The night after the Severing was a silence that suffocated.
Amara lay on her mat in the temple's guest chamber, eyes wide open, the rush of the ritual still burning through her blood. The Elders had left her with little more than a nod and a hollow blessing. "The bond is cut. You are free." Those words echoed, mocking, because she didn't feel free at all.
Her wrist was bare, the ribbon gone, yet the skin throbbed as though an invisible thread still clung to her veins. Every time she shut her eyes, she felt Nysa's presence—not whole, not near, but like a phantom breath pressing against her ribs.
She rolled to her side and clenched her fists. She had thought severing the bond would open the way home, but the skies had not split, no door had appeared, no whispers from her God called her back. Instead, Myraea remained, vast and merciless, pressing its weight upon her chest.
Sleep would not come. At last, she rose. The temple's corridors stretched empty, silvered by moonlight that filtered through slits in the stone. Every step carried her deeper into the heart of the sanctuary, where the air grew colder, older.
It was not the first time she had wandered these halls, but tonight her steps seemed guided. She followed the ache in her wrist, the phantom tug that pulled her like a tide. Down stairwells she had never noticed. Past tapestries that hung stiff with dust. Until, at last, she reached a heavy wooden door banded with iron.
It should have been locked. It was not.
Her hand trembled as she pushed it open.
The chamber beyond was vast and hollow, lined with shelves that stretched into shadow. The air smelled of parchment and stone, sharp with the weight of centuries. At the center stood a cracked pedestal bearing a bowl of oil, its flame low but unextinguished.
Amara stepped inside. The door sighed shut behind her.
Scrolls and bound tomes filled the shelves, their spines worn, their titles etched in languages half-familiar, half-forgotten. Some bore symbols she had seen only in passing on temple walls—the spirals of binding, the arcs of unity.
Her fingers brushed over a stack of brittle manuscripts. She drew one free, careful not to tear the fragile vellum.
The script was faded, yet she could decipher enough:
"When the outer lands cast us away, we built Myraea. A sanctuary for women unloved, unwanted, condemned for who they chose to hold. Here, the bonds were not sin but salvation. Souls were tethered, not to enslave, but to heal. For only in binding could the wound of exile close."
Amara's breath caught.
Her heart pounded as she read on. The words painted a history the Elders had never spoken aloud—Myraea as a refuge, not a prison. A world carved by the broken and the banished. A place where bonds were sacred, eternal, woven into the marrow of its creation.
And there, beneath a crude illustration of two women clasping wrists wrapped in ribbon, was a passage that made her skin prickle:
"What is severed is not undone. A bond once forged cannot be destroyed, only weakened, only silenced. The soul remembers. The thread waits."
Her hand shot to her wrist. It was burning now, as though the words themselves had stirred something awake beneath her skin.
The ritual had not ended it. It could not.
She staggered back from the shelf, the manuscript trembling in her grip. Every beat of her heart thundered with revelation and dread. If the bond still lived—if Nysa was still tethered to her—what had she truly done in that chamber of fire? What wound had she carved into them both?
A rustle broke the silence.
Amara froze.
From the far end of the archive, shadows shifted. For a moment, she thought it was the stranger again—the same quiet presence from the forest. But when the figure stepped into the glow of the oil-flame, her breath eased.
It was not the stranger. It was one of the younger priestesses, her eyes wide, her arms filled with scrolls.
"You should not be here," the girl whispered, though her voice carried no anger. "This chamber is forbidden."
Amara swallowed, clutching the manuscript to her chest. "Then why are you here?"
The priestess hesitated. "Because I am not afraid of truth. But the Elders…" She glanced toward the door, her face pale. "They fear what these records hold. They would rather the initiates remain blind."
"Blind to what?"
The girl's gaze lingered on the ribbon etched into the page Amara held. "That bonds cannot be broken. That Myraea itself is stitched together by them."
The words rang like a bell through Amara's ribs. She wanted to press the priestess for more, but footsteps echoed down the corridor outside. Heavy, deliberate.
The girl's eyes widened. "Hide it. Quickly."
Amara shoved the manuscript back onto the shelf and stepped into the shadows. The priestess doused the flame, plunging the archive into near-darkness just as the door groaned open.
An Elder's voice slipped through the gloom. "Who lingers here?"
The priestess bowed low. "Only me, honored one. I came to tend the lamps."
A pause. The Elder's silhouette filled the doorway, her frame tall and stern. "Do not linger long. Some knowledge is a burden. It is mercy that most do not carry it."
The door shut again, leaving silence in its wake.
Amara's lungs burned. She stepped from the shadows, and the priestess met her gaze with a knowing look.
"Go," the girl urged softly. "Before they sense you were here."
Amara obeyed. She slipped back through the corridors, her pulse a storm in her veins.
When at last she returned to her chamber, dawn was breaking through the high windows, painting the stone in gold. She sank onto her mat, her hands trembling.
She had come seeking freedom. Instead, she had found chains of another kind—chains older than she could comprehend, woven into the marrow of this world.
And somewhere beyond the temple walls, Nysa lived, carrying her own half of the wound Amara had made.
Amara pressed her wrist against her lips. She could almost feel the ribbon again, binding, burning, refusing to fade.
The Elders had lied.
Her story was not over.
Her bond was not gone.
And Myraea was no longer a mystery—it was a mirror.