Diluc
The singing started before dawn, threading through the walls like smoke. He sat up. The bed creaked. The floor was cold under his feet. He sat on the edge of the mattress for a moment, letting the cold wake him, letting the singing wash over him without sinking in. He had learned to do that—let the wind press against you without opening the door.
He dressed slowly: black pants, white shirt, dark coat. The fabric was worn soft from years of wear. He owned nothing new. New things attracted attention. He had learned to be unnoticeable. His father had been large and loud and impossible to ignore. The wind had taken him first.
The stairs creaked as he walked down. Third step from the bottom. His father had meant to fix it. Diluc never bothered. The creak was real. Everything else in this city was polished smooth, shaped into something it was not. The creak was honest.
The tavern was dark. Chairs upside down on the tables. Floor swept clean. Bar wiped down. He had done all of this last night. He would do it again tonight. The same routine. Every day. Every year.
He walked behind the bar and pulled a glass from the shelf. It was clean. They were all clean. He wiped it anyway, slow circles, his thumb tracing the rim. The glass was warm from his hand. That was the only warmth in the room.
He thought about the outsider. Elara. She was still in the room above the stables—or she had been an hour ago. He had looked up from the alley and seen a shadow moving behind the dark window. She had not slept well. He had not expected her to stay. Most people left, or they went to the Cathedral and came back different, and then they left, or they stopped coming at all. He had watched it happen a thousand times.
But she was different. He did not know how yet. He just knew.
---
Diluc — His Father
His father's name had been Crepus. Diluc did not say it often. It sat in his chest like a stone, smooth from years of being carried. When he was a boy, Crepus had been the largest man in the world. Broad shoulders that blocked the sun. Thick hands that could lift a barrel of wine without straining. A voice that carried across the winery fields, calling Diluc in for dinner when the light began to fade.
Diluc had followed him everywhere. Through the vineyards in spring, when the leaves were new and green. Through the cellars in autumn, when the grapes were pressed and the smell of fermenting wine filled the air. His father had taught him how to hold a glass, how to pour without spilling, how to tell the difference between a wine that needed time and a wine that was ready. He had taught him how to negotiate with merchants, how to spot a liar, how to stand firm when someone tried to cheat you.
"You have to be strong in this world," Crepus had said. "Not just in your arms. In your heart. People will try to take from you. The world will try to break you. You hold on to what matters, and you do not let go."
Diluc had believed him. He had believed that strength was enough. He had believed that if you held on tightly enough, nothing could be taken from you.
He had been twelve when he last tasted his father's wine. A small glass, barely a sip, at the harvest festival. The wine had been dark and rich, the color of rubies, and it had tasted like oak and berries and something else, something he could not name. His father had watched him drink it, smiling, his hand on Diluc's shoulder. "One day, this will all be yours," Crepus had said. "The winery. The tavern. The recipes. You'll take care of it when I'm gone."
Diluc had not wanted to think about his father being gone. He had nodded and said nothing.
The shaking started three years later.
At first, it was just his father's hands trembling when he poured. He laughed it off. Old age. Too much wine. But the shaking spread. To his voice. To his smile. To the way he looked at his son, as if he was not sure who Diluc was anymore. He would stop mid-sentence, his mouth open, his eyes blank, and then shake his head and say, "What was I saying?" Diluc would tell him, and he would nod, and then he would forget again.
Diluc tried to help. He took over the tavern duties. He watched his father, tried to keep him grounded, tried to remind him of who he was. He showed him old photographs. He told him stories about the past. He poured him glasses of real wine, hoping the taste would trigger something.
But the wind was patient. It wore you down. It took little things first—a memory here, a feeling there, the name of a wine you used to love. You did not notice at first. You thought you were just getting older, more forgetful, more tired. And then one day you could not remember your son's birthday, and you laughed it off, and the wind took that too, and the laughter was not yours anymore.
Diluc watched his father disappear piece by piece. It was like watching a building collapse from the inside. The walls were still standing, but the rooms were empty. The windows were dark. The person who had lived there was gone.
His father stopped laughing the week before the deacons came. He sat in the corner of the tavern—the same corner where the painter sat now—his hands shaking, his eyes empty. He did not speak for seven days. Diluc sat with him. He poured him water, real water, and his father did not drink it. He just sat there, trembling, waiting for something Diluc could not give him.
Diluc talked to him anyway. About the vineyards. About the harvest. About the time they had gotten caught in a storm while checking the fields, and his father had wrapped his coat around him, and they had run back to the house together, laughing. About the first time he had tasted wine, at the harvest festival, and how his father had smiled and said, "One day, this will all be yours."
His father did not respond.
And then Kaeya called the deacons.
---
Diluc — Kaeya
Kaeya had come to the winery when Diluc was ten. Crepus had found him on the road, half-frozen, his clothes torn, his face pale. He brought him inside, wrapped him in a blanket, and sat him by the fire. "He's one of us now," Crepus had said. "His name is Kaeya. He'll be staying with us."
Diluc had been wary at first. He had never shared his home with anyone. But Kaeya was quiet and polite, and he looked at Diluc with wide, curious eyes, and something in Diluc softened. He showed Kaeya around the winery. He introduced him to the workers. He poured him a glass of grape juice and told him stories about the harvest.
Kaeya never talked about where he came from. When Diluc asked, he would look away and change the subject. Diluc assumed it was too painful to discuss. He did not push.
They grew up together. Trained together. Fought together. Laughed together. Kaeya was clever and sharp and always watching, always calculating, but Diluc did not see it. He saw a brother. Someone who understood him, who stood beside him, who made the weight of the world feel lighter.
They stayed up late, talking about the future. Kaeya wanted to join the Knights of Favonius. Diluc wanted to run the winery and the tavern. They made plans, promises, vows. "We'll watch each other's backs," Diluc said. "No matter what." And Kaeya nodded, his one eye bright, and said, "No matter what."
Diluc believed him.
When they were older, they joined the Knights together. Diluc rose quickly—his father's name, his own skill, his dedication. Kaeya rose too, though more quietly. He had a way of being in the right place at the right time, of knowing things he should not know, of solving problems before they became problems. Diluc was proud of him. He told Kaeya so, many times. "You're going to be captain someday," Diluc said. "Maybe even Grand Master." And Kaeya smiled, that careful smile that did not quite reach his eyes, and said, "Maybe."
They worked cases together. A merchant smuggling illegal goods. A series of thefts in the city. A group of bandits hiding in the forest. Diluc led the charge, his claymore swinging, his voice loud. Kaeya hung back, watching, waiting, and then stepped in at the perfect moment to end the fight.
"You're like a cat," Diluc said once, after Kaeya had taken down a fleeing suspect with a well-aimed throw of his sword. "You just sit there and watch, and then you pounce."
"Someone has to be the brains," Kaeya replied, and Diluc laughed, and they went to the tavern to drink, and everything was fine.
But there were cracks. Kaeya would disappear for hours, sometimes days, and when he came back, he would not say where he had been. He would deflect, change the subject, make a joke. Diluc told himself it was none of his business. Everyone had secrets.
He had not known how big the secret was.
---
Diluc — The Day the Deacons Came
Diluc had been upstairs, trying to sleep. He had not been sleeping well. His father's condition had worsened. The tavern was empty most days now. People did not want to drink in a place where the owner sat in the corner and stared at nothing.
He heard the knock on the door. Soft, insistent. He ignored it. Then footsteps on the stairs. Kaeya's voice, low and urgent. "Diluc. Come down. It's time."
He dressed quickly and went down. The deacons were already there. Two young men in white robes, their faces smooth and pleasant, their voices soft as lullabies. They stood on either side of his father, holding his arms. His father was standing, walking toward the door, a smile on his face that Diluc had never seen before.
"Wait," Diluc said. "What are you doing?"
The deacons looked at him with gentle eyes. "Your father needs the blessing. He needs to let go. He will be so much lighter."
Diluc looked at Kaeya. Kaeya stood by the door, his one eye fixed on the floor. He would not meet Diluc's gaze.
"You called them."
"It was mercy."
"Mercy." Diluc had never hit Kaeya. He had never hit anyone. But that night, he came close. His hands clenched into fists. His voice was low and shaking. "You had no right. He was my father. He was not yours to give away."
Kaeya did not defend himself. He just stood there, taking it, his one eye burning with something that might have been guilt or certainty or both.
"He was already gone, Diluc. The man you knew was already gone. The Cathedral just made it official."
Diluc watched his father walk out the door without looking back. The deacons guided him gently, and his father went willingly, his face bright, his steps steady for the first time in months. The door closed. The singing swelled.
Diluc stood in the empty tavern, his hands still clenched, his chest heaving. Kaeya did not leave. He stayed by the door, waiting.
"You should go."
"I'm sorry."
"Go."
Kaeya left. Diluc did not speak to him for years.
---
Diluc — Aftermath
Diluc threw himself into work. He ran the tavern during the day and patrolled the city at night. He stopped sleeping. He stopped eating. He stopped painting. The box of paints under his bed gathered dust. The brushes dried out and cracked.
He saw Kaeya sometimes, in the streets. Kaeya would nod. Diluc would look away. The wound was still raw. He could not look at Kaeya without seeing his father walking out the door, without hearing the deacons' soft voices, without feeling the anger burning in his chest.
Years passed. The anger did not fade. It settled into his bones, into the way he moved, into the way he spoke. He became known as a man of few words. A man who kept to himself. A man who did not smile.
He thought about reaching out. He thought about walking up to Kaeya and saying something. Anything. But he did not. He was afraid. Afraid that Kaeya would not forgive him. Afraid that the wound would open again. Afraid that he would lose the last person who remembered what he used to be like before the wind took everything.
So he stayed silent. He stayed in his tavern. He poured colored water. And Kaeya stayed in the shadows, watching, waiting. Neither of them said a word.
But sometimes, late at night, when the tavern was empty and the singing was soft, Diluc thought about the boy who had come to the winery half-frozen, who had looked at him with wide, curious eyes. The boy who had trained beside him, fought beside him, laughed beside him. The boy who had called him brother.
He wondered if that boy was still there, somewhere, under the careful smiles and the guarded eyes. He wondered if Kaeya ever thought about him. He wondered if Kaeya ever wished things had been different.
He did not know. So he did nothing. He stood still, like a stone in a river, and let the water flow around him.
---
Diluc — The Painter
The painter had been at the winery often when Diluc was young. Her name was Elara—the same name as the outsider, though Diluc did not know that then. She was his mother's oldest friend, and after his mother died, she kept coming. She said the winery felt like home.
She taught Diluc to paint when he was ten. He had been watching her one afternoon, standing in the doorway of her studio, his eyes fixed on the canvas. She held out a brush to him. "Come here," she said. "Let me show you something."
He was hesitant. Painting was not what boys did. Boys helped in the vineyards. Boys learned to pour wine and negotiate contracts. But she put the brush in his hand and closed her fingers around his, and together they mixed ultramarine and cadmium yellow to make the color of the sky.
"See?" she said. "You're not making mud. You're making the sky. The sky is not one color. It is a thousand colors, all layered together. You have to look closely to see them."
She taught him the names of colors. Ultramarine, vermilion, cadmium yellow, titanium white, burnt sienna, viridian. Words that felt like magic, like secrets, like things that belonged only to her and to him. She taught him how to see light—how the sun at dawn was different from the sun at noon, how shadows were not black but blue and purple and brown. She taught him how to layer paint, how to let one color bleed into another, how to make something from nothing.
He painted landscapes. The cliffs outside the city. The lake at dawn. The forest when the leaves were turning. He was not good. His lines were too heavy. His colors were too bright. But she never criticized him. She only said, "Keep going. You'll find your hand."
He painted for years. Every afternoon, after his lessons, he would go to her studio and paint until the light faded. It was the only time he felt quiet inside. The only time the weight of being Crepus's son, of being the heir to the winery, did not press on his chest.
She left the winery when he was fifteen. Not because she wanted to. Because the shaking had started. She tried to hide it, but Diluc saw. Her hands trembled when she held the brush. The lines on her canvas were no longer straight. She started painting the same thing over and over—the cliffs at dawn, the same cliffs, the same dawn, the same light—because she could not remember what else to paint.
"I'm tired," she said one day, packing her brushes into a box. "I need to rest. I'll come back when I'm better."
She did not come back. Diluc saw her in the tavern years later, sitting in the corner, her hands pressed flat against the table, shaking. He brought her water. She looked up at him, and for a moment, just a moment, she recognized him. "Diluc," she said. "You're so tall now." Then the smile snapped back into place, and she said, "Thank you. I'm feeling much better now."
He has not painted since.
---
Diluc — The Box Under the Bed
He thought about the box again. It sat under his bed, pushed against the wall, covered in dust. The paints were probably dried out. The brushes were probably cracked. The canvases he had kept were probably warped and yellowed. He did not know why he had kept them. Sentiment, maybe. Or guilt. Or the faint, stubborn hope that someday he would open the box and find that the part of him that had painted was not dead, only sleeping.
He had tried to paint once, after his father died. He sat on the floor of his room, the box open in front of him, a brush in his hand. He stared at a blank canvas for an hour. He did not know what to paint. The cliffs seemed wrong. The lake seemed wrong. The forest seemed wrong. Everything he had once loved to paint felt like a memory of someone else's life.
He put the brush down. He closed the box. He pushed it under the bed. He had not opened it since.
But sometimes, late at night, when the tavern was empty and the singing was soft, he thought about the cliffs. He thought about the lake at dawn. He thought about mixing ultramarine and cadmium yellow to make the color of the sky. He thought about the painter, and how she had forgotten those things, one by one, until there was nothing left but shaking hands. He wondered if she remembered him. Probably not. But he remembered her.
---
Diluc — The Morning
He set the glass down and leaned against the bar. His hands were steady. They had been steady for thirty years. The wind had taken whatever made them shake a long time ago.
He pulled a bottle from under the bar. Dark glass, no label, filled with something the color of old honey. He poured a measure into a clean glass and held it up to the light. The liquid was too still, too clear, too perfect. It looked like wine, but it was not wine. It had not been wine for thirty years.
He poured the colored water down the sink. The glass was empty. He set it on the bar.
The singing changed key. Softer now, almost a lullaby. The wind was telling the city to sleep a little longer, to forget a little deeper. He felt it pressing against the window, trying to find the cracks in his mind. The wind wanted his memories. His father. Kaeya. The painter. The colors.
He had learned to hold on. He did not know how. He just refused to let go.
He walked to the window at the back of the tavern and looked out at the alley. The sky was pale. The sun was not visible behind the clouds that never moved. The streets were empty. Soon the flower seller would be at her stall, the baker would stack his crates, the children would run their loop around the fountain. The same sequence, every day. He had watched it for thirty years.
He looked up at the room above the stables. The window was dark. She was not there anymore. She had left while he was pouring the colored water, while he was thinking about Kaeya, while he was remembering his father. He wondered where she had gone. The Cathedral, probably. Everyone went to the Cathedral eventually.
He hoped she would come back. He did not know why.
She had asked for the painter's name. She had held the glass without drinking. She had looked at the children in the plaza and seen the loop. She had seen the painter's hands shaking and asked why. Most people did not ask why anymore. Most people had forgotten that why was a question you could ask.
She saw things. He did not know what she would do with what she saw. Probably nothing. Probably she would leave, or she would be healed, and then she would be gone, and he would still be here, pouring colored water, wiping glasses, watching the painter's hands shake. That was the shape of his life.
But he had given her the key. He had told her the painter's name. He had told her about his father. That was something.
---
Kaeya — The Same Morning
Across the city, Kaeya stood at his own window. His quarters were sparse—a bed, a desk, a sword propped in the corner. He had never bothered to make it feel like home. Home was a concept he had stopped believing in a long time ago.
The singing was softer here, but he still heard it. He always heard it.
He thought about Diluc. He thought about him every morning, usually around this time, when the tavern would be dark and Diluc would be wiping glasses that were already clean. Kaeya had never gone back inside. He had never tried to explain himself again. He had said what he needed to say that night, and Diluc had not wanted to hear it.
He was already gone.
It was still true. It had been true then. It would be true now. But truth did not make it right. Truth did not take away the look on Diluc's face when the deacons led his father out the door.
Kaeya had watched from the shadows that night, the same way he watched from the shadows now. It was all he knew how to do. Watch. Wait. Step in when the moment was right. But the moment never came. Years passed. The space between them grew wider, then hardened, then became something neither of them knew how to cross.
He thought about reaching out. He thought about walking to the tavern and sitting at the bar and ordering something—colored water, it didn't matter—just to be there. Just to see if Diluc would look at him without turning away.
He did not move.
The singing changed key. Softer now. The wind was telling him to let go, to forget, to be lighter. He had learned to ignore it, the same way Diluc had. Two stones in the same river, standing still, letting the water flow around them.
He wondered if Diluc ever thought about him. He wondered if Diluc ever wished things had been different.
He did not know. So he did nothing.
He turned from the window and began his own morning routine. The same sequence. Every day. Every year.
---
Diluc — The Door
He turned from the window. The tavern was still dark. He would open the doors in an hour. The painter would sit in the corner, or she would not. The outsider would come back, or she would not. Kaeya would walk past the window, or he would not.
He picked up the glass again. Wiped it. Set it down. His hands were steady. They had been steady for thirty years.
He walked to the door and unlocked it. The street was still empty. The singing was still soft. The city was still holding its breath.
He waited.