Chapter 8: Low Tide on the Shore

The night was eerily cold for spring.

Wind howled through the gaps of the old barn, threading itself between splintered beams and warped planks, singing a lullaby of nightmares for the man lying on the hay. His dark hair was disheveled, soaked in blood and sweat.

Yet it wasn’t the pain of torn flesh that pierced him.

It was the quiet, gnawing lullaby from within.

The sound of devastation.

The sound of regret.

“Flee, my Lord.”

No. I am dispensable.

“We shall protect Her Highness.”

And she is not.

His duty that night had been to carve a path through the border, a single, fragile corridor through which the remnants of loyalty could escape the betrayal of their own people.

He was meant to be the shield that guarded what little remained.

It was his blood that should have been spilled on that nightmarish night. The wind rattled the wooden rafters above him, but he no longer cared. But a stubborn creak of heavy doors pushed open, a sudden rush of cold air and rain cascading in, startlingly alive against his skin.

“Is that him?” a familiar voice asked in his mother tongue followed by a low murmur.

His mind had tried its best to seal itself away from the world, yet some stubborn instinct reached toward that unwelcome warmth, the footsteps drawing closer.

“Soren…”

The voice cracked, betraying the composure of its owner.

He knew that voice. A voice from better days. From a man who had never quite fit anywhere.

He forced his heavy eyes open. The barn’s high ceiling swam into view.

“Leave me, Daria.”

“Leave me to the fate I should bear.”

His dark eyes trembled, stormed like the wind outside. This was no longer the composed heir of the Yulane crest, only a broken ruin remained in the man who had been born with duty and respect.

But Daria did not see a broken ruin. He saw the man standing on the green plains years ago, a man as steady as an oak tree, strong yet unexpectedly gentle, never scorning those without name or title.

A man who once treated a nobody like him as an equal.

How could he let the rebels who had torn their homeland apart do the same to his friend?

Never.

“Shut up, Yulane,” Daria snapped, his voice sharp enough to cut through despair.

“This is not the time to die.” his hand fisted into the scruff of Soren’s rain-soaked uniform, gripping it strongly like clutching to the last thread of life.

“Get up,” he growled. “You still have a war to fight.”

On that spring night, beneath the roaring winds and scent of fresh blood, the man who bore the monarch’s crest entered into a new nightmare.

*****

Something had undeniably changed.

Celeste peeked at the silhouette behind her canvas. Her hand stilled mid-air, brush suspended, as her eyes followed the man lounging comfortably on the long sofa. His golden, wavy hair caught the daylight; one arm rested against his chin while his blue eyes sifted through a neat pile of papers. A half-empty cup of coffee lingered on the table before him.

First, he stayed at the villa longer than usual.

For all his unpredictable temperament, Johannes lived by rigid patterns and routines. He never stayed more than two to three nights in a row. But lately, his visits stretched… four nights, sometimes five. The man who once felt like a passing guest now settled into the space as though reclaiming something he had always owned. His presence filled rooms that used to be acquainted by only dust and cold.

“You’ve been staring for a while, Celeste.”

Suddenly the ocean in his eyes crashed against her shore, leaving her nowhere to flee. Her brush struck the canvas too early, a vivid streak of deep blue slicing across the white.

“Ah—!” Embarrassment and annoyance bubbled up in her chest.

“I did not,” she blurted automatically.

“If not.” he murmured, “were you using me as your drawing subject as payment for your gratitude?” A teasing smile curved his lips, one she had grown far too acquainted with these past days.

Her fingers tightened around the brush as heat rose to her cheeks. If she could, she would have splashed another stroke of blue across the canvas, if only she didn’t value her work more than her irritation.

“Were you always born this confident?”

Her question was met with a soft laugh, a sound that only deepened the heat tightening inside her chest.

Johannes rose and approached the pouting woman hidden behind her canvas. His gaze drifted to the brushstrokes of soft blue, gentle strokes like low tide on a quiet shore, and then to the dark, accidental blue blot on the right.

An imperfection on the vast sea. Yet the stain tugged a smile at the corner of his lips.

He clasped his hands behind his back and lowered himself to her height. A faint tinge of jasmine wafted in the air.

“You’ve grown accustomed to the new tools.”

Celeste straightened at the voice beside her. His presence radiated a quiet warmth at her back, laced with a faint musk.

On his last return, Johannes had come with more than just new routines; he had brought a full set of painting tools, including canvas, brushes, oils. The moment she held the brushes, familiarity bloomed through her fingers, as though she had used them all her life.

“It’s strange,” she murmured. “But it feels like I’ve known how to do this for a long time.”

The warmth behind her withdrew like a wave pulling away from the shore, leaving only the smell of paint in its wake.

“Good,” he said lightly. “Something to fill your time.”

Second, he had stopped asking questions about my memory.

She heard his footsteps moving away. Moments like this stirred her with a mix of annoyance, curiosity, and… courage. Celeste set down her brush and turned toward him.

“You visit the villa more often these days.”

The man who filled her gaze returned to his place on the sofa. He sat and met her eyes with a calm blue ocean.

“And is that a problem?”

No.

The truth came to her instantly. But his growing presence also wove new knots of doubt and fear inside her. Her gaze dropped; her hands fidgeted in her lap.

She wanted to know what was happening outside. The war, her country and Falkenreich. But above all, she wanted to know the true identity of the man seated before her. The man who constantly grow into an unshakable presence, darkening like a shadow that follows the sun.

Yet fear battled with doubts, battled with curiosity, battled with hope.. and the victor was always the same.

“I am stationed in Elyndra for an undetermined period of time,” he said, breaking the silence.

“So you’ll have to share this drawing room with me, my lady.”

A teasing remark followed.

The waves crashed onto her shore again.

She looked up at the man seated on the long sofa in his blue military uniform, the pendants and insignia catching the sunlight.

And third, he no longer minded appearing in uniform.

Solidifying a fact she had wanted to flee away from.

The man who held a strange duality: both light and shadow.
A soldier who had saved her life, yet shielded her from truth.
A man who was both kind and distant.
A soldier who could take away her life yet decided to keep it.

Where should she place her trust?

But the question remained unanswered, for the waves crashed again.

“Celeste.” a deep voice calling.

“The spring bloom has begun. Let’s go see it when the weather is fine.”

And this time, the waves did not retreat.

They lingered like a low tide filling the shore.

*****

Inside a military office, Johannes sat in a leather chair, piles of classified documents scattered across the wooden table. With the new mission, he was permitted to remain longer in Elyndra and operate from the nearest Falkenreich military post, a taste of luxury for many soldiers.

“Elyndra military forces confirmed that General Yulane’s son escaped the border patrol. But there is no evidence whether he remains in Elyndra or have successfully crossed,” his subordinate concluded the daily report.

To flee Seirya and reach a neutral country, there was only one route. Monarch loyalists had to pass through the narrow border shared by Elyndra and Seirya, a path guarded by Yulane’s troops and used by many loyalists disguised as traveling merchants.

Reina had been among the last groups to escape, protected by the shield of the monarch himself, her betrothed, Soren Yulane. But the path was discovered, and the rest became history.

Johannes lifted his gaze from the piled documents toward the window. Tiny yellow flowers clung to the trunk outside, swaying in the wind. Creatures that looked fragile, yet held fast against the strong wind. He narrowed his eyes and issued a new order.

“Double the number of border patrols and start checking the surrounding households,” his voice even, his eyes fixed on the swaying blooms.

“And send me a list of influential Seiryans currently residing in Elyndra.”
“Yes, Major.” The man saluted.

That night, after receiving his new mission, Johannes uncovered yet another layer of truth about the woman who now dominated his drawing room.

In every generation of Seiryan royalty, a princess was wed, like an offering, to a member of the family that upheld the Pillar of the Monarch: the house of Yulane. The family that had led the kingdom to victory since its founding. The family capable of stabilizing, or shattering, the kingdom’s balance.

Reina.

The name felt foreign on his tongue, like a puzzle piece that refused to fit.

There were few records left of the fallen princess. Only that she was the daughter of a concubine, and that her mother had died when she was still young.
No portraits, no personal writings, nothing, especially when compared to her brother, the king, whose presence consumed every page of the royal archives.

But that absence made things simpler.

Johannes lifted his gaze to the man standing beside the table, eyes clear blue like a June sky, like the canvas of swaying flowers beyond the window.

“Stefan, any update on my other request?” Johannes asked, using the familiar name, an unspoken signal to shift their conversation into a private channel.

Stefan caught the cue from the man who was both his superior and his friend and let out a long exhale.

“Yes, Johannes. The documents you asked for will be completed and delivered in a month.”

He noticed the faint smile forming on Johannes’s lips, a subtle lift in his mood.

There was no room for a dead monarch in a reformed nation. Stefan understood this fact clearly.

Naturally, the fallen princess the major had hidden away would need to abandon her name forever, live as someone else, or die.

Whether Johannes acted out of pity or desire, or both, Stefan could not tell. What he did know was the growing amount of time Johannes spent with the woman, and the equal number of decisions that could easily condemn him as a traitor. A man who had quietly defied the very oath he once upheld.

A revolutionary who saved a monarch. Truly, a scandal of a lifetime.

Stefan exhaled, defeated by the puzzle he could not solve, or rather.. refused to solve. An urge for a smoke struck him. He pulled an armchair beside the writing desk and sat heavily. He took a cigar from the silver case, placed it between his lips, and lit it. Smoke drifted toward the wooden ceiling, filling the room with muted gray.

“Tell me you understand the consequences of what you’re doing, Jo,” he said, fixing his gaze on Johannes, who had followed him in lighting a cigarette of his own. The flame cast shifting shadows across his face, sharpening the cut of his jaw. Yet Johannes blue eyes were steady like a lake.

“Not this nagging again,” Johannes scoffed.

“That woman has already become a nail hammered into a wooden plank. Revealing her identity now would mean death for all of us. That’s far too heavy a price to pay for a woman with no memory, no?” he continued.

Stefan saw the shadow deepen in Johannes’s blue eyes. And in that moment he realized, how blind his friend was to his own reflection.

“Giving her a harmless new identity is the best solution,” Johannes said quietly, exhaling another puff to the sky.

Because it was not the woman who was the nail. It was Johannes.

“What is my schedule tomorrow, Captain?” he asked, switching seamlessly back into his official tone.

“A meeting with the shareholders of the Elyndra Oil Corporation at eleven. At fifteen hundred, a meeting with the new Seiryan defense minister at the border, Major.”

The Johannes he once knew would have shown his instant displeasure at such a schedule, too much travel, too little rest. But the man before him did not look away from the window. Cigarette balanced loosely between his fingers, shoulders relaxed.

“I see,” Johannes murmured.
“That sounds like a good day for a morning ride.”

Stefan could only hope that the man before him would not pile another sin upon a scale that had already lost its balance.

*****

What kind of man demanded an outing at a four thirty in the morning, when even the roosters had yet to wake?

Well, Johannes was that man.

He was the man who, over dinner, abruptly informed Celeste to be ready in the drawing room at precisely four thirty the next morning, should she remain interested in her request for an outing. The same man refused to negotiate time, even for a young lady known throughout the villa as the most reluctant morning soul.

So before night transitioned to dawn, before the light touched the horizon. The man and the young woman began their day earlier than usual. Neither realized that throughout the night, slept clung slightly lighter to them both.

They were about to greet their first dawn together.

*****

Author’s note:

Thank you for reading Chapter 8! Please don’t forget to vote and leave a review; your comments always bring me joy.

So, how do you feel about Reina and her actual engagement status? And what about Johannes, who didn’t seem to care about that fact? Do you have any theories on why he reacted this way? I had so much fun writing the interactions between Johannes and Celeste. I could really feel the “push and pull” of the tides, with tension and fear blended into one.

As usual, I’d like to share the song that inspired me during the writing process. This time, it’s a slightly sweeter track that feels like low tide on the shore Ithaca Suite: VII. Pax Athenae.

See you in the dawn!