East Wing, Kesherra Basin
Of all shadows in the Accord. Of all agents in the world. He tethered that one.
It was her.
It. Was. Her.
The Silent Writ.
The.
Silent.
Writ.
Not like he’d ever met another shadow, stars help him, may he never have to.
But still.
He nearly fell off the couch when he heard it. Actually fell. Rolled off and hit the floor like a sack of poorly enchanted potatoes.
It started when Featherglint breezed into the chamber this morning, smug as sunrise and twice as obnoxious.
“They confirmed it,” he said, too casual, “Sparklefish’s relay? It was the Silent Writ.”
The quartermaster, already in the room, sorting boxes in the corner blinked, “the who now?”
“You know, the one they sent after the High Marshal of Karmith.
For the deep-root breach.
And ignoring two summons.”
Featherglint grinned like it was a joke. It wasn’t.
Apparently, someone up in the glitter-crusted tower ordered a bait relay. He didn’t know who exactly. One of them. One of the brave ones. Likely Featherglint himself. Timed long after Sparklefish confirmed evacuation. Just to see if any remaining shadows might bite.
She did.
No reply. No flare. No engagement. But she received it.
“Her silence was confirmation enough,” Featherglint had said, smug as always.
He had stared at Featherglint.
“That’s not confirmation,” the quartermaster’d argued, “that’s a missed call.”
“Exactly,” Featherglint shrugged, “who else would ignore a message that specific unless they knew exactly what it was? She knew. That’s the point.”
“Or,” he muttered, “she didn’t know and didn’t want to reply to a suspicious stranger. What was she supposed to say? ‘Sorry, wrong number’? Not everyone’s a chatty traitor like you.”
Featherglint ignored that.
Then came the worst part.
Apparently Sparklefish had evacuated with only three migrants. The fourth, young, bloodthirsty, too brave for his own good, had stayed behind. Said he could handle the shadow agent who collapsed near the memory trap perimeter.
His target? The Silent Writ.
But she woke up before he struck.
And Sparklefish, seeing her stand, did the only sane thing: triggered immediate retreat and left the poor idiot behind.
Which meant...
Which. Meant...
He had helped her out of the trap.
He lit the tether that probably snapped her out.
He was the reason she stood in time to survive.
He was the reason the fourth migrant never came back.
They were gone now. The quartermaster and Featherglint, both off chasing leads or filling reports. Which meant he finally had the privacy to let his panic spiral unchecked.
He spun in circles like a beetle with its wings tangled. His tailfeathers (emotional ones, not literal ones, probably) were on fire.
Yes, okay, fine. He’d tethered her without consent.
He knew it was reckless, dangerous, illegal, stupid, pick your poison.
But that wasn’t the part that made him want to hide under his floorboards.
But he hadn’t known who she was.
He didn’t know she was the blade in the Accord’s hand.
Didn’t know she might be the one they’d send to end everything he loved if this whole uneasy peace ever shattered.
His team would murder him for this. Probably gently, but thoroughly. Wing-plucking. Hair-tearing. The works.
And that wasn’t even the worst part.
Because now, now he could feel her again.
The tether shimmered faintly beneath his sleeve, its thread more bruise than bond now.
It didn’t send power.
It sent pain.
Not fatal. Just constant.
Like a splinter you couldn’t pull out. Like frostbite in the soul.
Waves of it.
Loneliness. Detachment. A silence that throbbed under his skin.
Then came the burn. Wrists. Shoulders. Back.
Not lethal. Just cruel.
And he had no idea why.
Her mission was supposed to be simple. Infiltrate the relay. Break it.
Done.
It was done. People whispered the forest swallowed the building whole.
No one mentioned Shadows.
Because the council buried the details. Hard. Arkwyn saw to it personally, they said.
Because they didn’t want the Accord sniffing the trail again.
Because Glitterstorm, curse Featherglint for naming the group that, had to lie low ever since Writ scouted Kesherra Basin.
So then why?
Why did the tether feel like this?
Why the detachment? The ache? The silence?
Where was she?
Not near the relay. Not in Brandholt.
Not even in Whisrun, where “Lyra the herbalist” was supposed to be.
She was far. Too far to reach.
His wings folded tight against his back. He dragged his hands down his face, “What the hell should I do...,”
“Someone explain this,” he whispered to the empty room, “to the stars, to fate, to whatever’s listening, please.”
But no one answered.
Only the tether did.
A slow pulse of pain.
A shiver of loneliness.
A silence that felt too heavy to be just absence.
Someone knocked.
No. Not a knock. Just footsteps near the door. Familiar weight.
The quartermaster. One of Glitterstorm’s founders.
He straightened, forced his expression neutral. He shouldn’t look this rattled. Shouldn’t act like anything was wrong.
He couldn’t mention the tether. To anyone.
The quartermaster's long, wavy hair came into view as she stepped inside, clipboard in hand, “Featherglint said to pass this on. Northeast sector patrol found something. Swamp edge. Odd remains.”
He blinked, throat tightening.
She dropped the clipboard onto the desk, “half a torso. Woman. Branded, burned. Blonde hair scattered around. Possibly scout or handler. No sigil, no Bronze mark. Nothing in our missing logs.”
He skimmed the attached sketch. Melted flesh. Distorted marks. Could’ve been anyone.
He set it down.
“Why not report it formally?” he asked.
She leaned back against the wall, “if it’s a Shadow agent, it won’t matter.”
He frowned, “of course it matters.”
Silence stretched.
Then the quartermaster asked, too quiet, “if this is how they end after a failure... why return at all? Why not run? They’re not tracked every second.”
He looked up, “because they don’t run.”
She said nothing.
He kept going, “or if they do, they don’t make it far. Most wouldn’t have survived to ten years old if the Accord hadn’t taken them.”
“You think they owe the Accord?” she pressed.
“I think they don’t know how to live outside it,” he said finally, “you break enough times, and eventually you forget what whole ever felt like.”
“I've read what the Accord does to oathbreakers,” she said, arms folded, “but to their own? That’s a deeper brand.”
He didn't argue. Just looked at the sketch again, “if they fail, if they run, they end up like this,” he tapped the sketch again, “or they vanish.”
She sat, scribbled something without looking at him.
“Most of them don’t even try. Because there’s nowhere else to go.”
He sighed and softened, “there’s a reason they stay, even when it breaks them. No one else would have taken them.”
The quartermaster looked back to him.
“Careful,” she said, “you’re starting to sound like Arkwyn.”
He just laughed and floated away.
The tether pulsed again.
Muted. Restrained. Distant.
Then the wind shifted.
A soft rustle stirred the window. Not footsteps.
Leaves.
The quartermaster straightened, “leafy little one.”
A dryad stepped through the open window, thin, bark-skinned, shimmering faintly with forest mana. Amber eyes like old sap.
The fairfolk didn’t trigger wards. Not even the strongest ones in East Wing.
No one had to key them in.
They just passed through, freely.
Too small to register. Too clever to block. Like cats slipping through half-closed doors, and just as likely to be ignored in the official warding reports.
Besides, the wards were made for human-sized threats. And the little ones hadn’t belonged to the human world for a long time.
They’d left, like all the other magical creatures did, quietly, gradually, until most thought they were gone for good.
But he’d coaxed them back.
With warm tea. With orchard honey. With sugar bribes wrapped in moss and leaf bundles.
And somehow, it worked.
Now they came.
Silent. Wild. Trusted, but only if you’d been vouched for.
And luckily, he’d earned that trust long ago, and passed it on sparingly. The quartermaster was one of the few they didn’t flinch from.
And dryads, unlike any messenger, could send relayed word undetected, passed from grove to grove like wind through trees.
One thin vine unfurled from its wrist and curled once in the air.
Requesting message transfer.
He nodded.
The dryad crossed the room, placed a sealed bloom in his palm. It pulsed once, then withered, message delivered.
Words bloomed in his mind like petals:
“Sparklefish has safely dropped the migrants. Returning to the base.”
No names. No location.
Just confirmation.
He closed his hand over the bloom’s remains. The vine withdrew. The dryad bowed and vanished through the same window it came from.
“Update from one of the old roots,” he said vaguely, eyes flicking away from the quartermaster’s, “no names. Just that Sparklefish landed fine.”
She didn’t press. She never did, not with the leafy ones.
The tether pulsed again.
Not pain this time. Not force.
Just... stillness. Like someone too tired to knock.
He touched his ribs where the thread still wrapped his wrist. Invisible, but there.
“Okay. Okay,” he whispered, “You’re still there.”
Then, louder, “I’m going out now! Bye!”
He didn’t wait.
Cloaked in mana, he darted to the window, vaulted the ledge, and was gone.
The gardens were quieter than the council chambers, thick with moss and wind-song. His favorite escape hatch. Naturally.
The trees caught him like breath.
“Pleaaaseeee! Seraithe pleaaaaaaaaaaseeee!”
He dropped to his knees with the grace of a dramatist and wrapped his arms around her near-invisible leg like a clingy barnacle.
The sylph in question shimmered like dappled air over heated stone, her translucent limbs barely catching the light. She made an unimpressed sound and tried to shake him off, but he clung tighter.
“It’s far, yes. It’s dangerous, yes,” he babbled, forehead now dramatically resting against her ankle, “but I’ll cloak you! Fully! Triple-veil enchantments and layered distortion. If we normally get flagged as puppies in human wards, this will mark you as an ant! They won’t even blink. You’re invisible on your own already! Add the cloak, and you’re a breeze through the wall!”
Seraithe raised a single, glowing eyebrow, “then why don’t you go yourself?”
“I can’t!” he wailed, “I have work! Real work! Council work! If I leave now, they’ll turn me into a keychain and hang me from the southern hall!” His voice dropped to a mutter, “Featherglint already thinks I’m slacking.”
The sylph crossed her arms and stepped back, dragging him a full inch across the floor, “not my problem. You chose to work with humans. I warned you. Boring. Loud. Full of metal. No taste.”
“I’ll give you anything,” he said quickly, sliding with her and still hanging on, “anything human. What do you want? Teardrop pearl? Pink diamond dust? You were working on a dress, right? It’d look stunning.”
That got her attention. Her scowl softened just a little, just enough for him to peek up hopefully.
He pressed on, emboldened, “I’ll throw in honey cookies. One a day for the next month. A whole jar for your party next full moon. Imagine how jealous the others will be.”
Her lips twitched.
...Victory.
“...Fine,” she huffed, shaking her leg a bit harder until he finally released her, “teardrop pearl, pink diamond dust, and cookies. A lot of them.”
“Yes! Deal! You’re the best!”
She sniffed, “I know.”
“But,” she narrowed her eyes, “how do you know the cloak will work? I’m not risking my tail sneaking into some cursed, iron-lined human cell just because you think they won’t notice.”
He waved it off with one hand while digging for a cloth-wrapped charm bundle with the other, “we’ll test it first. The Oathroot facility uses the same warding structure, probably stronger, actually. If it works there, it’ll work anywhere. I’ll prove it. You’ll register as nothing but floor lint.”
She narrowed her eyes further, “you better be right.”
He clapped, already spreading a small map and twine markers across the nearby crate-turned-table, “you’ll be in and out before they even notice the wind. You don't even have to talk or show yourself. Just a peek. I just need to know she’s still...,” he trailed off, voice cracking faintly, “...still herself.”
The last word came out softer than he meant it to.
Because he could take the silence.
But not the thought of it being permanent.
Seraithe blinked, then said nothing for once.
He paused, hand briefly hovering over the thread still wrapped under his sleeve.
The tether pulsed again.
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Frayed. Fading.
His hand clenched.
Is this how she felt back then?
When she followed the order and dragged herself back, only to be welcomed with boots to the gut?
He shoved the thought aside. Not now.
He swallowed hard.
“She won’t say anything,” he murmured at last, “but I can feel it.”
Then he bent back over the plans.
“Don’t let her think she’s alone.”
And Seraithe, for all her mischief and complaints, said nothing more as they worked in silence.
“Hope you know what you’re doing, Kion” she said, "If this goes sideways, I’ll personally drag your wings back."
He didn’t look up.
But the thread steadied, just enough.