Chapter 9 #2
Mud churned beneath my boots, slick with blood. The scent of death was thick in the air, iron and rot and burned magic. The ground quaked with impact after impact, shockwaves rattling through my bones.
And there, at the centre of it all, stood Varyth.
The same silver hair swept back from his face, the same impossible calm written into the sharp lines of his body. Mist coiled around him, rippling with power.
Across from him, a Nyxarian commander. Devastatingly beautiful. Dark hair braided back from her face, her midnight black armour gleaming beneath the red-streaked sky. She looked like vengeance given flesh, and she was smiling as she raised her sword.
Behind her, Nyxarian soldiers surged forward.
They tore through Varyth’s forces like wildfire, like beasts. Soldiers in Luceren gold fell screaming, weapons clattering as they were cut down—burned, gutted, ripped apart by magic and blade alike.
I could hear them. The cries. The orders. The begging.
And over it all, the silence of Varyth’s stance.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t beg.
He watched.
The Nyxarian commander—gods, she didn’t look any older than me—lunged at him. Her sword wreathed in swirling ash.
Varyth caught the blade in his bare hand. It didn’t pierce his skin.
The woman faltered. Just for a second.
And in that second, the battlefield shifted.
Mist exploded outward from Varyth, tearing through Nyxarian lines, howling like a storm made of rage. Soldiers screamed as they were hurled backward, their armour shredded, their magic drowned.
But it wasn’t enough. There were too many. And they didn’t stop. The slaughter continued. Even with his retaliation, even with the elemental violence that Varyth unleashed, the bodies of his soldiers piled high.
Luceren soldiers died with honour.
Nyxarian warriors killed with delight.
There was no mercy here. No heroism. Only blood, ruin, and the brutal, unforgiving truth.
This wasn’t the noble war I’d read about in books. And I wasn’t sure whose side history had been written by… but I was beginning to suspect it hadn’t been his.
I snapped back into the room with a jolt.
The sudden quiet was too loud. I staggered, my hand clenched around the orb, breath sawing in my lungs as if I’d been the one fighting, bleeding, on that battlefield.
Varyth stood across from me, unmoving, but watching with that measured gaze of his. His ashen hair caught the firelight, his posture perfectly composed. But his eyes…
Gods, his eyes.
They were tired. A quiet understanding that came from having lived through too much, seen too much. The weight of history pressed behind that expression, and it was so at odds with the commander I had seen.
This version of him, this Varyth, was different.
Older. Quieter. Maybe even sadder.
I loosened my grip on the orb, setting it back into the cradle. My fingers trembled as I withdrew them.
“Gods,” I whispered. “That—none of the books—”
“They wouldn’t.”
“You… you let them die.”
“I let them fight.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Regret?” he echoed, soft, distant. “Regret is a story you tell yourself when you think you still have time.” He exhaled slowly. “I did what I thought was necessary. That is the only truth history allows.”
I studied him, searching for some hint of the truth beneath his composed words. “That’s not an answer.”
The whisper of a smile touched his lips. “No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”
The air between us hummed with the memory of that battlefield. When Varyth finally spoke, his voice was low enough to preserve the hush of the library.
“I have something else for you.”
My fingers tightened on the edge of the shelf. Wariness flared bright in my chest. “What?”
From the pocket of his tunic he drew a slim object. Metal gleamed faintly in the firelight, shaped like a fountain pen but heavier, older, something with purpose carved into its bones. He turned it once in his hand, then looked at me.
“I told you the magic you hold might be powerful,” he said, calm as ever, though the words pressed hard against me. “Powerful enough your form might struggle to contain it. If you’ll allow me, I’d like to give you something that will help you control it.”
Every muscle in me tensed. “And what exactly would that be?”
“A mark,” he replied smoothly. He stepped closer, lifting his hand, and his fingertip brushed lightly behind my ear. The smallest touch, but it sparked across my nerves like lightning. “Here. Subtle. But it will help you keep control when the power manifests.”
Suspicion curled in my throat. “And how do I know this isn’t some fae mind-control trick?”
He laughed—quiet, rich, and utterly maddening. “You don’t, I suppose. But if I wanted to control your mind, there are easier ways to do it. And I probably would have done it sooner.”
My mouth twisted. “How comforting.” Amusement flickered in his features as I muttered, “Fine. Only so I don’t die from whatever supposed magic you’re worried about.”
He inclined his head, that faint mocking curve to his lips. “So gracious.”
And then he leaned in. Close enough that his breath skimmed across my cheek as he lifted the pen-like tool. I held myself perfectly still as he drew against my skin, the press precise, almost reverent.
The mark burned as it sank in, heat lancing through me, gone as quickly as it came, leaving only a faint sting.
“There,” he said, satisfied. “Done.”
He moved then, stepping away, creating distance between us. The moment—whatever it had been—was broken, replaced by the familiar, careful formality that was his default.
“Read the book, Isara,” he said, his tone lighter now, almost dismissive. “Then find me.”
I watched him retreat. Just before he reached the library door, he paused, glancing back over his shoulder. “Dinner is at sundown,” he reminded me. “Don’t be late.”
And then he was gone, leaving me alone with the weight of his words and the book in my hands.
I waited. Listened.
The sound of Varyth’s footsteps faded down the corridor. He wasn’t coming back. Still, I hesitated, glancing toward the library door with a wariness I couldn’t quite shake.
Then I moved. I darted across the room, my fingers brushing against the polished wood of the long table where he had left his book.
I picked it up, flipping it over. The cover was dark, the spine worn, pages frayed.
And the title—
Written in a language that meant nothing to me. Except for one word.
Braerlith.
My heart stopped. A coincidence. It had to be. The truth rose like bile, but I kept it down. Just barely. He had spoken of wars, of strategy, of history—there were a thousand reasons why Braerlith might be in the book.
It didn’t have to be about me. But as I flipped through the pages, my stomach sank. Maps. Bloodlines. Dates. My throat tightened.
This was a history of Braerlith. He was reading about my home.
What was he looking for? What had he found?
I scanned the pages, trying to make sense of the foreign words, of the diagrams, of the lines connecting names and houses and monarchs together in intricate webs.
I didn’t think. I acted.
I shoved the book between the others on the shelf, wedging it deep behind volumes thicker, heavier, older. A haphazard hiding place, but it would do.
I exhaled and pressed a hand to my chest, trying to calm the frantic rhythm of my heartbeat.
Then I stepped back, taking one last glance at the shelf.
The book was gone from sight, hidden among the others. But the weight of it remained.
I forced myself to take a slow breath, squaring my shoulders.
Read the book, Isara. Then find me.
His voice lingered in my mind, but now, I wondered if I truly wanted to know what else he had already learned.
The hum started again as I stood there, staring at the shelf where I’d hidden his book. That low, vibrating pull that seemed to rise from the very bones of the castle, threading through stone and mortar.
I’d learned to tune it out, background noise, like the whisper of wind through leaves. But now, with my heart hammering from what I’d discovered, the melody pressed against my consciousness like a living thing.
What was he looking for in that book? What had he already found?
The questions clawed at me, sharp and insistent. Braerlith. My home. The place I’d fled from, the life I’d left behind, all of it mapped out in diagrams and foreign script on Varyth’s reading table.
The hum grew stronger, more insistent. It wound through my ribs, settled beneath my sternum like a second heartbeat. And for the first time since crossing the Veil, I didn’t fight it.
I hummed back.
Just a breath of sound, barely audible even to myself. A single note that rose from somewhere deep in my chest and spilled into the library’s hushed air.
The hum, whatever it was, wherever it came from—responded.
What had been a distant melody suddenly bloomed into something vast and complex and alive.
Harmonies spiralled around my tentative note, weaving through it, lifting it, transforming it into something beautiful and strange and utterly impossible.
It was like the world itself had been waiting for me to sing back.
The music flowed through the walls, through the very air, until everything around me thrummed with it.
The books on the shelves seemed to pulse in rhythm.
The firelight danced in time with the melody.
Even the dust motes floating in the afternoon light moved like they were choreographed to this impossible symphony.
And beneath it all, woven through every note and harmony, was something that felt like welcome. Like recognition. Like the world saying finally, you’re listening.
My panic over Varyth’s book began to ebb.
The music didn’t lie to me. Didn’t promise that everything would be fine or that Varyth’s research was harmless. But it wrapped around my fear like a blanket, holding it steady until I could breathe around it.
I hummed another note, longer this time. More confident.
The harmonies swelled in response, and I could swear I felt the castle’s pleasure at my participation. Like it had been lonely, singing to itself for centuries, and finally had someone to sing with.
What are you? I thought, not really expecting an answer.
But the music shifted, became more complex. And threaded through the melody, almost too quiet to catch, was something that might have been words. Or maybe just the suggestion of words, the shape of meaning without the burden of language.
Home, it seemed to whisper. Safe. Yours, if you want it.
Whatever Varyth was looking for, whatever he thought he’d found? I would deal with it. I would ask my questions and demand my answers and make him tell me the truth.
But not today. Today, I would let the music hold me. Let it remind me that I was no longer running, no longer hiding in caves and fighting for scraps.
I was here. In this impossible place that sang to me like I belonged.