Page 63

Julen smiled, both tired and sincere. “Well, I’ll always be on yours.”

She laughed under her breath, something in her chest easing despite herself.

The door opened. Selinne stopped just inside the threshold, eyes flicking instinctively to their joined hands. Maia pulled back at once, colour rising in her cheeks, though she couldn’t quite understand why.

Selinne took in the scene and said nothing. But her expression did something complicated, more careful than surprise or warmth, as though she’d just added a new line to a list she was keeping without meaning to.

She thinks I’m hiding something from her, Maia realised. And she’s right.

Because some things did not need to be spoken to be understood.

26

Anchors Lost

Maia had expected Caelith in the Archive.

There was too much she needed to ask him; too many questions that had gathered overnight. She was completely restless, all nerves this morning. But when she pushed open the heavy doors, the room was empty.

Something didn’t feel right. The shadows leaned differently, the lanterns kept flickering unevenly. Even the fragments felt wrong beneath her skin, their quiet rhythm missing their steady counterpoint.

Instead, Orell sat at the end of their worktable. He didn’t rise as she entered, only looked up from the table with a measured, unreadable expression.

“Colwyn,” he said. “We need to speak.”

She stiffened, a familiar tangle of dread curling in her chest. “About the fragments?” she asked, careful, casual. Too careful, perhaps.

Orell shook his head. “Not entirely,” he sighed. “You are to be reassigned.”

“Reassigned?” Her stomach tightened. “To what? To where?”

Her mind snapped forward, spinning with questions. The pulse of the fragments under her fingers seemed to quicken, anxious, like they too felt the shift. She clenched her fists briefly, forcing herself to breathe evenly even as the edges of panic teased at her control.

“That will be arranged. A new partner will be with you. Another Umbralyn.” He said the word without emphasis, but it carried a subtle menace, testing her reaction.

Maia blinked. A new Umbralyn. Her mind flipped instantly to Caelith. Where was he?

“And what about the other Umbralyn?”

Orell’s silver-edged robes rustled as he leaned slightly forward. “You should not concern yourself with him. His duties are his own.”

“Of course,” she said, but the words felt bitter in her mouth.

Her reassignment was swift. Orell handed her a marked parchment, new sectors, new fragment clusters recorded since the quake. She followed the escort out.

The new Umbralyn waited at the meeting point: tall, his cloak a deep, unfaded black rather than Caelith’s storm grey, his black hair pulled back in a tight, severe braid rather than falling loose the way Caelith’s did. His features were sharper, too - a stronger blade-straight nose, a jaw that looked built for judgment rather than patience.

He smiled when he saw her. Again, nothing like Caelith. Something about his readiness made her stomach turn.

Her escort looked at his feet and muttered quietly, “Guardian Nuada, this is Maia,” before walking away quickly.

“You are the scribe,” Nuada said, voice light, almost delighted as though she were a gift someone had left him. “I expected someone… less small.”

Maia bristled. “My size does not affect my ability to read.”

He laughed - an actual laugh, bright in the empty street - and it was the laughing, more than anything he’d said, that frightened her. Nothing here had earned a laugh like that.

“We’ll see,” he said.