Hegemon woke up three hours later in the quiet isolation of his room. He didn't gasp. He didn't bolt upright. He simply stared at the wooden ceiling, his eyes hollowed out like two burnt-out embers. The silence in the room was suffocating, heavy with the lingering stench of blood that only he could smell.
A soft knock rattled the door, followed by the slow creak of hinges. Lily stepped inside, carrying a small basin of warm water and a towel. Her face was drawn, her knuckles white as she squeezed the damp cloth.
"You're awake," she whispered, her voice carefully measured, as if speaking to a wounded animal that might snap at any second. "You've been out for hours. The doctor said it was acute nervous exhaustion, but..."
She trailed off, setting the basin on the nightstand. She reached out to place a hand on his shoulder, but the moment her fingertips grazed his black waistcoat, Hegemon flinched—a violent, involuntary jerk that sent his arm crashing into the porcelain basin.
"CLANG!"
Water splashed across the nightstand, soaking his sleeve and pooling on the floor. Lily gasped, pulling her hand back as if she had been burned.
Hegemon didn't apologize. He didn't even look at her. Instead, he stared down at his wet, trembling right hand—the same fist that had swung uselessly at the shadow, the same hand that had failed to save a single soul in the burning courtyard. Slowly, his fingers curled into a tight knot. His fingernails bit so deeply into his palm that thin beads of dark crimson began to ooze from his skin, dripping onto the soaked bedsheets.
"Hegemon, stop!" Lily lunged forward, grabbing his wrist to pry his fingers open. "You're bleeding! What is wrong with you?!"
"Get off," he rasped. His voice wasn't loud, but it was laced with a cold, jagged venom that made Lily's breath hitch in her throat.
"No! I'm not leaving you like this!" she yelled, her eyes brimming with frustrated tears as she pulled harder. "Talk to me, damn it! You're losing your mind!"
Hegemon ripped his arm out of her grip with terrifying force, shoving her back. His chest heaved, his jaw clenched so hard the muscles along his cheekbones throbbed. He stood up from the bed, his boots hitting the wet floorboards, and slammed his fist directly into the heavy oak wardrobe beside him.
"THUD!"
The wood cracked under the impact. Splinters dug into his knuckles, but he didn't blink. He leaned his forehead against the splintered wood, his body shaking uncontrollably. A low, guttural sound escaped his throat—not a cry, nor a scream, but the desperate, suffocating wheeze of a man drowning in his own inadequacy.
"I can't... reach it," he whispered, his forehead pressing harder into the broken oak until blood trickled down his brow. "It's gone, Lily. Every time I try to grasp it... there's nothing. Just a void."
Lily stood frozen, her hand pressed against her mouth, watching the man who had always been her invincible anchor crumble into a desperate mess of bloody knuckles and silent despair.
He slowly turned his head to look at her, his bloodshot eyes completely devoid of the sharp, calculated light he always carried. "They died. Right in front of me. And I couldn't even swing my blade. I am nothing without it... I'm just a corpse waiting for the next knife."