She’d stood up twice.
The first time, when the man who’d once asked about her collar passed by. Alone. No escort. He didn’t stop. Just glanced for a breath, eyes too curious, mouth caught in something not quite a smile.
The second time, when the Veiled entered, her Black Quill escorts unchanged. Silent as ever. They didn’t look at her. Didn’t need to.
No one called her until the eighth bell had rung its last.
When it did, the Quill man returned. Opened the door. Gestured, same as before. No words, no pretense of formality. Just that expectant flick of fingers.
She rose again. Stepped forward.
The room beyond had been rearranged.
The long table split the room like a barrier. Three were seated behind it. Tiran at the center, the Veiled on Writ’s left, and the curious man on her right. The Quill woman stood behind the veiled one, and the Black Quill man stood at the far right, beside the curious man.
Just beside the door, an empty chair.
Her notebook sat in front of Tiran. Along with stacks of paper in front of each three person.
Writ stood alone, across from them, the door behind her. No furniture on her side. Just the faint scuff of her boots on the rug.
No chair. No invitation to sit.
Just space, deliberately left open.
"The Silent Writ," Tiran said, his voice cutting through the quiet.
"Repeat your report on the Tenzurah Archive mission."
Writ didn't blink.
She nodded, took in a breath.
“Entered at 08:15,” she said, a touch slower, “initial sweep included main corridor, library, scriptorium, one antechamber, and a side gallery.”
She kept her eyes level, “there was a mechanism in the gallery, triggered by a mural. Sigils. Not ones I recognized. Activated multi-stage trap. Hostile. Didn’t reset after firing.”
“The first blast destabilized the support beams. I made it out with minor contact by using an emergency route, sigil-activated. The next tunnel was stable. No resistance.”
She shifted slightly, “past the second hall, I found two vaults. One with Bronze Concord sigils. The other marked Oathroot.”
A pause. Shorter now.
“There was water. Flow beneath the structure. Probably part of the old tunnel system mentioned in the brief.”
“Oathroot script was readable. I noted key terms,” A beat, “the Bronze vault used Ancient Morthen. Couldn’t parse it fully. So I transcribed what I could, verbatim.”
She didn’t bother slowing her breath this time.
“On return, the gallery had collapsed. I rerouted into an unmarked hall. Another trap, distortion type. I escaped. No lasting harm.”
The sentence sat differently now, more like a shield than a fact.
“Found a truth-door mechanism. Required confession. It opened. Led to an area blocked by compacted soil. Quake debris thirty years old ago.”
Her tone lowered, “there was a gap. Cleared a passage. Reached the next tunnel.”
“The passage opened into a cavern. River ran through it. I tried to cross, slipped. Fell into the river.”
“Used my bag to brace the fall. It tore. I lost most of what was inside.”
“The river dropped into a canyon. I followed the stream. Found a settlement. Checked in in Zeirath.”
The room went still.
The Veiled turned a page in the bound papers she held.
Writ was relieved she’d reviewed every line of her curated report the night before. Nothing should be amiss. Not too much.
Tiran’s voice broke the quiet, “do you have anything to confess?”
The Quill woman on the far left stiffened, barely, but Writ caught it.
Her gaze shifted between the three figures before her.
“Only the possibility that the notebook isn’t the same one I handed over.”
A pause.
“And that I don’t know what happened to it.”
The man on her right speaks first. His voice is calm, too calm.
“Why do you think so?”
Not what changed. Not when. Not even if she’s sure. Just... why.
A question that feels like a thin needle sliding beneath her skin.
Her posture stiffens.
She doesn’t answer immediately. Doesn’t rush to fill the silence.
She glances toward the desk, where her notebook rests. Her voice, when it comes, is steady. Barely.
“Because I know what I wrote. And I know where I wrote it.”
She lifts her gaze back to them, expression hard to read.
“Axis Trail was in the book. It branched into three trails. It's one of the thing I translated by cross-referencing similar wording in the Oathroot section which use dual dialect writing, High Morthen and Ancient Morthen. I reread everything every morning. Confirmed it's not altered. Until it was taken from me.”
A breath.
“If it’s not there now... then something tampered with it. But it wasn’t me.”
The Veiled glanced at Tiran. Tiran folded his hands together slowly, leaning forward, not interrupting. But his stillness is deliberate. And full of weight.
The man on the left offered no expression. Then he spoke again.
“You’re certain. Even now.”
And Writ, jaw tight, would only give a nod.
“I wouldn’t have named it if I wasn’t.”
Tiran gestured to come closer to the table's edge, pushed the notebook to her, "show us where you write the Axis Trail"
Writ stepped forward and reached for the book.
She opened the notebook slowly, accurately, clearly know where it was written.
After the page opened, she flipped the book so it's directed to Tiran, then pointed the text with one finger
Axis Trail
? Axis One – Main route. Fastest. Direct line through restored terrain. Exposed; only used in storm-free years.
? Axis Two – Northeastern split. Slower, high elevation. Bunker-covered. Used for seedlings/delicate stock. Storm-safe.
? Axis Three – Western loop. Backup when east fields depleted. Circles back by 7th moon. Terraced rebuild zone near cliff shelf (see: reclaimed topsoil symbol).
"Here it is. Trail Axis. Axis One, main route, fastest. Axis Two, northeastern split slower, high elevation. Axis three, western loop. Backup route," her fingers trailed along her handwriting as she explained each points.
Tiran’s brow rose. The man on her right dragged his chair a few inches closer. The Veiled tilted her head. Even the Quill pair leaned forward, straining without leaving their post.
Tiran’s gaze cut back to Writ, sharp and unreadable, “that’s not what’s written.”
Writ blinked, “what?”
The man on the right spoke, too calm, “you say there are three routes. But none of us see that. What we read is a layout of farming patches. A projection for crop rotation efficiency outside Brandholt.”
Her eyes flicked to him, but she bit back her reply.
Then the Veiled asked, voice steady, “are you saying we’re all wrong?”
Writ stared at them. At the page. At her own handwriting.
Her finger still rested on the words. The words were still there. Clear. Inked. Hers.
Axis One. Axis Two. Axis Three. She could still hear Kion’s voice translating it aloud, months ago.
So why did they sound like strangers now?
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“I...” Her voice came thin. Frayed.
She licked her lips. Blinked again. The page didn’t change.
Her throat worked. She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin a notch.
“If that’s not what you see,” she said carefully, “then I don’t have an explanation. But that is what I wrote. And that is what it read as to me. I remember writing it it. I remember the order. The phrasing. The margin spacing...”
Her words cut, sharper than her pulse.
“I wouldn’t forget this.”
She exhaled slow. Forced. Noted the chill in her fingers.
“I... don’t know why it’s different. Or why you’re seeing something else. But this...” she tapped the page once, “...isn’t new to me. It exactly looked like how I've written.”
Her eyes flicked between them now. The Veiled. Tiran. The man.
Not pleading. Not defensive.
Just trying to hold the edges of something that no longer obeyed.
“I don’t know what’s been done to it,” she said finally, “and I don’t know how.”
“But if you’re asking me to confess something... I can’t confess to a lie I don’t know I’m telling.”
Tiran didn't reply at once.
The silence stretched.
Then Tiran flicked a glance to the Veiled, who nodded once, barely perceptible.
The man on the right leaned back, murmured something to the Quill man near the wall.
The Quill man stepped away. When he returned, he placed a stack of thin, near-transparent sheets on the table, and a pen.
Tiran tapped the notebook once, “trace it.”
Writ looked up.
The Veiled’s voice was calm, “start with the page you just read. Trace exactly what you see. No hurry. No improvisation.”
The Quill man lifted a chair next to the door and brought it to Writ.
“Sit,” the man replied evenly, “we’d like to see whether your hand agrees with your eyes.”
She swallowed. Nodded.
Then sat and reached the pen. Tracing every letter in her notebook in precise movement.
Margins. Spacing. Word tilt. The rhythm of the bullet points. The way she underlined Axis Two a fraction deeper than the rest.
Then when she's finished with the page. They took the thin paper she'd written, hide it under the table, and replaced it with a new one.
"Redo it," the man on her right ordered.
So she did.
Once. Twice. Again. And another one.
Until she retraced five copy of the same page. As exact as humanely possible.
They’d measure all of it. Compare every copy to the original and to each other. Look for slips, intentional or magical.
The fifth sheet was taken wordlessly. Slid beneath the table, added to the stack.
They didn’t return with a sixth.
Writ sat still, shoulders tense, fingers resting lightly on the pen as if waiting for the next demand.
But none came.
Tiran leaned back slightly, her gaze no longer fixed on Writ, but on the tracing sheets spread before her. Her fingers didn’t move, but her breathing had shifted, slowed. Calculating.
The copies passed silently among the three. The quill pairs at the far end strained for a clearer view.
The Veiled spoke first, voice low, “five copies. Matched in stroke weight, margin, cadence. Her eye doesn’t drift. Not once.”
“It’s not mimicry,” the man on the right muttered, “it’s replication. Direct and precise.”
Writ saw the Quill woman next to the veiled one no longer tense.
Tiran didn’t look up, “she sees something we don’t.”
A beat of silence.
Then, without shifting his gaze, Tiran added, “test the ink. The paper. Test her pen if you must.”
Writ opened her mouth, unsure whether to ask or defend, but the man on the right raised a single hand to halt her.
“No. No need,” he said, and this time, something in his voice had softened. Not kindness. Not sympathy. Curiosity.
Dangerous curiosity.
“Either her mind has fractured in a very specific way,” he added, “or she’s walking with something none of us can see.”
Tiran’s gaze finally returned to Writ.
“Is that it, The Silent Writ?” the man on the right asked, not coldly. Not kindly. Just watching, “are you carrying something unaccounted for?”
Her hand hovered slightly above the desk, pen still uncapped, though the test had ended.
She looked at the man, then Tiran.
“Carrying something?”
She didn’t mean to echo it. The words just slipped out, small and too breathless. Like a leak in a sealed jar.
Tiran didn’t blink. Just waited.
Writ’s throat clicked as she swallowed. Her mind darted, reaching. The phrase lodged sharp under her skin, walking with something none of us can see. As if she was haunted. Or possessed.
Did Kion count? He had said the fairy form wasn’t something people saw. Yet she hadn’t glimpsed him again since arriving in Brandholt, and admitting his existence now would set everything ablaze.
But what else?
She had nothing. Nothing. Not even a name.
She looked down at the notebook again. Her notebook. Hers.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” she said, and it came out too honest. Too flat. The kind of honesty she’d trained herself not to show, “I traced what I saw. I wrote what I knew. That’s it.”
A pause. Then softer.
“Why would it be anything else?”
Nobody answered.
Writ’s voice steadied, not defiant, but deliberate. Controlled.
“If you want, I can trace the rest of the notebook.”
A pause. She kept her eyes down.
“All of it. Page by page. Five copies each. You can measure every one.”
She didn’t say it as a defense.
She said it like an offering. Like penance.
The silence that followed was heavy, almost brittle.
The man on her right lowered his brow. Not in anger, but in curiosity. He leans back slightly, arms still folded.
The Veiled tapped her finger on the table.
The three glanced at each other. Then the Veiled nodded.
They let the silence stretched long.
Then Tiran asked, voice measured, "are you familiar with the term Blissbane blight?"
Writ’s head lifts slightly at that.
A beat.
Her voice doesn't waver.
“I have no idea what that is.”
Tiran studied her for another beat.
Then the man on her right spoke, quiet.
“None at all? Not even the projection that was publicly broadcasted?”
Writ blinked.
“No. I don’t know.”
The room stilled.
The Veiled leaned slightly back, her hands folding in front of her on the table.
Tiran’s eyes didn’t leave Writ.
Then she gave a single nod to the Quill man on the far right.
“Fetch it,” Tiran ordered.
The man nodded once, turned, and stepped out.
Writ’s pulse skipped.
The Veiled spoke calmly, “wait in the adjacent room. We’ll prepare something for you to take.”
The man on the left added, “if your perception holds after the dose, we’ll move forward.”
Tiran finally turned the notebook back toward himself, closed it with slow, deliberate care.
“You're dismissed.”
Writ nodded and stood. Turned. Walked to the door.
The next room swallowed her in silence.
She sat on the sofa. Waited.
And kept waiting.
It felt like forever.
Blissbane Blight.
The phrase sat uneasily in her head.
She hadn't heard it before. Not in a briefing, not in the field, not from Tiran, not even whispered between agents.
But as she sat waiting in the outside room, hands folded too neatly on her lap, back too straight for someone alone, the words circled back.
Bli-...
Bli-ssbane.
...bli-...?
Her breath caught for half a second.
She could still recall it. That moment. In the ruins.
The press of stillness in the air before Kion stepped forward. His coat marked with dust, wings fluttered silenty among the damp stone. And trailing behind him, pulsing with every half-beat of breath, a flower.
Blue. Laced with delicate silver veins. Faintly luminescent, like it breathed on its own.
She hadn’t known the name. Not then. Not even now, really. Kion had slipped once, 'the bli-', and caught himself just as quickly. Clamped down on her questions with more steel than usual.
But was that it? The thing they were talking about now?
She didn’t know. She couldn’t be sure.
But her chest tightened anyway.
If it really was the same... if it could still pull her under, cloud her thoughts, make her forget where she stood... then why would the Accord talk about it now?
Or worse... why would they show it to her?
She tried to piece the threads. Nothing lined up.
Tiran hadn’t mentioned it. The Accord never included her in high-clearance briefings. If the public broadcast existed, she’d never seen it. Those things were reserved for titled families, regional chairs, the blood-named.
She wasn't one of them. Even her name was just a title given for convenience.
The Quill man entered minutes ago, paper bag tucked under his arm, eyes sliding past her like she was just another corner ornament.
And now, finally, he returned. Wordless.
He opened the door. Tilted his head once.
She rose.
Crossed the threshold back into the same room.
The same desk.
The same three faces.
Except this time, there was a vial.
Small. Glass. Set carefully on a black velvet tray.
The light caught the liquid within. Blue, but clearer than ink, and threaded with silver that moved like static. Not swirling, not shifting. Just hovering, as though the metal lived inside it, waiting for a signal to strike.
Like the flower. Exactly like the flower.
Her pulse spiked.
That’s it. That’s the same glow. The same core of light that clung to Kion’s barrier when he’d crushed the petals with aetherbomb. The thing he tried so hard to keep from her.
Her mouth moved before her mind caught up.
“Oh. It’s the flower.”
Silence dropped in the room like a pin in an empty well.
She blinked.
Realized too late she’d said it out loud. Too natural. Too certain.
Her arms remained stiff at her side. No reflex. No covering her mouth. Not even a twitch.
The three of them clearly noted that.
The man on the right cocked his head slightly, studying her.
“Interesting,” he murmured, “it sparked nothing until now?”
Her eyes stayed on the vial.
She had no idea what the broadcast actually contained. They had only ever mentioned it in passing, something the Accord sent to convince Tir Ryhaar. She had never seen it herself.
Which meant it was either the cure... or the flower.
If it was the cure, then her reaction just now, naming the flower so easily, would expose her. They’d know she was lying. That she’d recognized something she shouldn’t.
But even if it really was the flower... She doubted that would save her either.
Writ shook her head. “I’d heard it mentioned before, but I didn’t connect it until just now. I didn’t know its name.”
A safe answer. But her mind didn’t feel safe.
That flower had exhausted Kion. That flower nearly made her forget how to think. And now... they were offering it to her.
Why?
Tiran’s voice came low. Even.
“How much do you know about it?”
Say the cave, and she’d condemn herself. She’d omitted the flower from the report. That would mean betrayal. Tampering. Lying.
So she gambled.
“Only how it looked. I heard people describe it once, when they mentioned the broadcast. Blue, with silver veins. Pulsing. That’s all. I never saw the actual broadcast.”
The man on the right narrowed his eyes slightly.
“Do you know what it does?”
“No. I don’t.”
She didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe too deep.
“What if I told you it’ll make you a walking corpse,” he said, “and make us able to control you, remotely?”
That...
Writ blinked. Once. Her throat barely moved as she swallowed.
Even the black quill pairs seemed to held their breath.
Then he added, flatly, “and we want you to drink it.”
That was it.
That was probably it.
No longer a collar. No, they hadn’t even trusted her with that. They wanted more.
Something deeper. Something that didn’t sit on the surface of skin, but soaked into the blood, lived in the marrow, shaped her from the inside out.
She blinked, just a touch too slow.
Then drew a breath.
Measured. Quiet. The kind people took before plunging into cold water.
So this was what borrowed time meant.
Not freedom. Not mercy.
A leash slipped into the lungs.
Maybe she hadn’t left the ruin behind. Maybe she’d never stepped out of the interrogation room intact.
Maybe they’d only let her borrow the minutes longer.
And now, they wanted it back.
So be it.
She lowered her gaze, just for a moment. Not in fear. Just to steady herself.
Then looked up again.
“If this is what you require from me,” she said, calm but stripped thin, “I don’t think I have a say, do I?”
Her voice didn’t shake. But her thumb pressed faintly into her palm, grounding herself. Just once.
She gulped, softly, so they wouldn’t hear it.
Then added, quieter, “but... may I ask, why?”
The man on the right meets her eyes with clinical interest.
“Need doesn’t require understanding. Just compliance.”
Then Tiran reached forward, calm as water, and slid the tray across the table.
The sound of it rolling softly across the tray rang louder than it should’ve.
“Drink.”
Writ closed her eyes. Breathed in, deep and slow.
Held it.
Exhaled through her nose until there was nothing left.
Then opened her eyes.
“May I approach?”
Tiran nodded, not even looking at her.
“You may.”
Her steps were careful. Quiet. She didn’t know if she was trying to preserve dignity or delay inevitability.
Maybe both.
The vial was cold under her fingertips. Delicate. Lighter than it looked.
She tilted it slightly. Watched as the liquid caught the light, blue-tinted, silver-veined. It shimmered, like something alive.
It was beautiful. Too beautiful to be safe.
She unscrewed the cap. A small, almost inaudible pop.
The scent that met her was faint, sweet. Like crushed petals left too long in a sealed box.
She closed her eyes again.
And drank.
One clean motion. No hesitation. No pause.
It burned colder than she expected. Traced a line down her throat. Settled in her stomach like snow.
She didn’t react. Didn’t cough. Didn’t flinch.
If this was it...
Then so be it.
She set the empty vial down and stepped back, still standing.