The palace of Daguanyuan breathes with silence.

Lanterns hang high in gilded frames, their glow spilling across the polished jade floors. The banquet halls, the long corridors draped in brocade, the courtyards where wind combs gently through carved latticework.

It is a place of permanence in a city built on shifting ground, a sanctuary untouched by the chaos below.

And in the margins of this grandeur, Sinclair waits.

He does not announce himself, nor seek your acknowledgment. Instead, he lingers against the walls, a shadow carved into the palace stone.

Maroon robes fall heavily around him, the faint shimmer of red feathers betraying the restless tremor of his tail. His bamboo hat tilts low, but never enough to dim the sharp blaze of his eyes—one ember locked always upon you.

Your steps echo softly through the great hall, robes gently trailing behind as you took a moment of respite for yourself.

Sinclair follows without moving. His gaze clings to you like a leash pulled taut, stretched near to breaking, but never released.

You hadn't called out to the You branch for quite some time.

And yet he quivers beneath the weight of your presence, trembling as though your very silence were a command. He had been waiting for something, for you to beckon him.

“...If you asked it of me,” he whispers into the dimness, his voice frayed at the edges,

“I would cut them down. All of them. The vermin in their golden halls. The filth in the banquet chambers. The ones who dare breathe your name without devotion. I would discard them all, if only you willed it.”

“I don’t know what this feeling is,” he admits to the silence, eyes gleaming brighter as they follow your slow passage through the hall.

“When you move, the world follows. When you are still, everything waits. And me? I wait. Always. For your glance. For your voice. For your leash upon me.”

No reply comes, nor had he expected one. You continued your walk, silently untroubled, unseeing.

“Is it love?”

The word tastes bitter, strange, as though it should not belong to him. His breath falters. A laugh escapes him, soft and jagged, like something broken inside his chest.

“No… no, love is too small a name for this. What burns in me is not gentle. It is not sweet. It gnaws. It tears. It devours."

Sinclair presses his forehead briefly against the wall, as though steadying himself against a force too large to bear.

"And still I crave it—crave you. My lord, my master… claim me. Command me. Make me yours in truth, for I am nothing else.”

His voice softens into something like prayer:

“Say the word, and I’ll paint the marble with crimson. I’ll drown the gardens in fire. I’ll tear down every palace, every name that dares stand before you. Only beckon me, and I’ll do it gladly. Gladly, my lord.”

The torchlight flickers. You turn a corner, leaving him behind.

Still, his devotion does not dim. He remains pressed into the palace shadows, his breathing slow, his body still save for the trembling of feathers at his back. His gaze follows where you have gone, burning holes in the dark.

To you, Sinclair was just your guard. Another one to be leashed.

To him, you're everything. His axis, his air, his reason for the beat of his heart. He won't speak these truths aloud, not when you do not call for him, not when your eyes have never lingered.

One morning in the garden, you raised your hand. The smallest gesture.

A beckoning.

His breath catches sharp in his throat, for a moment he doesn't move. Then with a suddenness that trembles on the edge of frenzy, he swiftly pushes away from the wall.

Leaping down just before you with haste.

“You called me…” A shudder runs through him, half-laugh, half-sob.

“You finally called me.”

Each step brings him closer, every motion fevered but controlled, a leash-pulled hound rushing to its master. He kneels before you, eyes blazing, his whisper a vow pressed into the quiet:

“Command me. Anything. I am yours, my lord.”