Chapter 51
FIFTY-ONE
CYAN
The sword lay across his lap, its familiar weight now utterly meaningless. He didn’t know why he still dragged the old thing around. He supposed some things were hard to let go of.
Cyan sat in his father’s old study, surrounded by the ghosts of his past. Morning light filtered through the window, casting shadows across the blade's surface. The golden vein that had glowed crimson to his eye back on Earendel was now dull and lifeless, a dead star.
He scoffed to himself. It had probably been in his head all along.
He’d spent hours in here over the past week, sorting through old family records. But really, he was hiding. From his family’s eager acceptance. From Elaina’s patient longing. From the truth about everything he’d believed.
Elaina was right—his family deserved to know what was coming. But every time he thought about telling them, his throat closed up. How could he explain that the force he’d spent his life believing was his divine purpose was actually corruption incarnate? That he’d abandoned his family chasing a lie ?
Through the window, he caught sight of Elaina in the garden with Daniel. She was kneeling in the dirt, letting the boy show her something—probably another plant or creature she’d never seen before. Her face lit up when Daniel pointed at something on the ground. Even without access to her beloved technology, she found ways to learn and connect the pieces of this world.
But she was struggling too. He could see it in the way she moved now, like she was hearing music he didn’t have privy to. He’d seen how she pressed her hand to her chest when she thought no one was looking, fighting whatever pulled at her.
“Uncle Cyan!”
Daniel’s voice snapped him from his brooding. The boy stood in the doorway, practically vibrating with excitement.
“El found something! You have to come see!”
Cyan sighed. He wished she could just stop looking for somethings and stay close, where it was safe.
He stood, sheathing the sword across his back. “Lead the way,” he told Daniel.
They found her past the edge of the property, crouched before a strange growth of mushrooms arranged in a perfect circle. The rings reminded him of old fables, marking places where the veil between worlds grew thin.
“Isn’t it cool?!” Daniel tugged at Cyan’s sleeve, dragging him closer. “I’ve never seen that kind before.”
The mushrooms’ caps gleamed with an unnatural iridescence that made Cyan’s skin crawl.
“The colors remind me of the wormhole!” Elaina looked up at him, beaming. Her fingers hesitated just above the fungi, not quite touching.
They were too far from the house.
“We should go,” Cyan said, perhaps too sharply. Daniel looked up at him in surprise, and Elaina opened her mouth to speak.
But a deep, guttural snuffle from further in the trees made them all freeze. Years of instinct made Cyan draw his blade before his mind even registered why. The ground vibrated with each heavy step approaching through the undergrowth.
“Daniel, run,” he heard Elaina say. He was about to tell her to run too, but turned around just to see her grabbing Priad’s collar, hauling back the snarling warg from whatever was coming with all the strength she had.
“Elaina—” Cyan barked, but it was too late.
The boar erupted from the shadows. An irradiated mutant warped by centuries of exposure to Gaia’s ancient waste sites, its tusks were grotesquely malformed and scored with old kills. Patches of its hide were burnt raw, glowing with the same sickly green light as its fevered eyes.
Cyan stepped forward, but the boar ignored him. Instead, it charged straight for Elaina.
Time slowed. He saw her stumble backward and fall as Priad wrenched himself out of her grip, saw those massive tusks bearing down on her with lethal force. His body moved without thought. The sword—useless thing that it was—felt suddenly alive in his hands as he threw himself between them, driving the blade up into the beast’s throat with every ounce of strength he possessed. The boar’s momentum nearly took him off his feet, but Cyan held firm, twisting the thing deeper as the creature's dying shriek split the air.
The beast crashed to the ground. Cyan hoisted his blade free, blood spraying from the hole. Cyan was at Elaina's side in an instant, his hands roaming all over her.
“Are you hurt?” His voice came out gruffer than he’d intended. When she shook her head silently, eyes wide, he hauled her against his chest, his heart thundering. He’d almost lost her.
“No,” she mumbled into his tunic. “Are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay,” she sighed as he checked her all over once more. “We’re okay.”
But they weren’t okay. Cyan gripped her shoulders and held her out at arm’s length, glowering down at her. “I told you not to wander off.”
“I’m sorry,” she breathed. “I just?—”
“You put yourself in danger. And Daniel!”
“I know,” she snapped, her eyes glistening as she jerked away from his hold. “I said I’m sorry.”
Cyan shook his head, rubbing a hand along his jaw. “We have to go. Now.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her from the steaming corpse, leading her away. She wouldn’t be coming back here. Not alone. Not ever.
But as they walked back to the house, Cyan couldn’t help but notice how she drifted slightly in front, her steps sure despite what had just happened. He recognized that certainty of direction—he’d faked it for years. Even now, watching her walk ahead, he wanted nothing more than to reach for her and run far from whatever end was racing toward them. And he’d do it, if he thought there were anywhere left to go.
That night, after everyone else had gone to bed, Cyan was back in the study.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” he whispered to the empty room. Elaina could’ve died that day. And sure, the boar probably had nothing to do with the Architect, though Nila said one wandering out this far from the old accident site was increasingly rare. There were just so many things that could kill her. The encounter was a sobering reminder of what he had to lose.
A soft knock at the door made him turn. Elaina stood wrapped in one of his sister’s old knitted shawls, the blue yarn having faded with the decades.
“Can’t sleep?” she asked, padding over to him.
“Just thinking.”
She came to stand beside him, her hip brushing the desk. “About what?”
“About how I used to think this thing gave me some… duty to humanity,” he rolled his eyes, gesturing to the sword lying on his father’s desk.
Elaina sighed. “I’m sorry about today. I shouldn’t have gone off like that. You were right. I put Daniel in danger. And you. I was just curious, and?—”
“—I know. I’m just afraid of losing you to something I can’t protect you from.”
She looked at him, through him. “You don’t have to protect me from fate, Cyan. You just have to be here with me while we face it.”
The quiet truth resonated through the hollow inner spaces he’d been excavating. He pulled her into his lap, burying his face in her hair. Where his sword lay cold and meaningless, she radiated life.
“I’m here,” he breathed against her hair. “I’m sorry I’m not better at showing it.”
She held him tighter, understanding everything he couldn’t say.