The next few weeks blurred into relocations.

  None were marked as punishment. None were praised. Just... rerouted. Reassigned. Reset.

  Next, to Glenwade. Where she’d once chased a wagon hoping to find the old woman again.

  The same central platform. The same splinter in the bench. But no trace, no closure. Just the same conversation playing back in her head like an echo.

  Then the thirteenth, Elmsbriar. Exactly the next stop the wagon had claimed it was going. As if Tiran were mocking her. As if failure had to be embroidered into the route map.

  And then her seventeenth came.

  They stationed her in Graverel for a day. A fringe settlement pressed between scorched ridgelines, and the warbled, curse-thin edge of the Echoing Hollow.

  She didn’t like the Hollow. Never had. Not after what happened last time. Alone, starved, left to rot in its mud and fog as if her absence didn’t matter.

  But she followed the orders. She always did.

  Graverel wasn't even listed on trade maps. Not useful enough to be on escort routes. No Accord presence, no structure. Just a huddle of low lodges, a weather-beaten waystone, and three resident scholars too absorbed in Hollow-loop distortions to remember her name twice.

  She arrived just after ninth hour, boots still damp from the dew that clung stubbornly to Graverel’s crooked paths.

  The Hollow’s draft curled through the ridgelines like it always did. Unnatural, cold, laced with that faint shimmer of mirage magic the region was known for.

  Her breath still fogged in it. The only thing colder was the silence inside her chest.

  The lead scholar, a narrow-eyed woman with ink-stained gloves, waved her toward the archive without looking up.

  “Vault records, right? They're in the sublevel. Don’t touch the red-ribboned folios. One of them rearranged a man’s spine last week.”

  Writ nodded, pressed her thumb to the door seal, then waited a beat, listening, before stepping away to scout first.

  The lead scholar had vanished back into a paper-choked chamber with two others, the door left ajar just enough for sound to slip through. For five minutes, Writ let their conversation drift to her. An unintelligible exchange of diagrams, theory terms, and murmured recalculations. Nothing useful.

  She stepped away from the still-chattering chamber and finally descended into the sublevel archive.

  Another archive. Another report. Another breath in the same endless loop.

  After that, report to Brandholt. Thirty minutes west.

  Assuming nothing happened between now and nightfall.

  The archive was small, tight enough that two shelves brushing shoulders would echo. Walls lined with brittle ledgers and sagging tomes.

  She scanned the layout in silence, eyes skimming the corners, exits, and the spacing of furniture. Just like always.

  Thirty minutes passed in practiced movement. Half of it spent drifting shelf to shelf, the other half lingering where her back stayed to a wall, just long enough to pass as someone searching for something meaningful.

  She didn’t touch the red-ribboned folios. Not even a glance. She wasn’t about to gamble with another life-threatening device. Her collar was enough.

  When she finally began her actual search, she kept it brisk. Roughly twenty minutes to comb the room, fingers sliding over cracked bindings, looking for anything marked with region tags, vault identifiers, or Concord notations. Her hand only paused for titles that bore the right age and wear.

  She moved methodically, gathering a modest stack of tomes before selecting a table that let her face the door. Only one exit, well within reach.

  She’d already mapped the building. Measured every escape. Even the narrow chimney shaft.

  She was on her third book by then, pen in hand, only noting what might matter, region tags, any abnormal dates, record irregularities.

  Then the scholars changed rooms.

  Their steps creaked behind her. The drag of chairs. Lunchboxes hitting the table.

  She didn’t look up.

  They were seated now, just behind her, talking low over mouthfuls of rice and dry bread. Gossip, at first. Local rumors, minor politics, one offhand remark about the Hollow whispering louder this season.

  She leaned on one hand, flipping pages with the other. Slow, mechanical. Pretending to read. Keeping her hands busy while her ears stayed open.

  She didn’t miss a word.

  “So it’s true Luca wasn’t sick from Mireveil?”

  “No, he’s not. I visited. It’s something else. Mireveil doesn’t do that. It doesn’t consume consciousness.”

  A low gasp.

  “Then it’s the Blight?”

  “Supposedly extinct.”

  “Then how?”

  Her hand hesitated mid-flip. Eyes on the page, not seeing the words.

  “Do you think the projection was real?”

  “Now that I’ve seen Luca like that? Yeah. It was real.”

  “Maybe they’ll share the cure...”

  Her fingers twitched. Spine straightened half a degree.

  “That’s the same as selling yourself to the devil, though.”

  “But not even Bronze offers a cure.”

  “And they’re tied to Oathroot. Shouldn’t they know something?”

  Writ’s knuckles pressed slightly into her jaw, but she didn’t move otherwise. Breath slow. Fake calm.

  She didn’t notice the shift in air pressure. Not until it was already too close.

  “Have you heard there’s a group telling people to flee?”

  “Oh I've heard of it. They said--”

  “Hello, Lunlun!”

  A voice. Right above her book.

  Her reflexes surged. She stood, hard, grabbing another tome from the stack and slammed the spine edge straight into the open book in front of her.

  WHAM.

  The sound echoed.

  The scholars’ voices snapped off in alarm.

  Writ blinked, registering a faint shimmer where the book had stopped. A barrier.

  Kion crouched just beneath the impact, arms raised above his head like a guilty schoolboy shielding from chalk.

  “Uh... hi?” he said, smiling sheepishly, “sorry to startle you. Shouldn’t have done that.”

  The lead scholar called over, “something wrong?”

  Writ didn’t miss a beat. She turned, mouth a careful line.

  “Spider,” she said flatly, “sorry.”

  “Ahh. Right,” The lead waved a hand, “should’ve warned you. We haven’t deep-cleaned in years.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Forgot people still get startled by those,” another muttered, already buried back in his lunchbox.

  “Is the tome alright?” the third asked.

  Writ looked down at the book she’d nearly destroyed. Checked the spine. The corners. No warping. No tears.

  “Intact,” she said.

  “Good,” said the third.

  She sat down slowly, spine still taut. Across from her, Kion wiggled his fingers in a little wave. Still crouched. Still wearing that stupid smile like it belonged to him.

  She stared at him in silence.

  “Why are you here?” she whispered.

  He dropped the shimmer-barrier and eased himself onto the table with a casual hop.

  “To check on you,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it,” he grinned, leaning back on his hands like nothing had changed, “it’s been a while. You look...”

  His gaze flicked lower, neck, collar, bracelet. He blinked.

  “...Fine,” he finished.

  She caught the pause. The way his eyes snagged on the collar.

  Why did it make him flinch? He had to know about it. He outranked her in the Accord, surely he knew.

  But she didn’t ask. Didn’t answer. Just turned another page.

  Kion shifted.

  “So... glad to see you alive and well.”

  Writ didn’t look up. Pen moving, eyes on the page. Like he wasn’t even there.

  Alive. Well.

  He still smiled like that.

  Still called her Lunlun. Still walked through her rebuilt walls like he owned them.

  After she’d clawed her way back to neutrality. After she’d buried every shred of softness she’d ever given him. After she’d crushed the last marble he'd imbued, its magic fizzing away under her heel like regret.

  He was the symbol of everything she wasn't allowed to be. Weak. Vulnerable. Emotional.

  And yet here he was. Like time hadn’t passed. Like ruin and collar and the dark hadn’t happened.

  He tilted his head, waiting.

  Writ finally blinked. Flipped another page.

  “You kept me alive in the ruin. I’m grateful,” she said quietly, “now move forward. We don’t need to speak again.”

  Kion beamed.

  “Alright then. No speaking it is.”

  But he didn’t leave.

  Instead, he rummaged through his satchel and pulled out a miniature lunchbox, tapped it against the table, and let it expand.

  Inside, neatly sliced apples, fanned like petals.

  He speared a larger slice with a toothpick, left it resting in the box, then plucked the smallest one by hand and took a bite.

  Then he offered it to her. Placed the box just within reach.

  She didn’t say anything.

  Her eyes flicked to the slice. Fingers brushed the edge. No visible threads. No shimmer. No taint.

  She picked up the toothpick.

  Paused.

  Sniffed.

  Then bit.

  Sweet. Crisp. Safe.

  She returned to the book. Quiet. Controlled.

  Now and then, her hand would reach for another slice.

  Sniff. Bite. No words.

  Kion only sat there, watching like each bite was a miracle.

  He stayed for about an hour.

  Not speaking, not interrupting. Just... staying.

  Kion perched on the edge of the table like some overgrown bird pretending not to molt, swinging his legs back and forth with lazy rhythm. Occasionally nibbling an apple slice. Occasionally offering her another, without a word.

  She didn’t tell him to go. Didn’t ask why he came. Didn’t acknowledge him beyond the bites she took.

  It was a truce made of silence.

  The archive had settled again. The scholars resumed their muttering debate two tables away, distracted by theories and equations too arcane for Writ to follow.

  Outside, the cursed Hollow air had stilled. The draft no longer tugged at her cloak hem. Her fingers continued flipping through folios, skimming paragraphs, marking nothing.

  She read, or pretended to. He sat, or pretended not to watch.

  And time passed.

  When the last slice disappeared, he dusted his hands on his trousers, then cleared his throat lightly, only after watching her finish chewing.

  “Lunch break is done. Apples are eaten. I’ve confirmed you’re breathing,” he said, tone light, like the words might float better if they didn’t sound too serious, “so I’ll now fly away before you slam me with another book for speaking.”

  His voice tugged faintly at something in her chest, like a loose thread she refused to pull. Writ didn’t lift her gaze. Her hand held the page edge mid-turn. She kept her expression neutral, kept her breathing slow.

  Kion tapped the now-empty lunchbox against his satchel. It shimmered briefly, compressed with a faint click, and shrank to a the size of a button. He tucked it away without flourish, like it wasn’t a little piece of magic he’d just folded into his coat.

  Still, she didn’t reply. Only tracked him in her peripheral vision. The familiar way he moved, the way his foot caught slightly on the uneven table near her book but righted itself as if instinct remembered this place even if he hadn’t walked it before.

  Then he did something else.

  Stepped one foot near her. Onto the open book she hadn’t flipped yet.

  Blocking her reading line.

  And smiled.

  “See you later!” he chirped, cheerful and careless as ever, and gave her the smallest wave, just a flick of fingers, like a secret code.

  Then he lifted off.

  No burst of wind. Just a faint shimmer in the air, like heat rising off stone. Pages rustled softly, stirred more by suggestion than force. A loose folio turned lazily on the desk.

  One of the scholars glanced up, frowned, and muttered something about sealing ward.

  Kion didn’t look back. Just slipped through the open door, weightless as a dragonfly on breeze.

  Only after the hush returned, and the shimmer of him was gone, did she tilt her head, just a little, to watch the last flicker of him vanish into the haze.

  She didn’t smile. But her fingers eased around the page.

  And something inside her moved.

  A breath. A pulse. A flicker.

  She let 'Lunlun' wave.

  Just once.

  Just barely.

  A ghost of a farewell traced in her chest. Not real, not voiced, not even meant for the world to see.

  Her hand settled over her pocket, where Kion’s coin pouch lay.

  Then she turned back to the book. Sat straighter. Flipped the page.

  Buried herself again.

  Because Lunlun wasn’t supposed to exist.

  Not here. Not anymore. Not without Kion around to keep her safe. Not without him there to believe she was worth more than the collar on her neck.

  She had survived these months by forgetting. By erasing.

  But he'd come, anyway.

  And now, she had to pretend again that he hadn't.

  Kion's POV

  Seraithe’s Home, Windward Garden, Kesherra Basin

  “She’s fine! She’s healthy! She’s alive! And she waved me goodbye! Internally, but still!”

  Kion’s voice hit the room before he did, echoing through the chamber like wind carrying a laugh.

  He didn’t slow when he spotted Seraithe, just bounded up the mossy steps, arms already outstretched.

  “I really. Really. Really owe you, Seraithe,” he breathed, the words tumbling as he caught her in a full-bodied hug, arms wrapped tight enough to lift her half off the ground.

  “Thank you for negotiating with Veska to let me have a lunch break out of Kesherra. I was sooo dry being jailed for five whole months. I started talking to my own wings.”

  “Go away,” she grunted, shoving at his chest, “you’re sticky.”

  He paused. Then grinned,“occupational hazard.”

  But he released her anyway.

  Seraithe dusted her shoulders like he’d left a trail of glitter behind. He didn’t even apologize.

  His feet had already drifted toward her couch. He dropped into it like a dead feather, legs flopping over the armrest.

  The plush cushions groaned beneath him.

  He let his head fall back.

  Stars, she really was alive.

  Not just breathing, but warm. Irritated. Eating apples like he’d never been gone.

  The tether wasn’t dragging him down anymore. He could think again. Breathe again.

  But the collar had been bugging him.

  Subtle, at first, until he realized the mana pulsing from it was stronger than her old bracelet ever radiated.

  His stomach dropped. No wonder the tether had felt so dulled these past months.

  Not broken. Just... muffled. Resigned.

  Like it had been pressing against something that kept her numbed from the inside out.

  He swallowed. Let the thought go.

  She was safe now. Allowed to roam near Brandholt again.

  That much, at least, was enough.

  His heart still hadn’t fully caught up.

  Of course, Seraithe wasn’t the type to give him time to catch up.

  “So,” Seraithe said flatly, hands on hips, “what brings you here?”

  He peeked at her through his bangs, “is there really no one willing to handle the Blissbane bloom?”

  Seraithe’s face curled like she'd just tasted mold.

  “No one. None,” she snapped, “your community was wiped from it. Wiped, Kion. No one wants to get close to that poison. We’re not moths who throw themselves at flames just because it’s shiny.”

  He winced, already sensing where she was headed.

  A pause.

  Then she added, just as he feared, “not like someone who literally jumped through a waterfall to enter an underground river just to save his solo-tethered partner.”

  He groaned, covering his face with one hand, “come on. It’s been five months. Can we not bring that up again?”

  “Nope,” Seraithe shot back, arms crossing, “not gonna stop when what you did was so stupidly suicidal. You wouldn't even be able to fly back here if I didn’t contact Shea and her friends to fish you out in the oasis. Good thing there are younglings living in that place.”

  He grinned sheepishly, peeling one eye open, “I did say thank you. I brought cookies too, didn’t I?”

  “If there were only elders in that place?” she continued, ignoring him, “you’d be dead. So dead. When’s your next idiotic stunt, by the way? I’m itching to write your obituary. Already have the title. ‘Featherbrain Falls to Final Foolery.’”

  Kion barked a laugh, “nah, not anytime soon. She’s close right now. So that won’t happen.”

  Seraithe didn’t look convinced. She narrowed her eyes.

  He held up both hands in surrender, “as long as she’s not in danger. Promise.”

  She rolled her eyes so hard he swore he heard them click.

  Then a long exhale.

  “Why do I make this breezebrain my friend, again?”

  The teasing edge left his face. His grin flattened into something quieter. Something worn.

  “The tether won’t let me leave her alone,” he said, more to the ceiling than to her, “I can’t imagine having to feel her last breath. With everything hurled directly at me. Fear. Sadness. Loneliness. I can’t let that happen.”

  He didn’t mean to let it show, but there it was. Laid bare in the way his chest rose just a bit too slowly, and the tension around his mouth didn’t quite go away.

  Seraithe crossed her arms. Her tone didn’t soften, but the judgment behind her stare did, “it’s consumed you.”

  “It is,” he admitted.

  Her voice dipped, a flicker of sadness ghosting through, “I still wish you didn’t do it. Really. Solo tether on a human? Kion. Crazy.”

  He nodded, “it happened. I really shouldn’t have. I know.”

  And maybe, on a different day, he would’ve defended it again. Brought up how desperate things had been. How broken Writ had looked. How right it had felt at the time. But right now?

  He was tired.

  Seraithe stepped closer and tapped his shoulder with two fingers. Not gentle, but not sharp either.

  “I’ll keep searching,” she said, “for anyone willing to handle the bloom.”

  Kion reached up and tapped her hand, solid and slow, “thank you, Seraithe.”

  “You better not forget my payment.”

  “I never will.”