Charles came back to himself slowly, like waking through water. Everything felt wet. Cold pressed against his skin, and for a moment he couldn’t tell where his body ended and the sea began. His eyes opened, but the world refused to sharpen. Shapes moved without meaning. Sound came in pieces

He realized he was floating.

One arm clung to something rough, a broken piece of debris that shifted under his weight. His other arm throbbed. When he lifted it slightly, he caught a blurred glimpse of dark spreading along his skin. Blood, he thought, though it didn’t stir anything beyond recognition.

The sky above him was dull and heavy. Rain still fell, lighter now, tapping against the water in uneven rhythms. His head tilted, vision slipping in and out, and that was when he saw it.

A figure.

White against the gray, moving toward him. An arm reaching out.

For a brief second, something almost like a thought surfaced.

So this is it.

There was no fear in it. Just a observation, edged with something faintly annoyed. Even here, even at the end, there was still discomfort, still pain clinging to him like it hadn’t gotten the message.

“That’s… disappointing,” he murmured, though he wasn’t sure if the words made it past his lips.

The figure came closer. The world dimmed.

Then it was gone.

When he opened his eyes again, the ground was solid.

Concrete, rough and cool beneath him. Above, there was no sky. No collapsing storm. Just a low ceiling made of uneven stone, stacked without care for symmetry. The air felt still, almost too still, carrying a faint scent he couldn’t place.

He tried to sit up.

A hand stopped him.

“Don’t,” a voice said, close and uncertain.

Charles turned his head. The motion was slower than he expected, like his body had forgotten how to follow orders. Beside him stood someone young. Not a man, not quite. A boy, watching him with a mix of curiosity and something else he couldn’t immediately name.

Before Charles could speak, the boy glanced toward the doorway and raised his voice. “Dad!”

Footsteps answered. An older man entered first, followed by a woman who moved with purpose. She came straight to Charles, placing her hand against his forehead. Her touch was firm, familiar in a way that felt strange.

She spoke.

The words were not in any language he recognized, yet he understood them clearly. Not perfectly, but enough.

“You’re awake. Don’t move too much.”

He blinked at her, trying to make sense of that alone, but she was already working. She unwrapped the bandage around his forearm. The fabric was soaked through. When it peeled away, the sting sharpened, drawing a small reaction from him that he didn’t bother hiding. She replaced it with practiced ease, her movements efficient but not unkind.

They asked him questions. Simple ones. How he felt. If he could move his fingers. If anything hurt beyond what they could see.

He answered when he could, his voice slower than usual. There was a delay between understanding and response, like his thoughts had to travel farther than before.

While they spoke, he took in what he could.

Their clothes were wrong.

Not in quality, not in condition, but in time. The fabric, the way it was worn, the lack of anything modern in sight. It didn’t feel like a choice or a style. It felt natural to them in a way that made it harder to dismiss.

He said nothing about it.

Eventually, the adults stepped outside, their voices lowering as they moved away. The room settled into a quieter space, leaving him alone with the boy.

The boy hadn’t stopped staring.

Charles turned his head slightly, meeting his gaze. The reaction was immediate. The boy flushed, looking away too late to hide it.

That, at least, felt familiar.

Charles let a small smile form, easy and light. “What?” he said, voice still rough. “You’ve been staring this whole time.”

“I wasn’t,” the boy replied quickly.

“Mm.” Charles tilted his head a fraction. “You sure? Thought maybe you liked what you saw.”

The boy stiffened, color rising higher. “I don’t. And you’re not even—” He stopped himself, frowning. “You’re not older than me.”

Charles went still.

The words didn’t land right.

“What do you mean,” he said, quieter now.

The boy hesitated, then answered anyway. “You look… around my age.”

A pause stretched between them.

Charles pushed himself up slightly this time, ignoring the protest from his body. “Is there a mirror here?”

The boy nodded after a second and moved to retrieve one. It was small, handheld, worn at the edges. He passed it over without comment.

Charles took it.

For a moment, he didn’t look.

Then he did.

The face staring back at him wasn’t his. Or it was, but not as he knew it. Younger. Noticeably so. The sharpness he had grown into was gone, replaced by something unfinished. Familiar, but wrong in a way he couldn’t immediately fix.

He lowered the mirror just enough to look at the boy.

The boy shifted under his gaze, then spoke, as if remembering something important. “I’m Yiannis,” he said. “I’m eighteen. Already of marrying age.”

Charles didn’t respond right away. He glanced back at the mirror, then at Yiannis again. The difference between them was negligible now. That alone felt like a problem.

Footsteps approached outside.

Charles handed the mirror back, his expression settling into something neutral, something controlled. He opened his mouth, ready to speak his name out of habit, then stopped.

Something about it didn’t feel right here.

When the adults stepped back in, he looked at them instead and spoke before they could ask.

“I… don’t remember,” he said.

The words came out steady enough to believe.

And for once, it wasn’t entirely a lie.

The shift in the room was immediate after he said he couldn’t remember. The adults exchanged a look that didn’t need words. It was the kind of look people shared when a fear finally took shape. Still, they didn’t press him. The woman’s voice softened as she spoke, slower this time, as if careful pacing might help him follow.

“It’s alright. You don’t need to force it.”

The older man stepped closer, studying him with a steady gaze. “We know who you are,” he added, 

They told him he was the youngest son of a foreign delegate family that had arrived to trade. His name, they said, was Karlaz. Born to a German omega mother and an alpha father from lands farther than most here had seen. The name settled somewhere in his mind, not unfamiliar, not entirely his either. Close enough to feel deliberate.

“Karlaz,” he repeated once, testing it.

The woman nodded, relieved he didn’t reject it outright. “You insisted on taking the sea route,” she continued. “Said it would be faster. Your family took the land route years ago. It took them four years.”

The man gave a small breath through his nose. “You said you could do it in less.”

Charles listened without interruption.

“A year and ten months,” the woman said. “That’s how long you were gone. You almost made it.”

Almost.

The word lingered.

“There was a storm,” the man added, though from the way he said it, the word felt too small for what it described. “Near the crossing from Egypt. It came without warning. Nothing like we’ve seen before.”

Charles said nothing. He didn’t need to.

“The ship didn’t survive,” the woman said quietly. “But the cargo did. It came ashore intact. Packed in a way that kept it from breaking apart. That was your doing, they said.”

For a brief moment, something in Charles stilled further, if that was even possible. Not pride. Not satisfaction. Just recognition of a pattern that felt like his. He looked down at his bandaged arm, then back at them. “And the others?”

The woman hesitated. The man answered instead. “Some made it. Not all.”

“You weren’t alone,” the woman added, as if remembering something important. “You brought a servant with you. A beta from your mother’s homeland. Willahelm. No family name.”

Charles inclined his head slightly. “He’s alive?”

“Yes,” the man said. “He’s been helping since he woke. Asking about you.”

By evening, Willahelm came to see him.

He didn’t wait at the doorway or speak from a distance. The moment he saw Charles sitting up, he crossed the room quickly and dropped to his knees without hesitation.

“My lord—” His voice broke before he could finish. He bowed his head, shoulders tight, hands clenched against the floor. “I failed you. I should have stayed closer. I should have—”

“That’s enough,” Charles said.

Willahelm froze.

Charles watched him for a second, taking in the posture, the tension, the weight of something that clearly mattered to him. He understood what this was supposed to be. Guilt. Loyalty. Relief tangled together.

“You’re alive,” he said. “That’s already more than expected.”

Willahelm lifted his head slightly, eyes red but focused. “Still… I should have protected you.”

Charles held his gaze. “And yet you’re here. So you did something right.”

He stayed only a short while after that, speaking in fragments, filling in details where he could. Charles listened, asked a few questions, then let the conversation end without forcing it further.

By the next day, his family arrived.

He knew it the moment they entered, not because he recognized them, but because something about their presence carried the same weight his own family once did. It was in the way the room shifted around them, in the way others stepped aside without being told.

She pulled him into an embrace so tight it almost forced a reaction out of him. Her grip trembled, just slightly, as if she had been holding that moment back for too long. Her skin was pale, almost striking against the darker tones around her, and her voice, when she spoke, carried that same controlled softness he had heard before.

“You’re alright,” she said, more to herself than to him.

The man stood just behind her, close enough to be felt even before he moved. There was something steady and warm, like heat held under the surface. When he placed a hand on Charles’s shoulder, it was firm, certain.

“You gave us a scare,” he said.

Charles looked at them, really looked this time.

They felt familiar in if not in memory. Like a reflection adjusted just enough to be different. The roles were reversed, the details shifted, but the core of it stayed the same.

And still, something didn’t sit right.

When they began to speak about taking him back, about returning home, Charles interrupted.

“I don’t think I should go with you.”

Both of them paused.

“I don’t remember anything,” he continued. “Not you. Not where I came from. It doesn’t feel… safe to leave like that.”

Charles turned his head slightly, just enough to glance toward the corner of the room. Yiannis was there.

He had been silent the whole time, trying not to draw attention, but failing at it in the way only someone young could. When Charles looked at him, he straightened without meaning to.

Charles gestured lightly in his direction. “I feel safer here,” he said. “With him.”

Yiannis blinked, caught off guard. “Me?”

Charles didn’t answer that part. He didn’t need to.

The room went still for a moment. Then the man let out a laugh, The woman’s tension eased, replaced by something softer, 

“If that’s what you want,” the man replied.

The woman nodded after a second. “We won’t force you.”

Arrangements were made quickly after that. It was clear from the way they spoke, the way they carried themselves, that leaving him here was not a risk they took lightly. They assessed the household, the land, the people. Satisfied enough, they offered their thanks in a way that didn’t feel like a simple gesture.

Before they left, Willahelm stepped forward again.

He held out a journal, worn at the edges but carefully kept. “He asked me to give this,” he said, voice steadier now. “Everything about the journey is written here.”

Willahelm turned and placed it into the hands of Charles’s parents, bowing his head once more.

When it was time for them to leave, the woman lingered just a second longer than necessary. She reached out, brushing her hand lightly against Charles’s cheek, as if trying to memorize something she already knew.

“We’ll come back,” she said.

Charles nodded, because it was expected.

He watched them go without feeling the weight that should have followed. The space they left behind closed easily, like it had been prepared for it.

When he looked away, his gaze found Yiannis again.

Yiannis stayed after the others left, He kept looking at Charles as if trying to solve something that refused to settle. It took him a while to say what was on his mind, and when he did, it came out a little uneven.

“I thought you were… from here,” he said. “Or at least part. You speak like you grew up with it.”

Charles glanced at him. “I don’t remember learning it.”

“Yeah, I know,” Yiannis replied quickly, then slowed. “Still. It’s not just a few words. It’s… everything.”

Charles leaned back slightly, letting the thought sit between them. “If I was traveling here,” he said after a moment, “it would make sense to learn the language before arriving.”

Yiannis considered that. He shifted his weight, then nodded once, as if convincing himself. “Yeah. That makes sense.”

Willahelm, who had been standing closer to the door, relaxed a fraction as the conversation settled into something easier. He stayed in the room, though not entirely at ease. His eyes moved often, not in suspicion, but in habit. The presence of a young alpha in close space did that to him. It showed in the way he held himself, careful without making it obvious.

Still, he spoke when Yiannis asked.