of survival.

He moved toward the kitchen first, unpacking supplies carefully onto the counter.

Bread. Coffee. Tinned soup. A newspaper folded beneath the parcels. Two precious oranges he’d traded nearly half his cigarettes for at the outpost.

Oliver placed those down with particular satisfaction.

“There,” he murmured proudly. “Practically luxury.”

Then, after a brief pause, he awkwardly pulled the flowers free from beneath his arm.

Several stems bent sideways immediately.

“...Right.”

He looked around the kitchen as though someone might materialize specifically to mock him for this decision.

“They were free,” he informed the empty room defensively.

A beat.

“And before you say anything, yes, I know flowers are objectively useless during wartime.”

Still holding them, he wandered into the sitting room where weak morning light spilled through the tall windows overlooking the vineyards.

The fire had burned low overnight.

Oliver crouched automatically near the hearth to rebuild it, sleeves rolled carelessly to his elbows while he worked. He had gotten better at fireplaces since the first night. Marginally.

The flowers remained resting beside him on the marble mantle for several quiet moments before he finally glanced toward them again.

“...House looked miserable,” he muttered under his breath. “Thought it could use color.”

The excuse sounded weak even to him.

He sighed softly through his nose.

Truthfully, he wasn’t entirely sure when checking on the manor had become the first thing he thought about whenever he got leave from the outpost.

At first it had just been practical.

The roads near the southern line were dangerous. The estate was isolated. Supplies were difficult to get. It made sense to stop by.

Then it became: bringing extra candles because the power failed often.

And then: staying long enough to make sure the fireplaces actually stayed lit.

Which led to: bringing books.

Until finally: he was finding himself watching the road during shifts wondering whether the manor windows still glowed at night.

Which felt significantly more dangerous than artillery fire, frankly.

Oliver leaned back slightly against the hearth with a tired exhale, staring out toward the rain-soaked vineyards below the cliffs.

The war still existed out there.

Convoys. Bombings. Sirens in distant towns. Reports arriving bloodstained and crumpled at the outpost nearly every morning.

But here, for a few hours at least, the manor almost managed to pretend the world had not ended yet.

The manor was quieter than usual that evening.

Rain tapped softly against the tall windows overlooking the vineyards, the sound carried through the old estate in uneven echoes. Somewhere deeper in the house, one of the pipes groaned faintly behind the walls before settling again into silence. Most of the western wing remained dark this late at night, swallowed by shadow where parts of the manor had long since fallen out of use. Only the sitting room and kitchen still carried signs of life now—firelight, stacked books, muddy footprints that never quite disappeared from the marble floors no matter how often they were cleaned.

Oliver had gotten used to the quiet.

At first the estate had unsettled him. It had felt too large, too empty, too full of things left behind in a hurry. But after two months of returning whenever he could escape the outpost for a night or two, the silence had begun to feel familiar instead of eerie.

Comforting, even.

Which was probably concerning.

He wandered through the corridors carrying a lantern in one hand and an armful of firewood tucked against his chest, glancing briefly toward the rain-streaked windows as lightning flickered somewhere beyond the hills.

“Storm’s getting worse,” he called absentmindedly into the manor. “Roads’ll probably flood by morning. Which means if command wanted those reports tonight, they should’ve considered not building military outposts in the middle of nowhere.”

His voice carried softly through the estate before fading again.

Oliver set the firewood down near the sitting room hearth with a tired exhale, rolling stiffness from one shoulder afterward. He’d spent most of the afternoon hauling supplies between posts farther north, and his uniform still smelled faintly of rain, smoke, and engine oil from the transport trucks.

The manor smelled different.

Old wood. Dust. Wine cellars beneath the floorboards. Lavender sometimes, faint enough he only noticed it when the house was especially cold.

It smelled lived in now.

Or maybe haunted in a less threatening way than before.

“Good news,” he announced to nobody in particular while crouching beside the fireplace. “I managed to steal coffee from the officers again. Bad news is I think one of them might actually kill me over it this time.”

A small smile tugged briefly at the corner of his mouth as he worked at the fire.

He had gotten significantly better at fireplaces since the night he first arrived here soaked through and nearly froze trying to light one. The memory still embarrassed him a little.

Actually, most things involving this manor embarrassed him now if he thought about them too long.

Especially the flowers.

Oliver stared into the fire a moment before groaning softly to himself.

“Oh, God.”

Because now that he thought about it, bringing flowers to someone every week probably did look intentional.

At the time it had seemed harmless enough.

The manor had looked miserable. The gardens were dead. The sitting room needed color.

That had been his reasoning.

Except now there were dried flowers in three different vases throughout the estate and he was beginning to suspect he might be an idiot.

“A deeply unfortunate idiot,” he muttered under his breath.

The fire crackled softly as warmth slowly spread through the room.

After a moment, Oliver pushed himself back to his feet and grabbed the lantern again, intending to head upstairs before stopping short halfway down the corridor.

There was light spilling faintly across the floor farther ahead.

He frowned slightly.

That door had never been open before.

The narrow hallway leading toward the older eastern rooms usually ended in darkness and dust-covered furniture no one touched. Entire portions of the manor felt abandoned even now, preserved exactly as they’d been left when the war reached Valmont. But tonight, one of the doors stood partially ajar, warm lantern light flickering softly from somewhere inside.

Oliver stared at it another moment.

Curiosity stirred almost immediately.

Not nosiness exactly.

More the strange realization that after two months here, there were still parts of the estate he’d never seen.

“Well,” he murmured quietly to himself, shifting the lantern higher, “either I’m about to discover a secret passage or finally get murdered by ghosts.”

He stepped closer carefully before nudging the door open the rest of the way.

The difference hit him immediately.

The rest of the manor carried the war everywhere. Dust gathered in corners no one used anymore. Rainwater stained ceilings upstairs. Furniture sat draped beneath old sheets because there weren’t enough people left to care for rooms that size.

This room was untouched.

Not abandoned.

Preserved.

The air smelled faintly of lavender and candlewax beneath the older scent of paper and wood polish. White sheets had been carefully draped over portions of the furniture, not discarded carelessly but placed deliberately to protect them. Trunks lined one wall in neat rows. Framed paintings rested wrapped in cloth against shelves. Even the dust here seemed thinner somehow, disturbed recently enough to suggest someone still came inside.

Oliver stepped farther in slowly, lantern glow shifting across gold frames, silver detailing, carefully stacked books.

“...What is this place?”

The words came out barely above a whisper.

At first none of it made sense.

A dark green traveling coat embroidered faintly with a crest he recognized vaguely but couldn’t place. Silverware marked with the same insignia. Monogrammed handkerchiefs folded carefully beside old records and photographs.

Solameran.

His brow furrowed immediately.

“Why would a Solameran keep all this in Lysena?”

The question slipped out instinctively, more to himself than anyone else.

He moved carefully deeper into the room, almost afraid to touch anything now.

The photographs caught his attention first.

Summer afternoons beside vineyards. A younger version of the manor untouched by war. Two identical figures laughing somewhere near the cliffs overlooking the sea.

Twins.

Oliver paused.

Something about the faces felt horribly familiar.

Not just familiar.

Known.

His stomach tightened slightly as he picked up another framed photograph from beneath a protective cloth.

A family of four stared back at him.

A king. A queen. And two twins standing between them dressed in unmistakable Solameran royal regalia.

The lantern nearly slipped from his hand.

For one strange, disorienting second, his mind refused to connect what he was seeing.

Because suddenly the familiarity made sense.

Not before.

Before, the face had only ever felt vaguely recognizable in the way public figures sometimes did. Like seeing someone once in passing and never thinking about it again.

But standing here now, staring at royal regalia, family portraits, and unmistakable Solameran crests, his brain finally forced the pieces together all at once.

Newspapers scattered across café tables back in Aldoria.

Glossy photographs beside articles about Solameran diplomacy and royal appearances before the war.

Television broadcasts playing silently in bars.

And now, horribly, those distant public images collided all at once with something infinitely more personal.

Because he also knew that face from candlelit dinners when the power failed halfway through meals.

From muddy mornings spent clearing fallen debris from the vineyard paths after storms.

From exhausted conversations beside fireplaces burning too low long after midnight.

From flowers left drying in chipped vases throughout the manor.

His chest tightened sharply.

And somehow that realization felt far more intimate—far more frightening—than recognizing royalty ever could have.

Oliver stared harder at the photograph.

The twins looked nearly identical at first glance.

Same eyes. Same smile. Same careful royal posture drilled into them for cameras and public appearances.

But the longer Oliver looked, the easier it became to separate them.

One stood straighter. More composed. More practiced.

The other looked seconds away from laughing.

And with sudden, painful certainty, Oliver knew exactly which one had been hiding beside him in this crumbling manor for the past two months.

His eyes darted instinctively back toward the doorway as though expecting someone to suddenly explain this away.

But the realization had already settled heavily into his chest.

The accent that never sounded fully Lysenian. The tea. The strange familiarity in certain phrases. The way they carried themselves without seeming aware of it. Why this estate had never truly felt abandoned. Why it felt less like hiding and more like mourning.

And suddenly dozens of things slammed together all at once so hard it almost made him dizzy.

Not fear.

Not outrage.

Just quiet, devastating understanding.

Because standing there inside that preserved little room of another life, surrounded by photographs and pieces of a world carefully hidden away from the war, the truth no longer felt political at all.

It felt lonely.

Painfully lonely.

“Oh my God,” he whispered softly. “You’ve been alone this whole time, haven’t you?”

And then, horribly, his thoughts caught up with him.

Every muddy footprint across expensive floors.

Every sarcastic comment.

Every time he sprawled sideways across antique furniture like he owned the place.

The flowers.

Dear God, the flowers.

The time he nearly set the curtains on fire.

The deeply unfortunate realization that the frankly embarrassing amount of flirting he had absolutely, definitely attempted over the last month had been directed at literal Solameran royalty.

Oliver stared blankly at the royal photograph in his hands for several long seconds before dragging one hand slowly down his face in complete horror.

“...I flirted with Solameran royalty.”

Silence.

Then, very quietly:

“Oh, I’m actually going to throw myself off the balcony.”