Hello there! This is the Author! I want to firstly say sorry to all of the readers who have been wanting more. Life hits us the hardest when we are at our highest point. I want to thank all 9,227 of the readers who have read even one chapter of my book. You all have really encouraged me to not let this wither away. Thank you. I plan to release more chapters regularly now, and I will being editing stuff as I learn to write better. I am ecited to share my dreamchild with you all. Now with haste, onto the chapter! :)
The forest Stilled.
For a long moment, the figure slumped against the tree didn't move. Then the first strand loosened. A thin filament slipped free from the shape's shoulder, drifting downward like a shed thread from a woven cloak. Another followed. Then more. The body didn't fall apart so much as release itself. Strands eased away from one another in soft, unraveling motions, the entire form losing coherence as if gently unstitched. Ribbons of woven essence dropped in silence, revealing only emptiness where a core should have been. When the last of them let go, the remnants sagged into dust and fine dirt that spilled across the moss in a quiet, settling arc.
A step sounded from behind a nearby tree.
The real Arkan emerged from the shadows, hand pressed to his side. Under the mask, his jaw tightened, muscles flaring against pain he refused to acknowledge in the rest of his posture. He looked down at the loose scatter of dirt.
"She didn't notice," he murmured. "Focused on the boy. That's unlike her."
His gaze shifted toward the distant path. "Virehall. Practically the Order's doorstep."
He summoned a small Sygros glyph with his free hand, feeding it a wisp of Myhn until a faint, ghostlike replay of the earlier clash shimmered across its surface. The recording conveniently omitted the moment he had struck toward Ashai. Arkan weighed it once, then threw it like a stone. The glyph arced through the trees, catching an unnatural pull midair before gliding off toward the Inkbound. Now finding his breath, he slipped back into the forest.
Suhra and Ashai had now made it through the east gate, while Suhra compared the sight to her memories, Ashai was absorbing the view.
Virehall stretched across three great tiers carved into the land. The lowest, where they now walked, sprawled the widest: winding streets full of noise, lanternlight, and the scent of heated stone cooling for the night. Even here, tall spires rose three stories high, etched with inksteel lines that glimmered faintly. From the city's heart, the Grand Sigilspire pierced the skyline, its height mirroring the Royal Castle perched on the uppermost tier to the west. The two towers faced one another from afar like rival watchmen.
Ashai stared. "They're… the same height."
"Symbolism," Suhra said. "The Weavers and the Crown pretending they don't compare themselves while building monuments just to prove they do."
They walked a bit farther before Ashai looked up at her again. "If weaving changes aging… how old are you?"
Suhra didn't slow, but she did lift one eyebrow — her closest thing to a theatrical gesture. "Most people learn not to ask that," she said mildly. "But I'll be eighty-six next month."
Ashai absorbed that without visible reaction. The number didn't yet have weight to him.
Suhra glanced down. "You'll meet people far more wrinkled than me who are half my years," she said. "And others who look younger than you but have lived for centuries. Age doesn't work the same for us." Her tone remained steady. "When we attune to Myhn, our years shift. Five years of stillness. Five years of flow. Time holds onto us, then lets go. A tide instead of a line."
Ashai considered that quietly, watching lanterns flicker between the streets of the lower tier.
"And the longest-lived are the Floran Weavers," Suhra continued. "The oldest alive is Sorynth Elowen the Rootveined. Eight hundred eighty-two this year, and still leading the Sigilspire. Claims he can regrow a lung if he focuses."
Ashai had no reference for such an age, but the sheer size of the number unsettled him.
They found a modest inn nestled between two short spires. Light radiating warmly from its windows, the air smelling of baked herbs and woodsmoke. Suhra went straight to keeper and set enough coin for two meals and seven nights of stay. The innkeeper expressed his thanks.
As he counted the coin, Suhra leaned in slightly. "How's the city been?"
The man lowered his voice. "Uneasy. Too many factions at each other's edges. The Dean and the Council here. The Royal family there. Everyone pretending civility while sending whispers under the table. And there've been killings across the continent. Quiet ones. Skilled ones. Word is the next target's in Virehall."
Suhra's fingers tapped once on the counter, a controlled gesture.
As the innkeeper leaned forward to share another rumor, something behind his ear caught her eye — a small glyph etched into the skin, faint and fresh, as if activated recently and still fading. Her posture shifted. "Thank you, that is all." Cutting the conversation short.
The man blinked at the sudden cutoff but didn't question it.
They took a table near a window. The server brought their food quickly.
Ashai's plate was piled with Pips — small breaded pieces of minced skyfowl. Each was shaped into a creature from old children's stories: little winged sprites, tiny horned beasts, even a curled storm-serpent. Ashai's eyes lit in a way no political speech ever could. Suhra's dish was layered root vegetables baked soft and covered with melted cheeses browned at the edges. She inhaled, an almost nostalgic look flickering behind her otherwise steady expression. Both received cups of chilled fruit juice.
Ashai bit the head off a winged Pip without looking up.
Suhra spoke in her calm, restrained way — not lecturing, not dramatic, simply letting her thoughts settle aloud. "The Royal advisors have been circling each other all year. The Dean pretends he's above it. The Council is too busy arguing with itself to do anything useful." Whenever she named someone particularly irritating, her fingertips tapped the table. Whenever she mentioned a foolish decision by the vassal houses, her eyes rolled the smallest degree.
Ashai listened for a while, then drifted gently away from the details. The Pips demanded attention. He studied one, turned it over, then examined the next as if ranking them in some internal contest. Even distracted, he still watched the room in quiet sweeping glances — the people, the shadows, the way sound shifted at the edges.
Suhra didn't expect him to follow everything. She spoke the way someone untangles thoughts before thinking heavier.
By the time the lanterns dimmed, both plates were empty and the tension of travel had settled into silence.
Tomorrow they would climb deeper into Virehall and see its true face. Tonight, they rested.
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