The wind was still moving when they reached the edge.
Not violently—not enough to explain the emptiness where Arthur had been—but enough to tug at clothes and hair, enough to make the cliff feel awake. The rocks below were hidden by shadow and distance, the kind of depth that refused to give anything back once it had taken it.
Ray didn't understand what he was looking at.
He knew only that Arthur wasn't there.
One moment his brother had been ahead of him—steady, balanced, feet sure on stone that Ray himself had been afraid to step on—and the next there had been a sound. Not a scream. Not even a shout.
Just the scrape of stone.
Then nothing.
Ray's breath tore out of him in a way that hurt his chest. He stumbled forward, small hands grasping at air, at space where Arthur should have been. Someone caught him before he could fall too—arms wrapping around his middle, lifting him back as if he weighed nothing at all.
"Arthur?" he cried, the word breaking apart as it left his mouth. "Arthur—!"
Alice was shaking.
She held Ray against her so tightly it hurt, one hand pressed to the back of his head, fingers tangled in his hair. Her other arm wrapped around him like a barrier, as if she could keep the cliff itself from reaching for him next.
Reynolds didn't stop.
He dropped to one knee at the edge, eyes sharp, scanning downward with the trained precision of an adventurer who had stared into danger more times than he could count. His jaw was set, his breathing controlled—but his hands clenched hard enough that the leather of his gloves creaked.
"Arthur!" he shouted.
The name echoed back, thin and distorted.
Ray kicked weakly, sobbing now, his face buried in his mother's shoulder. "He fell—Dad, he fell—please—"
Alice rocked him without thinking, the motion instinctive, soothing even as her own breath came in uneven pulls. She didn't look at the cliff. She couldn't.
She already knew what it meant.
Not because Arthur was her son.
But because he was that son.
Reynolds knew it too.
That was the cruelest part.
They searched anyway.
For hours.
Reynolds climbed down as far as the cliff would allow, securing rope, testing holds, calling Arthur's name until his voice grew hoarse. Others from the town came when they heard—neighbors, adventurers passing through, people who knew Reynolds well enough to recognize the look on his face and say nothing.
Alice never let Ray go.
Not once.
She sat on the ground with him clutched to her chest, arms wrapped tight around his small frame, as if loosening her hold even for a moment might tempt the world to take something else from her. Ray cried until his throat ached, until his voice faded into weak hiccups that shook his entire body.
He didn't understand why they kept searching.
He didn't understand why no one answered him when he asked when Arthur was coming back.
He only knew that every time he looked toward the cliff, his stomach twisted painfully, and his chest felt too tight to breathe.
When the sun began to dip and shadows stretched long across the rocks, Reynolds stopped calling out.
He stood at the edge for a long moment, staring down into the darkening depths, eyes narrowed not with grief—but with calculation.
Arthur was careful.
Arthur observed.
Arthur adapted.
If anyone could survive a fall that should have killed them, it would have been the son who had never quite seemed like a child at all.
That thought did not comfort him.
It frightened him.
Because it meant the world had taken the one child who could walk forward alone—
And left behind the one who could not.
That night, Ray slept between his parents.
It had never happened before.
Alice lay on one side of him, one arm draped protectively across his chest, her hand resting just above his heart as if she needed to feel it beating to believe it was still there. Reynolds lay on the other, stiff and silent, his presence solid and immovable even in sleep.
The house was quiet.
Too quiet.
Ray's breathing eventually evened out, exhaustion dragging him under despite the lingering tightness in his chest. His dreams came quickly—and wrong.
He dreamed of images that didn't belong to him.
Flat pictures. Panels. Words in bubbles. A story he had read once—no, many times—late at night, scrolling endlessly, always waiting for the next part that never quite came fast enough.
A boy with silver eyes.
A cliff.
A world filled with mana and monsters and gods who watched from above.
The realization hit him without warning, without mercy.
This is real.
The shock didn't form into thoughts the way it should have. It didn't arrange itself into clean sentences or careful conclusions. It crashed into him as feeling—raw, overwhelming, crushing.
Fear surged first.
Then confusion.
Then guilt so heavy it made his chest ache.
His small body reacted before his mind could catch up. His heart raced. His breath stuttered. Tears welled up and spilled over, soaking silently into the fabric of his mother's clothes.
He tried to think.
Tried to remember more.
The thoughts slipped away from him like water through his fingers. Every time he reached for clarity, emotion drowned it out—panic, loss, the instinctive need to hide.
He curled in on himself, pressing closer to the warmth beside him, seeking comfort the way a child did.
Because that was what he was.
Not a king wearing a child's skin.
Just a child carrying memories he wasn't ready to hold.
The nightmare shifted, fragmented, bleeding into darkness.
Ray whimpered softly in his sleep, brow furrowed, tears clinging to his lashes.
Alice stirred, tightening her hold around him without waking.
Outside, the wind brushed against the house, distant and unheeding.
Arthur had fallen into the unknown.
Ray stayed—
Curled between his parents, dreaming of a world that had already taken more than it had given, and sleeping on despite the fear, because there was nowhere else for him to go.