The last of the golden sun rays broke into the chamber through the thick curtains, casting a gentle glow over the room.
Cassius felt a restlessness gnaw at him throughout the day, listening out for Lilian, but her voice didn't reach him. She must've spend the day indoors, likely finding yet another corner to explore. She might've pulled the sheets off another lounger or cupboard, lifting up the static dust that would fill the air.
Unable to rest, Cassius rubbed his face. Exhaustion was draining him but he gave up hope for any decent rest and sluggishly got up.
His evening routine was unchanged, with exception of a short moment when Cassius paused by the bathroom mirror.
The fangs could be concealed if he was careful enough but any time his lips curved they escaped and glistened with their pearly white shade. The cold lips bend into an awkward and unpracticed smile.
The reflection in the mirror only rotted Cassius's mood further.
His lips felt empty and they longed for the soft touch of Lilian's lips, just like in the dream, which now flashed back as a heated reminder of his hidden desires.
Cassius's body still remembered the passionate kiss in his dream but then he recoiled with repulsion. Lilian would never kiss a beast like him.
It was a tragedy waiting to be written, the tragedy where Cassius found his very soulmate only to know that he was a monster in her eyes.
There was hesitation in Cassius's movements as he left his chamber fuelled by uncertainty of whether he could face Lilian without burning in shame. The sight of Lilian could evoke the same feelings and desires as a dream but he couldn't just simply redirect his thoughts. She was a living trigger, and he felt that his emotions were becoming uncontrollable.
He didn't have to even ask any of the servants about Lilian's whereabouts as they were so used to his questions that they pointed him in her direction without a single word needing to be spoken. Cassius contemplated still whether it was wise to see her in his current state, but his legs carried him to the destination before he made up his mind.
The library was at the heart of the castle, right behind a large wooden doorway. Once it was disrupted by child's footsteps as it has proved itself to be a brilliant hiding spot. But now this child grew up, and entered that library with carefulness, knowing that he was disrupting the tranquility of the place.
The dust gently floated in the air and a few oil lamps flickering at a gentle drafts that found a way through the large castle within the old library that was filled with books over the centuries by many generations before him.
Cassius strode across the large room that smelled of nostalgia.
Lilian was sat on the floor, curled up under one of the lamps, intently reading a book. Her fingers were gentle as she turned the pages as if worried that the paper was going to turn to dust.
Lilian's eyes were wide open, clearly mesmerised by the content written in black ink.
Cassius slowed down, afraid to disturb the peace of this sanctuary, "what are you reading?" He braved the question, enchanted by the long eyelashes that fluttered a few times as Lilian looked up at him with such intensity that he was certain that she could see his soul.
"It is a book of poems with a theme of love." Lilian answered, the corners of her lips tugging up at his sight. A little shiver shook her body as a cold draft reached them.
"I'll light the fire if you read it to me." Cassius decided, stepping towards the fireplace and filling it up with the logs.
Lilian moved behind him, settling into the armchair by the fireplace: "It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night—
It was the plant and flower of Light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be."
When Lilian began to read, her voice barely lifted above the hush of the room. It was soft, deliberate, as if she were afraid that even breath might disturb the stillness of the library. She read as though the poem belonged to the walls, to the fire, to the shadows flickering over the spines of old books—and she was merely borrowing it for a moment.
The fire had only just caught—it hissed and popped softly, the scent of burning pine threading through the space.
Cassius lounged in nearby armchair, his gaze resting not on the flames but on her, quietly attuned.
Isabelle's lashes were low and the corners of her mouth barely moving. The room seemed to lean in, drawn by the intimate hush of her tone, and Cassius did too, held in the gravity of her quiet.
Cassius didn't notice the question forming until it was already there, curling at the edges of his thoughts like smoke Is this what love feels like?
The question didn't come with thunder. It arrived like her voice—quiet, unassuming, but absolute. It settled in his chest with a strange, aching twist, as if his body already knew the answer.
For Lilian, the ease came slowly—like warmth seeping into cold fingertips.
Cassius wasn't speaking. He wasn't shifting or checking the clock or pulling away. He was simply there—present, listening in that way he did that made silence feel less like absence and more like understanding. And in that, something unspooled in her.
Her fingers relaxed against the worn spine of the book. Her back eased into the chair.
She didn't need to be louder. She didn't need to be anything more than this: a voice in a warm room and a poem read not into the void but into someone waiting for it.
The final word slipped from Lilian's lips and she closed the book slowly, fingertips brushing the edge of the page as if reluctant to let it go. Then, with a quiet inhale, she looked up.
Cassius was already watching her. His gaze held hers with a kind of quiet wonder, as if she'd said something truer than the poem itself. The look in his eyes was its own kind of reply—an answer without words, deep and steady, letting her know he'd heard every line.
Lilian's brows drew in just slightly, the barest crease forming between them. Her lips parted, as if a question hovered there, but didn't quite make it past her breath. It was a look Cassius had seen before. The same look that always came just before she asked yet another question.
There was intrigue in her eyes, bright and searching, as if she were standing at the edge of a thought she hadn't decided whether to say aloud.
Cassius let out a soft sigh, the kind that passed for tiredness but was really something else—a quiet surrender to the moment, to her. His head tilted just a little, his eyes still steady on hers, warm with that barely-there amusement he reserved only for her.
"You always get that look right before you ask something impossible," he murmured, voice low, tinged with affection. A pause. Then, softer still— "Go on. I want to hear it." And in the space between his words, the fire cracked once, gently, like punctuation.
Lilian held his gaze for a beat longer. She lowered the book to her lap, fingers absentmindedly tracing the edge of its cover as if drawing courage from its softness. "You've said before," she began, "that you can appreciate… finer things." Her eyes flicked toward the hearth, then back to him. "Music. Art. Words." There was none of the playful edge in her voice she often used when she wanted to catch him off guard. This was something quieter, drawn from the same breath that carried her poem. "But your heart," she continued, the hesitation threading her voice now, "it doesn't beat like mine." She paused. The fire filled the silence, dancing gently on the walls. "We often say our feelings live there… in our hearts. So I wonder—" her eyes searched his, not to challenge, but to understand—"do you experience emotions the way we do?" The question hung in the air.
Cassius didn't answer right away. He studied her, his gaze lingering on her eyes, on the way the firelight brushed across her cheek, the way her curiosity folded so gently into her expression. There was something in her that quieted him and silenced the turmoils caused by the weight of responsibility that he carried. She didn't know, of course—how often he watched her like this and how much he observed.
When Cassius finally spoke, his voice was low, measured. "I do," he said simply, "All of it." A faint breath. Not quite a sigh. "Sadness. Grief. Anger. Hatred. Regret." He didn't name what else he felt—not the one thing sitting heavy in his chest, the one thing he couldn't offer her plainly. But his eyes never left hers, and perhaps that, too, was an answer, of how much he cared for this human that stumbled into his world.
Lilian let her gaze wander slowly around the library, then her eyes returned to Cassius, curious, as always.
"Have you read all of these?" she asked softly, her voice still carrying that reverent hush.
Cassius let a faint smile touch his lips—a rare, unguarded thing.
"No," he said, "Many were collected over the centuries. But yes… I've read a fair few."
Lilian leaned forward slightly,
"Which ones are your favourites?"
He looked toward the shelves, eyes skimming over the volumes like old acquaintances.
"It's difficult to name just one," he replied. "Each book fills a different hollow in my soul."
Her head tilted at that, thoughtful, and then, before she could stop herself— "Soul?" she echoed with question so heavy that it weighted Cassius down.
Cassius's gaze flicked toward her—calm, but not unguarded. "I choose to believe I have one," he said, voice lower now, touched with something not quite bitterness. "I am sentient. I feel. That must mean something."
Lilian's brow furrowed, eyes thoughtful.
"The stories I grew up with made your kind seem… monstrous," she said, carefully, as though measuring the weight of her words.
Cassius didn't flinch. "I am a monster," he said flatly, not in self-pity, but as one might state a fact too old to dispute.
She smiled then—soft, sly, the corner of her mouth curling just enough to challenge the gloom of his reply.
"A refined monster," she murmured, teasing gently. But then her gaze shifted, drawn to the fire. "I've seen things in you these past few weeks and with each day I am seeing subtlety in your existence that makes me wonder."
Cassius said nothing for a moment.
Then, without a word, he rose, crossing to one of the taller shelves. His fingers traced a familiar spine before pulling down a volume bound in worn leather.
He turned back to her, book in hand,
"Perhaps," he said, "this poems might be the ones worth wondering over."
Lilian accepted the book from his hands, her fingers brushing his for the briefest second—warm skin against something cold but not unpleasant. She opened the cover carefully, mindful of its fragile spine, the pages softened and bowed from use. It had been read many times.
"Thank you," she said, a genuine smile brightening her face like morning light.
Cassius's eyes didn't leave the fire. Its reflection flickered in his gaze, though his thoughts were clearly somewhere deeper—perhaps in memory, perhaps in a place he'd never name aloud.
"My favorite," he began softly, "is likely a sonnet."
And then, without shifting his eyes from the flames, he recited:
"She'd let her gold hair flow free in the breeze
and whirled it into thousands of sweet knots,
and lovely light would burn beyond all measure
in those fair eyes whose light is dimmer now.
Her face would turn the color pity wears,
a pity true or false I did not know,
and I with all love's tinder in my breast—
it's no surprise I quickly caught on fire.
The way she walked was not the way of mortals
but of angelic forms, and when she spoke
more than an earthly voice it was that sang:
a godly spirit and a living sun
was what I saw, and if she is not now,
my wound still bleeds, although the bow's unbent."
Cassius's voice was but laced with something deeper—an ache that didn't tremble but settled low. He spoke it like someone who had once known what it meant, then spent years trying not to.
Lilian didn't speak. She didn't move. But he felt her eyes on him—burning, not from scrutiny, but from something softer. From understanding. In that moment, he didn't meet her gaze. He couldn't. His body ached with pain of knowing his soulmate was within his reach but yet so far out. For a brief moment, he felt that he was reaching a breaking point where he had to escape her presence as to not drown.
Lilian's fingers lingered on the open pages as Cassius's voice faded into the quiet.
For a moment, she seemed content to let silence stretch between them—until she spoke, her voice low but clear, carrying a quiet rhythm that made Cassius turn.
"Erano i capei d'oro a l'aura sparsi
che 'n mille dolci nodi gli avolgea,
e l'vago lume oltra misura ardea
di quei begli occhi, ch'or ne son sí scarsi;
e 'l viso di pietosi color' farsi,
non so se vero o falso, mi parea:
i' che l'ésca amorosa al petto avea,
qual meraviglia se di súbito arsi?
Non era l'andar suo cosa mortale,
ma d'angelica forma; et le parole
sonavan altro, che pur voce humana.
Uno spirito celeste, un vivo sole
fu quel ch'i'vidi: et se non fosse or tale,
piagha per allentar d'arco non san."
Cassius turned to look at her—sharply, the surprise breaking through his usual composure. His eyes searched hers, something flickering just beneath the surface, too quick to name. He hadn't expected it. Not from her. Not in that voice, which carried the verses like memory, not mimicry.
"Petrarch," she said, meeting his gaze with quiet steadiness. "I've read his sonnets before. Back… back at home."
There was a pause. She looked down briefly, as if recalling a memory too gently held. "My mother used to listen to them when she was ill. I think she liked how they sounded more than what they meant." Her voice faltered slightly, not from sorrow, but from something more tender—exposure. She hadn't meant to reveal so much. And yet, Cassius said nothing at first. He only looked at her. A moment ago he was ready to run but now a twinkle of hope appeared deep within.
"But… you know it in the original language?" Cassius asked, his voice shaded with awe.
Lilian nodded, a faint smile curving at the edges of her lips. "Yes. It was my joy to learn languages from all over the human realm." She said it lightly, as though it were a simple thing, something anyone might do in passing.
Cassius tilted his head, watching her more intently. "Astonishing," he murmured, almost to himself.
Lilian gave a quiet laugh, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Hardly," she said with a shrug. "I was just… used to being stuck between the walls." The words were offered carelessly, as though she didn't expect them to land. But they did.
Cassius's expression didn't change overtly, but something in his posture shifted—subtle, like the tension of a string pulled just a little tighter. Her off-hand comment unsettled him in a way she likely didn't mean it to. He knew what it was to live confined by invisible walls. And hearing it in her voice, so casually dismissed, stirred something sharp and unwelcome.
He looked away, back to the fire, unable to bear her gaze with the weight of the guilt that it now carried.
"I see," he said quietly. "I offer you the freedom to roam Ironwood," Cassius said after a long moment. He did not want Lilian to feel like a prisoner in his kingdom.
Lilian's lips tugged into a smile, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "It's a perceived freedom," she replied lightly, with the lilt of a joke. "Granted at the whim of my master." She paused, then added with forced levity, "Freedom until I open the wrong set of doors."
Cassius didn't respond at first. He only studied her, the way the smile hung on her mouth like a mask she wasn't even trying to wear convincingly.
"I've come to the realisation," he said slowly, "that you've been here a full month already." His tone was cautious, careful not to press. "You've wandered through many halls of this castle, even the gardens of late… but you haven't yet seen my kingdom." He turned slightly, "Perhaps it is time I showed you what lies beyond these walls."
He didn't miss the way her breath shifted—just enough to reveal the tension coiled in her chest. He could feel it.
"That's… a thoughtful offer," Lilian said, and she meant it. But there was a flicker of worry in her gaze. "Truly. But I'm afraid I know too little of your world to act as I should. My… humanity, while it may amuse you, might not be met with the same patience by the people of Ironwood." She looked down for a beat.
Cassius nodded slowly, as if her words had struck deeper than he'd anticipated. There was no retort, no answer that felt right. His gaze shifted to an old standing clock in the corner.
"I believe it's time for our next meal," he said.
Lilian, still holding the book of sonnets in her hands, nodded quickly, as though the change in topic provided a safe harbour. She rose with a swift motion, clutching the book to her chest as if it were some small shield between them.
They both departed from the library to the familiar dining room.