Fire Caught in Glass #3
I want to protect my children. I want to keep them as they are now—radiant, joyful, unafraid. My sweet, perfect boys.
—Ismene
Collin let out a long, measured breath. He closed his mother’s journal, folding away the final page, the final words she had ever written. Gently, he tucked the worn little volume into his book bag, sealing it shut like the lid of a memory box.
Leaning back, he pressed his head into the knotted bark of the old tree and closed his eyes. His lids were heavy, weighted by the grief that crept in like dusk. Though her words were now just faded ink on aging paper, her fear still clung to him—haunting the seams of every sentence.
At least she had been spared. She’d died before witnessing the horror she so deeply feared for her children. Before she could see the terror that came to pass—before her eldest son met such a senseless death, before her youngest’s soul was tested and failed.
Collin rubbed his eyes. The sun’s sharp reflection off the lake pierced through his lashes, pink and gold still dancing behind the darkness of his closed lids.
Above, hidden in the waxy canopy, a lovesick songbird trilled for an unseen mate—his sonnets bright and unrelenting. The midsummer heat pressed down, thick and breathless. Even the air felt suspended. As though the world itself were waiting.
So was Collin.
It was like standing on the threshold of a precarious echelon—between lifetimes, between selves.
Limbo. He went to work, kept the house in order, drank the herbal tea River prescribed to coax him into sleep.
But it was all rhythm without substance.
Inside, his body braced for an unnamed fear.
Some future that might crash into him without warning.
And he wasn't the only one. Everyone, in their own quiet way, seemed poised for a shift.
After the blow-up between Nic and Gravis, the once-beloved dinners had thinned and ultimately dissolved.
Clive had withdrawn once his aunt left. They all missed him, but no one dared tug him back—his mother needed him more.
River was buried in studies, preparing to become a full-fledged doctor. Every hour spoken for. Lekyi was vanishing into responsibility—now head of the junior stewards, forever on the move between villages.
Dragonfly he caught only in passing, her steps brisk, her face pale and drawn.
Overhead, the songbird was answered. A soft, tentative reply—his shy lover singing back. The call became a duet, airy and earnest, filled with sweetness and the na?ve promises of hope.
In the distance, the town's hum dimmed, as if blanketed by the heat. Collin sank deeper into the grass. The sun washed over his face in a slow, forgiving hush.
He considered going home.
But the light was too warm. The silence too kind. And his limbs, too heavy.
When Collin opened his eyes, a single shaft of sunlight beamed straight across his face, forcing him to squint. He must have dozed off—though not for long; the sun hadn’t climbed far.
He inhaled slowly. The summer air was thick with the scent of wet pebbles and narcissus blooming along the lakeshore—clean, sun-warmed, alive.
A movement—
He started, then laughed softly.
Dragonfly was sitting beside him. It must have been the rustle of her skirt, the trace of her fragrance, the heat of her nearness that roused him from sleep. He turned to her, smile stretching easily across his face.
She smiled back, but the light in her eyes was muted—like a glass pane dulled by dusk. Her knees were drawn up beneath her skirt, hands resting neatly on the fabric. Only the pointed tips of her shoes showed. They leaned together against the same tree, the silence between them easy.
He let his gaze drift back toward the lake.
For once, his mind wasn’t racing. No ghosts.
No claws dragging him into memory. Just the hush of sun on water and Dragonfly beside him.
It had been so long since they’d shared a sunset.
The last time... before White Wood, before everything.
Before their innocence had been cut into pieces.
“My sister is having a baby.”
He glanced at her, one brow lifting—but he said nothing. Her voice held more; she only needed space to give it shape.
After a moment, as she worried the strap of his book bag, she continued.
“My aunt’s furious. She thinks my sister should marry him.
He asked, but my sister said it wasn’t out of love.
That marrying out of fear or obligation would be worse than raising the child alone.
Part of me is proud of her. She’s strong.
But part of me—” Dragonfly’s voice broke off.
Her shoulders caved inward slightly, like the world had leaned in too hard.
Collin didn’t ask her to finish. He didn’t need to. The weight on her heart was already familiar. The whispers would start soon—Bluejay’s disgrace, dissected with quiet glee behind closed doors.
He remembered the fights as a boy—defending her family’s name with fists and fury. But they weren’t children anymore, and words had become the sharper weapons. What could he do now? How could he shield her?
He said nothing. Just found her hand and wrapped it in his own, firm and warm.
She leaned in gently, resting her head on his shoulder.
“I’m so thankful for you, Collin,” she whispered. “I always feel safe with you.”
Her hair tickled his cheek, but he didn’t move. He welcomed her weight, her trust. He loved her—always had—and somewhere in her guarded heart, he knew she loved him too.
“Is that what you want?” he asked quietly. “To wait until you find someone you can love truly?”
Dragonfly turned, a half-smile curving her lips. “I want to be loved wildly,” she said. “And love him back so much I can’t breathe without him.”
His heart didn’t stutter. No jolt of panic. Just a soft ache of knowing. He had always understood this about her—that she wouldn’t settle. And he admired her for it.
The only question now was whether she could ever love him like that.
She squeezed his hand before he could speak, her eyes already answering. “There’s too much changing,” she said softly. “Too many things I need to stay the same. For now... I need you just as you are.”
He nodded, the disappointment real—but quiet, tempered by grief. He knew she wasn't ready.
And he would keep waiting.
Because loving her wasn’t a transaction—it wasn’t something he could demand, or rush, or even fully understand.
It simply was. As constant as the tides, as patient as stone beneath weather.
If she needed steadiness, he would be still.
If she needed space, he would carve it out for her, even if it left an ache behind.
Love, he realized, wasn’t about pressing forward—it was about holding fast.
So he held her hand and said nothing. He let the moment stretch wide and quiet, and folded himself into it, anchoring there like a prayer with no expectation of return.
He slipped his arm around her shoulders. She nestled in closer.
Across the lake, the sky flared gold and coral over the glassy water. The air held its breath.
And for a little while, neither of them moved.
By the time Collin returned to his cottage in the lush meadow, the sun had long since taken his leave. The moon now ruled the sky, accompanied by her quiet constellation of stars—casting everything below in a pale, unwavering light.
Aries sat beneath the old oak, methodically sharpening a collection of blades, the sound of steel against stone crisp in the warm evening air. The cottage door stood ajar, held open by a rake, spilling amber candlelight into the yard like a welcome that never needed words.
Collin crossed the grass without speaking.
He sat beside his friend, reached into the bucket for a spare whetstone, and chose a blade of his own.
He dried it, braced the stone, and began to work—falling quickly into Aries’s rhythm.
Strike after strike. Two minds, one motion, years of quiet understanding.
“Did Dragonfly meet you at the lake?”
Collin gave a wry grin. “She did. Fifth day’s the charm.”
Aries chuckled softly. He inspected the knife in his hand, then swapped it for another. “Told you she would. You just needed patience.”
Patience. Yes.
“So... did you two sort things out?”
Collin shrugged. “Not exactly. I decided not to pursue her. Not now.”
Aries didn’t reply immediately—just nodded, faintly surprised.
Collin didn’t elaborate—not about Bluejay, not about the worry in Dragonfly’s eyes.
Aries would hear the gossip soon enough.
“If I chased her now,” he said instead, “it would be for the wrong reasons. And she might say yes for the wrong reasons. We’d be using each other to fill in the cracks.
” He paused, then glanced at Aries. “But when we’re both whole again. .. I’ll try. I’ll try like hell.”
Aries met his eyes, a look born from years of trust and conflict, of rivalry and camaraderie. “If Hadria were here, she’d call that very sensible. Speaking of—she made us dinner. It’s warming inside.”
Collin nodded, though he didn’t move. Hunger was a memory more than a sensation these days.
They worked in silence, the sharpening strokes falling into harmony with the music of crickets and starlight. The pile of knives slowly dwindled, but neither seemed in a hurry.
Eventually, Aries rose and headed inside. Collin remained, taking up the last blade.
He dragged it along the whetstone, listening to the hiss of metal meeting grit. The moon’s white glow gleamed across the steel’s surface—a glint too bright, too pure.
It reminded him of the light in his dreams. The burning flash that consumed everything.
But now, staring into the blade beneath the moonlight, it wasn’t fear filling his heart.
It was fire.