The hush of late afternoon lay upon the palace like the weightless veil of a long-held breath. In the westernmost courtyard of the Citadel—known in archaic records as Cedric took his measured steps, cloaked not in ceremonial regalia, but in the subdued dignity of a scholar at rest. The hem of his formal robe, black trimmed with silver thread, trailed with hushed reverence over pale marble flagstones veined with ivy, as though even his garments knew not to disturb the sanctity of the hour.

Above him, the heavens wore a soft melancholia—clouds drawn thin across the sky like aging parchment brushed faintly with soot, tinged gold only at their farthest edges. The light, low and diffused, spilled languidly through the ancient arches of the colonnade, casting intricate patterns across his path—mosaic shadows wrought by the filigreed iron lattice that framed the high windows of the adjoining library. A gentle wind stirred from the north, not forceful enough to sway the olive trees, but strong enough to send whispers through their slender, dusky leaves. Their silvery undersides shimmered faintly, as if the grove itself were sighing in ancient tongues.

He moved as one accustomed to solitude, but not to idleness. In his left hand, he held a narrow-bound journal of midnight leather, its pages edged in dull silver leaf—hand-stitched and worn smooth along the spine from long use. In his right, a fountain quill tipped in pale bone, its nib tracing words in ink the color of winter violets. The act of writing while walking came to Cedric as naturally as breathing to lesser men; he did not glance at the page, nor falter in step, yet his script was precise.

Between each line, he paused not to think but to feel—to absorb the trembling echoes of thought that hovered just beyond the reach of ordinary articulation. He was not drafting treatises nor composing doctrine. Every now and again, the rhythm of his quill would slow as his eyes, lifted from beneath the veil of his lashes to regard his surroundings with a gaze.