The air no longer shimmered with heat and dust. It hung heavy instead, thick with damp and the faint metallic tang of the sea. The horizon burned pale gold, but the light carried a chill.
It had been eight days since the first tremor. Less since the cliff split beneath them.
Deyar’s commands were clipped, precise. Rhelas hunched over his saddle during halts, scratching frantic notes that seemed to darken the air around him. Julen, for once, had little to say.
Lyra watched the road.
Much of it bore fresh gouges torn through stone, half-buried cart wheels abandoned in the dust. In one stretch the surface glittered faintly. Like sugar scattered across stone.
Except it wasn’t. It was tiny shards of glass.
Eventually Eryssan rose before them, the city crouched between sea and mountain, its towers lit like watchful eyes. But one was broken.
The eastern spire was split near its peak, pale scaffolding webbed around it like a bandage. The air above it shimmered faintly, distortion still clinging where sigil-fire had burned too hot, too long.
The tremor must have reached here too. Lyra exhaled, unease settling in her chest.
Deyar’s jaw tightened as they passed through the outer gate. The guards saluted, but the gesture was hollow. Their gazes lingered on Caelith before sliding quickly away.
Inside, the city had changed.
The markets still bustled. Messengers still ran. Hooves still struck stone. But beneath it all pulsed something brittle, a a tension that smelled of salt and burnt resin.
Some buildings bore cracks that glowed faintly. Whispers followed them through the streets, stories of people waking with glass dust on their skin.
In the northern quarter, a section of street had been cordoned with rope and runic wards. The flagstones there were splintered and fused into translucent shards. Someone had built a small shrine beside it, candles guttering against the wind.
No one had cleared the glass from the streets. No one wanted to touch it.
They went first to the Archive.
The white dome loomed as it always had, unbroken at a glance, but as Lyra mounted the steps, she saw it: a hairline fissure trailing across one of the lower stones. Small, but visible.
Inside, the council’s summons waited.
They were questioned at length about their visit to Meridon. The chamber was thick with accusation and fear. Lyra, Rhelas and Julen gave the reports they had scribbled throughout the journey, their testimonies picked apart line by line. Arguments flared about containment, blame, summoning more Umbralyn to the outer ring.
Lyra continued to speak and write until her ink and throat ran dry.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Deyar and Rhelas were kept longer. Julen vanished toward the side rooms of the Archive before she even left the hall, though she’d expected him to wait for her.
Caelith gave his testimony separately.
Lyra found herself wondering what he’d said. Whether he had spoken honestly about how he’d been treated. Whether the council had listened or if they carried the same quiet judgement she’d seen in the guards’ eyes.
She wondered, too, if he had mentioned saving Rhelas’s life.
Lyra’s new quarters lay beneath the Archive’s north wing; smaller than before, the walls faintly smelling of chalk and sea air. A lantern burned low on her desk. Her satchel waited beside it.
The sight of her notebooks made her throat tighten unexpectedly.
It had been barely a week since they left for Meridon. And yet the world felt older. Much older. She unpacked slowly.
A knock at the door startled her. Could it be…
When she opened it, Julen stood there, hair uncombed, eyes bright with fatigue.
“They’re recalibrating all fragment readings,” he said quickly. “The tremors altered their resonance. The old glyph frequencies aren’t matching.”
“Altered how?”
He leaned closer, lowering his voice.
“They hum now. Not when activated - all the time. You can’t always hear them. Some are louder than others. But enough to know things have changed
Lyra felt a chill.
“Lyra,” he leaned in closer. “The thing is… it’s as if they’re remembering something.”
He left before she could answer.
***
By morning, the laboratory wings were alive, but not with their old rhythm.
Scholars worked in tense pairs. Hands stained with ink and fine glass dust. The fragments, mirrored slivers cut from the Fracture’s edge, lay scattered across tables, emitting faint, discordant tones.
When Lyra reached for one, it trembled beneath her glove, light pulsing through it like a heartbeat.
“It shouldn’t do that,” Julen muttered, recording figures. “They’ve never reacted unprovoked.”
“Maybe it isn’t unprovoked,” Lyra said quietly.
He frowned, but she didn’t explain.
Across the hall, a containment circle snapped with a sharp crack. Shards skittered across the floor. Someone swore. Someone else began to pray.
Through it all, the fragments seemed to pulse in faint, uneven harmony. If you listened carefully, it almost sounded like a voice trying to form.
Lyra glanced instinctively toward the laboratory doors.
For a moment she half-expected Caelith to appear there, drawn by the disturbance the way he had been on the road.
But the doorway remained empty. Julen followed her gaze.
“Expecting someone?” he asked lightly.
Lyra shook her head and returned to her work.
By evening, Lyra’s ears rang, her fingertips tingled with a faint heat.
She found herself alone in her room, thinking about the road to Meridon, the way Caelith had ridden ahead of the group, silent as shadow, yet always aware of them.
He had spoken so little, and yet every word had carried weight.
She wasn’t sure why, but she felt she could see him more clearly than the others did. She couldn’t see the same hatred they carried. Perhaps she didn’t trust him. Perhaps she simply wanted to understand him.
The feeling lingered long enough that she decided to write to her father. She had not done so since arriving in Eryssan.
The storm rolled in as she dipped her pen. Rain struck the window in silver threads, thunder murmuring beyond the mountains. The city’s wards pulsed in uneven waves beneath it all; a heartbeat not entirely steady. She began her letter.
Dearest Father,
I’m writing from Eryssan and I’m safe. I need you to know that first.
She wrote of tremors. Of fractured wards. Of scholars arguing and soldiers recalled.
Her hand slowed.
There’s talk of more Umbralyn being summoned to guard the spires and the Fracture itself. Some here don’t trust them, but I…
The ink hovered. She saw him in firelight. In falling dust. In silence.
I’ve met one. He’s not what they say.
The words looked fragile on the page.
Or perhaps he is, and I simply cannot see it yet.
She stared at the line.
Outside, thunder cracked sharp and sudden, startling her. As if to distract herself from her thoughts trailing, she sealed the letter before she could strike the sentence out. And as the wax cooled beneath her thumb, the desk trembled.
Just slightly.
Her breath caught. From somewhere deep within the Archive, a low note thrummed.