Keir is dead.
The words still don’t fit.
Callum crosses the gravel, boots crunching, and shoves the heavy front door open.
The familiar creak answers him.
Inside, the air is colder than he expects.Quiet.Too quiet.
The castle without Keir feels like a body without a heartbeat.Before you would have heard rock music resounding through the halls, laughter and food, and the occasional party.But now it’s silent.
Callum steps into the entry hall and stops.His gaze sweeps over the familiar details: the worn runner rug, the old portraits staring down with judgment, the coat rack where Keir always tossed his jacket instead of hanging it properly.
Callum’s mouth opens.“I’m back,” he says automatically.But this time, there is no response.
His voice echoes back at him.
No reply.
Memories hit like fists.
Keir in this hall, arms folded, furious after Callum showed up drunk at seventeen, knuckles split and lip bleeding from a fight Callum couldn’t even remember starting.
You want to stay here?You follow my rules.You get your head on straight.You stop trying to die.
Callum had laughed then, bitter and defiant.“Why do you care?”
Keir had stared at him a long moment, then said, “Because you’re here.Because your father would want me to kick your butt and keep you from dying.”
As if that was enough.
It had been.
Another memory: Callum at the kitchen table, trying to read a contract with words too small and too many pages, ready to throw it across the room.
Keir had yanked it back.“Read it.Every word.Don’t let anyone take your life because you were too lazy to learn.”
“Why are you doing this?”Callum had demanded.
Keir had shrugged.“Someone should’ve done it for me.”
Callum drops his bag by the door and moves deeper into the castle, touching things without thinking, stone walls, the banister worn smooth by centuries, the edge of a table scarred with old burns and old laughter.
The music room door is half open.
He pushes it wider.
Dust motes float in the weak light.The fireplace is cold.Keir’s favorite guitar rests on its stand, strings slack, silent.
Callum crosses the room, knees suddenly unsteady.He sits on the piano bench as if the weight of his body has finally caught up to him.He stares at the guitar until his vision blurs.
“You didn’t tell me,” he whispers into the quiet.“You didn’t…tell me how to do this without you.”
His throat tightens, and grief claws up, sharp and ugly.Callum presses his fist into his chest like he can push the pain down where it belongs.
Orphans weren’t supposed to get second chances.
He’d already lost his father at twelve, lost him to fire and wreckage and a headline that saidtragic accident.He’d lost his mother in every way that mattered when she sent him away at fourteen, choosing a new life over the son who didn’t fit.
