Chapter Three #2
“No, where am—”
A hand lifts, not fast, not aggressive. Just a flick of his wrist and the rest of my sentence vanishes in my throat. I try again, my mouth moves, but no sound follows. Like the air’s been sealed shut behind my lips.
“Have a seat,” he repeats. Still smiling but this time it's clear it's a command and not a suggestion.
A scratch as my nails dig into my palm. I don’t want to sit. I want to yell, to run, to get the hell out of here. But the words won’t come. Voice locked behind clenched teeth, tongue heavy, magic just as useless.
Plus there’s something about his eyes, familiar in a way that makes me pause.
And he doesn’t look like he’s about to fight me.
He’s alone. No officers, though I doubt he needs them.
If he wants to talk? Fine. Buys me time.
And I’m going to need every second if I’ve got any chance of avoiding a one-way trip to the dragons.
The bed creaks as I lower myself—hips barely touching the edge, spine rigid, heels planted, every muscle drawn tight. Ready. Just in case.
He follows suit, watching me in silence as he moves across the room and pulls out a chair from the desk beside me. The scrape of wood over stone cuts through the stillness like a blade.
“You know,” He leans back, one leg crosses over the other.
Hands resting lightly in his lap with an ease that doesn’t match the moment.
“I’ve been rather impressed with what you’ve managed to get up to over the past few years.
All those little crossings… slipping over the border like a shadow.
” He smiles again, like he means it. Like this is praise.
“It’s not something many people could boast about. ..”
I blink. Hands tighten against my thighs, not from pride, but frustration. The words are there, burning to get out. Demands. Questions. Maybe even a scream. But my mouth stays shut. Sealed tight.
“But if you thought it would be that easy… slipping across,” he continues, eyes locked on mine as he leans in. “Then I’m afraid you’ve been a bit of a fool. Because the only reason you ever made it across, is because I allowed it. Because I’ve been watching you, Lyra.” A pause. “For years.”
For a second, he doesn’t move, just holds my gaze. Then, finally, he leans back, calm as ever, and lifts his fingers. Barely more than a flick, and the pressure behind my tongue snaps. It’s not violent. Just gone.
“There we are. You may speak now.” He says it like it’s a privilege, not a right. “I imagine you have… questions. But if that quick tongue of yours gets out of hand I’ll be forced to turn it off again.”
I drag in another breath, testing the air like it might vanish again. It doesn’t. But the words don’t come either. Now that I can speak… I don’t know what the fuck to say first.
The silence stretches. He just sits there, not impatient, not indulgent. Just... waiting. My mouth opens, still nothing comes.
“Okay, how about this?” he offers, like he’s doing me a favour.
“I know you’ve been slipping across the border.
Stealing Spice and the occasional dragon scale.
And I know how long you’ve been doing it for.
But...” He uncrosses his legs, elbows resting lightly on his knees, hands interlacing.
“I also know what lives inside you, Lyra. I know the potential you hold. The kind of magic most people wouldn’t survive, let alone carry.
” A pause. “So I have a proposition for you.
.. I'd like you to come and serve at the Citadel.”
I laugh. It slips out before I can stop it, piercing, instinctive, and a little too loud. But at least I know my voice works again.
“I think I’d rather be Reassigned than serve the Citadel,” I spit, eyes narrow. “So I’ll pass. But thanks for the offer.”
This time he laughs, a small chuckle. The corners of his eyes crease slightly, and for a second, it throws me—because it doesn’t feel mocking. It almost feels genuine.
“I thought you would say that,” he replies. “You sounded just like her, you know, your mother.”
The words hit hard, a cold ripple tearing through my composure. Whatever I was about to say flatlines, and for a moment I can only stare, trapped in the sudden stillness.
“You’re lying.” Is all I finally manage.
“I thought you would say that too.” His smile lingers and then, to my surprise, grows. Not smug, not cruel. Just... real.
But I don’t trust it, so I straighten, shoulders squaring. “You don’t know my mum, she never served at the Citadel. She hated the Innerlands. Hated everything you stood for. She left as soon as she could and crossed over to the Outerlands.”
He nods once, like he’s heard this before.
“Well, yes, that’s partly true.” He unlaces his hands.
“She did come to hate it. And when she met your father, when she fell pregnant with you, yes, she left, ran off to the Outerlands. But the part that isn’t true, I’m afraid, is that she absolutely did serve here.
.. And not just that...” his eyes narrow in on mine, steady and unblinking “...she was one of our best.”
No, no, that isn't true. It can’t be. Everything I know about my mum—which isn’t much, granted, but enough—tells me she hated this place.
Hated what it stood for. The Citadel. The Innerlands.
All of it. My fists tighten, the whole moment pulls taut, fury bleeding through me. “You think I’m going to believe—”
I start, but he moves, hand slipping into the folds of his red robe pulling something free.
Small. Leather-bound. Looks like a journal.
He turns it over in his hands, thumbs brushing the cover with care like it’s something precious. Then, without a word, he leans forward and offers it to me.
I hesitate, but there’s something in his posture that makes me take it. The leather is soft with age, velvet-worn from fingers that turned these pages long before mine.
“When your mother met your father,” he says, softer now, “when she chose to leave this life behind and cross the border… I had hoped she might return someday.”
I’m listening, but my eyes drift to the journal in my hands. It’s heavier than it looks.
“Then I heard about the fire,” he goes on. “I heard about you.” His gaze meets mine, then drops to the journal. “Go on,” he nods. “Open it.”
I hesitate again. Just for a second. Not sure what I’m about to find. Then my fingers move, finding the knot of string at the spine and slowly I start to unbind it.
“When I learned she had passed...” He exhales, low. “I felt so much guilt. Guilt that I hadn’t done more. Guilt that I hadn’t convinced her to stay. To come back.”
The knot in the string comes loose, but the one in my chest tightens. Because the second I open the journal, it hits me. Not the words. Not even the pages. Just… the handwriting.
It’s hers.
I’d know it anywhere. Bold strokes, slanted just enough to look like she was always in a hurry. My heart skips a beat.
“This is just one, Lyra, there are more. Ten, to be exact. Turns out your mother was quite the prolific writer.”
“How…?” The word scrapes out as my eyes stay fixed on the page. “Where did you get this?”
“After the fire, I visited. To see what could be… salvaged. You were already gone, but the house—what was left of it, what was still standing... I took what I could.”
“I’ll give it to you straight.” His expression is still warm, uncomfortably so. But his tone shifts, colder now, more direct. “If you try to leave now, they’ll Reassign you. No hearing. No delay. You were caught red-handed at the border, Lyra, and there’s no walking away from that.”
A quiet thrum starts up inside me, but the journal’s weight keeps the panic grounded.
“Or—” he continues, like this is just business now. “You accept my offer, and start as a second-year cadet in service to the Citadel for one month.”
He pauses, eyes lingering like he’s trying to read my reaction—but I don’t flinch. Just keep my face still, spine straight, and give him nothing. So he goes on.
“One month. That’s all I’m asking. You stay.
Train. Learn. And if, at the end of it, you decide this life isn’t for you.
.. I’ll let you walk. No questions. No consequences.
You go home with all ten journals. Back to the Outerlands, back to whatever life you were building for yourself. If you can call it that.”
My eyes narrow. He’s offering too much. He has every reason to throw me to the dragons, yet he’s giving me a deal? Why? There’s no such thing as generosity without reason, not in places like this. Not unless he’s hiding something. Or hoping I’ll miss what he’s really after.
“I know how you feel about the Innerlands.” He adds. “About this place. It’s justified considering where you’re from. I won’t argue that. But this,” he gestures around the room, the Citadel. “This is not an offer you want to dismiss.”
His white brows are furrowed, pale blue eyes, cold as ice. But there’s also something else behind them. Not manipulation. Not threat. Something heavier. Sincerity?
“Innerlanders train their whole lives for a chance at what you’re being handed.
Most never make it. Many die just trying.
The chance to learn their Threads. To listen to them, use them, shape the world with them.
” He pauses. “And I know you feel it too. That pull inside you. That magical pressure building. You’ve been surviving it so far.
But wouldn’t you rather learn how to control it? Focus it, grow it?”
I stare down at the journal, the rhythm in my chest faster now as my fingers trail the edge of the paper.
God, I’ve never had this much. Not about her.
Not about me. For fourteen years, the most I’ve had are fragments—burned memories, whispers, rumours.
And now there’s this. Ten of them. Her thoughts.
Her life. Her secrets. All of it, right here.
“One month?” I ask, brows pinched. “What’s in it for you?”
He leans forward, voice dips low. “There are darker things in this world than whispered rumours of rebellion, Lyra. Shadows that don’t care about borders or bloodlines.
Things that don’t care where you come from—only what you are.
” My breath stills. He doesn’t blink. “I see it in you. The chaos. The power. You think it’s a flaw, something to cage or outrun.
But it isn’t. It’s a weapon. And you could own it.
Not just to uphold the peace,” he adds, softer now.
“But to protect the ones no one else will. Your people. The ones back home who don’t have Citadel walls or council names.
The ones still fighting just to survive. ”
“But I’m an Outerlander—”
“Yes, but you were born to an Innerlander who served here for years, and moreover was well respected.” He leans back in his chair, calm and composed, like he’s already won.
“Believe it or not, Lyra, you’re one of us.
One month, that’s all I’m asking. Stay. Train.
And if you walk at the end of it, fine. You walk.
No strings, you get the journals and no one follows. ”
My chest pulls tight, a sour taste rising in the back of my throat.
I’m not one of them. The Citadel is everything I hate, everything I was raised to despise.
This morning, I wouldn’t have even entertained the idea of negotiation, let alone enlistment.
I don’t trust him. Not even close. Every word out of his mouth feels curated, calculated.
That speech—about peace, shadows, about what I could be—it wasn’t meant to move me, it was to manipulate me.
He wants to shape me into something useful, something dangerous.
A weapon forged from grief and guilt, pointed wherever the Citadel needs it most.
But then there’s this. My grip tightens around the journal as it rests heavy in my lap, a slow ache blooming in my chest. Inside, potentially, everything I’ve spent my life aching to know…
But who am I kidding? Let’s be honest, what choice do I actually have? It’s not about what I want. Or don’t want. I either agree... or get thrown to the dragons.
“One month?” I echo, jaw locked.
The room still reeks—mildew, cold, and quiet deception. But the journal in my hands is warm. Heavy. Real.
“Fine.” I force the word out, and the second it lands, my stomach twists.