Chapter 434: Someone Is Watching The Estate

Lilith looked at the cairn. At the stones that represented a life cut impossibly short.

"I don’t know what to say," Lilith admitted. "Everything feels inadequate. How do you sum up someone’s entire existence in a few words? How do you express gratitude for a sacrifice so absolute?"

"You don’t," Lucian said quietly. "You just speak from the heart."

Lilith took a breath.

"Nicholas," she said, and saying his name out loud felt like breaking open a wound that had not yet healed. "I don’t know if you can hear this. I don’t know if any part of you exists anywhere except in our memories. But....."

Her voice broke. She forced herself to continue.

"Thank you. For choosing me. For walking into death without hesitation. For loving me enough to give everything. I don’t know if I can ever be worthy of that sacrifice. But I’m going to try. I’m going to live the best life I can. I’m going to honor your choice by being brave and strong and fighting for the people I love the way you fought for me."

She pressed her hand to her chest. To the place where his bond used to be.

"I’ll carry you with me," Lilith whispered. "Always. In the empty space where you used to be. In the grief that never quite fades. In the knowledge that someone loved me enough to die so I could live."

***

The memorial ended quietly. People dispersed slowly. Returning to the estate. Returning to the work of living.

Lilith stayed behind with Sebastian and Lucian for a few extra minutes.

Just standing. Looking at the cairn. Saying silent goodbyes to someone who would never hear them.

As they finally turned to leave, Lilith caught movement in the corner of her eye.

A figure. Standing in the tree line about a hundred yards away. Watching.

Lilith’s head snapped toward it.

"Did you see that?" she asked sharply.

"See what?" Sebastian followed her gaze.

But the figure was gone.

Nothing in the trees except shadows and wind-moved branches.

"There was someone there," Lilith said. "Standing. Watching us."

Lucian’s expression went hard. "Where?"

"Right there." Lilith pointed. "Between those two large oaks. Someone was watching the memorial."

Sebastian and Lucian both scanned the tree line. Alert. Ready for threat.

But there was nothing.

"I don’t see anyone," Sebastian said. "Are you sure?"

"I’m sure," Lilith said. "Someone was there. And they were watching us."

"Pack scout?" Lucian suggested. "Someone keeping perimeter watch?"

"Maybe," Lilith said. But she didn’t believe it.

Whoever had been watching felt wrong. Foreign. Like they did not belong on Blackwood territory.

"We should tell the Callum," Sebastian said. "Increase patrols. If someone is spying on the estate...."

"They already left," Lucian finished.

They stood there for another moment. All three of them staring at the empty tree line.

Wondering if Lilith had imagined it. Or if someone really had been watching.

And if they had been watching....

What did they want?

***

Evening settled over the estate like a shroud.

Lilith sat on the edge of her bed and stared at nothing, her mind replaying the memorial over and over. Nicholas’s cairn. The words she had spoken. The empty space where he should have been standing.

And that figure in the trees. Watching.

She didn’t know which bothered her more, the grief or the fear or the overwhelming sense that nothing would ever be normal again.

A soft knock at the door pulled her from her thoughts.

"Come in," Lilith said quietly.

Sebastian entered first, followed by Lucian. Both of them looked as exhausted as Lilith felt. Dark circles under their eyes. Tension written across their shoulders. The weight of loss pressing down on them.

"How are you holding up?" Sebastian asked, closing the door behind them.

Lilith almost laughed. "I don’t know. I feel.....empty. Like someone carved out pieces of me and I’m just walking around with holes where important things used to be."

Lucian sat down in the chair near the window. "That’s grief. It doesn’t get smaller. You just get bigger around it. Or so I’ve been told."

"Who told you that?" Lilith asked.

"Nicholas," Lucian said quietly. "After our father died. He said grief is like carrying a stone. At first it’s so heavy you can barely stand. But eventually you get stronger. The stone doesn’t get lighter. You just learn how to carry it."

Lilith felt tears burn behind her eyes. "He would say something like that."

"He had a philosophy for everything," Sebastian said. He moved to sit on the edge of the bed near Lilith. "It was annoying sometimes. But also....comforting. Like no matter how bad things got, Nicholas had already thought it through and had a plan."

"And now we don’t have that," Lilith whispered. "Now we have to figure out how to keep going without his plans or his calm or his certainty that everything would work out."

"We do it together," Sebastian said. He reached out and took her hand. "The three of us. We figure it out as we go."

Lilith looked at their joined hands. Then at Lucian sitting across the room.

"The bonds," Lilith said quietly. "They feel wrong. Like something is fundamentally broken that I don’t know how to fix."

"I know," Sebastian said. "I feel it too. Like there’s static on a line that used to be clear. Or like trying to walk when one leg is missing."

"It hurts," Lilith admitted. "Not physically exactly. But....the absence hurts. The empty space where Nicholas used to be. Every time I breathe I feel it."

Lucian stood and crossed to the bed. He sat on Lilith’s other side and took her free hand.

"It hurts for us too," Lucian said. "The bond is trying to compensate. Trying to hold onto you through two connections instead of three. And it’s...." He stopped. "It’s not working the way it should."

"I don’t want to feel like this anymore," Lilith said suddenly. "I don’t want to sit here drowning in grief and guilt and emptiness. I want...."