“Speak.”
There was a pause on the other end. Acareful breath. The voice that followed was measured, professional, already braced for what it was about to deliver.”Mr. Severin. I’m sorry to call so early.”
His grip tightened on the phone. “What happened?”
Another pause. Longer this time.”It’s your father. There was an incident overnight. Amedical event. They did everything they could.”
Alaric closed his eyes.The moment stretched. Not in panic. In recalibration. The mental architecture of his life shifted silently, like load redistributed through a structure that had lost a central support.
“When?” he asked, his voice even, clipped, already sliding intocontainment.
“Sometime during the night. We’re not certain of the exact time. We waited until a reasonable hour to notify you.”
The words landed without drama. No surge of panic. No collapse. Just an internal shift, as if the future had quietly rearranged itself while he wasn’t looking.
“I’ll need confirmation,” he said. “The attending physician’s name. The full timeline.”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
Details followed. Times. Locations. Facts that could be written down and verified. Alaric absorbed them without comment, filing each piece away where it belonged. He asked no unnecessary questions. He made no emotional noises. When the call ended, he stood in silence, phone still in his hand, water dripping from his hair onto the floor.
He dried himself and dressed slowly. Dark suit. White shirt. No tie yet. The familiarity of clothing settled over him like armor, restoring order. He fastened the buttons with care, grounding himself in the small, precise motions.
When he stepped into the hall, already fully dressed, Sera was just leaving her bedroom.She looked up.The change in her face was immediate.She didn’t ask what was wrong. She didn’t need to.Something in the way he stood, in the stillness he carried like a second skin, told her everything.
“Oh, no,” she breathed.The sound wasn’t casual. It was soft. Careful. As if raising her voice might fracture something already cracked. The way being seen could be more dangerous than being touched.
Sera crossed the distance between them without hurry, her steps quiet against the floor. She stopped just short of him, close enough that the warmth of her body stroked over him, the familiar scent of her shampoo cutting through the sterile morningair.
Her eyes searched his face, not prying, not demanding. Reading.”Alaric,” she said softly. “Tell me.”
He held her gaze for a beat, then let the words out cleanly, because anything else would crack.”My father’s dead.”The sentence landed between them, heavy and final.
Sera’s breath caught. The shock flashed across her face before she mastered it.”Oh, Alaric. I’m so sorry,” she whispered.Her hand came to his arm then, fingers light at first, testing, as if giving him the chance to pullaway.
He didn’t.The contact steadied something inside him that had been slipping its moorings since the phone call. He lookeddown at her, at the concern in her eyes, the way she stayed with him without trying to take the significance away. Her hand tightened slightly on his arm, not clinging, not desperate. Just there.
She didn’t say anything else for a moment. She didn’t rush to fill the space. She simply stayed with him, her thumb brushing once, almost unconsciously, against the sleeve of his jacket.
“I’m here,” she said quietly. “Whatever you need. However you need it.”
He nodded once. He didn’t trust himself to saymore.
Her gaze flicked briefly down the hall, already aware of the reality pressing in. “Do you want me close,” she asked, “or do you want space?”The question mattered. The way she asked it matteredmore.
“Stay.”
She inclined her head, the movement gentle. “I’ll stay until you ask me not to.”
That was Sera. Present without demanding access. Steady without trying to fix what couldn’t be fixed.
Instead of stepping back, she stayed where she was. Her hand slid from his arm to his chest, palm resting flat over his heart through the fabric of his shirt, agroundingtouch meant only for him. She didn’t rush it. Didn’t make a show of it. She simply held him there for a quiet beat, grounding him before the day could pull him apart.
Alaric stood there for a moment, absorbing her warmth. After a moment, she stepped back, but the imprint of her touch lingered.
If she could see the fracture this clearly, others wouldtoo.
There would be no clean edges to thisday.
