“How long was I asleep?” This time, the answer did not come immediately.
The man remained silent a little longer than before, studying his lord’s face as though trying to discern what truly lay behind such an ordinary question.
Yet a moment later, his familiar composure concealed whatever thoughts might have briefly surfaced in his eyes.
“Two days, my lord.” Two days…
Richard slowly lowered his gaze.
So the man who had owned this body…
No.
He cut the thought short before it could fully form.
Even in his own mind, it felt impossible to call that man himself.
Too soon.
Too wrong.
To Richard, the old man remained a stranger whose life he had been forced to continue by some incomprehensible twist of fate.
Somewhere, there had been a true owner of this body—a man known by those around him, a man served with loyalty, a man addressed as my lord.
But that man was not him.
At least…
Silence settled between them once more.
The silence that followed was heavy.
Wary.
Richard knew he was running out of time.
Every answer brought new questions, and every new discovery only made the situation more bewildering.
He felt like a man trapped in the middle of a labyrinth without a single clue to guide him, where one wrong turn could lead straight to disaster.
He needed to ask something else.
Something safe.
Something that would not arouse suspicion.
He was already searching for another careful question when the words slipped from his lips before reason could stop them.
“Who am I?” The moment he heard himself say it, Richard knew he had made a mistake.
Too late.
The silence that settled over the room seemed to gain weight.
Even the crackling of the logs in the fireplace suddenly sounded sharper, while the wind outside appeared to fall silent, yielding to the tension that had sprung up between the two men.
Slowly, the man raised his eyes.
For the first time since entering the room, he allowed his emotions to show.
Only a little.
For a single brief moment, the man’s eyebrows twitched ever so slightly, and genuine surprise flickered in his calm, weary eyes.
It was so fleeting that anyone else might have thought they had imagined it.
But Richard saw it.
He saw it far too clearly.
This man possessed extraordinary control over himself, and for that very reason, such a minute change in expression spoke louder than any words ever could.
The question had caught him off guard.
Truly caught him off guard.
Which meant Richard had asked something the true owner of this body would never have asked.
“My lord…” The man’s voice was quiet, almost cautious.
He did not answer immediately, as though carefully weighing his words, afraid that a careless response might only deepen the strangeness of the conversation.
“Are you…
asking me your own name?” For a brief instant, time seemed to stop.
Richard felt his entire body tighten.
A mistake.
A serious one.
An utterly unforgivable mistake.
He had become so absorbed in searching for answers that, for the first time, he had forgotten who he was supposed to appear to be in the eyes of those around him.
The true owner of this body would never have asked such a question.
Never.
Even someone suffering from memory loss would have been more likely to ask what had happened, how much time had passed, or why they had been confined to bed.
But their own name?
That was too obvious.
Too dangerous.
Richard slowly looked away, buying himself a few precious seconds.
In that brief span, his thoughts fell into place, forming the only defense he had.
“My thoughts are still…
muddled after waking.” He spoke calmly, keeping his voice even and measured.
It was a lie.
A deliberate, calculated lie—but a believable one, something the man before him could accept without too much difficulty.
A prolonged loss of consciousness could certainly leave someone weak, confused, and suffering from temporary lapses in memory.
At least, Richard desperately hoped that was how it would appear from the outside.
The man said nothing.
He simply continued to regard his master with the same calm, attentive gaze, revealing not a single unnecessary emotion.
Yet Richard understood the most important thing.
The man did not believe him.
Not entirely.
Perhaps his words had sounded convincing.
Perhaps the explanation was even reasonable.
But somewhere deep inside, his companion had begun to doubt.
Richard sensed it almost instinctively.
Not from his expression.
Not from his voice.
But from the faintest shift in the way a person looked at you when they had begun to see you differently.
And yet, the man asked no further questions.
He did not try to catch Richard in a contradiction, show the slightest sign of concern, or call for a physician.
Richard had expected what he had heard to elicit at least a flicker of confusion.
Anyone else in his position would surely have been bewildered, trying to make sense of what was happening, asking questions, searching for some explanation for the sudden loss of memory.
Perhaps their first instinct would have been to summon a physician or healer, and then cautiously begin to piece together what had happened during the two days their lord had lain unconscious.
But this man reacted differently.
He did not rush to make sense of what he had heard.
He showed neither concern nor surprise, nor did he even attempt to conceal his reaction behind the veneer of customary politeness.
He merely watched Richard in silence, as though he had long since grown accustomed to encountering things for which no rational or logical explanation could be found.
That was what unsettled Richard most of all.
The man’s silence was far too calm.
There was no confusion in it, no fear at the sudden change in someone he had once known as an entirely different person.
It was almost as though the mention of the gap in Richard’s memory had neither surprised him nor demanded an immediate explanation.
He simply accepted it.
So calmly, as though he already understood that now was not the time to seek answers.
As though he knew that a man who had only just awakened after a long period of unconsciousness could hardly bear the weight of someone else’s questions—especially when he himself could no longer tell where his memories ended and that frightening emptiness began.
Some questions were better left unanswered, at least for the time being.
And, judging by his reaction, this man understood that perfectly well.
After a brief pause, the man inclined his head once more.
“You are Richard Ravenhart, my lord.” The name was spoken quietly, almost matter-of-factly, without the slightest trace of doubt or hesitation.
As though the man were not telling his lord something important, but merely reminding him of a long-established truth that, for some inexplicable reason, he had suddenly forgotten.
But to Richard, those few words struck like a blow.
Richard…
The name stirred something strange within him, an almost painful echo.
But it was the surname that made his heart falter for a moment.
Ravenhart.
He repeated it silently, slowly, as though trying to catch some fragment of the past in the unfamiliar combination of sounds.
Once.
Then again.
Ravenhart.
He repeated the surname over and over in his mind, hoping that it might summon at least a hazy image, a face, a place, or some event connected to the name.
But his mind remained utterly silent.
No memories.
Not a single familiar face.
Not one fleeting moment he could grasp.
He had never heard the surname before.
At least, as far as he could tell from what remained of his memory, he had never heard it.
He had never met anyone by that name, nor could he remember ever speaking it himself.
And yet…
Something was wrong.
Richard could not explain what troubled him.
It was merely a faint sensation, an almost imperceptible unease, as though somewhere deep within him, the name was familiar after all.
As though his mind had forgotten Ravenhart, but something else—something beyond the reach of memory, for now—still remembered.
It did not feel entirely foreign.
Richard had expected the unfamiliar surname to provoke an instinctive rejection, for his mind to immediately dismiss it as something that had absolutely nothing to do with him.
But nothing of the sort happened.
Quite the opposite.
Somewhere in the deepest recesses of his consciousness, beyond the dense veil concealing the memories of the former owner of this body, something stirred almost imperceptibly.
So faintly that Richard could not call the sensation a memory.
It was something else.
An echo.
Vague and almost impossible to grasp, as though he were standing on the other side of a locked door, hearing the muffled voices of people within through the thick wood.
He could not make out the words.
He could not understand a single phrase.
He could not see the faces, nor did he even know to whom the voices belonged.
And yet, for some reason, he was certain there was something behind that door.
Something he was not yet capable of seeing.
Something that did not belong to him.
Someone else’s memories.
Someone else’s life.
Someone else’s past, hidden somewhere in the depths of his mind, refusing, for now, to reveal itself to the man who had become the new master of this body.
A chill ran down Richard’s spine at the thought.
Slowly, he curled his fingers into a fist.
His nails dug into his palm, sharp pain grounding him in the reality of his own existence.
Back in the room.
Back in his body.
Back in the present moment.
He lowered his gaze to his hand and stared for several moments at the knuckles gone white with tension.
This was his hand.
At least now, it belonged to him.
But everything else…
Richard was no longer so certain.
It was in that very instant that something seemed to fracture inside his mind—not with pain, nor with sound, but with a brief, almost imperceptible sensation, as though Richard’s consciousness had, for the span of a heartbeat, lost its connection to the world around him.
An image suddenly flashed before his eyes, so swift and unexpected that he had no time to draw breath, to react, or even to understand whether he had truly seen something at all—or whether it had been merely a trick of a consciousness already fading into darkness.
He saw a vast hall with enormous windows stretching from floor to ceiling.
Beyond the clear panes, snow drifted slowly through the air, falling in silence upon an unfamiliar courtyard and gradually covering it with an even white mantle.
The cold light of winter filtered through the windows in long, pale bands, spilling across the stone floor and lending everything around him a strange, almost unreal stillness.
And then, somewhere in the distance, almost at the very edge of hearing, a voice spoke.
It was calm and quiet, yet it carried with such clarity that the person who uttered it might have been standing right beside him.
“Richard.” Just one word, spoken without a shout and without the slightest trace of alarm—and somehow, for that very reason, it sounded all the more powerful.
Someone merely spoke his name—quietly, almost casually, as though they had addressed him that way countless times before and saw nothing unusual in it.
The scene before Richard’s eyes wavered.
For a brief moment, the familiar outlines of the room seemed to lose their definition.
The heavy walls, the dark beams overhead, the flickering fire in the hearth—all of it began to dissolve, slowly giving way to an entirely different space.
The hall was vast and unfamiliar, yet at the same time there was something disturbingly familiar about it.
Snow fell soundlessly beyond the tall windows, its cold white light spilling across the stone floor.
The voice that came from somewhere within the vision vanished before Richard could understand whom it belonged to.
He blinked sharply.
Everything was gone.
The familiar room stood before him once more.
The heavy oak beams had returned to their proper place, the flames in the hearth flickered softly, and beyond the windows lay the same winter evening.
Snow continued to fall in slow, silent flakes, its dull glow barely reaching inside.
Richard remained motionless for several seconds, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
Then he drew a slow breath, feeling the cold sink deeper into his lungs.
His heart was beating noticeably faster than usual.
It had lasted no more than a moment.
So brief that his mind almost immediately offered the simplest explanation: exhaustion, tension, a trick of the imagination.
Perhaps, for an instant, he had simply lost his grasp on the present and seen something that did not exist.
And yet the feeling would not leave him.
It lingered inside him with a clarity that was almost too vivid, too real.
Richard could still almost physically feel the cold of that hall.
He had the strange impression that he could summon the tall windows before his eyes once more, see the endless snow falling beyond them, make out the pale light spread across the stone floor—and even recall the peculiar, elusive feeling that had come over him there.
Worst of all, the place seemed familiar.
Not merely reminiscent of somewhere he had seen before.
He almost recognized it.
The thought made Richard frown.
He tried to grasp the memory, to understand where he might have seen that hall and when he had first been there, but the moment he drew close to an answer, his mind offered nothing but emptiness.
Nothing.
Only snow, cold, and the voice of someone speaking his name with such certainty, as though there were a history between them—a history Richard himself had long since forgotten.
He had not yet fully recovered when a calm voice sounded beside him once more.
This time, he heard it perfectly clearly.
“Richard, can you hear me?” — My lord?
The question was spoken softly, almost casually, and yet Richard immediately understood that not the slightest change in his face had escaped the man’s attentive gaze.
He had noticed everything — every breath that had grown a little heavier, every barely perceptible movement of the eyes, every brief hesitation that Richard had not had time to disguise as ordinary thoughtfulness.
— Nothing.
The answer slipped from his lips far too hastily.
So hastily that even Richard himself found it unnatural.
However, it was already too late to take it back.
Silence settled over the room once more.
It fell between them like a dense, almost tangible veil, and Richard suddenly felt that this silence demanded far greater composure of him than any questioning could have done.
The man did not ask again.
He showed no insistence, nor did he attempt to draw from him a confession Richard had no intention of making.
He merely continued to watch his lord — calmly, silently, with that impenetrable patience which had more than once made Richard experience a strange, almost inexplicable sense of unease.
There was no judgement in that gaze.
Nor was there curiosity.
Only patient waiting.
And perhaps it was that, more than anything, that unsettled him.
Richard averted his eyes, as though suddenly interested in the fire in the hearth.
The flames stirred faintly behind the grate, casting wavering reflections across the walls, and for several moments he watched them, trying to restore the clarity of his thoughts.
He could not.
He knew that gaze far too well.
The man did not believe him.
Worse still, he had no need of proof.
Richard slowly ran his fingers along the armrest of the chair, and only then raised his eyes again.
“Is there something you wish to tell me?” The question came more calmly this time.
He had managed to restore the familiar firmness to his voice, but the man merely inclined his head slightly.
“If I did, my lord, I would say so.” Richard could not help but smile, though there was neither amusement nor relief in it.
“Then why do you look at me like that?” “Because you lie worse than you think you do.” For several moments, Richard was utterly still.
On another day, such insolence might have cost the speaker dearly.
But there was no challenge in the man’s words now.
He delivered them in the same even tone, as though stating an obvious fact that there was little point in concealing.
Richard turned away.
“Leave.” The man did not move.
And that silent defiance proved far more eloquent than any words could have been.
Richard closed his eyes, exhaled slowly, and, gathering what little composure remained to him, spoke more quietly: — Please.
Only then did the man finally incline his head, accepting the order without further questions.
There was neither irritation nor displeasure in the gesture, only the habitual restraint of a man who had long since learned not to reveal his thoughts.
— As you command, my lord.
He turned and made his way toward the door, taking several unhurried steps across the room.
His movements remained calm and measured; yet when only a few steps remained between him and the threshold, the man unexpectedly stopped.
For a while, he stood perfectly still, as though something made him hesitate over whether he should truly leave now.
Without turning around, he said: — But if whatever you are thinking about now is truly so important, you should not keep it to yourself.
Silence settled over the room once more.
Richard did not answer, and the man did not hurry to continue.
It seemed he himself was not entirely certain whether he should say anything more.
There was an unmistakable hesitation in his silence, the kind that comes before words that have remained unspoken for far too long.
The question he was about to ask had clearly crossed his mind before.
Perhaps he had already asked it of himself more than once, considering the possible answers and consequences, yet until now he had never found the courage to address Richard directly.
Now, standing at the very door, he seemed to realize that another attempt to leave without saying anything would leave him with more regrets than the conversation itself.
The man drew a slow breath, gathered his thoughts, and finally turned around.
— May I ask you something…
Richard raised his eyes and looked at him attentively.
Their gazes met, and for several long moments, neither of them spoke.
The silence between them seemed especially palpable after everything that had been said before, as though they both understood that the next question might change something important, though neither yet knew what.
The man held his gaze, but at the last moment, a faint flicker of doubt still crossed his features.
Then, at last, he made up his mind.
— Do you…
remember me?
The question was spoken unexpectedly softly.
There was neither anxiety nor reproach in it, as though the man had already prepared himself to accept whatever answer he might receive, no matter what it was.
And yet, beneath that calm tone, there was something more—a hope he had hidden for far too long, and which he could no longer keep to himself.
But that was precisely what made the question far more difficult for Richard than any accusation could have been, because there was neither threat nor reproach behind it, only the simple expectation of an answer he could not give.
Richard’s breath caught, and for several moments, it seemed to him as though the world around him had ceased to exist.
Everything that had been part of the room only a second ago suddenly receded somewhere far away, losing its familiar shape until it became almost indistinguishable.
The quiet crackling of the fire in the hearth disappeared, though moments before it had filled the room with a barely perceptible sense of warmth and life.
Outside the windows, the wind continued to howl, but now its low, drawn-out voice seemed to reach him from somewhere in the distance.
Richard could no longer even feel his own breathing, as though for a brief moment he had been cut off from everything around him, left alone with the one question he could no longer evade.
Because that was the very question he had feared from the moment he opened his eyes.
He had not feared accusations or suspicion.
He was not even afraid that someone might notice the inconsistencies in his words or actions.
What frightened him was something else—the man standing before him knew the real Richard.
Not the man he was now, not the person whose habits, mannerisms, and character he had been forced to piece together almost blindly from other people’s accounts and his own assumptions.
This man knew a different Richard.
The one whose life he had inherited along with his name, his position, the memories of those around him, and secrets he himself knew nothing about.
Until this moment, Richard had still been able to hide behind cautious answers.
He could explain the oddities as the consequences of prolonged unconsciousness, blame them on confusion, exhaustion, or gaps in his memory, and in doing so postpone the moment when something more would be demanded of him.
As long as people asked questions that could be answered evasively, he still had a chance to maintain the illusion that he was the same man he had always been.
But now everything had changed.
They were not waiting for explanations or excuses.
They were waiting for memories.
For something he did not have.
Richard slowly opened his mouth, preparing to say something, but no words came.
He could not even find the simplest answer that might have bought him a few more moments.
Any lie now seemed too obvious, while the truth was impossible.
He could only continue staring at the man, feeling a strange, almost painful tension building inside him.
And it was then that something deep within his consciousness stirred.
The sensation came suddenly, almost imperceptibly, but Richard immediately understood that it was different from anything he had experienced before.
It was as though, somewhere beyond the reach of his thoughts, something had moved, barely brushing against the edge of his consciousness before retreating once more into the darkness.
The question, spoken so quietly, was like a key turning in a long-locked door.
And for the first time, Richard felt that there truly was something behind it.
His vision darkened once more.
Only for a brief moment.
But that was enough.
… Heavy snow fell slowly over the courtyard of the old estate, covering the stone paving, steps, and wooden training posts—long since darkened by time and weather—with a blanket of white.
A cold wind swept between the walls, finding its way beneath clothing and forcing even seasoned warriors to draw their cloaks tighter around themselves.
A very young Richard, a boy of perhaps ten, wrapped in a winter cloak far too large for him, stubbornly tried once again to rise after his fall.
Snow clung to his hair and shoulders, his face was flushed from the cold and exertion, and his battered knees throbbed painfully with every movement.
The wooden training sword had long since slipped from his numb fingers and now lay nearby, half-buried beneath the freshly fallen snow.
The boy’s breathing came in increasingly heavy gasps, but even so, he refused to allow himself to remain on the ground.
The same man had been standing beside him all this time.
Only much younger.
There was not yet as much silver in his hair as there was now, his features appeared sterner and sharper, and his back remained perfectly straight despite the biting cold.
Yet his gaze was unchanged—calm, attentive, and almost unreadable, as though nothing happening before him could unsettle him for even a moment.
For a while, he watched the boy in silence.
Then he calmly bent down, picked up the training sword, and brushed the snow clinging to it away.
Afterward, the man held the weapon out to Richard, waiting for him to get back on his feet.
— Young master, — came the familiar voice, the very same voice Richard now heard not in the present, but somewhere deep within his own consciousness.
— House Ravenhart can afford to lose a battle.
The boy looked up at him, breathing heavily after the fall, but the man did not hurry him.
He merely continued speaking, as though he wanted every word to remain etched in his memory.
— It may fall.
It may lose everything it once possessed, and one day find itself in a place where nothing remains of its former glory.
He fell silent for a few moments, allowing the boy to absorb his words.
Snow continued to fall between them, settling on his shoulders and the ground around them, while short clouds of vapor escaped Richard’s lips.
Then the man spoke again, his voice quieter now, yet still carrying not the slightest hint of doubt.
— But House Ravenhart will never allow itself to remain on the ground simply because it has suffered defeat.
So long as even a single Ravenhart is capable of rising after a fall, so long as he still has the strength to take up his weapon again and take even one step forward…
He looked the boy directly in the eyes and finished with the same quiet certainty that Richard remembered, though at the time he could not have known how important those words would become years later.
— Our path continues.
For several moments, the boy stared silently at the sword held out to him.
Fatigue still lingered on his face, and anger and hurt over his own defeat burned in his eyes, but gradually those feelings gave way to stubborn determination.
Richard pressed his lips together, forcing himself not to show how badly he wanted to simply remain in the snow and never get back up.
Then, slowly, he reached out, took the training sword once more, and, using it for support, rose to his feet.
His knees still hurt, his fingers were nearly numb from the cold, and the heavy cloak restricted his movements.
But the boy tightened his grip around the hilt, straightened his back, and once again stood facing his mentor.
He was ready to continue.
… The vision dissolved as abruptly as it had appeared, as though someone had closed a door in a single motion, shutting away an entire world that had existed only a moment before.
Richard drew a sharp breath, as though he had just surfaced from deep water, and for several seconds could not understand where he was.
Gradually, the space around him regained its familiar shape: the same walls stood before him, the same fireplace cast its faint warmth through the room, and the same man remained motionless by the door.
At first glance, nothing had changed, as though those passing moments had never existed at all.
And yet nothing was the same anymore.
Richard continued to stare ahead, trying to gather his thoughts, but the sensation of what he had seen would not fade.
It had sunk too deeply into his consciousness, leaving behind not merely an image, but an almost physical sense of something long lost.
He knew with absolute certainty that it could not have been his memory.
He had never lived in that house.
He had never run through a snow-covered courtyard with a wooden sword in his hands, never fallen onto frozen stone slabs, never lifted his face toward a man whose calm presence somehow felt so familiar.
He had never heard those words spoken in that steady, remarkably warm voice, a voice devoid of either pity or irritation, carrying only the unwavering certainty that the boy would get back up.
And yet what he had seen felt nothing like a dream or a random product of his imagination.
A dream leaves behind a hazy impression that quickly fades, impossible to retain in every detail.
This was different.
The memory had felt too vivid, too tangible, as though Richard had truly found himself inside someone else’s life for a few brief moments and lived through each of those moments alongside the boy he had seen.
He could still feel the cold of the snow burning against his palms, the roughness of the wooden sword clutched in small fingers, and even the pain in battered knees seemed almost real.
But what remained most strongly was something else—a quiet, long-forgotten sense of absolute safety that the boy had felt in the presence of that man.
Richard did not know where it had come from, or why it felt so familiar.
It was someone else’s memory.
Another fragment of a life that had once belonged to another person who bore the same name and had the same face that now stared back at him from mirrors.
The fragment was small, almost impossible to grasp, and vanished far too quickly.
Yet even that had been enough to leave a deep mark.
Now Richard looked at the man by the door differently.
The man standing before him had been at the former Richard’s side for a very long time.
Not merely a few months, or even a few years.
Judging by what Richard had just seen, this man had been with him since childhood.
He had witnessed his falls and his first attempts to rise, knew his habits and character, and likely remembered more about him than anyone else in this household.
Perhaps…
Richard held his breath, as though even allowing himself to finish the thought was dangerous.
Perhaps almost his entire life.
That was why the question he had been asked now seemed entirely different.
It had not been a simple test of memory, nor an attempt to determine how much his speech or behavior had changed after what had happened.
There was something far more personal behind it.
Hope.
Barely perceptible, almost extinguished, yet still alive—the hope of a man who had waited far too long for an answer and now, perhaps, was afraid to hear it.
He wanted to know whether the lord he had accompanied for so many years was truly gone.
Or perhaps whether, somewhere deep inside this weakened body, behind the foreign memories, fear, and confusion, there was still the Richard he had once known.
The boy who had once fallen into the snow, pressed his lips together against the pain, and nevertheless risen to his feet to take the wooden sword back into his hands.
Richard slowly raised his gaze.
And in that very moment, his consciousness stirred again—sharply, almost painfully, as though someone had tugged at the thin thread connecting him to another person’s memories.
… The room was filled with silence, broken only by the occasional rustle of pages and the faint crackle of logs in the fireplace.
Beyond the tall windows, snow fell slowly, gradually covering the lands of House Ravenhart in a white blanket.
It settled over the rooftops, stone paths, and dark branches of the trees, transforming the familiar landscape into an almost soundless winter scene.
Young Richard sat behind a massive writing desk that seemed far too large for someone of his tender age.
The high back of the chair nearly concealed his small figure, and his feet barely reached the floor.
Open books, sheets covered in writing, and several documents he was supposed to review under his mentor’s supervision lay before him.
Beside them was a quill, with which the boy had been unsuccessfully trying to produce a neat signature for several minutes.
Once again, the line came out crooked.
Richard frowned, glared at what he had written in displeasure, and carefully set the quill down on the desk, as though it were somehow responsible for his failure.
Then he picked up the sheet, examined the signature closely, grimaced, and reached for the inkwell once more.
The man sitting across from him had been silently watching all this time.
He did not correct the mistakes or intervene, though he surely noticed every imperfection.
He did not hurry Richard or remind him that the future head of the house was expected to be more attentive and patient.
He said nothing at all, allowing the boy to notice his own mistakes and decide how to correct them.
He simply waited.
Richard continued writing for a while, but eventually raised his head and looked at the man over the open book.
Curiosity had begun to eclipse the concentration in his eyes.
— Have you always been here?
The man lifted his gaze from the papers and calmly looked at the boy.
— Yes.
Richard studied his face for several seconds, as though trying to find in it an answer that, for some reason, had turned out to be far too simple.
— Why?
The answer came almost immediately, without hesitation or explanation: — Because it is my duty.
Richard frowned even more deeply.
The answer did not satisfy him at all.
He looked back at the documents lying before him, but now he could no longer concentrate on them, because that word had appeared far too often in the conversations of adults.
Duty.
He had heard it from his father, from his tutors, from the servants, and from the people who came to the estate on matters concerning the family.
Every time, the word was spoken as though it explained everything in itself and required no further explanation.
But to Richard, it had never been enough.
He slowly picked up the quill, turning it between his fingers, and looked at the man again, trying to understand why he accepted his obligation so easily, as though there truly were something more hidden behind that single word.
The boy did not yet know how to put his question into words, but he already felt that the concept of “duty” was not enough.
He wanted to know not only why this man remained by his side.
He wanted to understand why it was him.
The head of the family spoke of duty.
The knights spoke of duty, invoking it to explain their decisions, their oaths, and their actions.
Even the servants, when carrying out the simplest of tasks, often referred to it, as though that single word were capable of explaining any obligation and any choice.
But no one had ever explained to Richard what it actually meant.
To the adults, it seemed, that was enough.
They spoke the word “duty” with such calm certainty, as though it carried a meaning so obvious that everyone was expected to understand it.
But Richard was still too young to accept such explanations without questions.
He wanted to understand why a person should do something when no one was forcing them to, and why some obligations became more important than others.
The boy remained silent for a while, thoughtfully studying the man before him.
Then he spoke, as though he had finally found the thought he had been trying to put into words for some time.
— Everything has a name, — he said after a brief pause.
— The house.
The sword.
The family.
He fell silent for a moment, searching for the right words, then looked up at the man and continued with greater certainty: — Then you should have one too.
For several moments, a peculiar silence settled over the room.
The man looked at the boy as though his question had been more unexpected than anything Richard had ever asked him before.
And for the first time in a long while, the usually restrained features of his face softened with the faintest hint of a smile—so subtle that it could easily have been mistaken for a flicker of firelight from the hearth.
— Sebastian.
Richard slowly repeated the name, as though testing how it sounded.
— Sebastian.
The name felt unfamiliar to him.
Until then, the man had simply been the person who was there whenever he was needed, who answered his questions, watched over his lessons, and silently corrected the things the boy had not yet learned to do properly.
Now this man had a name.
It sounded foreign, almost unfamiliar, and yet somehow that was precisely what made it feel right.
As though a face he had known for so long had finally been given something it had been missing all this time.
Richard continued to look at him for a few moments, committing the name to memory.
— Remember it, young master.
The boy frowned slightly, not understanding why it had suddenly become so important.
— Why?
Sebastian inclined his head ever so slightly.
His gaze remained as calm as ever, yet now there was something else in it, something Richard could not quite recognize.
— Because one day, you may forget many people.
He said it calmly, without a trace of reproach or sorrow, as though speaking of something that was simply an inevitable part of human life.
Richard did not know why those words suddenly made him fall silent.
He only tightened his grip on the quill and looked at the man once more, trying to remember his face together with the name he had just heard for the first time.
Sebastian.
He paused.
— But I hope you won’t forget me.
Young Richard said nothing.
… The memory broke off as abruptly as it had appeared, as though the invisible thread that had briefly connected the past to the present had suddenly gone taut and snapped.
Richard flinched, drawing a sharp breath as though he had just surfaced from cold water.
For several moments, he could not fully understand where he was or how much time had passed.
The distant evening still lingered before his eyes: the warm golden light spilling from the fireplace, the scent of old books mingling with the faint aroma of ink, and the calm voice of the man who had first told him his name.
Sebastian.
The name now sounded especially clear in Richard’s mind, as though it had been spoken only moments ago rather than many years before.
Richard did not know where the memory had come from or why it had surfaced now, breaking through the emptiness that had until this moment surrounded his past life.
He could not explain how his mind had managed to preserve that brief conversation when, before this, he had remembered neither the room, nor the books, nor the man himself.
But for the first time, the name no longer felt foreign to him.
It no longer sounded like a word he had merely heard from someone else.
Now it carried a face, a voice, the warm glow of the fireplace, and countless other things Richard could not yet fully remember.
The name had already become part of something greater.
Something that existed deep within his memory and was slowly beginning to take shape, though Richard still had no idea how to connect the scattered images into a single story.
He slowly exhaled, trying to regain his composure.
Only then did he realize that all this time, he had continued staring directly at the man standing before him.
Richard remained silent.
He could find no words, because now he no longer saw before him merely the man he had become after all these years.
He was not simply looking at a silver-haired man with stern features and an immaculate black suit, standing motionless by the door.
Behind that present-day appearance, another image was gradually emerging.
The same man who had once stood in the middle of a snow-covered courtyard beside a small boy, helped him to his feet after a fall, and held out a wooden sword, refusing to let him give up.
The man who had sat across from him at an enormous writing desk, patiently waiting for him to learn how to sign his name, and answered his childish questions without ever dismissing them.
The man who had once told him his name for the first time.
Sebastian.
Richard heard his voice again, no longer like a distant echo, but almost like a part of his own memory.
Calm, steady, and unshaken, that voice never demanded obedience and never needed to rise, because behind every word was the certainty of a man who had always remained by his side and had never allowed himself to doubt what he had once promised.
And Richard suddenly understood that it was that calmness he remembered most clearly.
Even if he still could not remember everything else.
Always equally confident, calm, and unfailingly restrained.
— Of course.
The word came out heavier than Richard had expected.
He had to force himself to say it aloud, though a strange tension still lingered inside him, as though that brief answer concealed far more than he was ready to acknowledge.
Sebastian inclined his head, accepting his words without further questions.
— I am glad to hear it, my lord.
He turned and headed for the door.
His steps remained as unhurried and measured as ever, but when he had nearly reached the threshold, Richard suddenly felt the need to say something more.
He did not know where the words came from or why they seemed so important now.
But before Sebastian could open the door, Richard spoke.
His voice was quiet, almost a whisper, yet it was enough to bring the man to a halt.
— Because one day, you may forget many people.
Sebastian froze by the door.
For several moments, silence filled the room, and Richard saw the older man’s shoulders tense almost imperceptibly.
He did not turn around at once, as though those words had unexpectedly touched something too deep—something he had spent years keeping under perfect control.
Richard continued, his voice quieter now, his gaze never leaving him: — But I hope you won’t forget me.
Silence descended heavily over the room, almost tangible in its weight.
Even the crackling logs in the fireplace now seemed unnaturally loud against it.
Sebastian slowly turned around.
And for the first time, his expression faltered—only slightly, almost imperceptibly, but for a man accustomed to concealing every emotion, it was more than enough.
It was neither doubt nor confusion.
Rather, it was recognition.
Deep, painful, and almost impossible, as though a single brief sentence had suddenly shattered a wall he had refused to cross for all these years.
Sebastian looked at Richard as though trying to see beyond the face he wore now and find the same boy from the past.
The child who had once sat behind an oversized writing desk, asked endless questions, and stubbornly demanded explanations from adults who preferred to replace them with a single word—”duty.” And it seemed that, this time, he truly had found him.
Sebastian’s gaze lingered on Richard’s face longer than his usual restraint would have allowed.
Then the man exhaled almost imperceptibly, as though only now permitting himself to believe in something he had been too afraid to even hope for all these years.
— …I am glad you remembered, my lord, — he said quietly.
His voice remained calm, but now there was something in that familiar restraint that Richard had never noticed before.
Relief.
Disbelief.
And something far deeper still—the very feeling Sebastian had hidden for years behind flawless service, duty, and unwavering devotion to his lord.
This time, Richard did not ask what exactly he had heard in Sebastian’s words.
He already knew the answer.
Richard did not answer at once, because he could not understand himself what exactly had happened over the past few minutes.
He did not know whether he had truly remembered something that had long been buried deep within his memory, or whether he had merely repeated words once spoken to him by a man he was only now beginning to recognize anew.
But Sebastian no longer needed an answer.
He had seen what mattered and understood what he had likely feared most of all: he had not been forgotten.
Long ago, when Richard had been only a small boy, he had been unable to grasp the true meaning behind those words.
At the time, they had seemed like a strange, almost meaningless phrase, casually spoken by an adult whose meaning he was still too young to comprehend.
He had simply remembered them, never understanding why Sebastian had asked him to remember his name in particular.
Only now, so many years later, did Richard finally begin to understand what had been hidden behind those words.
He did not understand it through reason or logic.
Rather, it was something far deeper, something impossible to put into words.
As though the memory that had remained silent somewhere beyond the reach of his consciousness for all those years had finally answered the familiar voice, the name, and the feeling he had once known but had since forgotten.
Sebastian had already taken a step toward the door, but stopped at the very threshold.
For several long seconds, he stood motionless, his back turned, as though gathering the strength to say what had remained unspoken for far too long.
Richard did not hurry him.
He simply watched the man’s still figure and, for some reason, felt that he should allow Sebastian to decide for himself whether he wanted to continue the conversation.
At last, Sebastian slowly turned his head.
The familiar composure that Richard had always regarded as an inseparable part of the man was no longer present in his eyes.
In its place was a quiet, almost painful sincerity, which he no longer tried to hide behind calmness, deference, and impeccable restraint.
— I was afraid…
that I would lose you.
The words were barely audible, almost a whisper, yet Richard heard them perfectly clearly.
There was no trace of the respectful restraint Sebastian usually maintained when addressing his lord.
This was not the voice of a servant carrying out his duty, nor that of a loyal adviser accustomed to following the head of the house.
This was the voice of a man who had lived for far too long with the fear of one day losing the person to whom he had devoted most of his life, and who had only now allowed himself to admit just how deeply that loss had frightened him.
After those words, Sebastian said nothing more.
He simply turned away, opened the door, and left the room.
The lock clicked softly, and his footsteps gradually faded beyond the door.
The room fell silent once more.
Richard was alone.
Only when the last sound had finally disappeared down the corridor did he allow himself to exhale slowly, as though he had unconsciously been holding his breath all this time.
His gaze instinctively fell to his own hands—old hands, covered in a fine web of wrinkles, unfamiliar and чужие, yet somehow already a part of him.
For several seconds, he stared at them, trying to come to terms with the thought that it was with these hands that he was now expected to live someone else’s life.
Then he slowly looked around the room.
The familiar walls remained almost entirely unfamiliar to him.
The books, furniture, fireplace, paintings, and even the door through which Sebastian had just disappeared all belonged to a life Richard had never remembered, yet which had somehow now become his own.
His gaze lingered on the door.
Beyond it had just left the man who still called him his lord.
The man who remembered him as a child.
Who had known the real him.
Who had waited for his return even when Richard himself no longer knew whom he was supposed to bring back.
A second chance.
Once, Richard had thought that was what he wanted more than anything in the world.
The chance to start over, to correct his mistakes, to reclaim the words he had left unsaid and make different choices where he had once gone astray.
He had imagined that if fate ever granted him such an opportunity, it would come with a long-awaited sense of freedom—the chance to leave the past behind and finally live his life as he saw fit.
But now, standing here in the life of a man he had never known, surrounded by people who had loved, remembered, and waited for someone who was not him, Richard realized for the first time how deceptive such a dream could be.
Because a second chance was not only an opportunity.
It was also the responsibility of carrying another person’s life, entrusted to you in place of your own.
It meant living among people for whom your face was already filled with memories, emotions, and expectations that you yourself did not yet possess.
And perhaps the most frightening part was that Richard now had to do more than simply remember the man he had once been.
He had to understand who that man had been to everyone else.
And perhaps the greatest challenge of all would not be living this life again.
And to live this чужую life in such a way that the man it had once belonged to could finally receive what he himself no longer could.