The Price Of Gold

02. paper thrones

ii.
OPHELIA ARCHIBALD
19 July, 10 p.m.

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The hospital room was silent.

Too still.

Only the sound of the beeping monitor.

Grandfather lay in the bed, his body as stiff as the white sheets wrapped around him, perfectly placed, like everything else in his life until yesterday. The tubes and wires connected to him.

But Grandfather didn't need machines to control his world.

He had always controlled everything, from the smallest detail to the largest. Even his movements, even in a hospital bed. The way he lay there, the way he positioned his hands—everything had a purpose. His skin, pale and drawn, was still smooth, free of wrinkles, an obsession with perfection, with keeping up appearances no matter the cost.

He never let anyone see him vulnerable. Not even now, when his body was breaking down.

The machines beeped rhythmically. I couldn't help but feel that time itself had stopped the moment we entered this place.

I stood just beyond the doorway, watching him from a distance. The room seemed to grow colder as I watched him —no warmth, no trace of affection in his expression. Just the familiar, calculating mask he always wore, even in sleep. But it wasn't sleep, not really. Even after this deadly accident, I knew Grandfather never truly rested. He was always planning, always thinking ahead, always plotting his next move.

Nothing could be out of place. Not even the most minute detail. Not even his own mortality.

I pressed my palm against the cool glass of the window. Even in his stillness, there was a madness. A sickness of the mind that no doctor could cure.

His hands, once capable of commanding an empire, now rested with on top of him. He was awake, I knew it. I could feel it, like a pulse in the room. His eyes were shut, but the calm was only an illusion. Behind those eyes, I knew, a storm was there.

Everything about him screamed control even now. I felt scared to to be here. Grandfather had built everything of his with calculation, manipulating every piece on the board until it bent to his will. Perfection—his cruel, twisted version of it was his only religion.

And I, along with the rest of us, were nothing more than players in his game. He was a psychopath in the truest sense, but he dressed it in the guise of wisdom, the kind of wisdom that got him everything he ever wanted. A name. A legacy. But now for the first time it felt like he was loosing. Like he just felt like he had it in control but in reality he didn't.

I felt my heart lurch in my chest. I didn't need to hear his voice to know what he was thinking.

He knew I was there. He always did. And he would make me remember it.

The game was never over. It had only just begun.

And I knew it'd continue even if Grandfather wasn't here anymore.

He would make sure of it.

A shiver ran down my spine. I felt scared. I knew there was no place for weakness, no place for fear. But it was the only thing that had ever been real in this family—fear.