42. Calis
CALIS
Auria mourns loudly when it wants to hide its fear.
Bells toll across the city, their echoes bleeding through the marble corridors of the Lampas Cathedral like a wound that won’t close.
Outside on the balcony, banners of white and gold ripple above the crowd—a tapestry of browns, creams and whites staring back at me.
Every Auranian carries a candle, their flames guttering in the wind like a sea of light pretending not to tremble.
The gold-topped spires of the Guild Hall glisten in the height of the midday sun—our favoured hour. From up here, the city looks calm, peaceful. Yet the unease is growing, and it must be contained.
I stand at the high window of the sanctum, watching the procession snake toward the Temple Square. Solmir’s body lies on the bier—silver and still, sealed within a crystal coffin. His mask, the blazing sun, rests atop his chest. Even in death, he outshines us all.
My robes sweep the floor as I turn back toward the Cathedral’s heart to peer into the Lumen Well.
Its surface is a mirror of light, glimmering with a pearly white sheen that pushes back the shadows.
The structure, carved from pristine marble and embedded with pulsing, luminescent runes, calls to something deep within me.
No matter how many times I stand before it, I am still captivated. It has never rejected me.
Until now.
People need a spectacle, Uri had said after Solmir’s death. Grief is the easiest sermon. And in grief, they are easier to control.
He isn’t wrong. Still, the sight of Solmir’s cold, dead body sickens me—not because he is dead, but because he should have been untouchable. Our deaths are not meant to come so easily.
The air here hums with instability. Even the Well has been restless since his passing—rippling with an agitation that makes its light flicker with uncertainty.
Fine threads of gold web the floor like leaking veins.
Every hour, the pulse grows weaker. The Light is dying, and we are merely painting smiles over the corpse.
I begin the descent toward the Well. The altar stone is smooth and slick under my palm.
Warmth thrums beneath my skin, followed immediately by a sharp, searing flash of pain that travels up my arm to the sun sigils branded at my wrist. The Well answers with an uneven shudder of light that makes my teeth ache.
Balance is broken, it seems to say.
Uri enters without ceremony, his robes sighing across the floor. He carries no candle, only the scent of incense and honey.
“Is everything prepared for Solmir’s descent through the Lumen?” I ask.
“It is—but I will not watch the spectacle. Our dearest companion’s light has already set, Calis,” he replies. “There’s no need to stare at the ashes.”
I stare in disbelief, as if struck by an invisible hand. “We are the Triarch; Solan’s Luminaries of Light. We must show a united front—now more than ever. People will question their safety. We must be the ones to reassure them.”
His winged mask does nothing to conceal the way the skin around his eyes narrows. A hidden smile pressing behind his gold-flecked amber gaze.
“As you wish, Calis. We will move quickly—for everyone’s peace.”
His calm infuriates me, sending the flame within to sputter. “The city is afraid. They whisper that the darkness has returned—that the old goddess walks again.” My fists clench in the sleeves of my robe. “We must squash these rumours before they breed unrest.”
“Let them whisper. I have taken steps to prevent her from causing more destruction.”
I shift my head, trying to find his eyes through the winged mask. “You sent your hound, Riven, to hunt her?”
“Yes.”
“Without the Council’s consent?”
He fumbles with his sleeve, stepping closer to the Well. “Consent is…slow. The Light requires immediacy—something I thought you, of all people, would understand.”
I move toward him, lowering my voice to a hiss. “You act as though you command the Well itself?”
“Perhaps I do,” he murmurs, avoiding my gaze. “Perhaps the Light has chosen a new acolyte to favour.”
Balance, he says. Yet balance smells suspiciously like advantage.
“Blasphemy.”
“Pragmatism.” He tilts his head, a faint shimmer of light escaping from the runes beneath his mask.
“You feel it too, don’t you? The hum in your bones, the tremor in the flame.
Solmir’s death has left a void.” His fingers trace the marble of the altar.
“Solan requires three of us to maintain order—unless one can prove themselves worthy of more.”
My eyebrow raises at the sheer arrogance of his claim. “And you believe it should be you?”
“I believe it already is.”
My hand tightens on the altar’s edge. For a heartbeat, I hesitate; the ritual that once steadied me feels hollow. The Lumen Well flares in response—gold light filters through the cracks, matching the anger rising in my chest.
“You play with fire, Uri.”
“That’s all the light ever was,” he says, turning to leave. His voice threads through the air like silk and smoke. “Keep the people praying, Calis. I will keep them believing."
He walks away, his white robes hissing across the marble. I fall to my knees before the altar. The sigils at my wrist burn sharper now—hot as an accusation. The Well answers with a single, tremulous flare, then goes quiet.
Balance is broken, it whispers again. And you know why.
“Then we will restore it,” I say aloud, though the echo sounds smaller than the claim. “Even if it means burning the darkness from the bones of the world.”
I do not question who decides what counts as dark. The Well’s light shivers in reply, as if testing whether I mean it.