The night air pressed against the balcony of the master bedroom, cold and thick with the dampness of the surrounding woods. Gillian stood at the stone railing, his hands gripping the weathered granite until his knuckles turned a bloodless white. He felt the familiar, gnawing ache in his joints, a relentless reminder that his body was merely a vessel that was nearing its final capacity. Every breath he drew felt labored, as if the oxygen in the night air was too thin to sustain the weight of the darkness he carried. He gazed out at the sprawling, obsidian landscape of his territory, seeing not the beauty of the vast grounds, but the encroaching decay of his own existence. The manor, once a fortress of impregnable strength, now felt like a mausoleum, housing a ruler who was slowly crumbling
