Chapter Text
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The morning light struck the canvas before it touched Truthless’s face, a pale gray rectangle of dawn filtering through the high, narrow windows of his studio. He woke with a groan, the sound rough in the quiet room, shifting beneath the heavy wool blanket. The air smelled of linseed oil and turpentine, a sharp, chemical scent that had long ago replaced the smell of a home in his mind. He sat up, rubbing a hand over his face, his short blonde hair sticking up in chaotic tufts. His golden eyes, usually sharp and assessing, were bleary with sleep as he stared at the easel standing sentinel in the corner.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, the floorboards cool against his bare feet. Truthless stood and stretched, his spine popping in a satisfying rhythm. His body was a tool of his trade, honed by long hours standing before a frame, muscles coiled and steady under skin that had seen too little sun. He walked to the basin, splashing cold water on his face, the shock of it clearing the fog from his mind. He didn't bother with a mirror he knew what looked back at him a face set in lines of concentration, a jaw that clenched when the colors wouldn't blend, eyes that saw the world in terms of light and shadow rather than people.
He dressed quickly, pulling on his plain black work clothes. The fabric was rough, stained with specks of dried paint from projects past, but it was comfortable and utilitarian. He tightened the laces of his boots, the leather creaking in the silence. Breakfast was a forgotten thought; his stomach was a knot of anticipation, not hunger. Today was a commission day, and while he usually tolerated the nobility with a mix of boredom and professional detachment, the summons from the King had been specific. The Prince. A portrait of the sheltered heir.
Truthless gathered his supplies, packing his favorite brushes hog hair for texture, sable for detail into a worn leather satchel. He selected a few palette knives and a small block of charcoal. He didn't know what he would find at the palace, but he knew he would need to capture it quickly, before the sitter’s mask slipped back into place. He slung the bag over his shoulder, the weight familiar and grounding, and stepped out of his house, locking the door behind him with a decisive click.
The journey to the palace was a blur of cobblestones and morning mist. Truthless kept his head down, ignoring the few early risers who recognized him and offered bows or nervous greetings. He wasn't a man for small talk. His art was his voice, and it spoke volumes enough. When the towering gates of the palace loomed ahead, he felt the usual tightening in his chest, a mix of disdain for the excess of wealth and the professional challenge of rendering it on canvas. Guards waved him through with a perfunctory inspection, his reputation preceding him like a shadow.
Inside, the air was different stale, recycled, heavy with the scent of beeswax and old flowers. Servants guided him through corridors that seemed to stretch endlessly, their walls lined with ancestors who stared down with painted eyes. Truthless ignored them, his focus narrowing to the task at hand. He was led to the Throne Room, a cavernous space that felt too large for human interaction. The throne itself sat on a dais, a massive construction of gold and velvet that looked more like a weapon than a seat.
The King was waiting, a man whose presence seemed to suck the oxygen from the room. He sat upon his throne, his fingers drumming impatiently on the armrest. Truthless bowed, a shallow, stiff motion, more a nod of acknowledgment than a sign of submission. He had no patience for groveling.
"You are the painter," the King stated, his voice booming off the high ceilings. "You will capture my son's likeness. It must be perfect. He is... precious."
Truthless nodded, adjusting the strap of his bag. "I paint what I see, Your Majesty."
"Then see him," the King commanded, waving a hand toward the shadows behind the throne.
Truthless turned, his golden eyes scanning the dim light. At first, he saw nothing but the heavy velvet drapery pooled on the floor. Then, a movement. A shift in the shadows. He stepped closer, his boots echoing on the marble.
There, half and hidden behind the massive bulk of his father's seat, stood the Prince.
Truthless stopped, his breath catching in his throat not out of romance, but out of sheer, artistic shock. The boy was a study in contradictions, a fragile thing in a harsh world. Sage looked as though he was trying to make himself smaller, shrinking into the carved wood of the throne. His head was bowed, a curtain of deep blue hair falling forward to obscure his face. The hair was unlike anything Truthless had seen, a shade of midnight and ocean, long and unbound, cascading over soft, trembling shoulders.
He wore a robe of white silk that seemed too bright for the dim room, the fabric catching the stray beams of light and glowing. But the robe was wrinkled where his hands gripped it, knuckles white with tension. Truthless watched the Prince's fingers, slim and pale, twisting anxiously into the expensive material, pulling it tight against his thighs.
"Come forward" the King barked, and Sage flinched visibly.
The Prince moved slowly, shuffling rather than walking, as if his legs might not support him. As he stepped out from the shelter of the throne, the light hit his profile. Truthless felt a spark ignite in his mind, the urge to grab his charcoal and capture the curve of that neck, the trembling of a lower lip caught between white teeth. Sage’s lips were full, a soft pink that flushed darker as he realized the painter’s gaze was fixed solely on him. He looked like a blushing angel who had fallen too far from heaven, terrified of the impact.
Truthless stepped closer, invading the Prince's personal space without a second thought. He needed to see the color of the eyes, the texture of the skin. Up close, the scent of the Prince was distinct jasmine and milk, a sweet, cloying smell that clung to the silk robe.
"Look at me.." Truthless said, his voice low and gruff.
Sage hesitated, then slowly raised his head. His eyes were wide, a striking, watery blue that matched his hair, filled with a nervous, darting energy. He didn't look at the King; he looked at Truthless, searching for something mercy, perhaps, or an escape.
Truthless stared back, his face impassive, but his mind was racing. He saw the pulse hammering in the hollow of Sage's throat, the rapid rise and fall of a chest that was almost flat beneath the silk. He saw the way the Prince's thighs pressed together, a defensive, protective gesture. It was a posture of prey.
"Turn your head," Truthless ordered, gesturing with a rough hand. "Left. Towards the window."
Sage obeyed instantly, a puppet to the command. The movement exposed the long line of his neck, the delicate curve of his jaw. Truthless grunted in approval. The light was perfect there, illuminating the fine strands of blue hair, turning them into threads of spun glass.
"Stay there" Truthless commanded, dropping his bag to the floor with a heavy thud. He pulled out his sketchbook, flipping it open to a blank page. He snapped a piece of charcoal between his fingers, the sound sharp in the silence.
The King shifted on his throne, satisfied to see his son obeying. Truthless ignored the monarch, his world narrowing down to the boy in white. He began to draw, his hand moving in swift, aggressive strokes. He wasn't drawing a Prince; he was drawing a creature caught in a trap. He shaded the shadows under Sage's eyes, the tension in the set of his mouth. He captured the way the silk robe clung to a slender waist, hinting at the body beneath soft, unformed, hidden away from the world.
Sage stood frozen, his breathing shallow. He could feel the charcoal scratching against the paper, a sound that seemed loud in his ears. He could feel the painter's eyes raking over him, dissecting him, stripping away the layers of silk and royalty to find the raw truth underneath. It made his skin prickle with heat, a flush spreading from his cheeks down to his chest. He felt exposed, vulnerable, and yet, strangely seen for the first time in his life.
Truthless worked in a frenzy of concentration. The angle of the shoulder, the arch of the brow, the terrified beauty of a boy who had never known the sun. This was not a portrait for a King; this was a study of fragility. And Truthless knew, with the certainty of a master craftsman, that this was the most important thing he had ever painted. He darkened a line representing the shadow between the Prince's thighs, his mind already calculating the layers of oil paint he would need to render that specific, secretive fold of white silk.
"Good," Truthless muttered, more to himself than to the room. He didn't smile, but the intensity in his golden eyes deepened, a hunger for the image that was forming on the page. He stepped closer, invading Sage's space again to check the line of the jaw, close enough to smell the fear rising off the Prince in sweet, intoxicating waves.
Truthless took another step, his artist’s mind already cataloging the details: the way the silk pooled at Sage’s feet, the delicate line of his collarbone just visible above the neckline, the unnatural stillness of his hands, clasped so tightly that the knuckles were white. The Prince was a portrait of forced composure, a bird trapped in a gilded cage.
"Your Highness," Truthless said, his voice softer than he intended. It was not a greeting born of deference, but a quiet signal ”I see you“
Sage flinched, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement, before slowly lifting his head. The breath Truthless had caught now left him in a silent rush.
The Prince’s face was not merely handsome it was ethereal. Fine-boned and pale, it held a haunting, otherworldly beauty. His eyes, wide and wary, were the color of violets in shadow, framed by lashes so dark they seemed painted. But it was the expression in them that held Truthless captive a deep, intelligent sorrow, a loneliness so profound it felt like a physical weight in the room. This was no spoiled heir, but a soul drowning in silence.
"You will stand by the window," the King’s voice cut through the moment, a command that brooked no argument. "The light is acceptable there."
Sage obeyed without a word, moving with a grace that seemed instinctive, yet weary. He took his place where a high, narrow window cast a slender rectangle of morning sun onto the marble floor. He stood within it, the light turning his blue hair to sapphire and making his white robe seem to shimmer from within. He was a figure from a dream, placed in a tomb.
Truthless set up his easel with practiced efficiency, but his usual detachment was gone. The clinical analysis he applied to every subject judging angles, planning compositions was overwhelmed by a fierce, protective curiosity. “Who are you?” he thought, as he sharpened his charcoal. “What are you hiding behind those eyes?”
He began to sketch, the charcoal whispering across the primed canvas. He started with the posture: the slight curve of the spine that spoke of a burden, the tilt of the head that was neither proud nor submissive, but simply resigned. He worked quickly, capturing the outline before the light could shift.
For a long time, the only sounds were the scratch of charcoal, the distant echo of palace life, and the soft, almost inaudible rhythm of Sage’s breathing. Truthless found his gaze returning again and again to the Prince’s face. Sage’s eyes were fixed on a point somewhere beyond the painter, seeing nothing in the present room.
"You may look," Truthless said abruptly, breaking the silence. "It is your portrait. You have a right to see its birth."
Sage’s violet eyes flickered to him, surprise breaking through the sorrow for a heartbeat. Slowly, his gaze traveled to the emerging sketch on the canvas. He said nothing, but Truthless saw the minute tightening of his lips, a faint, bitter acknowledgment. 'Yes", the expression seemed to say. "That is the shell of me."
"It’s just the underpainting," Truthless found himself explaining, an unusual urge to bridge the silence taking hold. "The structure. The truth of the form comes first. The color… the color comes later. It reveals the life."
Sage’s eyes met his again, and this time, they held a question. Truthless gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. “Ask it.”
"And what if there is no life to reveal?" Sage’s voice was a whisper, like the rustle of silk, but it carried perfectly in the still air.
The question hung between them, stark and devastating. Truthless paused, his charcoal hovering above the canvas. He looked from the Prince to the sketch, from the living, breathing tragedy before him to the stark lines of captured melancholy.
"Then I am a poor artist indeed," Truthless replied, his own voice low. "For I see it already."
Something shifted in Sage’s expression. The wall of perfect, polished sorrow cracked, just a hairline fracture. A flicker of something raw and vulnerable not hope, but perhaps the memory of it passed through his eyes before he quickly looked down, his blue hair falling like a curtain once more.
Truthless returned to his work, but everything had changed. The lines he drew now were not just recording shapes; they were seeking a soul. He noticed the subtle, nervous flutter of Sage’s fingers against the silk of his robe. He saw the way a genuine, if faint, curiosity now tempered the emptiness in his gaze when he glanced at the progressing work.
When the King’s steward arrived to announce the session’s end, Truthless was surprised by a sharp pang of reluctance. He had barely begun.
Sage stepped out of the patch of light, seeming to dim as he moved back into the room’s shadow. He offered Truthless a slight, formal bow, a prince dismissing a craftsman. But as he turned to leave, his eyes met Truthless’s one final time. In that fleeting glance was a silent plea, a message etched in violet: Remember what you saw.
Truthless packed his supplies slowly, his mind racing. The sketch on the canvas was powerful, a map of beautiful despair. But it was the living boy, the whisper of a voice, the crack in the armor, that burned in his memory. The King wanted a perfect likeness of a precious heir. But Truthless, for the first time in his career, wanted to paint something else entirely. He wanted to paint the man he glimpsed beneath the Prince the one who wondered if he had any life left to reveal.
As he shouldered his satchel and walked back through the echoing, lifeless corridors, the stale air of the palace felt different. It was no longer just the scent of beeswax and old flowers. It was the smell of a prison. And he, Truthless, held a key not in his satchel, but on the canvas in his mind. He had a commission to fulfill, but he now had a secret, far more compelling mission: to look past the silk and the sorrow, and find, in color and in truth, the hidden heart of Sage.