Kion's POV

  Room 203, Binding Post Inn, Brandholt City

  She barely looked at him all night.

  Her attention locked instead on the clutter of notes and rehearsed lines, chasing the shape of some gap she swore was there but could not name. Even when he brought back food, she kept the papers close, chewing absently between scribbles.

  He didn’t mind.

  He only nudged her toward bed after midnight, setting another sleep aid on the desk within her reach.

  This one was ordinary. Harmless.

  A gentle draught meant to ease her into rest. Nothing like the heavy, immovable weight of the potion he’d chosen before.

  He didn’t need that tonight.

  And she didn’t notice the difference.

  She accepted it without question, swallowed, and let herself drift.

  So did he.

  Only after making sure her breathing had settled into the rhythm of sleep.

  The morning light slanted sharp through the shutters, catching dust motes in a pale gold haze. The street below already hummed with footsteps, chatter, and the occasional rumble of cart wheels. Seventh bell had passed, edging toward half.

  Kion sat perched on the windowsill inside her room, wings tucked close, watching.

  Writ stood by the desk, practicing her questions one last time before she left. Her voice barely audible, more breath than tone, as though she were mouthing the words into herself rather than speaking them aloud.

  She was already in her disguise.

  A tidy shirt and trousers, hair disguised beneath a straight shoulder-length wig. Every detail neat, ordinary, unremarkable. She looked like any other clerk preparing for the day.

  Except... she wasn’t.

  Her mask was on.

  Not the soft one she sometimes wore when they ate together outside, but the other one. The one she had perfected long before he ever met her.

  'Silent Writ'.

  Composed, distant, efficient, guarded.

  Her every movement clipped, economical, almost mechanical. Onlookers would see an unflappable professional.

  But Kion knew better. He saw the faint tremor beneath the surface, the fatigue carried in her shoulders, the carefully smoothed lines of a woman forcing herself into armor.

  The contrast cut at him. He remembered her last night. Softer, unsteady, honest in a way she was with no one else. Even when fear and suspicion flickered across the tether between them, she hadn’t hidden. She had let him see her. That version of her, raw, fragile, and stubbornly brave, existed only in his presence. His own version of Writ. His Lunlun.

  Kion brushed the tether, a feather-light caress.

  She didn’t react. Her focus stayed anchored to the questions in her notebook. He didn’t mind.

  When she finished, her eyes lifted, catching him watching. For a heartbeat she studied him, then asked evenly, “you’re still here at this hour? Don’t your work start at sixth bell?”

  He smiled without missing a beat, “yup. But I asked to arrive late today. Wanted to see you off.”

  Her expression didn’t shift, but the tether stirred, a ripple of shy warmth that betrayed her words.

  His smile brightened at once.

  “I’ll be going then,” she said, her tone as composed as her disguise.

  “Yup,” he answered, lifting two fingers in a small wave, “I’ll see you tonight.”

  She walked past him, locked the door behind her with a sharp click, and was gone.

  Kion’s smile didn’t waver, even as the quiet settled back into the room. He cloaked himself in invisibility, slipped through the window vent, and shifted his perch to the outer sill.

  From there he watched her cross the street, her stride measured, purposeful, toward the looming Hall of Accordance just beyond the inn.

  Now came the real question. What should he do?

  He’d already secured leave from Euri, and that had been no small thing. He didn’t grant reprieves lightly. Especially not to him, not when his record was already stained with sudden absences.

  The only reason it had been approved was the blissbane connection. But last night Writ had confirmed, this interrogation wasn’t Blissbane related.

  So technically, he had no reason to follow. Technically, there was a mandatory event he was supposed to attend today. One he didn’t care for, just another perfunctory obligation tied to noble houses.

  Still, letting the chance slip would be a waste.

  He wouldn’t get another approved leave like this anytime soon.

  Curiosity burned at him. This could be the only chance to see her at work, to witness how she survived in that suffocating place, to watch her fight in silence, bearing burdens no one else knew.

  But could he truly watch without interfering?

  If they pushed her, cornered her. Could he remain still?

  The last time hadn’t been too bad. She was the interrogator, not the one under the glass.

  He had managed. Barely.

  Yet the tether had quivered under the weight she carried afterward during her report. Tomorrow would be worse. Reports always hollowed her.

  He hadn’t followed her to the last report session, too busy with his own report and discussions.

  Nudging every possible connection to handle the flower specimen now that the Accord had its version of the real cure. He’d repeated Rowan’s information a dozen times.

  Still… a flicker of selfishness needled him.

  He wanted to see her. He wanted to know more of her, another side, the hidden pieces she never showed aloud.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The thought made him giddy.

  But also afraid.

  Because the more he saw, the more the tether pulled him in. He knew he was losing the ability to stay away.

  And he didn’t care.

  His wings shifted restlessly against his back.

  His decision was already made.

  Kion leapt lightly from the sill, cloaking himself with another hushpell, layering silence over invisibility until even the wards of the Hall would pass over him as though he didn’t exist. As long as he didn’t falter, he was untouchable.

  He followed the tether’s subtle pull, and soon enough, he found her.

  Writ moved steadily through the Accord’s corridors, expression carved in solemn lines. The mask of stone.

  Then, suddenly, she stopped.

  Kion froze mid-air. His illusions tightened like a second skin.

  She turned her head, scanning the hall.

  Her eyes swept across him. He held his breath.

  For a moment, one impossible moment, he thought she felt him.

  The tilt of her head, the pause in her step. It was too clean, too deliberate. His breath caught.

  Had she sensed him?

  Had the golden tether between them betrayed his presence again, pulling at her spine the way it did his?

  The morning air pressed heavy around him as she lingered there, just long enough to set his nerves alight. She didn’t look back, but every second dragged like the edge of a blade, waiting.

  And then... nothing.

  She moved on, smooth as ever, not a single flicker betraying him.

  He couldn’t tell if he should feel flattered... or afraid.

  She didn’t know. She didn't realize.He guessed.

  Still, he continued to follow her. Quiet as shadow, tether thrumming between them.

  He’d told himself to let her walk her own path. Promised her, even.

  But with every step she took away from him, that promise frayed.

  So he followed anyway. As long as fate allowed him.

  Because the moment he stopped, he knew he’d tear himself apart.

  The Silent Writ's POV

  Corridor to White Room, Hall of Accordance, Brandholt City

  She didn’t know what made her turn.

  The wards hummed steadily along the corridor, unbroken. Nothing tugged at her senses. Nothing felt amiss. And yet her body moved before her mind could name a reason. Her head tilting back, gaze sweeping the hallway she’d already passed.

  Empty.

  Not that she’d expected otherwise. She lingered a half-beat longer, then faced forward again. Her fingers brushed her pocket, faintly pressing against the outline of coins. Grounding. No point feeding shadows with her attention.

  The white room received her in its usual stillness. Everything lay exactly as she’d left it the night before. The desk bare except for her notes, profile drafts stacked in careful order, and, in the corner, the two slips of paper she’d set aside. Two scribbled good lucks.

  Her throat tightened faintly as her eyes caught on them. She let the sensation pass.

  One by one she unfolded the notes she had written here and laid them beside the copies she had reconstructed from memory at her room. The lines almost matched, nearly word for word. A small relief. She would manage.

  Still, she read them again. Every question, every detail of the profile. She told herself the repetition was for precision, but she knew it was also armor. Layers of words to hold between herself and what waited on the other side of the door.

  The only gap remained the off-record session. Blank space she could not yet shape. No questions prepared, no outline. She would have to improvise, draw from whatever the subject revealed in the moment. Personal. Immediate. That thought pricked uneasily at her chest.

  Her review broke at the soft knock of knuckles against the door.

  Caustic stepped in a second later. He didn’t need to gesture. Writ rose instantly, gathering the sheets into a single folder with crisp efficiency. Her hand did not falter when it swept up the two slips she had set aside. She tucked them neatly between the other pages.

  She needed every good luck she could carry.

  Caustic’s lips tugged faintly upward, the closest thing he ever gave to encouragement.

  “Ready?” His voice low, almost conversational.

  She met his eyes, let her chin dip once.

  He turned and moved toward the door. She followed in silence, footsteps steady despite the churn underneath.

  Caedern was already there when they arrived, waiting in the dim space before the interrogation chamber. His stance relaxed, composed as always, but his presence made the air taut, stretching across her skin.

  Without a word, he extended a hand. A robe draped across his arm, dark cloth trimmed with light-catching thread. Judge division. Authority embodied.

  Again.

  She reached for it without hesitation, though her fingers slowed as they brushed the fabric. She recognized it instantly. The faint fray at the inside seam of the sleeve. The very same robe she had worn two days ago.

  Her chest coiled tight, but she slid her arms into the sleeves all the same. The cloth whispered down her shoulders, closing around her frame. She covered her dread with a long, deliberate breath.

  Caedern’s lips curved the same as before, “still fits you well.”

  The words struck with an edge she couldn’t name. Too deliberate to be offhand, too exact to be coincidence. A repetition meant to land, meant to press. Approval, mockery, possession. She couldn’t tell. And that, more than the words themselves, unsettled her.

  A breath threatened to catch in her chest. She refused it. Her spine held straight, her expression unbroken. If his intent was to bait her, he wouldn’t see it succeed. Not here. Not now.

  She smoothed the collar of the robe into place, brushed unease aside with the same precision she used to square the hem. No trace remained.

  The robe settled heavier for what she chose not to feel.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Caedern said. Smooth. Almost kind.

  She inclined her head. Silent.

  Then she lifted her gaze to him, “may I ask regarding the subject?”

  Caustic’s eyes flicked toward her, sharp, warning, before shifting to Caedern.

  A pause. Then Caedern’s mouth curved, “you may. But every answer costs. One owed for one given. Say it.”

  Her tone did not waver, “was the subject confined for the correction period prior to this session, here in Brandholt, or at Nexus?”

  Caedern’s eyes narrowed with the faintest glint, as if savoring the angle of her probe. His reply came smooth, unhurried.

  “Brandholt,” he answered too easily, “that’s one.”

  In Brandholt, not Nexus. That meant the confinement had not been that harsh. Not as severe as her last correction cycle.

  The subject had been confirmed to have outsider contact, suspected of leaking intel until the mission collapsed and the target fled, yet still spared Nexus.

  She, by contrast, had been only suspected of contact, with the Relay Nine mission ending in completion, and still they had cast her into Nexus without hesitation.

  A flicker rose before she could stop it. Sharp, sour, almost jealous. She blinked it away, but a breath too late. Because Caedern’s brow lifted, the faintest mark of amusement, as if he’d caught the taste of it.

  And she knew she shouldn’t even care. Severity, fairness, harsher or lighter. It was irrelevant. The Accord’s hand fell where it chose. Measuring herself against another’s punishment was pointless. Dangerous. Yet the thought had come all the same.

  The silence that followed stretched. His gaze lingered on her with a flicker too sharp to be idle. The stillness of a man who had not finished speaking, who waited to see if she would spend herself further.

  “That is sufficient,” she said. She bowed slightly.

  Caedern inclined his head in return, smirk sharpening as if savoring a game cut short, “only one. Too bad.”

  She gave no reply. Turned without hesitation.

  At the threshold, she drew a single breath, exact in measure. The new knowledge folded neatly into her questions, one more layer of armor.

  Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Hold.

  The weight of both men’s eyes pressed against her back. She moved it aside, sealed it into silence.

  Someone inside was likely someone she knew. She could not let that matter. They wanted her shaken. She would not be.

  Her fingers smoothed the front of the robe one last time. She straightened.

  The door before her yawned open, dark and waiting.

  She swallowed the last of her breath.

  She stepped forward, carrying the mask like a blade, sharp and unyielding.

  Following the order that waited to tear her apart.