Chapter 1: The Garden Where Light Went Missing

The first sign something was wrong was the silence.

Skyreach Spires never truly fell quiet. Even at dawn, when the floating bridges still wore a skin of mist, the crystal ribs of the city hummed with Aether. The rookery gardens usually answered that hum with tiny, bright noises: hatchlings chirping, keepers murmuring, glimmer-moths tapping the air like drifting lanterns.

That morning, the gardens held their breath.

I was in the archive alcove near the rookery, copying clutch records in careful script, when a runner in Luminari blue burst through the door. She did not scream. In the Aether Crown, panic wore a polite mask until it could not.

“Historian Calen Merevale,” she said, voice too bright, “they need you. Now.”

I stood so fast my chair scraped crystal tile. “What happened?”

Her eyes flicked away. “Saffi is gone.”

The name hit like a stone in my chest. Saffi was a Glimmerdrake hatchling, no bigger than a satchel, all prismatic scales and stubborn curiosity. I had watched her chase sun-motes between flowering crystal vines. I had written her name in the margin of a record even though I was not supposed to. A historian should not love what he records. Love makes you choose what to keep.

In the council alcove by the gardens, the Order’s faces formed a tight ring. Starseer Elyndor stood at the center, his calm radiance steady. Torren Vox leaned against a pillar as if the whole city were a problem he could solve with enough pressure. Aetheria, the light-elf mage whose experiments irritated half the Spires, paced with hands stained in prism dust. Nalia Skyborn, the singer-savant, hovered near the edge, listening as if the air itself might confess.

Elyndor lifted a hand. The murmurs died.

“Last sighting,” Torren said, sharp as clipped metal.

A drake-tender swallowed. “Dawn count. All hatchlings present. Saffi was in the garden ring. Then – she wasn’t.”

“Lock the bridges,” Torren ordered. “Question apprentices. Search bags. No one moves without clearance.”

Aetheria snapped, “If you treat every citizen like a thief, you will teach them to hide.”

Torren’s gaze did not soften. “Fear keeps people honest.”

“Fear makes liars,” she shot back.

Elyndor’s eyes found me. “Calen. You will write the official account. Plain facts. No rumors.”

“Yes, Starseer,” I said, though my mouth felt dry.

His voice lowered, meant for me, yet the room still heard the shape of it. “Privately, find her. Quietly. Before Vox turns this into theatre.”

Torren’s attention sharpened. “The historian will not wander alone.”

A guard stepped forward, silent and broad-shouldered. “Jorren,” Torren said. “You follow him.”

My stomach tightened. A watch meant delays. Delays meant a hatchling alone in cold air.

As we dispersed, I touched the small oath-token at my belt, a crystal shard etched with the words every junior historian swore: Record the truth without delay.

I did not know yet how quickly I would test that vow, or how heavy a single missing spark could become in a city built of light.

Chapter 2: Feather-Notes in the Moss

The rookery gardens looked perfect, which made the absence feel like an insult.

Crystal shrubs arched over the nesting ring, their blossoms catching morning light and bending it into soft rainbows. The nests were lined with prism moss, warm and springy, meant to cushion hatchlings when they tumbled. One nest, Saffi’s, lay disturbed. The moss had been pulled aside with care, not torn by claws.

Jorren followed two steps behind me. He did not speak. His boots did, scraping faintly on crystal tile, reminding me that my thoughts had an audience.

I crouched and let my hand hover over the nest. I had no grand magic, but every Luminari scholar learned to sense the simplest traces of Aether. Light left memories. It clung to places the way scent clung to cloth.

“There,” I murmured.

Jorren leaned closer. “What is it?”

“Not sight,” I said, because pride was the only shield I had. “Feeling.”

Prism dust clung to the air, sharper than the garden’s usual shimmer, as if someone had ground crystal elsewhere and carried the grit in. Beneath it was something stranger, a tremor in the light itself, subtle as a wrong note in a familiar song.

A feather-note.

Old texts used the term for harmonic residue, the echo of Aether-song used to coax light into shape. Not force, not violence. Invitation.

Someone had not snatched Saffi like stolen property. Someone had lured her.

My heartbeat jumped. Harmonic work meant training, access, patience. It pointed inward, not outward.

A soft step behind me. Nalia Skyborn appeared as if she had stepped out of the garden’s glow. Her eyes were unfocused, listening past what could be seen.

“You felt it,” she whispered.

“You heard it,” I corrected. “Tell me what you heard.”

Nalia’s fingers twisted the hem of her robe. “A bent lullaby near the healing pools last night. One note wrong, but gentle. I told myself I was tired.”

Jorren’s throat cleared. “You will report this to Torren Vox.”

My chest tightened. If Torren heard “harmonic residue,” he would make suspects before we had proof. He already distrusted Aetheria and anyone who worked near forbidden lenses. He would lock doors, interrogate keepers, and call it safety.

I pulled my notebook free. The oath-token at my belt felt heavier.

Record the truth without delay.

Nalia’s gaze held mine, steady and pleading. “If Vox turns the Spires inside out, Saffi will still be gone. People will hide from him. We will lose the trail.”

Jorren watched my hand. “Write what you found.”

My fingers moved. I wrote: Disturbance consistent with wandering hatchling. No sign of forced entry.

The lie was small. It still felt like a blade sliding under my ribs.

Nalia’s face tightened. “You are buying time.”

“I am,” I admitted, barely moving my lips. “If Vox hears ‘song-magic,’ he will accuse the wrong people first.”

Jorren stepped closer. “You are a historian. Accuracy is your duty.”

“My duty,” I said, voice shaking, “is also to keep this district from tearing itself apart before we find her.”

Jorren did not argue. He did not need to. His silence promised that Torren would hear of this, one way or another.

As we left the gardens, the crystal vines continued to glow, beautiful and indifferent. Somewhere in Skyreach Spires, a hatchling’s light was contained or fading, and I had chosen delay over honesty.

The oath-token at my belt did not crack, not physically. But inside me, something did.

Chapter 3: Vox and the Shape of a Clean Story

Torren Vox’s office was too orderly for a city made of drifting crystal and living light.

Scrolls were stacked by size, not subject. Ink bottles sat in perfect lines. Even the chair across from his desk seemed positioned to make visitors feel slightly off-balance, as if they were the only messy thing in the room.

Jorren waited near the door like a locked hinge.

Torren did not ask me to sit. He slid my preliminary note across the desk with two fingers. “Wandering hatchling. No force. Convenient.”

“It is what I observed,” I said, and the words tasted like the lie they carried.

Torren’s mouth curved without warmth. “I will offer you an explanation that serves everyone. Smugglers from below, drawn by the Prism Star’s glow. A careless apprentice leaves a gate unlatched. The hatchling follows a stray light and is lost. Tragic, but external. Contained.”

My stomach rolled. “That is not an observation. That is a narrative.”

“A narrative is what keeps citizens calm,” Torren replied. “Starseer Elyndor wants calm. I want control. You want your standing. These desires can align.”

I felt the trap close softly, like a door padded to hide its click. If I agreed, the Order would not tear into itself. No public scandal. No panic. And if Saffi returned later, Torren could claim the Spires had never been at risk.

But Saffi was not a misplaced scroll. She was alive.

“I will not shape the record to fit your preference,” I said, forcing my voice steady.

Torren leaned forward. “You think truth is a lamp that lights the room by itself. Truth is a blade. Swing it without aim, and you cut the wrong people.”

“Or the right ones,” I muttered before I could stop myself, thinking of Aetheria’s sharp grin, Nalia’s trembling patience, the keepers who loved their hatchlings like children.

Torren’s eyes narrowed. “Then you will be watched more closely. Your drafts will be reviewed. Harmful omissions can be as dangerous as lies.”

My throat tightened. He suspected. Perhaps he knew. My earlier choice was already becoming leverage.

“Where is Saffi?” I asked, pushing the question into the polished air.

Torren’s expression did not shift. “If I knew, she would be back. Do not mistake caution for cruelty, Calen. A public scramble would fracture trust.”

“Trust is already fracturing,” I said. “Every locked door cracks it further.”

Torren stood. Even without magic, he could make a room feel colder. “You are dismissed. Deliver a full chronicle by morning.”

I bowed, because the Spires ran on obedience as much as light. At the door, Torren’s voice followed me.

“If your private search uncovers anything that threatens stability, you bring it to me before Elyndor. That is not a request.”

I stepped into the corridor, crystal walls glowing with dusk. My heart hammered. Torren wanted a clean story. He wanted fear controlled and directed. And he had just reminded me that my own silence could be turned into a chain.

I touched the oath-token again. It felt like a weight I had chosen to carry, and like a weapon someone else could use.

Saffi was still missing. I could not afford to be careful in the way Torren meant.

Chapter 4: Aetheria’s Map and Nalia’s Warning

Aetheria found me in the suspended library stacks, where shelves hung on chains of light and the air smelled of dusted crystal and old starlight.

I had hoped to avoid her. Avoiding Aetheria was a habit, like keeping ink from smearing. She made everything feel too sharp, too alive, and I was trained to be steady.

She stepped out from behind a column of floating tomes, eyes bright with anger. “You found something,” she said. Not a question.

“I found an absence,” I replied. “Saffi is still gone.”

Aetheria’s gaze flicked past me to where Jorren stood at the end of the aisle, pretending to study a plaque. “Vox’s leash follows you. That means he suspects you, or suspects what you are hiding.”

Her bluntness made my cheeks burn. “What do you want?”

“Access,” she said. “Vox is pushing for lockdowns. Elyndor hesitates. Meanwhile the lower terraces have maintenance vaults and old prism stores, places a thief could hide. I have maps. Restricted ones. You will not get them through proper channels.”

“And why help me?” I asked. “You and I are not… close.”

Aetheria’s mouth tightened, then softened in a way that startled me. “Because Saffi is not just a hatchling. She is proof that Skyreach can still birth wonder without fear. Vox wants wonder caged.”

It sounded like a speech, and I distrusted speeches. Still, her voice roughened on the last word, and I heard something real under her pride.

I hesitated, then admitted, “There was harmonic residue in the nest. A feather-note. Someone coaxed her.”

Aetheria’s focus snapped sharp. “So it was not brute theft. Good. That narrows it.”

“It also points inward,” I said quietly. “Which is why I did not report it.”

“You broke your oath,” Aetheria said, and there was no mockery in it. Only surprise.

Before I could answer, a softer voice slipped between us. Nalia had approached without sound, as if the library’s glow carried her.

“Secrecy can protect,” Nalia said gently, “but it can also rot. Be careful what your silence becomes, Calen.”

Aetheria pulled a folded sheet of luminous parchment from her sleeve and pressed it into my hand. “Maintenance routes. Vault access points. If Vox sees me give this to you, he will call it conspiracy.”

“I am already drowning in suspicion,” I said. “One more drop will not sink me faster.”

Aetheria hesitated. “There is also a rumor. Someone has been trading Glimmerdrake scales for favors. Not many. Just enough to tempt desperate hands.”

My stomach tightened. “Who?”

“I do not know,” she admitted. “But the buyer repeats a phrase. ‘Bring me a light that remembers.’”

The words prickled my skin. They sounded like dramatic nonsense, the kind apprentices whispered to feel important. Yet Nalia’s eyes widened as if she had heard the phrase before in music.

“That feels like a chord seeking its answer,” Nalia murmured.

Aetheria lifted her chin. “We work together. Half-trust, if that is all you can manage.”

Trusting Aetheria felt like stepping onto a bridge made of glass. But Saffi was somewhere in the Spires, and my lies were stacking into a wall.

“Half-trust,” I agreed. “And if we find her, we go to Elyndor with proof.”

Aetheria’s smile flickered, smaller than usual. “Deal.”

Behind us, Jorren shifted his weight. Torren would hear about this meeting. My chronicle would be weighed against my footsteps.

As I tucked the map into my robe, I felt hope and dread twist together. In Skyreach Spires, even rescue could become a political blade. I only had to make sure it did not cut the hatchling we were trying to save.

Chapter 5: Dreamweave in a Sealed Workshop

The Rift-Splinter workshop sat on a minor terrace of the Aether Crown, sealed and avoided, as if the city itself wanted to forget it.

Aetheria led us there with quick steps and a jaw set hard. “This lab was closed after an experiment went wrong,” she said. “Vox uses it as proof that curiosity is danger.”

“Was it dangerous?” I asked.

Her eyes flashed. “Fear is what made it dangerous.”

The lock yielded to her touch with a soft chime. Inside, stale air carried the sharp scent of burnt starlight. Broken lenses lay scattered across worktables. Chains hung from the ceiling where focus crystals once floated. It looked like a place abandoned in haste, not in peace.

Nalia stepped in behind me, her shoulders drawn tight. “It is quiet,” she whispered. “Too quiet.”

We followed a faint disturbance in the light, a thin thread of residue that curled toward the back. Behind a toppled shelf, a hidden cradle waited, lined with ash-silk used to insulate delicate prisms. It was empty.

But on the ash-silk lay a scrap of fabric: dark, shimmering, threaded with patterns that seemed to shift when I blinked.

Dreamweave.

Every citizen of Skyreach had heard the whispers. Dreamweave came from the Duskfall Mire, traded in secret, used to hide things from sight and memory. If this scrap was real, it meant outsiders, smugglers, a perfect enemy to blame.

“It is not ours,” Aetheria said, voice tight.

“It is too perfect,” Nalia replied. “A wrong note placed on purpose.”

Footsteps sounded at the door. Heavy. Certain.

Torren Vox entered with two enforcers, their light-helms casting harsh reflections across the glassy room. His gaze swept the cradle and the fabric. Satisfaction flickered in his eyes, quick and controlled.

“So,” he said softly, “the Rift-Splinters return to forbidden toys. And now we find Mire fabric among your mess. Predictable.”

Aetheria’s temper flared. “You cannot be foolish enough to think I would leave evidence in my own sealed lab.”

Torren’s voice stayed calm. “Arrogance does not require foolishness. Enforcers, take the fabric. Seal the room. Escort Aetheria for questioning.”

My chest tightened. If Aetheria was dragged away now, Torren would use it to justify everything he wanted: lockdowns, interrogations, the slow caging of anyone who questioned him. Saffi would become an excuse, not a life.

Torren turned to me. “Historian, record this discovery. It supports the statement I offered you.”

Nalia’s hand brushed my sleeve, a silent plea. My mind raced. If I told the truth, that Aetheria had brought me here with a map, Torren would call it conspiracy. If I let him frame her, we might lose our only lead.

My oath-token felt like it was burning.

“Aetheria was not here,” I said, forcing the words out. “I entered alone, following residue. She arrived after I called for assistance.”

Aetheria’s eyes widened, then narrowed. She understood the lie and swallowed her pride. “Yes,” she said stiffly. “I came when he asked.”

Torren studied us, suspicion sharpening. “Convenient.”

“It is what happened,” I insisted, and the lie tasted like metal.

Torren gestured. “Then you will both remain under watch. The workshop stays sealed.”

As he left with the dreamweave scrap, I stared at the empty cradle. The evidence pointed toward the Mire, toward smugglers and outsiders.

Yet my gut twisted with certainty.

This was a red herring, planted to pull Torren’s wrath toward Aetheria and away from the real thief. And I had just fed that misdirection with my own false words.

Chapter 6: The Mirror-Pool Remembers

After midnight, Skyreach Spires felt like a sleeping beast made of crystal bones.

Nalia led us through quiet courtyards to the mirror-pool, a basin of perfectly still water ringed by crystal lilies. Keepers brought restless hatchlings here because the pool returned their light softened, like a lullaby made visible.

“If Saffi is still in the Spires,” Nalia whispered, “the pool might remember her song.”

Aetheria folded her arms. “Pools do not remember. People do.”

Nalia’s gaze did not waver. “You shape light into tools. Let me shape it into listening.”

I knelt at the edge. The water reflected my face, pale and strained, and above it the floating isles glittered like broken stars. I felt the weight of my lies, the way they pressed into my throat. Then I spoke, soft as if calling a child from hiding.

“Saffi. Little spark. If you can hear me, answer.”

For a long moment, nothing moved. Then the surface trembled. Color rippled outward, faint at first, then brightening into prismatic gold.

An image formed, blurred but undeniable. Saffi curled tight, wings tucked, her scales dimmed to frightened gray. She was trapped inside a faceted lantern, the kind used to store unstable Aether shards. The lantern hung in darkness, swaying slightly as if carried.

“She is alive,” Nalia breathed, tears shining.

Aetheria leaned closer. “Where?”

The vision shifted. Hands lifted the lantern with careful precision. Not Mire vines. Not smuggler gloves. These were keeper’s gloves, plain and stitched with the Order’s star emblem.

My stomach dropped. “One of ours,” I whispered.

Nalia’s voice trembled. “That is why the chord felt familiar.”

Aetheria straightened, anger flaring. “We go to Elyndor.”

“And say what?” I snapped, sharper than I meant. “That a keeper stole a hatchling, and someone planted dreamweave to frame you? Vox will seize the story before Elyndor can blink.”

Aetheria’s eyes narrowed. “So we do nothing?”

“We do careful,” Nalia said, stepping between us. Her hands hovered over the water as if soothing it. “If Vox hears ‘keeper,’ he will treat every tender as a suspect. He will turn love into evidence.”

The word love pierced me. I knew the keepers. I knew their voices, their patience, the way they spoke to hatchlings as if speaking to anxious children. The thought of accusing any of them felt like betrayal.

Aetheria watched my face and softened a fraction. “You know someone,” she said quietly.

I looked away. “I know they are not monsters.”

“Desperation makes people do monstrous things,” Aetheria replied. “Or makes them easy to use.”

The mirror-pool’s image faded, leaving only our reflections. My own eyes looked haunted back at me.

“We find the lantern,” I said at last. “We find where she is held. Then we go to Elyndor with proof, not panic.”

Nalia nodded. “I can follow the echo of her light. It will be faint, but Glimmerdrakes do not go silent.”

Aetheria exhaled, frustration tight in her shoulders. “Fine. But hear me, Calen. Secrecy that starts as protection can become cruelty.”

Her words cut because they were true. I had broken my oath to buy time. Time was not free. Every hour Saffi stayed trapped was a debt I could not pay with good intentions.

We left the mirror-pool and followed the faint wrong note humming through the crystal ribs of the Spires, deeper into the sleeping city.

Chapter 7: Maelis and the Weight of Gentle Hands

We found Keeper Maelis in a greenhouse that clung to the side of a minor terrace, its walls grown from clear crystal and woven light.

Inside, flowering crystal vines climbed trellises, and glimmer-moths drifted like living lanterns. Maelis stood at a table trimming a vine that did not need trimming. Her hands trembled so hard the shears clicked against crystal stems.

When she saw me, her shoulders sagged as if she had been waiting for judgment. “Calen,” she said, voice thin. “You should not be here.”

Nalia stepped forward, gentle as a lullaby. “Maelis, we are not here to harm you. We need to ask about Saffi.”

Maelis flinched at the name. Aetheria did not bother with softness.

“Where is she?” Aetheria demanded.

“I do not know,” Maelis whispered, and the lie was so fragile it barely stood.

I stepped closer, keeping my voice low. “Maelis, the mirror-pool showed a lantern. Keeper gloves carried it. If you tell us now, we can bring her back before Vox turns this into a purge.”

At the word purge, Maelis’s face crumpled. “He will,” she said, fear spilling out like water through cracked glass. “He will lock the rookery, interrogate apprentices, accuse anyone who breathes wrong. He thinks control is kindness.”

Nalia’s eyes shone. “Maelis…”

Maelis sank onto a bench, hands pressed to her mouth. Then her confession came in a rush.

“I took her,” she said. “Not to hurt her. To protect her. Vox’s talk of seals and searches frightened me. Saffi is curious, she follows every light. I thought if she was hidden with me, she would be safe until the storm passed.”

My chest tightened. “That was still theft.”

“I know,” Maelis whispered, eyes wet. “Fear makes fools of gentle people.”

Aetheria’s voice sharpened. “Why did you have a lantern ready?”

Maelis’s fingers twisted together. “I have debts. Medicine. Repairs. Small humiliations. I sold a single scale once, just one. Hatchlings shed them sometimes. Harmless. I thought it would be enough.”

“To whom?” Aetheria pressed.

“A voice behind a light-filter mask,” Maelis said. “Never a face. The voice repeated a phrase, ‘Bring me a light that remembers.’ I thought it was collector nonsense. Then the voice returned and knew my debt. Knew I had taken Saffi. It said if I did not hand her over, Vox would be told, and I would be exiled.”

Nalia’s anger trembled through her words. “So you gave her away.”

Maelis sobbed. “I did. I carried her in a lantern because it was the only container that could hold her light. I told myself it was temporary, that I would get her back. But they took her from me like I was nothing.”

I crouched in front of her. “Did you recognize anything? A name, a scent, a uniform?”

Maelis wiped her eyes. “I heard someone call the masked one ‘sir,’ like an officer. And when the mask shifted once, I saw a cuff. Luminari, not keeper. Close to someone important.”

Aetheria’s eyes narrowed. “Vox.”

Maelis shook her head fast. “Not him. Smaller. Quicker. But he spoke of Vox’s policies like tools. He said, ‘When fear rises, people pay for calm.’”

My stomach twisted. A predator hiding in Torren’s shadow.

I stood, heart heavy. “You are guilty,” I told Maelis. “But you are also being used. If we drag you to Vox now, he will make you a symbol. That is what the blackmailer wants.”

Maelis’s voice broke. “I loved her.”

Nalia took Maelis’s shaking hand. “Then help us bring her back.”

Maelis nodded. “I can show you where I met him, near the maintenance routes under the minor isles.”

Aetheria’s anger warred with reluctant pity. “We go,” she said. “And when Saffi is safe, you face Elyndor’s judgment. Not Vox’s spectacle.”

Maelis bowed her head. “I accept.”

As we left the greenhouse, the wind through the crystal ribs sounded like a warning. My oath felt bruised inside me, but Saffi’s light was still somewhere in the Spires. We had a path. We could not afford to waste it.

Chapter 8: Vox’s Offer of Quiet Mercy

Torren Vox intercepted me under the suspended bridges before we could descend into the maintenance routes.

The crystal arches above us caught the Prism Star’s glow and scattered it into pale fire. Torren stood as if he had been carved from that light, patient, certain. Jorren waited behind him. Nalia and Aetheria lingered near a support column, hidden in shadowed refraction.

“Historian,” Torren said, “you look tired. Truth is heavy when carried alone.”

I kept my voice even. “I have been searching.”

“And?” he asked, as if asking about the weather.

I chose my words carefully. “The trail points inward. Someone with access. Someone who benefits from fear.”

Torren’s eyes narrowed. “Fear benefits no one.”

“That is not true,” I said, heat rising despite myself. “Fear makes people accept harsh measures. Fear makes them pay for calm.”

His gaze sharpened. “You have been speaking with the wrong people.”

“Or listening to the right ones,” I replied.

Torren stepped closer, and the wind snapped his robe like a banner. “You think you can rescue a hatchling and keep every hand clean. You cannot. Someone will be punished. The only question is whether that punishment stabilizes the Spires or fractures it.”

I forced myself to ask, “Do you know where Saffi is?”

Torren did not answer. Instead, he offered something colder than denial.

“I can end this,” he said. “Quietly. No scandal. No panic. The hatchling returns as if she wandered. Your chronicle supports that. The district breathes again.”

My mouth went dry. “And the price?”

Torren’s gaze flicked toward the column where Aetheria hid, as if he could see through crystal. “You deliver the guilty. Keeper Maelis, if involved. Aetheria, if she has meddled. I will interrogate, contain, and ensure this does not happen again.”

Contain. The word felt like a cage closing.

Rage flared in my chest. “You mean make examples.”

“I mean prevent chaos,” Torren said. “Stability is mercy.”

For one dangerous heartbeat, I almost believed him. I imagined Saffi returned, the city calm, my record praised for being neat. A clean story. A safe story.

Then I remembered the mirror-pool image: Saffi’s dim scales pressed against lantern facets. I remembered Maelis’s shaking confession, Nalia’s tears, Aetheria’s rare sincerity. Torren’s mercy was a polished prison.

“No,” I said, voice steadying. “I will not trade people for calm built on lies.”

Torren’s expression hardened. “Then you will face consequences for your omissions. If you withheld evidence, you harmed the Order.”

“You will use my secrecy as a weapon,” I said.

“I will use what is necessary,” Torren replied, calm returning like ice. “Skyreach must be protected from itself.”

Skyreach did not need protection from truth. It needed protection from fear dressed as law. I did not say that aloud. I could see it in his eyes: he would twist any argument into proof that he was right.

I stepped back. “Be careful, Vox. Your shadow is large. It gives cover to things you do not see.”

For the first time, something in Torren’s calm flickered. Not guilt. Not fear. Annoyance that I dared suggest he was not fully in control.

“Go,” he said, voice clipped. “Write your chronicle. And remember who decides what stability requires.”

I turned away before my legs could betray me. Nalia and Aetheria slipped from the column, faces tight.

“He is not the thief,” Aetheria murmured, “but his methods feed the thief.”

Nalia’s voice was quiet. “Then we must rescue Saffi and rescue the truth at the same time.”

My shoulder still carried the ache of stress like a bruise. My oath felt like a wound I kept touching. But my choice was made.

We went down into the maintenance routes, where the Spires stored what it did not want to see.

Chapter 9: The Vault of Lanterns and the Masked Man

The maintenance hatch was disguised as a dull prism storage alcove, marked with sigils most citizens ignored.

Maelis led us to it with trembling steps, guilt weighing her down more than age. The air below the hatch was colder, heavy with crystal dust and the faint metallic taste of unstable Aether. Glowstones lit the corridor in weak pulses, making our shadows ripple like water.

Nalia walked first, head tilted as if listening to a distant bell. “Her echo is close,” she whispered. “Like a small chime under ice.”

Aetheria’s hands glimmered faintly, ready to shape light into a shield. I hated how natural it looked, how easily she could turn fear into action. I had only words, and lately my words had been blades turned inward.

We reached a vault door half-open. Inside, shelves of prisms lined the walls, stored for repairs and emergencies. In the center hung a faceted lantern suspended by a chain of light. Within it, Saffi curled tight, her glow flickering weakly.

Relief hit me so hard my knees nearly buckled.

Then a figure stepped from behind a shelf and blocked the path. He wore a light-filter mask, but his uniform was unmistakable: a Luminari under-officer’s coat, neat and new, the kind worn by aides who moved between orders and corridors.

“Stop,” he said. His voice carried smugness like perfume. “One step closer and I drop the lantern.”

Aetheria’s eyes blazed. “Who are you?”

The man tilted his head. “Selik. You do not know my name because you do not look at the people who keep your halls running. That is your mistake.”

Nalia’s voice trembled with fury. “You are hurting her.”

Selik shrugged. “She is a commodity. Scales. Light. Wonder. People pay for it. They pay more when they are afraid it will vanish.”

My stomach twisted. “You blackmailed Maelis.”

Selik chuckled. “She made it easy. Love is leverage.”

Maelis made a broken sound behind us, half sob and half apology. Nalia’s shoulders tightened as if she wanted to sing Selik into silence.

Aetheria stepped forward, light gathering in her palms. “Let her go.”

Selik’s hand tightened on the chain. “I will, if you give me something better. Access codes. Maps. Names. Or perhaps you give me yourself, Rift-Splinter, and I sell your experiments to Vox as proof of treason.”

“So this is Vox,” I said, watching Selik’s posture.

Selik laughed. “Not about him. About what he creates. Fear. Lockdowns. Interrogations. In that chaos, a clever man collects debts. Vox does not need to know. He only needs to loom.”

Aetheria’s jaw clenched with disgust. “You are hiding in his shadow.”

Selik lifted the lantern slightly. Saffi’s weak light flared, and a thin panicked note vibrated through the vault. Nalia flinched as if struck.

“Her song is cracking,” Nalia whispered.

I raised my hands, forcing my voice calm. “Selik, surrender. Elyndor will hear the truth.”

Selik’s head snapped toward me. “Proper judgment means exile, prison, a life erased. No. I leave with the lantern. You write whatever story Vox demands.”

“No,” I said, surprising myself with the firmness. “If you flee, you will be hunted. Not by Vox’s fear, but by the Order’s duty. Surrender, and you might keep your life intact.”

Selik hesitated, calculation flickering. Then fear rose in him, and fear made him reckless.

“Enough,” he snarled, yanking the chain.

Nalia inhaled and sang, a clear counter-harmony that met Saffi’s panicked note and steadied it. The lantern’s facets vibrated. The air shimmered.

Aetheria thrust her hands forward, shaping a curved shield of prism-light between Selik and the lantern. “Now, Calen!”

I did not have magic. I had a choice.

I lunged and grabbed the chain below Selik’s fist. He slammed an elbow into my ribs. Pain flared. The lantern swung.

A crack spiderwebbed across one facet.

Saffi’s light burst brighter, a frightened flare that turned the vault into a storm of stars. Selik swore and tried to wrench the chain free. My palms burned with cold light as I held on.

The lantern cracked again.

And Saffi’s song rose, no longer a lullaby, but a desperate note that threatened to shatter everything between us.

Chapter 10: The Hatchling Returns, and the Truth Follows

The lantern shattered with a sound like a bell breaking.

For an instant, Saffi hung in midair, tiny wings flared, eyes wide with terror. Then her light spilled outward in a burst of prismatic motes, harmless but blinding, filling the vault like falling starlight.

Selik screamed and threw up an arm. Aetheria’s shield caught the worst of the crystal backlash, but one shard of fractured Aether-glass shot toward Saffi like a dart.

I moved without thinking. The shard struck my shoulder instead.

Pain flared white-hot. I staggered, vision swimming. Warm blood seeped through my sleeve, glowing faintly in the scattered motes.

“Calen!” Nalia cried.

Aetheria’s hands softened, her magic shifting from defense to care. She shaped a cradle of light beneath Saffi, catching the hatchling before she hit the stone floor. “It is alright,” Aetheria murmured, voice low and steady. “Little spark, breathe. Follow my hands.”

Saffi’s glow flickered, then steadied. She chirped once, thin and frightened, then pressed closer into the light cradle. Watching Aetheria soothe her felt like seeing a sword turned into a shelter. It made my earlier judgments feel shallow.

Selik stumbled toward the exit, half-blinded. “You cannot prove anything,” he spat. “Vox will bury this.”

Nalia’s song shifted. The melody tightened, resonant, binding. Selik froze as if the sound had hooked his bones. Aetheria’s shield snapped into a narrower shape, pinning him against a shelf without crushing him.

“You are done,” Aetheria said, cold again.

Footsteps thundered in the corridor. Two enforcers arrived, drawn by the noise. Maelis followed them, face streaked with tears. The enforcers seized Selik, twisting his arms behind his back. His mask fell away, revealing a pale, shaking mouth that still tried to sneer.

Maelis rushed toward Saffi, then stopped, hands hovering as if afraid her touch would burn. “Oh, little one,” she whispered. “I am sorry. I am so sorry.”

Saffi turned her head. Her eyes fixed on Maelis. For a terrifying moment, I expected rejection.

Instead, Saffi gave a small trembling chirp, a question more than a sound.

Maelis sobbed harder. “Yes. It is me.”

Torren Vox arrived last, cloak snapping, eyes taking in the scene with swift assessment: Selik bound, Maelis collapsed, me bleeding, Aetheria holding Saffi, Nalia still humming with shaking breath.

For once, Torren had no clean story ready.

He stepped toward me. “What have you done, historian?”

I swallowed pain and answered with the truth that had been burning my throat for days. “I found her.”

“And your chronicle?” Torren demanded. “What will you write?”

I thought of my first lie, my second, my silence shaped into a weapon by someone else. I thought of how easy it would be to write a tale that made me brave and Vox necessary.

“I will write what happened,” I said. “All of it. Including my delays. Including my lies.”

Torren’s eyes narrowed. “That will harm the Order.”

“It will heal it,” Nalia said, voice trembling but firm. “If fear dictates our records, we become the Mire’s silence without ever stepping into it.”

Aetheria glanced at me, and something like reluctant respect crossed her face. “Truth is messy,” she said. “But it is ours.”

Torren’s jaw tightened. He looked past us toward Elyndor’s distant towers, calculating consequences.

Saffi’s glow warmed, gentle again. She shifted in Aetheria’s cradle, then stretched her neck toward Maelis, drawn by the familiar scent of care despite betrayal.

My shoulder throbbed. Relief held me upright.

No bridges fell. The Spires did not change its shape. But a hatchling’s light had returned, and the cost of it was written in blood and broken oaths that could no longer be hidden behind clean ink.

Chapter 11: The Chronicle Spoken in the Hall of Light

The Hall of Light was built to make truth feel unavoidable.

Crystal panels in the ceiling caught the Prism Star’s glow and scattered it into steady radiance. No corner stayed dark enough to hide in. Scholars, keepers, and enforcers filled the tiers, their faces tight with curiosity and fear. Saffi perched on a padded stand near the front, her glow still a little unsteady, like a candle after wind.

Starseer Elyndor stood at the center, calm as a fixed star. Torren Vox stood to his right, posture rigid. Aetheria and Nalia stood behind me, close enough that their presence steadied my breathing. Maelis knelt, hands folded, eyes red. Selik stood bound and guarded, his uniform stripped of its authority by the simple fact of chains.

My chronicle lay in Elyndor’s hands, ink still fresh. My shoulder was bandaged, but it ached with every heartbeat.

Elyndor began to read aloud.

He read my first lie, the neat note about a wandering hatchling. Whispers rose. He read my omission of the feather-note. More whispers, sharper. He read my second lie, the one that shielded Aetheria in the sealed workshop. Aetheria’s jaw clenched, not in anger now, but in the discomfort of being protected by dishonesty.

Then Elyndor read my confession: why I lied. Fear of Vox’s methods. Fear of harming innocents. Fear of being blamed. Fear, layered into silence until silence became its own harm.

Torren stepped forward when Elyndor paused. “This proves what I warned of,” Torren said. “Secrecy. Recklessness. If Calen had reported immediately, we could have contained this before it spread.”

Elyndor lifted a hand. The hall quieted.

“Contained,” Elyndor repeated, tasting the word as if weighing it. He turned to Maelis. “Keeper, why did you take Saffi?”

Maelis’s voice shook. “Because I was afraid. Afraid of Vox’s lockdowns. Afraid of my debts. I thought love could hide what fear would punish.”

Elyndor nodded slowly, then turned to Selik. “And you, Selik, why did you extort her?”

Selik lifted his chin, defiance that did not reach his eyes. “Because fear creates opportunity. Rules make loopholes. Loopholes make profit.”

A murmur of disgust swept the tiers.

Elyndor’s voice stayed measured. “Fear did not begin with Selik. Nor with Maelis. It began in us, in how we speak of stability as if it were a weapon.”

Torren’s jaw tightened. “Stability is the Order’s duty.”

“It is,” Elyndor agreed. “But stability without trust is only a cage made of crystal.”

He turned to me. “Calen Merevale, you broke your oath. You delayed truth.”

“Yes, Starseer,” I said, throat tight.

“Why confess?” Elyndor asked.

“Because a clean story almost cost Saffi her life,” I answered. “And because I realized my silence was becoming someone else’s tool.”

Elyndor’s gaze held mine, steady and heavy. Then he spoke judgment, firm but not cruel.

“Maelis, you will be disciplined and supervised. You will serve in the rookery gardens. Your debts will be addressed through proper channels so they cannot be used against you again. You will not be exiled.”

Maelis sobbed, relief and shame tangled together.

“Selik, you will face the Order’s justice,” Elyndor continued. “Your rank is stripped. Your actions will be recorded fully. No mask will soften them.”

Selik’s shoulders slumped.

Elyndor turned to Torren. “Vox, your proposed lockdown is suspended pending review. You will continue your duties with oversight. Your vigilance is sharp, but your fear has wounded those you claim to protect.”

Torren bowed, tight and controlled, forced to accept without spectacle.

Finally, Elyndor looked to Saffi. The hatchling blinked, then fluttered to Maelis’s wrist and curled around it like a bracelet of living light. A gasp rippled through the hall.

Maelis froze. “You forgive me?” she whispered.

Saffi chirped softly, a clear note that did not erase betrayal, but chose to live beyond it.

I exhaled shakily. My oath had been broken, then remade, not as perfect purity, but as honest ink spoken aloud. Skyreach Spires remained itself, its politics intact, its factions unchanged, its magic system unbroken.

Yet in one district, in one hall of light, truth had been allowed to be messy without being buried.

And that, for a historian who had learned the cost of silence, felt like its own kind of rescue.