He doesn’t mean to check it; Therios is gone, beyond his reach, living his own life. Obsessing over him and magically stalking him won’t bring him back to Castle Garden, back to Vanth’s parlor, back to his arms. Time is tricky for him and he can’t tell how long Therios has been gone. It feels like ages, but surely it’s only been a few days? With no revolving sun, the march of time eludes him. He takes to counting his heartbeats, lying awake in bed, fearful of moving lest he lose track of one beat.

Therios’s heart must be beating out there as well, a steady thumpa-thumpa. Maybe their hearts are even beating in time.

But what if Therios’s heart is no longer beating at all?

He throws back his covers, skin clammy, and hurries to his study. He needs to know. He just needs to see, to make sure. The study is as he left it, the scroll partially unfurled, crinkled where Therios had grabbed it in sudden anguish. He smooths it out, the images of the guild long since faded away, and the blank scroll tempts him, an empty expanse for Vanth to fill with repetitions of Therios.

He inks out each letter carefully. The ink splatters as he finishes the s, ink gushing out of the pen, the letters of his name smearing, all of it red, red, red, the color of spilled blood. He drops the pen, where it rolls across the floor, leaving a smattering of red drops behind.

No.

But there on the paper, Therios’s fate is decreed. Blood. Swathes of it. Pools of it.

He’s out of the study and striding across the garden before he even has time to think. Therios is in trouble. He needs help.

Vanth can’t leave.

The thought halts him, his toes barely touching the edges of the crumbling stone wall. Past these walls resides everything Vanth has been taught to fear. Past these walls, a beguiling world awaits, a world that has moved on without him. How would he even navigate it? Find his place in it? Find Therios?

“My lord?”

He turns, his trusty Knight here when he needs him as always.

“I’ve brought maps,” Knight says, “they’re old, but they’re a start.”

There’s a pack thrown over one of his metal arms, positively bursting. Vanth looks up, a question on his face.

“We’ve had it ready for a while now. Just in case.”

How odd, that a suit of armor and a handful of enchanted household objects know Vanth better than himself.

“I have to find him,” Vanth whispers.

“My lord…if you leave this place, you won’t be protected by the enchantments. You’ll be vulnerable, prone to injury, sickness, and death. Time will continue to tick for you again. Your eternal life will be mortal.”

“What’s eternity good for, anyway?” Vanth asks, suddenly seeing his long life as a series of wasted moments. “Should I continue to rot here, as if I’m already dead and buried, eternally alone, without companionship?”

He adds, quieter, “Without smiles, laughter, and kisses. Without love.”

“There will be tears too, even if you find him and save him. Everything ends in tears, for everything outside of this barrier ends in death.”

Vanth stares into the sunset, the frozen sun forever caught in the moment before its demise.

“Then I want to live before I die.”

Knight slowly holds out the pack.

“Then go. Go with all of our blessings.”

For the first time since he came to Castle Garden so long ago, he leaves, and discovers what’s outside his front door.