Xavier eased Reva down onto the pillows, careful not to wake her again. She was already drifting, breath soft, lips trembling from exhaustion and the leftover fear she hadn't managed to shake. He pulled the blanket over her, tucked the sides so she wouldn't curl up against the cold again, and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek.

Then he stepped toward the balcony window. The wind spilling in from outside carried the last traces of the sun. It brushed against him and for a second he just stood there, letting it hit his face. He wanted to breathe for real again, to take in the world without the weight of near-death hanging over him.

But when he looked back, Reva trembled in her sleep, fingers curling around the blanket like she was holding onto something that might slip away. Xavier reached to close the window—then he caught a silhouette down below, walking across the long stone bridge that led out of the inner court.

Eleazar.

Xavier's heart jerked.

His hand dropped from the window latch.

And he slipped out of the room without a sound.

He ran down the corridor, ignoring the sharp ache in his ribs, and reached the outer bridge just in time. "Father!" his voice echoed across the stone. Eleazar paused, turning with that calm little tilt of his head.

"Where are you even going?" Xavier asked as he jogged up to him. "You just arrived. And I… I need to talk to you."

Eleazar studied him for a moment, then nodded once, almost like he'd expected this. "Walk with me."

They went to one of the smaller bridges farther from the castle—a place where the cliff wind always carried this faint metallic tang from the old vampire runes carved into the rock over centuries. Eleazar leaned on the railing, hands laced behind him like he was admiring a view.

Xavier stood beside him, a few steps away at first, then closer.

"Prophets aren't supposed to leave the village," Xavier said. "You've said that a thousand times. So… why now? Why here?"

Eleazar exhaled through his nose, not tired, just accepting.

"Because you shattered the chain," he said. "For thousands of years, every prophet walked the same path. Passed on the same visions. Lived and died the same cycle. But when you were born, that line broke. There is no prophet after you… because you no longer walk among prophets."

Xavier swallowed, unsure what to do with that.

He leaned on the railing too.

"I'm not the same boy who left the village," he said. "I've done things. Things I can't even tell you. Things that… don't look human."

"If you did them believing they were right," Eleazar answered, "then you did right."

Xavier shook his head. "How do you even know that? How do I know that? What if I thought it was right but it wasn't? What if I messed up? What if—" He stopped, breath catching. "What if I stand at a point where listening to my heart will cost me everything I've built… but listening to my mind will cost me the people I care about?"

Eleazar smiled softly—not pitying, not wise-old-man soft, but the kind of smile he'd give Xavier when he was five and asking why fireflies glowed.

"If your heart and mind pull in different directions," Eleazar said, "it means you're standing at a point where you can't rely on either alone."

Xavier frowned. "Then what do I rely on?"

Eleazar looked out across the horizon, the mountain peaks silhouetted against the twilight sky. "Then you rely on yourself. Your spine. Your will. The part of you that doesn't break even when both heart and mind fail you."

Xavier stayed quiet, staring at the ground far below the bridge.

"That's not an answer," he said quietly.

"It is," Eleazar replied. "You simply hoped for an easier one."

Xavier let out a frustrated breath. "You're really going to leave me with that?"

"You're strong enough to stand on your own. If I make your choices for you, you will never become the man you're meant to be." Eleazar turned, placing a hand on Xavier's shoulder. "If following your heart makes you lose profit, then profit was never truly yours. And if following your mind makes you lose your world, then that world was never meant for you."

Xavier looked up at him, waiting for something more.

Eleazar gave it:

"Everything you're meant to keep will stay. Everything you're meant to conquer will fall for you. Everything you're meant to lose will walk away no matter how tightly you hold it."

The wind carried the words across the bridge, letting them linger there, sinking into Xavier's ribs like something heavy and permanent.

Eleazar squeezed his shoulder once.

"Now decide who you want to be."

And Xavier stood there, caught between his father's presence and the echo of everything he had just been through, feeling—for the first time—that whatever came next would be entirely on him.

Xavier stayed quiet for a moment, fingers tightening around the railing.

Then he spoke again, voice low and worn.

"…What if I do something thinking it's right, but later I regret it? Or it hits me in the gut one day and I realize I hurt someone I shouldn't have? Or maybe I didn't know enough at the time, and now, looking back, I feel like a dick. Even if I delay that choice, it feels wrong even though it logically shouldn't be. What does that become then? The right choice? The wrong one? Or something in between?"

Eleazar didn't answer right away. He watched the fading in the sky, the last breath of the sun's color thinning into purple-blue. When he finally spoke, he was calm.

"That becomes a mistake," Eleazar said. "And mistakes, Xavier… are proof you are alive. Proof you are growing. Proof you are still capable of guilt, which means you are still capable of choosing better."

Xavier looked down at his hands. They still shook faintly from the aftereffects of everything that had happened.

Eleazar continued, "A mistake is not a sin. A mistake is a lesson wearing an ugly coat. If you feel regret, then it means your heart is not rotten. If you feel guilt, then it means your conscience is not dead. You are a child standing at the start of a path that will twist in ways I cannot predict. Children stumble. Children bruise their knees. It is allowed."

Xavier let that sink in.

"Yes, but… what about love?" he asked after a long silence. "How do I choose there? How do I know? What if I love someone but choosing them ruins something else? What if loving one person hurts another? How do I decide anything without fucking everything up?"

Eleazar's eyes softened—not pity, but understanding.

He turned his body slightly toward Xavier.

"Love is the one thing in this universe you cannot solve with logic," Eleazar said. "You cannot measure it. You cannot bargain with it. Love is not a transaction. It is not a reward. It is not a guarantee."

Xavier stayed still. Listening. Every word sank into him deeper than he expected.

"Love," Eleazar said, "is a fire. If you hold it too close, it burns you. If you hold it too far, it dies. If you try to cage it, it suffocates. And if you let others decide how you carry it… then it never belonged to you in the first place."

Xavier breathed out shakily.

Eleazar added, "You will hurt people you love. And they will hurt you. Not because love is flawed, but because living beings are flawed. You choose love by choosing who you're willing to forgive—and who you're willing to burn the world for. That is all."

The sky shifted into the early edge of dawn—purple streaks dissolving into a softer shade.

And above them, unseen in the shadows carved into the stone pillars, Luther stood listening.

He had come to check on Eleazar.

He stayed because the words pinned him still.

The idea of mistakes.

The idea of choosing what to burn for.

The idea of forgiveness and consequence intertwined.

For a moment, a heartbeat, Luther looked less like the cold ruler of a dying lineage and more like a man staring at an old wound he had forgotten he carried.

Then he stepped back into the shadows and disappeared, leaving no sound behind.

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