In the dead of night all things fall silent, all but restless hearts.

Lord Caspian had stormed off into the stables after the incident during dinner time. He saddled one of his riding horses before taking off running as though the Devil was at their heels. Caspian rode the black stallion fierce and wild through the groves of trees as the night's wind whipped through his hair and send it flying across his face like a thousand silver needles.

A deathly cold came over Caspian in a blink of an eye. Where there had been a mild wind moments ago, the temperature now clicked its chilly tongue against the Lord's pale flesh. Caspian brought the horse to a gallop and watched his rapid breathing and the animal's own crystallize before him.

All Caspian had ever known in his life were blazing summers, welcoming springs, and warm autumns. Winter never came to Transylvania. It never came anywhere but in the fairy tales, Caspian's nursemaid had narrated to him when he was a child. But now, the man's skin felt as though teeth were upon it; his flesh attacked by a million, tiny woodland creatures too small for the eye to see. Nursemaid Alma's ghost flickered in Caspian's mind as the wind rustled the leaves and pulled them off the trees with one fluid gesture. Nursemaid Alma's low, soothing voice found its way from the back of Caspian's brain to the front where it became loud and clear.

'They say that thousands of years ago the snow fell for the first time. Pregnant clouds held millions of tiny crystals of water that morphed and turned into ice as they descended from heaven to earth. The crystals covered the land with a blanket as white as anything you have ever seen. The winter was cold, colder than you could ever imagine. So cold that it made teeth chatter and bones rattle. Breath turned into a mist and you could see your own words forming right before you. No matter what a body did, you could not shake that cold out of the marrow of your bones. No one knows for certain how snow came to be but some say it was the spiders. A flock of little blue critters had crept out of an old witch's flower basket and skittered over the flowers and trees. Long, needle-fine spider teeth tore into the delicate leaves, into the velvety petals. They tore into the stems and bark until every single flower and every single tree in the world wept. Then the snow came. No one knows why.'

The sky above rider and horse, though dark with night, had a strange line of pink zigzagging across it as though it were trying to tear it in two. Flickers of red and orange shone behind a cluster of dark clouds like an electrified heartbeat.

"Rain must be coming," Caspian uttered under his breath before he clicked his tongue and the horse turned to gallop towards home.

Lady Calla had already retired to her and Caspian's bedchambers when the Lord of the manor returned. Sleep had already welcomed the Lord's wife. Calla lay on her side of the bed cocooned in the wolf-skin covers. Her dark hair fanned around her face like a halo. Caspian stood at the door watching flickers of candlelight dance across his wife's face. He watched the gentle rise and fall of Calla's body. Listened to every intake of breath. Then, before he was drawn into the room by her beauty and the warm appeal of both body and bed, Caspian walked out of the room and headed towards his son's.

The walls of the large manor were cool to the touch when Caspian slid his palm across. The brown and gray stone floor echoed Caspian's leather-clad footsteps. The candelabras mounted on the walls gave off just enough light for one to walk down the halls at night time with ease. Wax melted down the brass candle-holders, white putty covering the coppery stems. A drop of wax fell upon Caspian's hand and burned an angry little spot right by his knuckles. The Lord welcomed the pain.

The halls of the manor were as silent as a tomb. When Caspian reached Troy's chambers he paused and rubbed his knuckles. The lord touched his ear to the door. When he heard nothing but the crackling of wood from his son's fireplace, Caspian carefully opened the door and stepped inside.

The glass of steaming, spice-scented wine Agnes gave the boy after the incident at supper went right to Troy's head. The lad drunk it as though it were water and now the young lord's head lay heavily on one of his pillows. His mind giddy and relaxed.

Before departing from Troy's room, Agnes had brought the wolf-hide covers up to Troy's chin but the covers no longer lingered there.

Troy had protested dizzily when the handmaid insisted he wear his nightshirt, telling her he was too hot to have his sleepwear put on him. Troy had tossed off his dress shirt, grunting at the malformation of the cuff that his father's hands had made. He batted Agnes' hand away when she handed him his nightclothes. No matter how the handmaid objected to the young Lord sleeping without his proper night attire, Troy lay flat on his back, bare-chested, telling Agnes that he would be fine sleeping in his trousers and nothing more.

Troy was not a child of three or four so Agnes let him be, but as soon as he was off into dreamland she tucked the covers up high so that he would not get a chill.

When Caspian pushed the door of his son's room open he saw the boy laying on his back.

So unlike your mother, the lord thought.

In his restless slumber, Troy had pushed his covers down to his waist. A small fire blazed in the fireplace. The embers crackled in the white marble hearth opposite Troy's bed blinked an unGodly red. The logs placed in the center would soon turn into ashes.

Caspian quietly closed the door behind him.

Troy's face was a mask of innocence. When the boy slept, Caspian's lack of love faded away ever so slightly. In the semidarkness, Troy's hair took on a darker hue and long gone was that sickening red. With his eyelids closed, Caspian could pretend the boy's eyes were green.

Troy did not wake when Caspian sat on the bed and moved his fingers through the thick wolf's fur. The Lord's hand moved over the animal's hide and up towards Troy's body, it slid towards the boy's waist where the wolf's hide ended. The tips of Caspian's fingers rested millimeter's from Troy's skin. For a moment, the Lord wondered what it would be like to ever touch his son with affection.

Though the temperature of the room was more than comfortable, goosebumps formed on Troy's arms. Little bumps made their way over Troy's flesh. In his sleep, the boy shivered but did not wake.

There were long, thread-fine cuts on Troy's skin where the branch of a willow tree had kissed his skin. The marks ran across Troy's stomach and sides. Caspian knew they were all over his son's back, as well. The lord did not remember why he had hurt his son, why he had picked the willow branch to use as a whip. But Caspian recalled the way Troy whimpered and cried against the pain, and for one long sickening moment, the man replayed that in his mind. When the lord's heart began to hammer and his mouth was full of the taste of adrenaline he tore his eyes off his boy and looked at the embers crackling against the soot.

Caspian tried to focus on the way the log slowly turned gray and fragile but Troy's pitiful mewling echoed. He stared at the fire, watching the wood fragmented and became nothing more than ash to sweep away. Caspian watched the fire until the beautiful sound of his son crying in his brain stopped giving him pleasure.

Lord Caspian's face was warm. The remaining heat of the fire was still strong. He turned back to look at Troy. The bed creaked as the man inched down towards his sleeping son. Caspian's lips hovered over his son's now dark hair. He breathed the boy in and inhaled cloves, wine, and clean sweat.

"Perhaps I could have loved you," Caspian whispered as he reached to push a lock of Troy's hair away from his ear. "I could have loved you but I am what I am. Did you not know that son?"

Something caught Caspian's eye, a small tremble upon his son's lips. The lord lifted one hand, his fingertips reaching for Troy's mouth, closer...closer... "But I am a monster." The trembling stopped. So did Caspian's hand which hovered just over the boy's mouth. An insane desire to touch met an insane desire to flee. "Perhaps one day I will learn to love you. Now sleep, sleep for I have no lullaby for you."

Caspian saw his son writhe, somewhere on the bridge between dreaming and wake. The lord felt an unnatural desire to wrap his hands around the boy's neck and squeeze until Troy no longer belonged to the land of the living. In his mind's eye, Caspian saw himself crawl next to the lad's corpse, dig his teeth into Troy's stomach and gnaw out every last millimeter of intestine until he was drowning in a sea of blood. The lord gasped at his wicked thoughts. Then as if burned by worse than fire, by worse than the wax that had stung him before, Caspian backed off the bed in such haste he nearly fell over his feet. He staggered to the door backward, his hand fumbling for the knob. With his heart lurching for his ribs, screaming to be set free, Caspian exited Troy's bedroom. This burning was not welcome. 

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