The Soul’s Chorus

Chapter 4

The first day of the guardianship dawned grey and quiet. A soft, cold rain fell on Silvathorne, tapping against the thick glass of the manor windows. It was a day for staying inside. For Chloe, it felt like the walls of her room were slowly moving inward.

Kaelen came at first light. Chloe heard his low voice at the main door downstairs, speaking with the house steward. She did not go down. She sat at her small writing desk by the window, pretending to read a book of approved pack poetry. The words were flat and empty. They were about moon loyalty and clean bloodlines. They made her tired.

Soon, there was a soft knock on her sitting room door.

“Enter,” she said, her voice careful.

The door opened. Kaelen stood there. He wore his simple guardian clothes dark grey, practical. His hair was damp from the rain. He looked like he had already been outside for hours. He looked at her, then his eyes moved past her, scanning the room. Checking the window locks. The fireplace. The other door. He was working already.

“My lady,” he said. It was a formal title. It felt wrong coming from him.

“Kaelen,” she replied, just as formal. She did not call him ‘guardian’. “Must you stand in the doorway?”

“I am to be where you are. You are in this room. So I will be here,” he said. His voice was neutral. It was the voice of duty.

He stepped inside and closed the door. He did not come far. He took a post by the cold fireplace, standing straight, his hands behind his back. He became a statue. A very tall, very quiet statue.

Chloe turned back to her book. She tried to read the same line five times. She could feel his presence like a new piece of furniture. A heavy, watchful piece of furniture. The silence between them was thick. It was not a peaceful silence. It was full of unspoken words. Of shared humiliation.

This was her life now. A watched life.

After an hour, she could not stand it. “I wish to walk in the garden,” she announced, closing the book.

“The garden is wet,” he said.

“I am aware of what rain does,” she said, a sharp edge in her voice. She immediately regretted it. He was just doing his job. The job Corbin gave him to punish them both.

Kaelen’s face did not change. “Then I will get your cloak.”

He fetched her heavy, hooded cloak from its hook. He held it out for her. She walked over and turned her back, slipping her arms into the sleeves. His hands did not touch her. He held the fabric by the very edges. He was careful to be distant. Proper.

They walked downstairs and out through the side door into the walled garden. The rain was a fine mist now. The air smelled of wet earth and sad flowers. Chloe walked the gravel paths, her hands tucked into her cloak. Kaelen walked three steps behind her. Always three steps. She could hear the steady, soft crunch of his boots on the gravel. A constant reminder.

She walked to the weeping willow tree. She walked to the empty fountain. She walked past the rows of dark, dripping rose bushes. He followed. Never closing the distance. Never falling back.

She stopped to look at a spiderweb strung between two branches, jeweled with rain droplets. He stopped. She glanced back. He was looking not at the web, but at the tree line beyond the garden wall. On duty. Always on duty.

The awkward silence was worse outside. It stretched between them, filled only with the sound of rain and their footsteps.

This is impossible, she thought. Thirty days of this?

A mean, frustrated idea came to her. A test. If he was just a mindless guard, he would fail. If he was a person maybe he would not.

She had a bracelet on her wrist. A simple silver chain with a small, blue stone. It was one of the few pretty things she owned. A gift from her mother long ago. She fiddled with its clasp as she walked toward a stone bench under a bare, twisting vine.

She sat down on the cold, damp bench. She made a show of adjusting her cloak, pulling its folds around her. As she did, she quietly, carefully, undid the bracelet’s tiny clasp. She let her hand drop to the side of the bench, near a thick clump of wet grass. She opened her fingers. The silver chain slithered off her wrist and vanished into the dark green with no sound.

She stood up. “I’m cold. I will go in now.”

“Very well,” Kaelen said.

They walked back toward the house along the same path. When they reached the door, she paused on the step. She made a small gasp. She looked at her wrist. She touched it with her other hand, a look of worried surprise on her face.

“My bracelet,” she said, her voice full of soft distress. “It’s gone. I must have lost it.”

Kaelen looked at her wrist. He looked back at the garden. “Where did you last have it?”

“I… I think when I was sitting by the roses. Or perhaps at the bench.” She waved a hand vaguely. She felt a twist of guilt. It was a lie. But she needed to see what he would do.

He did not sigh. He did not look annoyed. He simply said, “Wait here.”

He walked back into the drizzle. He went straight to the stone bench first. He did not search the area around the roses. He went right to where she had been sitting. He remembers, she thought. He knew exactly where she had stopped.

He crouched by the bench. His eyes, those sharp green eyes, scanned the grass and the gravel. He moved slowly. He was not rushing. This was a task. He would complete it.

Chloe watched from the doorway, her arms crossed against the chill. She saw him push aside the long, wet blades of grass with careful fingers. The rain darkened the shoulders of his jacket. He looked focused. Intent. He did not look like a proud Lunarth forced into a servant’s chore. He looked like a hunter tracking something precious.

After a minute, his hand paused. He reached into the grass. He picked something up. It flashed silver in the grey light.

He stood. He turned and walked back to her, the bracelet hanging from his fingers. Water dripped from his hair onto his forehead.

He stopped before her on the step. He held out the bracelet. “It was in the grass by the bench. The clasp is open. It may be weak.”

“Thank you,” she said, her voice quieter now. The guilt was warmer. She reached out to take it.

Their hands met in the space between them.

Her fingers, cold from the air, brushed against his as she took the silver chain. His fingers were much warmer. They were rough from training, from holding weapons, from walking border paths. The touch was fast. Less than a second.

But in that second, something happened.

A tiny spark, like static from a wool blanket, jumped where their skin met. Chloe flinched, just a little. She saw Kaelen’s fingers twitch too.

It was not just the spark. It was the feeling. His hand was strong and sure. Her hand was small and cold. In that brief, accidental touch, he was not a distant guardian. He was just a man, getting wet, finding her lost thing. And she was not just a burden. She was a person who had lost something.

Their eyes met. For the first time all day, he was really looking at her. Not as a duty. But as her. She saw a question in his green eyes. A slight confusion. Had he felt it too? That little jump of electricity? That moment of real contact?

The air between them, full of cold mist, suddenly felt charged. Warm.

Then the moment broke. She closed her hand around the bracelet and pulled back. He let his hand fall to his side.

“You should go inside. You will get cold,” he said. But his voice was different. It was not the flat, duty voice. It was softer. Almost concerned.

She just nodded, unable to speak. She turned and went into the house, her heart beating a strange, quick rhythm in her chest. She heard his boots on the step behind her, following his three-step distance once more.

But something had changed. The silence that followed them upstairs was no longer just awkward. It was full of that tiny spark. That brush of fingers. A question had been asked in the quiet garden, not with words, but with a look and a touch.

The routine was broken. Not by a big event. By a small, lost bracelet and the warmth of a hand in the cold rain.