Lucian didn't walk to his room; he moved with the unsettling stillness of a wound-up clock just before it runs down. The entire exchange with Mary, from his fake smile to the barely shifted tremor in his voice, felt like a performance played on the stage where a single mistake can define life and death, like your that spy in the enemy territory who will be caught if he said something wrong.
Her question "Did something happened?" It had been a precise, surgical strike against his carefully constructed facade.
He made it to the heavy mahogany door of his private chambers without incident. Once inside, he didn't bother to lock the door or light the lamps. He simply walked to the center of the room and stopped, the twilight spilling in from the tall, arched windows doing little to illuminate the rich, dark space.
For a long moment, he stood there, motionless, his gaze fixed on nothing. The mask he had worn for Mary the one of mild exhaustion and relieved recovery,cracked and disintegrated. The lifelessness that had settled in his eyes deepened, turning them into chips of cold, grey glass. The rage had not vanished; it had simply been compressed, solidified into a core of pure, strategic intent.
He was no longer the young man who had been ill, nor the one who had hoped to recover his memories. He was a new entity, a fusion of Lucian Oakheart and the alien personality of the 'other world' memories, all forged in the instant of agonizing truth in the archives. He understood everything now.
Everything untill now he thought was not the complete truth. He thought he had lost some of his memories because of the otherworldly memories he inerted but it was not the cause. He had only lost his memories to save his mind from the shock when the two of them combine and that was not the complete truth either. Some of his memories were sealed even before that, they were sealed by someone so that he doesn't remember anything of it.
Lucian was standing their staring in the abyss and thinking of what should he do next.
The air in the room thickened, the silence was taking on a weight of its own. Lucian could almost hear the faint voice of his own beating heartbeat.
After thinking for sometime he let out a big sigh as he couldn't do anything at that moment.
Lucian kept a hand on his head as to relieve some pain and said in a deep and low voice:
" I shall calm down and get some rest. My head still hurts like hell. guess I it's still not recovered from the shock I received when most of my memories came back to me at once. "
"I guess my brain isn't ready to handle it all yet, as some memories have yet to return. Specifically, the period between when Maria left and my fever a few days ago when I received those otherworldly memories is completely missing."
As he was about to go to his bed to sleep something came out of the darkness surrounding him. It was a hand.
A hand came out of the darkness surrounding him and landed on his shoulder. A chill ran through Lucian it terrified him to the core. Then came a familiar voice:
"Lucian?"
It was Selene. Hearing her voice and turning around, he slowly began to calm down though not completely. Her sudden arrival had startled him deeply, it was blessing that their was not much light in the room as he didn't lit the lamp when he came in.
"It is so dark here that it is even hard to see each other so I don't think she saw the expression I had just now."
As Lucian was thinking about all this Selena spoke.
"Why is it so dark in here? Did you not lit the lamp when you came in?"
Selene's hand was light on his shoulder, but the contact was like a bolt of ice, shocking the tension out of him only to replace it with a new, immediate fear, the fear of being seen.
He didn't turn around immediately. He kept his back to her, the darkness a temporary shield for the shattered facade he knew he couldn't rebuild in time. He took a slow, deliberate breath, forcing his voice to adopt the tired, slightly pained quality he'd used for Mary.
"Selene," he said, his voice a low, rough murmur. "I... I didn't hear you come in. How did you know I was here?"
He finally turned, taking a slow half step to his side, letting the dim twilight from the window catch only the profile of his face enough for recognition, not enough to reveal the cold, stark truth in his eyes. He lifted a hand to his temple again, a gesture of exhaustion, a prop for the performance.
"It's good that it is dark, I was going to bed so I didn't lit the lamp" he continued, letting a hint of genuine fatigue seep into his tone. "My head is still throbbing. Too much light is a
tormenting me right now."
Selene moved closer, the soft rustle of her clothes a small sound in the heavy silence. He could just make out her shape a silhouette of concern.
"I asked the servants," she explained, her voice soft, laced with a gentle worry that felt unsettlingly real. "Mary told me you looked tired returning from the archives. I've been worried about you, Lucian. You came back so quickly, and you looked... drained."
She paused, then her hand tentatively reached out again, hovering near his arm. "What happened in the archives? Did you find anything? Did... did something trigger the pain?"
Lucian felt the knot in his chest tighten. Mary had been too perceptive. Now Selene, was here, bringing her warmth and her questions into the cold, strategic intent of his new reality. He needed to deflect, to maintain the carefully crafted image of a confused, recovering patient who was simply overwhelmed by the return of his memories. The stakes were too high to falter now.
He gently touched her hand, a fleeting, reassuring squeeze that was meant to convey weakness, not strength.
"I remembered almost everything now, Selene," he said, the words weighted with a double meaning that only he understood. "But it was... too much, too fast. It's like trying to pour the ocean into a teacup. The shock of it all-all those memories, all those days came slamming into me at once. It was just... too overwhelming for me."
He let out another controlled sigh, shaking his head slowly. "I need time to ease this pain. I need sleep. I feel like I will fall asleep talking to you right here."
He looked toward the unlit corner where his bed lay, implying his immediate need for rest.
"I appreciate you coming, really," he added, his voice dropping slightly as if fighting a wave of pain. "If it is not something important .Could you come back tomorrow? Once I've had some sleep, I will feel better."