He was crying again, soft sniffling echoing through the empty room, devoid of warmth and life.
He didn't know when he had started. That was the worst part, not the crying itself, which he had long since stopped being ashamed of in private, but the way it arrived without announcement, slipping in through the back of his chest while he was doing something else entirely.
One moment, he had been sitting on the stone floor of his room watching the afternoon light move across the wall, and the next, his face was wet, and his shoulders were shaking.
And he was pressing himself into the corner behind his wardrobe because the corner was the smallest space in the room, and small spaces felt safer than large ones.
The castle was full of large spaces.
He had been here for—he counted on his fingers, then lost count—a long time. He had been born into luxury, but his life…was it anything luxurious?
The boy quietly shook his head, tears staining his vermilion clothes.
