The bubble trail stopped at the north gate’s wall tower. The very top.
Halfway through the chase, Writ had wondered why nobody else reacted to the spheres drifting above. She brushed it off. Another one of Kion’s tricks. He never seemed to run out of them.
Her steps slowed at the tower base. She scanned for ways up without drawing attention, ducking behind crates and carts, mind snapping to every passerby.
The street to the gate was crowded. Townsfolk weaving between stalls, merchants shouting, diners pushing back from the main path. Every head was a potential witness, every shadow a possible cover.
She counted braziers, guard gaps, the knot of men blocking a dray. Two children darted like dark fish between legs, oblivious. Every detail folded into a plan in seconds.
It had to look accidental. A mundane gesture, nothing to draw the attention of horses or carts. Nothing that would make too large a scene.
She slid sideways into the shadow of a stall, letting her hands fuss with her clothes as if straightening the scarf. One fluid flick, and it arced low toward a narrow alley, snagging softly on a brazier cover.
“Thief!” The word snapped across the street, sharp and practiced, drawing eyes, bodies, and the attention of the guards.
She felt the rhythm of the chaos pulse beneath her feet, the predictable shifts of movement and distraction. A guard sprinted after the phantom thief, another barked, and the line of defense thinned.
She didn’t linger. She slipped with the shifting crowd. An elbow grazed her ribs, grit stung her palm. Until the cool stone of a service arch rose ahead. The door opened on a familiar beat of footfall. She slipped inside, into the narrow stairwell spiraling upward, unseen by the bustle outside.
The stair smelled of damp stone and age, winding tightly upward, each step scraping her boots.
She moved against the wall, fingertips grazing the rough surface, listening to the muffled pulse of the town below. Voices, carts, and the fading sun catching on rooftops. The wind whispered through narrow slits, tugging at her cloak.
At last, the spiral ended at the wooden door of the guard room. It swung slightly, just enough to check if it's safe inside. Then she slipped without a sound.
The room was small, cramped, its walls lined with chests and a table cluttered with maps. A single man stood near the hatch, eyes trained on the street below.
His routine was predictable. Left, scan, right. She waited, breath held. When he finally sat, his back turning to her, she moved. Slipped past, crouched low, careful.
She edged closer to the door leading outside, careful to keep the chest and table between them. Her heart hammered in her ears, almost drowning out the wind sneaking in from the roof above.
A chair scraped. She froze, pressed flat behind a crate, pulse snapping in her throat. The guard muttered something about the rain, boots dragging toward the stairwell. She dared not breathe. Her knees nearly gave. One wrong step, and it would’ve been over before she even reached the parapet.
Only when the footsteps faded did she move. She pushed the door just enough to check, the hinges sighed as it shifted.
A beat. Her gaze dropped to the stone threshold. Empty.
Then the parapet door yielded, letting in a blade of wind, sharp and cold.
Writ eased it shut again without a sound.
Below, the town sprawled in gold and shadow, and the sheer drop twisted in her gut. Crenellations framed her approach. She crouched again, steadying against stone, scanning until she saw him.
Kion, perched on the opposite parapet, multiplying spheres. Blood streaked his sleeve, a nick across his wing membrane. Exhaustion in his stance.
Finally, she arrived behind a crenellation a few meters from Kion. The sun’s last gold stretched across his form, shadows deepening behind him. The world had narrowed to wind and stone, the drop below, the rough edge beneath her fingers, and the restless flutter of the fairy she’d chased to the top.
“...Kion?” Her voice cracked.
The bubbles stilled. His eyes widened, landing on hers. Then his attention snapped back, still tense, still defensive.
“Lunlun?” Surprise threaded his voice. He kept the barrier steady around him. “Why are you- how did you get here?”
She edged closer, noticing the crimson smear on his cheek, the tight lines in his body. Every twitch and shift seemed deliberate, guarded.
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“Stop right there,” he snapped,
She froze, watching him flinch like a drawn bow.
“Are you even real? Is this...” his lips pressed thin, betraying panic, “...fake? An illusion?”
“I’m here. Real. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you,” her voice stayed measured, though her pulse raced, “please... let’s go back first?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
One small step forward. He hovered back slightly, every motion taut. Her mind flickered through possibilities. Had someone caught him? Did he think he was still being chased? Or had he finally... finally decided she’d overstepped?
At last, he spoke, voice shaky, “do me a favor.”
Her brow rose. The silence stretched. Long enough to sharpen unease. Why the hesitation? What kind of favor? Why ask before naming it?
She nodded, cautiously.
“Close your eyes. Five minutes. No peeking,” he said, each word clipped, panic still threading the tone.
Five minutes.
Long enough for her mind to summon every possible peril. Trust and vertigo knotted in her chest. The tower pressed close around her, the open drop tugging at her gut.
Closing her eyes now was no small act of faith. It was daring the air itself. Daring him, daring herself.
What if this was the Accord testing her with someone, or something, that merely looked like Kion? An illusion, just like he’d said. Watching to see if she’d kneel blind. What if trusting him meant condemning herself? The doubts snarled until her chest ached.
Her teeth clenched. Exhale steadying, “alright.”
She pressed palms tighter to stone, letting her eyelids fall. Darkness filled her vision.
The world sharpened in sound alone. Distant shouts, hoofbeats, every whisper magnified. Muscles screamed to peek, to check the void below, to measure the distance. She resisted. She could not risk him noticing.
She felt a tug from her ribs, a strange weight, anchored deep, pulled her attention inward. Kion's magic?
What would it do?
If he meant to pull her away, let her fall...
She thought she deserved it.
Kion's POV
North Gate Wall Tower, Brandholt City
She obeyed and closed her eyes.
Any illusion they sent wouldn’t do that. Probably.
The wind dragged at his clothes, wings beating slow against the ache in his shoulders. Fatigue gnawed, blood streak still damp on his sleeve. His heart pounded with the aftershock of pursuit.
Her trust pulsed faintly through the tether. Hesitant, trembling, but real.
It anchored him more than any spell.
His wings beat slower now, careful, measured.
Though every stroke reminded him of the ache in his shoulders and back, muscles stiff from Caustic’s ambush. Fatigue gnawed at his limbs, his wings heavy, arms tight, even as adrenaline faintly hummed through him.
He had managed not to be wounded despite the rain of blades and telekinetic pull in the narrow corridor.
That alone should have been a feat.
His magic remained intact, still capable of defense, though he hadn’t dared strike back. Not his strength, never was.
A stubborn smear of crimson clung to the edge of his sleeve. A silent reminder of the blood curtain that had hunted him.
Of how narrowly the Accord’s chaos had failed to swallow him whole.
Each breath drew sharp and uneven through his chest.
His heart still echoing the dread of the chase, each beat a drum of instinctive vigilance.
Relief and tension twisted together in his gut.
Relief that she had followed.
Tension that the streets and rooftops below still teemed with unpredictable danger.
Her feelings brushed against him through the tether, small pulses of hesitation and quiet fear.
The reluctance in her acceptance of his request, the way her muscles had tensed with each step, reached him even from a distance.
She had trusted him enough to obey. But every inch had demanded courage.
Yet after a display of magic he had never seen, after the illusions and tricks Accord might have sent, he could never be entirely sure.
Better safe than sorry.
He wove a fragile illusion around her. Frozen time if she peeked.
Another layer cloaked them both from the guard room and the city below.
Then he brushed the tether lightly, willing it to flare.
Golden threads arced between them, anchoring them with undeniable certainty.
Only then did he exhale, letting tension seep out with it.
It was her.
The real one.
Not an Accord illusion.
Not another magic beyond his comprehension.
His Lunlun.
He had no idea how she had found him.
He tried to picture it. Her small figure scaling those hostile streets, slipping unseen past eyes sharpened for quarry.
Every turn could’ve ended with a blade at her throat.
Every shadow could’ve betrayed her.
She had no reason to come. No promise of safety. Yet she did. For him.
The thought tightened his ribs until it hurt.
He didn’t deserve that kind of risk, and still the tether gleamed between them. Proof of her stubborn defiance.
They were far from the Accord building now, high in the Bronze Grounds, well beyond the reach of ordinary citizens.
The Black Quill had likely given up. He hoped so.
He dropped every barrier he’d been holding, keeping only the cloaking and illusion in place.
She still believed the golden thread belonged to Arkwyn or Bronze. Never him.
And he had no intention of correcting her. Not yet.
He lowered himself, casting a glamour as he stepped closer, boots scraping against stone. Every tremor in her stance reached him through the tether.
The clutch of her hands. The sway of her body. The slow bleed of fear into reluctant calm.
It told him she wouldn’t resist, even if he tried to pull her from the parapet.
Though he never would.
The realization both saddened and thrilled him.
He couldn’t tell which feeling belonged to him and which to the tether.
He had long stopped trying.
He cupped her cheek and drew her into his arms.
The tether curled around them like warmth made visible, a ribbon of certainty letting them remain long enough for his heartbeat to steady.
He was here.
She was here.
They were safe.
No pursuers. No questions.
No Accord. No Bronze.
Just Kion and Lunlun, bound by a thread neither could sever.
Free in their fragile bubble of reality.
And she had chosen, and somehow known, how to find him.
He still couldn’t understand it. How she traced his trail, how she reached him when no one should’ve been able to.
He almost cried, but held it back, swallowing the sniffle.
Five minutes passed, long and ragged, each heartbeat carved into the tension between vigilant panic and fragile exhale.
The golden thread dimmed, returning to invisible default, and his illusion dissipated. That quiet, delicate moment, threaded with relief and awareness of her risk, pressed against him in a new weightless calm.
“Thank you for coming,” he whispered.
She nodded against him, eyes still closed, arms circling his back.
He let a careful, small grin form as warmth bloomed in his chest, replacing fear and exhaustion with something he dared not name aloud.
