The morning had barely matured when the orders began.
Within the hour, new maids had arrived at the estate—quiet, competent women with folded aprons and poised expressions. Their movements were crisp as wind through silk; one had once served a duchess in Marseilles, another trained in the palace kitchens of Vienna. The new butlers followed soon after, their coats buttoned high and gloves pristine. Each selected by August's aunt with precise taste—nothing less than perfection would do for her beloved nephew.
Even her husband, ever regal and mild, had been summoned with a single glance. "Write," she'd instructed. "Summon the finest physicians east of the Rhine. And no ordinary chef—bring someone who understands healing foods, gentle flavors. A velvet broth, not a battlefield feast."
The house stirred like a kingdom in quiet preparation. Trays were polished, bedsheets replaced with linen embroidered in silver. The smell of rosewater and warm milk filled the halls. Voices dropped to whispers.
Then, with her soldiers standing silent in the corridor, August's aunt opened the bedroom door.
She did not knock. It was not a house where one asked permission to care.
Inside, August lay quiet beneath pale sheets. His delicate frame half-curled, white curls splayed on the pillow like silk threads. The room was dim, light slanting softly through drawn curtains.
He was not asleep, though his eyes were closed. Not truly. There was tension still in his brow, and a faint furrow at the corner of his mouth—like something inside him refused to loosen.
She crossed to the bed and sat beside him, gloved hands folded in her lap. Her grey hair, wound tightly in a bun, glimmered faintly beneath her pearl comb. She looked down at him for a long moment before speaking.
"My darling," she said softly, "do you feel appetite?"
August stirred faintly. His lips parted. Then he gave the barest shake of his head.
"No," he murmured. "Thank you. I don't need anything."
A pause.
Then her voice lowered, warmer than it had been in years.
"Don't worry, my beautiful angel. Your aunt will never let anyone hurt you."
For a heartbeat, he did not answer. But his eyes opened, just a sliver. They were distant, glazed with memory—like he wasn't entirely present.
In his mind, he saw another room. A hearth. Velvet curtains. A woman with soft hands and honey-blonde hair, humming gently as she rocked him.
She had always smelled of cloves and sweet rain. Her hands were warm, her lullaby low and dreamy. He remembered being held against her heart, where the world was safe and small.
He hadn't thought about her voice in years. Not truly. Not like this.
August blinked.
His aunt, watching him closely, saw the sadness cross his face like a sudden storm. She took a slow breath.
And then, without being asked, she began to sing.
Her voice was perfect—too fine, too dramatic—but the melody was unmistakable. A song from a different life.
"The Princess of the Town"
She walks in light where roses bloom,
The strongest soul in silken plume.
The winds may bow, the stars may fade,
But still she stands, unbent, unscathed.
August's breath hitched. His lips parted. His wide grey eyes glistened—not with tears, not quite—but with something fragile on the edge of crumbling.
'The Lullaby Begin"
The princess of the timeless town,
With silver crown and velvet gown.
She holds her sword, she bears her name—
Yet hearts grow tired all the same.
For though her hands are fierce and sure,
And though her heart is brave and pure,
She dreams at dusk, in secret sighs,
Of softer hands and emerald eyes.
A knight who swore to keep her near,
To guard her name and calm her fear.
A man of vows, of light, of flame,
Who whispers softly just her name.
She waits in towers built of dawn,
She waits when golden day is gone.
And in her dreams he takes her hand—
A promise made in shadowed land.
So hush, sweet rose, the night is deep,
And stars will guard the tears you keep.
For love shall come on faithful steed,
To kiss the wounds no crown can heed.
He didn't speak.
He couldn't.
His aunt did not look at him while she sang. She gazed across the room, to some invisible memory only she could see, her voice trembling only once.
And August's eyelids, heavy with sleep and dreams and ghosts, began to lower.
He blinked once more, just once.
Then sleep claimed him—not the fractured sleep of the sick, but something softer. Realer. Safe.
She watched him breathe, watched the way his shoulders relaxed ever so slightly, the tension in his jaw dissolving.
At the doorway, Elias was already there.
He had come to check on August, plate forgotten in the dining hall, but stopped in his tracks the moment he heard the song.
He didn't dare move. Not even the polished floors creaked beneath his boots.
The hush in the corridor was soft as snowfall.
Elias remained leaned gently against the wooden frame of the half-closed door, arms folded but posture loose — as if something invisible had unwound the knots in his shoulders. The lullaby, though sung softly, curled into every crevice of the grand chamber like a thread of light, steady and old, carrying the delicate hush of a past long buried.
Inside, the aunt's voice was unlike anything Elias had ever heard from her. Gone was the piercing nobility, the theatrical dramatics, the fire of her command. What lingered now was raw silk — a lullaby spun from memory rather than melody. Her hand moved in slow circles over August's pale, delicate hair, as if coaxing a wounded creature into calm.
"The princess of the town… she is stronger than them all... Stronger…" she sang, her voice trailing.
August, still lying curled in the nest of satin and feather-down, had not opened his eyes since she began. His lashes quivered once. Then twice. But he did not speak.
Elias, still outside, felt his throat catch for a moment. He remembered that tune. Not as lyrics. But as hums. Faint echoes from a distant, unfamiliar memory. Somewhere, once, in the in-between of waking and dreaming — perhaps while hidden beneath some warm blanket in a too-large house — he had heard that lullaby too.
The thought made his chest ache with something like… longing. No. Recognition. A thread tangled between his world and August's, long before their paths ever crossed.
From the corridor, one of the younger maids passed with folded linens, saw Elias quietly leaning there, and did not say a word. She bowed her head slightly, and instead of interrupting, walked away on silent slippers, the train of her skirt whispering against the floor.
Inside, the song continued.
"But sometimes she feels lonely...
Without him—the man in her dreams...
The knight who vowed by moon and steel
To save the beauty of his life..."
Elias bowed his head.
It was no grand tale. No bard's song from a tavern fire. No royal hymn.
It was something better. Real. Remembered.
Inside the room, August's breathing began to slow. The sad, pinched lines between his brows loosened. Though he hadn't spoken, his shoulders had sunk back into the bed, and his hand, once resting lightly on the blankets, had curled slightly inward — like a child reaching for something safe in sleep.
Elias couldn't take his eyes off him.
August looked like something unreal in that moment. Fragile. Pale and beautiful. Not in the way noble portraits capture beauty — not distant or cold. But human. Precious. Achingly alive.
And still, Elias didn't enter.
He simply watched. Not as a soldier, nor as a protector.
But as Elias.
And somehow, that was enough.
The final lines of the lullaby rose like fog lifting off a quiet lake:
"He'll ride the wind to find her still,
No matter where she hides...
For the beauty in his dreams remains—
His promise, and his light."
As the last note vanished into the stillness, August's breathing evened out completely. The heaviness in his limbs settled. Sleep — real sleep — claimed him at last.
His aunt stayed beside him a moment longer, one hand still gently resting over his.
Then she stood, composed and quiet, the weight of memory written in the corners of her graceful mouth. She turned to leave—only to find Elias still standing there.
Their eyes met.
For once, she didn't raise a brow. She didn't offer some biting remark or theatrical sigh.
She simply nodded.
And Elias, in a voice low and reverent, said only:
"That was beautiful."
She gave a ghost of a smile — no more than a flicker.
"I learned it from her," she said. "His mother. My sister-in-law. She used to hum it every night until he fell asleep."
Elias's gaze dropped to the floor for a moment. "She must've been a good mother."
"She was," the aunt replied. "Too good for the end she met."
Neither of them spoke for a while.
Then, after a quiet breath, she said, "You remind me of him."
"Of who?"
She didn't answer. She only looked at August one last time through the doorway, and said, "Take care of him."
And then she walked down the corridor — her steps softer than usual — leaving Elias alone by the threshold.
He looked once more at the figure sleeping inside the room, delicate against white pillows, silver hair fanned like threads of moonlight over the silk.
Then he leaned back against the doorframe again.
Just listening.
Just watching.
Because tonight, for once, August was sleeping without pain. Without fever. Without fear.
And Elias would not leave that peace unguarded.
Not for anything.