Morning wrapped itself around me unnoticed like fine silk.
It came with soft light, a coolness in the air, and that rare, almost impossible calm one never wishes to wake from. I had not yet opened my eyes as though afraid to startle the fragile balance. My muscles were relaxed, my breathing even, and my body… for the first time in all this time warm and safe.
It did not sleep against a cold wall, not a doze upon the carpet. It was something else as if someone had woven a nest in the midst of a stone world. Only for me.
I stirred and on the edge of awareness felt a living, warm presence beside me. My cheek brushed against something bare, steadfast. I slowly opened my eyes.
Before me a broad chest, covered only by an open white shirt. I had been sleeping pressed against it, like a child who had found shelter. Strong arms held me gently, as though I might fall to pieces. They kept me close. Did not allow me to sink to the floor.
He sat directly upon the floor. Blake. The Archmage.
His back was straight, his profile stubborn. His face bore the trace of night's tension. Chin lowered, breath steady. His arms still held me. Did not release me. And I lay against his chest as though it had always been so.
I tried to slip away, to understand where I was. Why he… But his arms only tightened, drawing me closer. My face pressed once more into his warm chest. He breathed calmly as though all were in its rightful place.
"Sleep well?" came his lazy voice, hoarse, as if he had not yet fully woken. His head still rested against the wall, his eyes remained closed.
I kept silent. Words failed me. The remnants of last night's anger still wandered within me like smoke after a fire. But the softness of this sleep, its impossible warmth, was dispersing it. Embarrassment rose from my chest, tangling my thoughts. I did not understand how it had happened or why my body had not resisted.
I shifted again, slipping from his arms. He did not hold me, only slowed the movement a little, and I sank softly onto the carpet. Cool, faintly rough, almost familiar to me. The earth beneath the body. A refuge.
"What are you doing here?" I asked without raising my head.
He ran a hand through his hair, shook it. A dry, almost irritated gesture.
"Helping you sleep."
He looked at me as though seeking an answer in my face, one he could not find. There was no warmth in his gaze. Only appraisal. Grim, restrained as though I had failed once more.
"You should change. We will talk afterwards."
I did not answer. Simply rose, went to the chest. Underclothes, a brown robe all in place. Ordinary. A sense of the familiar, which now seemed counterfeit.
I took the garments and went toward the bath.
In my head confusion. A faint embarrassment, bordering on dislike. I did not know what irked me more, his indifference or his calm.
"Why didn't you say you couldn't sleep?" His voice came at the very door. I flinched.
For a moment I thought he had entered. I was already undressed.
But he remained beyond the threshold.
I quickly pulled on the underclothes. Around my waist passed a light current of warm air, almost alive. It slid along my skin, touched my hair, brushed my neck. Soft, careful. Almost… tender.
"No one asked," I replied. "Everyone only keeps repeating: 'sleep, sleep.' Even you."
The air thickened. It seemed to stroke my back with an invisible hand. I held my breath.
"What is your magic?" he asked, still quietly.
"Wind," I answered. "Why?"
A pause.
"Merely curious… how did it came into the bath, if the window is closed?"
The current vanished. As though taken with the question.
I put on the robe and turned toward the door.
He stood in the doorway, leaning a shoulder against the frame. Tall, almost brushing the upper beam. A simple shirt, hair slightly dishevelled. And a gaze like a question without an answer.
"Were you watching?" I asked.
He smiled. Mocking. Confidence. Without shame.
"I am the only one who knows you entirely."
On his finger, silver light flared. The wind touched my hair again. Light as breath.
"You mean to say you have already seen me… naked?" I did not finish.
"Yes," he confirmed shortly.
Without hints. Without double meanings. Simply a fact.
Something in me stirred. Not fear. Not shame. Something else. Deeper.
"How much have you forgotten?" He changed suddenly. Restraint appeared in his face. As though there was less light in him now. A soldier's habit of distance.
"You mean… you and I?.." I faltered.
"I am the Archimage of the continental army. You were a mage. Strong.
Almost no one knew of you and that was important."
He fell silent. For a moment.
I had no time to ask again how close we had been. He stepped nearer, as though the space between us were needless. Leaned to my very ear. His lips passed by the edge as if the air between us had vanished. I was rooted to the floor. Or else the floor had become part of me.
'"Before names, before songs, before sound —there was a star.It was forged from silence,to wrap the lighttoo bright for dawn."'
He spoke low, almost whispering. His voice ran over my skin like warm water in a morning river.
I froze. As though an unseen string within had been drawn tight and quivered from the mere breath.
He straightened and looked at me. Silent, calm. I felt myself flush. Hot, like a berry beneath the sun. He saw my embarrassment. Looked intently, as though catching in my features scraps of something lost.
"To wrap the light?" I repeated.
The words echoed deep inside, familiar, yet foreign. Like dreams told to someone else.
He leaned back slightly, his gaze drifting slowly over my face. Then, wearily, almost without intonation:
"I see. You have forgotten that as well. Come. You have much to do."
He turned. His steps were heavy, assured.
"Wait," I whispered.
He did not turn. But he stopped.
I needed to ask.
From the very beginning, from the first empty breath this question had lodged like a bone in my throat.
"You speak to me like this… You touch me. As though you are certain I am her. The one who slept here. That I am not an imitation."
He stood at the door, his palm upon the wooden frame. His voice was dry:
"You are her. You are no imitation. The real Biana. You have simply forgotten everything."
I closed my eyes, as if that might bring back at least an image. A shadow. But no.
"Forgive me… if I have forgotten you."
The words came heavily. Like blood from too old a wound.
I thought he was disappointed.
I thought I had failed him. I looked at his back.
"If you could forget it does not matter. Whether by magic, or by some deeper cause… It means I was not important. Magic does not erase what is true.
Not love.
Not pain.
Not even darkness can do that."
Bitterness was born inside. Slow, viscous.
He the only one who knew me.
And still… I had forgotten him.
"I am sorry… How long have we known each other?"
He turned his head.
And in that gesture no glance, but a breath.
An almost imperceptible sadness, for a second in his shoulders.
"Since the beginning." Blake opened the door and stepped out.
I lingered. Then moved after him, restrained, like a shadow.
I followed, pulling on my boots as I went.
The floor beneath my feet was cool, stone as though the house itself did not wish to remember warmth.
He climbed upward two short flights, and we emerged into a corridor. He walked without looking back. Even, precise. The space above opened like a book, written beneath his hand.
The corridor was high. Not grim no. Restrained. Proportioned to his height and stride. Each door is taller than usual. Each archway is like a frame carved to his silhouette.
This place knew him. And belonged to him.
He did not walk through it; he fit into it. Like a part in a lock.
He stopped at one of the doors. Heavy wood, black metal. All of it is like him. Without excess, but with weight.
He opened it effortlessly. Beyond a room.
At first glance ordinary. But in its silence there was rhythm: exhale, pause, step.
To the left, by the window a table. Two chairs. Plain, as if for brief meetings. Closer to the centre a long, upholstered sofa. Around it are four chairs. Soft, worn from other bodies. On the table between them is a stack of papers.
I went further. To the right is his writing desk. Overloaded with papers, inkwells, words that had not become letters.
On the wall above a map.
The continent.
Coloureds pins driven into its flesh. I stepped closer. The north white, as though sheathed in frost.
Three towers. Luminaria the northernmost. Below Elarion and Solarion. They formed a triangle. Like an ancient sign.
Lower still, near the centre Vetarion.
A city? A palace? The heart of the continent?
Beneath it Talassar.
And then…
My breath faltered.
A word.
A sensation.
An emptiness.
"This is our continent," said Blake. He sank into a chair, as though knowing what was about to begin.
"The border keeps: Egidmar, Embegrot, Galvorok, Zerenthus, Veltion… They hold the defence. For now."
Between us and them darkness.
Not the darkness of colour. The darkness of meaning.
Scorched land. A trace. A seal. On the other side another five keeps. I traced the border with my finger.
"Eshgolm," he went on. "Harophan, Nexphira… Syrios."
They lay in the far south. Snow-covered.
But within no cold. Within was fear.
I stood in silence, and inside a vortex.
A word that took my breath:
War.
As though reality had finally spoken its name.
The continent on the map looked like an awkward diamond. Shifted, as though someone had driven the pins blindly, leaving the lines shamefully crooked. Along the edges islands. Small. Scattered. Nameless. Like memories that had not yet become anything of worth.
"Where are we now?" I asked, not taking my eyes from the map.
At that moment, wind passed over my hair. Warm, uneven. Like a hand whose touch had gone.
"Vetarion," he answered.
The voice came nearer than I expected.
I turned.
He stood very close. Upon his chest the open shirt, and beneath it the familiar surface of skin upon which I had lately rested in the quiet.
How could I have forgotten him?
The question turned within me.
"And if… Is there something beyond? Other lands? Continents?"
I spoke, looking toward him, but my gaze drifted along his shoulder, his throat, the line where the fabric ended.
He did not answer at once. As though he, too, were trying to recall. Or chose not to lie.
"We had no time. War draws everything to itself. Time. People. Intent."
He turned his gaze from the map. And held it upon me.
I felt something in his body lean forward for a moment, a barely perceptible movement. Almost a gesture.
He did not touch me. But there was no restraint in his gaze.
There was warmth there.
And something I did not know how to name.
I did not know what to say. I stood silent, while inside something slowly shifted.
As though the air were changing direction.
A knock at the door. Blake went to open at once without hesitation, as though he knew who stood beyond.
Adel entered first. Her glance slid over me, restrained, almost contemptuous. She looked at Blake differently with a puzzlement that needed no words.
Nimor followed. Quiet, composed. As always.
I… waited. Instinctively. Without reason, without logic.
Eiron should have entered. I felt it. As morning feels the sun beyond the horizon.
But after Nimor the door closed. Smoothly. Finally.
All took their seats. Soft chairs, low light, the rustle of cloth. Blake gestured for me to join.
I sat. But the hope not.
It still stood at the door. Waiting for Eiron to enter. To open. To speak my name.
The silence beyond only deepened his absence.
"Are you expecting someone?" asked Blake. His voice was calm, but his gaze was direct. Like a rifle butt.
"Eiron," I replied.
The name hung in the air.
Like a sound from which no one knew what to expect.
Blake looked at me a moment longer. Then his voice turned dry. Restrained. Military.
"He is a chance witness. Nothing more. He is not meant to know of you at all."
"But…" I wanted to say something. To defend. To explain.
But with what?
I knew nothing. Not myself. Not him. Not Eiron.
"This is not open to discussion," he cut in.
The words were not loud, but they sounded like a lock sliding home in the dark.
All the warmth he had held in the morning was gone.
As though it had never been.
Only severity remained.