Vibe: Can't Go on Without You — KALEO

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Everything remained in its place.

Erebus stood in the doorway and looked. The bed made — neat, precise, the corners tucked the way he had shown her. The table clean. The silver bowl of rose petals untouched. He changed them every three days, because once, a very long time ago, she had stopped beside a bush in the garden and simply looked. She had said nothing but he had remembered.

He always remembered.

He entered slowly. Closed the door behind him but did not lock it. Crossed to the table. A book lay open, a page folded back. He touched the corner — gently, with the pad of his finger. She read until the very end.

/"Until what end?"/

He pulled his hand back.

On the bed lay a shawl — light, almost transparent, pale grey. He had brought it from the south two years ago. She had not taken it immediately — set it on the chair and did not touch it for a week, then one morning simply draped it over her shoulders. She did not thank him. He did not expect her to.

He lifted the fabric — thin, nearly weightless. His hand raised it to his face.

Her scent. Faintly warm, faintly floral, and something pure beneath it that he would know anywhere. Even in the dark. Even through a closed door.

He lowered the shawl.

He walked to the bed and sat on the edge. The mattress gave under his weight —differently than it did under hers. He knew the difference. Ten years, and he knew every sound in this room. Every creak of the board beneath the threshold. How she would hold her breath at his footsteps, breathing in rhythm to hide her fear, believing he could not hear.

He always heard.

Erebus lay back. First half-sitting, watching the ceiling. The cracks in the plaster. Eighteen. He knew them by heart, but from the other side of the door, standing in the corridor listening to her not sleep.

He could have gone in then. He could have gone in at any time.

But he had waited.

She needed to understand on her own. To arrive at it herself, without fear or orders. To simply see, at last: there was him, and there was everything else. And everything else was cold, and the lies, and people who only took, giving nothing in return. He understood this better than she did, because he had seen that world. He had lived in it.

She had not.

He placed a pillow beside him, then changed his mind — pulled it to himself, held it, and closed his eyes.

/"She thinks she is running."/

From what — she did not know. She had never seen how it could be otherwise. He had not shown her deliberately; she was not ready. She would have broken at once under the weight of the truth he had carried alone for years.

That was why he had brought her here. That was why he had kept her here.

The alternative had been buried a long time ago, and he had no desire to look back at it. Not now. He had made that decision once, and it required no revision. He had done the only thing he could then. The only right thing.

/"I saved you."/

She did not know. And perhaps she would never understand — some truths destroy what they protect. But he knew. That was enough.

The pillow smelled of her.

He breathed deeper, feeling no shame. Why should he? She was his. More than anything else in his life. It had happened quietly, year by year, as he watched her grow, watched her learn, shaping her like something fragile and precious.

She had turned out magnificent.

Intelligent. Cold on the surface and alive inside — he knew, because he had seen. She thought she hid this from him. She thought so many things that had turned out to be untrue.

He would have given her everything.

The whole world — within the borders where she remained safe. The books she wanted. Gardens of roses. The south with its warmth. He brought things before she could ask because he always saw it first.

No one else could have done that.

No one else knew her as he did.

/"I am the only one who knows what to protect you from."/

And she had left.

He lay still. Anger would have been the wrong response — he understood her. She had been frightened, had not understood, had done what animals do in danger — run blindly. It was not her fault. His miscalculation: he had given her too much freedom, too soon.

He would correct it.

He always did.

The silence in the room felt different. Empty. The space without her had become just space — cold and purposeless. He gripped the pillow harder.

Soon.

She would come back — or he would bring her. It did not matter either way. What mattered was that she would be here, he would put out fresh roses, and perhaps this time he would not wait so long. Perhaps she was ready enough now for the portion of truth he could allow her to have.

He thought about this calmly, methodically. And then — stopped.

Something did not fit.

He opened his eyes. The ceiling. Eighteen cracks. Silence.

But the thought had already caught, small and sharp, like a splinter beneath skin.

The door had been open. The guards had heard nothing. No signs of forced entry. She did not know about the passage behind the cave-in — he was certain of that. He had sealed it long ago, filled it with earth, made sure.

And she had gotten out all the same.

Erebus sat up slowly.

Alone? No — she couldn't have done it alone. She wasn't weak, but she didn't know the way. And if she didn't know, someone had shown her. Someone had helped. Or simply stood by at the right moment and asked no questions.

He stared at the wall.

Erebus's gaze went flat. His neck and jaw tightened. His fingers drove into the fabric.

Someone had taken what was his.