The golden thread didn’t flare. No guards stepped in her way. No one even glanced at the small fairy hovering above her head.
It was as if she walked alone. No companion around her, no bright little voice cheerfully humming along their path.
At first, that unsettled her more than it soothed. The absence of pressure felt like a trick, a silence stretched too thin.
The next day was Kion’s day off. He managed to talk her into another walk, gently persistent, until she relented.
They left the inn together for breakfast. A quiet breakfast, in a place not her own.
And still... nothing happened.
They came back to her room after the meal, no interruption, no tug, no shadow falling across her path.
She should have been relieved. Instead, she sat on the edge of her bed, unsure how to measure the emptiness.
Kion, by contrast, looked unreasonably pleased. He told her how happy the walk had made him.
His shoulders, she noticed, had dropped lower than usual, as though that small stretch of road had carried some great weight away. She had no idea why.
The rest of the day dissolved quietly. They lingered in her room until the sun dipped low, pages of a random book opening and closing between them. Writ explained the basics of her meditation practice when he asked, Kion listened intently, questions spilling clumsy but earnest.
He filled the silences with little stories, and once he even demonstrated a simple two-person game, using pebbles from the windowsill as pieces. Now and then his voice wavered, then steadied again, like someone reminding himself this calm was real.
None of it mattered, and yet, it filled the hours, stitched them together.
Later, when the sky turned indigo, he braved himself to ask if she would like another walk for dinner. He emphasized, too quickly, that he wouldn’t mind staying in, that it was entirely her choice.
But the way his hand tightened briefly on the windowsill betrayed more hope than his words allowed.
She surprised herself by agreeing.
The walk was uneventful, just like their previous walks.
But her mind started to loosen under the open air, her body grateful for the motion. She hadn’t realized how much she needed that change of scenery until she was already moving through it.
The pattern held the following day. Kion still free from his duties. They tried a different restaurant for breakfast, another for dinner.
Each walk ended without incident. Each return was safe, intact, unmarked.
Kion seemed to gather those uneventful hours like prizes, tucking them away behind his smile.
On the third day, the rhythm bent.
Kion was called back to work, and so they only managed dinner together. A single walk in the cooling dark, quiet and unbroken, before he left again the next morning.
She didn’t mind his absence. She knew he would come back after the sun set, with that same tentative question in his eyes. Another dinner walk, another quiet hour of nothing.
And she knew, without needing to decide, that she would accept.
She braved herself for a solo walk before lunch hour.
Kion had offered her a list of cafes and diners with his usual enthusiasm, as though they were choosing between shades of light.
She’d never asked how he knew which places were quieter, less crowded. Probably another one of those strange details he carried in his strange, floating life.
This place, he’d told her, was where he’d bought the cake she’d approved of, on the night they’d celebrated that she was still herself. The night he had, with unsettling gentleness, threatened to leave her if she didn't stop him.
Melt and Mug. He had spoken of the café with cheer, convinced that everything else on its menu would suit her. Best view in the district, he said. Best hot cocoa in the city, too, and never too many people before the eleventh bell.
So she came. Alone. Because Kion worked longer than the suns stayed up. And he had his own bindings. The empty space at her side felt louder than his flutter of wings would have.
“If anything happens, just call. I’ll come,” that’s what he had told her.
She could almost hear the grin he wore when he said it, quick and unguarded, a sound that lingered longer than his words.
She still didn’t know how he would know if she were in danger. Or why he would drop everything for it.
But she believed him. That was the strange part.
She chose the corner seat. Window to her right, back to the wall. A habit. The kind that never faded, no matter the city, no matter the disguise.
More than a week in Brandholt, and still every door felt like it might open into a trap.
The floorboards creaked too lightly. The lamplight always burned too warm. The sky itself looked painted too blue.
She hadn’t settled into the city yet. Or perhaps the city hadn’t settled into her.
The chair was too soft. The cushion yielded beneath her weight, eager, as if to please. It should have been comfortable. Instead, it unsettled her. Like something pretending to be safe.
The scent of roasted nuts and baked fruit drifted from the counter, thick and sweet. It turned her stomach more than it tempted her.
All of it pressed against the locked room inside her chest, the one she hadn’t dared open since leaving Tiran’s office.
The server placed the cup down without a word. A wide-mouthed porcelain mug, steam rising above a crown of white. Miniature pillows, heaped in silence.
Heat seeped into her palms when she lifted it. She tucked her wig behind her ears and took a careful sip.
Bittersweet. Smooth. Cloying, but... good. The warmth lingered on her tongue. She let it, then shifted her gaze to the window.
The street outside was narrow, caught between two old buildings with mismatched brickwork.
A delivery boy cycled past with a crate of greens. Two middle-aged women walked their dogs, laughing about a cousin’s engagement. A man leaned against a lamppost, coaxing at a pipe that refused to light.
Quiet. Too quiet.
Kion would have filled the hush with some half-silly comment, and without it, the silence only pressed harder.
She breathed out, lowering her shoulders by a fraction.
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Moments like this might never come again.
Caedern had told her, the tests would never end. And Tiran, as always, had given no word on what came next. The silence lay over her like a pause before a blade fell.
She had tried not to think about that.
So, here she was. Sitting in a café in the capital of Bronze. Pretending she belonged. Pretending she wasn’t waiting for something to shatter.
She took another sip.
“We meet again, miss herbalist.”
Her fingers stilled on the cup. The porcelain’s warmth pressed against her skin, but it no longer felt like heat. It felt like a warning. She hadn’t noticed his steps. Hadn’t even heard the air stir. He might as well have grown out of the silence itself.
"Or you're not miss herbalist anymore right now, I assume?"
That voice. Low. Smooth. Unmistakable.
Her body knew it before her thoughts caught up. Her chest tightened, arms twitching as if to guard herself, the faintest jolt readying her muscles for flight.
She braced for the sound of armored boots flooding the doorway, for invisible binds lashing around her wrists, for the crushing slam of a mana-barrier snapping shut. The one that had once pinned her down and denied her escape.
The memory was sharp, too sharp. His barrier hadn’t been like Kion’s at all. Kion’s pressed, his pierced. A touch that stole the air from her lungs, invasive, suffocating, as though his mana had teeth.
And the worst part? He hadn’t needed effort to weave it. She knew he could summon it even now, without chant, without gesture, as natural as breathing.
And he was still brimming with it. Mana poured off him in steady waves, thick enough to taste in the back of her throat.
She forced herself to look up.
Him.
Ardion Arkwyn.
The smile on his mouth was polite, composed, practiced. Like a mask he wore too easily. Yet no matter how carefully shaped, it was no less menacing for it. It was the same smile that had haunted every step she’d taken in Brandholt.
He waltzed into her corner again as if he owned the pavement outside, and half the chairs within.
He waved to the server as he sat across from her, utterly at ease.
“I know your hands are tied, so you couldn’t come,” he said lightly, arranging his coat behind him with care, “so I came to you instead.”
He ordered silver needle tea. The server nodded and vanished.
She hadn’t seen the golden thread since the memory trap loop. It was easy to forget, easier still to pretend it had never existed. But memory was not mercy, it still pressed cold fingers down her spine.
“A wraithling sends his regards…”
The words still coiled in her stomach, acid and dread.
Before Relay Nine, she had considered going to his library. Demanding answers. Demanding anything.
Then the collar had found her. And the weight of that had smothered every other burden.
She no longer wanted to know.
Exhaustion had hollowed her bones. The ruin. The blissbane. The invisible trials waiting with every dawn. She could feel them gathering, patient, inevitable.
He took his tea when it came, lifted the cup like it was ritual, sipped as if the act itself confirmed his dominion.
She stared at him across the table. Then said, evenly, her voice a thin blade.
“What do you want, Ardion Arkwyn?”
She wanted him to feel the name like a knife. To let it cut. If it pushed him to summon guards, so be it. A predictable threat was easier than this... this unknown.
The name hung between them, deliberate, precise. She remembered the silk-slick way he had said it himself. She gave it back now, stripped of everything but steel.
Yet he only smiled, “you remember. That’s an honor.”
He set his teacup down with a soft clink. Folded his hands. Crossed one leg over the other.
Poised. Perfect.
Like nothing she'd said had touched him. Like he’d been waiting for her to say it.
"But I’d rather you just call me Arkwyn. You’re not documents for me to sign."
She said nothing.
Just stared. At him. At her drink. At the door.
"If you want to go, that’s fine," he said, watching her carefully, "I’m a man of my word. I won't shackle you, with magic nor iron. But your marshmallowed cocoa will weep if you abandon it."
She blinked.
"...What?"
He smiled faintly, “and if you’re worried some pesky people might see us and report you, they won’t.”
"What do you mean?"
He shrugged and sipped his tea.
Her mind flicked back to his last words.
"If you have anything to ask, you know where to find me."
"No barriers..."
They lingered like a soft, unshakable taunt, daring her to test them.
She glanced at her cocoa. The little pillows still floated, half-melted now. Marshmallow, he’d called them. Strange, soft-sounding, like a name for something that shouldn’t taste this sweet.
It tasted good. It would be a waste.
So she stayed. Begrudgingly.
But she would demand his offer. The cocoa gave her something to do with her hands, a buffer against the silence. She let the warmth settle in her palms before setting the cup down with a quiet tap.
Then she turned, eyes sharp again, words spilling before she could second-guess herself.
"Is the wraithling true?"
He raised a brow, as if half-expecting her to begin there. A low, unhurried chuckle followed, like he had all the time in the world.
"No. That was just an empty threat."
She blinked.
He answered. Just like that. No riddles, no traps. No wall of silence to push against.
Or maybe that was the trap.
Her pulse ticked faster, but the questions came anyway.
"So you’re not in any... contract?"
He tilted his head, "what contract?"
"The one with... magical creatures? Said to... boost your magic?"
Arkwyn paused, brow flicking, processing. He leaned back slightly, eyes narrowing just a fraction, a silent calculation.
"Ah, Rynhaari's divine beast? No. I don’t."
"It's only Rynhaari's?"
"Yes. They won’t let any outsider attempt the trial. For any reason."
"Then... your magic is all yours?"
The moment seemed to click for him, a spark of recognition lighting his expression. He chuckled, a warm, low sound, "yes. My magic’s all mine."
"So you’re the one casting the... golden thread?"
"Maybe?"
"Yes or no?"
"Or," His grin broadened. Calm. Elegant. Untouchable.
Writ’s jaw tightened. She pressed her fingers against the rim of her cup. He sipped, deliberately slow, unbothered.
"Can it cut... anything?"
“No, it cannot,” his voice carried no hesitation, like stating the color of the sky.
"Is it dangerous?"
“Not exactly,” he leaned back, gauging how far she would push.
Her fingers twitched, "what does it do?"
"Not something you'd want to know."
"Why?"
He only shrugged, slow, deliberate, then lifted his tea to his lips as though her words weighed less than steam.
"Is it still there?"
A flicker of a smile curved his mouth, sharp and hidden, "mmm. I wonder?"
Her jaw clenched, "you didn't answer my question."
"I told you you can ask. I didn’t say I’d answer."
"That’s not what you said."
"Isn’t it?"
Her glare sharpened, but the cocoa was still warm enough to sip, so she did. Small, steady, refusing to let him see the quickening in her chest.
He, meanwhile, remained unfazed, unmovable, as if they were merely discussing the weather.
"So... you won’t... detain me?" Writ asked, cautious, measuring every word.
Arkwyn’s eyes widened slightly, then twinkled with amusement, "do you want to be detained?"
"...No."
He chuckled softly, "then I won’t."
What's the catch? Where's the hidden clause?
Writ tilted her head, hesitating, "you’re saying you’ll do that... if I say yes?"
"Of course. A dear friend of mine would be delighted if I brought you home," his smile was warm, casual, as if extending an invitation to a housewarming party rather than issuing a promise of safety.
It unsettled her how little he perceived her as a threat. Like she was just another ordinary citizen seeking a councilor’s advice.
"Do you want me to make you a ‘I’m a good person, don’t detain me’ pass, then? So you can be certain no guards will ever stop you?" he teased.
Writ blinked, caught off guard.
"That’ll take some time. Where do you live? I can send it to you instead."
"N-no. That’s not necessary," she paused, confused by how easily he offered such assurances.
"It saddens me deeply that you won’t trust my word," Arkwyn said, wiping a faux tear with a delicate finger, then chuckled warmly, "I’m not here to get you."
He leaned back in an exaggerated pose, hand on his chin, eyes playfully serious, "although, if you commit robbery or murder in broad daylight, I’d have to take that back. Please don’t do that."
Writ let out an amused breath, testing the waters, "I won’t. Not in broad daylight, at least."
Her fingers tapped lightly against the cup, a quiet acknowledgment of a moment’s ease. Though every instinct still hummed beneath the surface.
He chuckled, "good enough."
She sipped her cocoa again. Half the weight lifted from her chest, though a lingering wariness remained. He had promised safety, fully aware of who she was, and yet he offered it so lightly.
Then the café door burst open.
A teenager appeared in the entrance, eyes wide. Spotting their table, she gasped.
Boots thumping against the floor, the girl stormed forward. Instinctively, Writ’s hand dropped toward her belt.
"Oh no," Arkwyn muttered, exhaling as he uncrossed his legs, "seems my time’s up."
"WHAT. THE. HELL. ARE. YOU. DOING?!" the girl whisper-shouted.
Arkwyn rose, still facing Writ.
"The bill's on me."
The girl caught his wrist and yanked. He didn’t resist.
"I haven’t finished my tea."
"Forget that! Order a new one!"
They disappeared to the farthest corner.
Writ stared at the half-empty cup he’d left behind. Then she sipped her cocoa.
Silence settled again.
From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed them. The girl, sharp and frantic, boldly scolding him despite his rank. Arkwyn, still as a stone in the stream, untouched by the chaos.
At first, it was just the two of them.
Then another woman arrived, her cloak pinned with a Bronze Concord sigil. She slid into their table.
Soft laughter drifted over. Even Arkwyn laughed, quiet, measured. The kind of laugh that barely moved the face.
The café was filling fast. Nearing lunch, the hush had become a low, constant hum.
Writ drained the last of her cocoa, wiped her mouth, and ordered bread to take away.
The waitress refused her coins. Said it was already paid.
At the door, she passed another man. Wavy hair, steps almost skipping. He slid into Arkwyn’s table without hesitation.
Outside, she walked a few paces before glancing back through the glass wall.
Arkwyn was watching her.
He smiled.
A small flick of his fingers, more suggestion than wave.
She turned away.
And walked back into the quieter dark of the city, where things were sharp again.
Where things made sense.