Caspian's possessions fit into a weather-beaten trunk, threadbare sleepwear, vials of desiccated herbs, a journal of remedies scrawled in fading ink. The cottage, once a refuge now stood hollowed-out, its shelves skeletal, its hearth cold. He lingered in the doorway, fingertips grazing the doorframe's whorled grain, as if memorizing the ghost of solitude.
'No turning back now...'
The Guild's world would drown him in bloodshed and bitter medicinals. His cursed gift, buried like a poisoned blade, would be unsheathed anew. A fair trade, he told himself, for sanctuary.
Matthew leaned against a quartz-studded oak outside, the Affinity Stone blazing at his collar. His wounds still knit beneath bandages, but resolve out-muscled pain. "Every hour here is an hour stolen from my kin..." He'd insisted, cutting short Caspian's plea to delay. The Guild's pull was gravitational, irreversible.
As Caspian latched the trunk, its hollow click echoed like a seal on fate. Beyond lay a world of clamor and consequence, and the fragile hope that a guild's banner might cloak his fragility in purpose.
Home.
The word lingered like a half-remembered hymn. Caspian's fingers brushed the rough-hewn doorframe of the cabin, its wood grooved with the ghostly imprints of months spent in self-imposed exile. Matthew's answer haunted him. "Home is with the people you love..."
A truth that rang hollow in the chambers of his own history. For Caspian, home had always been a brittle thing, a childhood of sidelong glances, hissed slurs, doors shut softly but irrevocably. This cabin, at least, had been a cocoon of silence. Now even that was being shed.
The suitcase clicked shut, its hollow belly holding little more than memories and herbs. He rose, shoulders taut as bowstrings, and stepped into the moonlit clearing.
Matthew waited beneath the obsidian sky, his cloak pooling around him like a liquid shadow. Beneath it, the faint glint of his tunic hinted at armored resilience. A warrior's second skin. His Affinity Stone glowed faintly at his collar, a dying ember in the dark.
"Ready?..." The question hung between them, softer than the night breeze.
Caspian nodded, though his pulse thrummed a dirge. The forest stretched ahead, its crystalline trees swallowing the path whole.
Matthew stood, wincing only slightly. "Midnight's our ally. Fewer eyes. Fewer...complications."
As they crossed the threshold, Caspian dared not look back. The cabin's windows, once amber with lamplight, were voids now empty as the hollow in his chest.
'What awaits?...' He wondered. A guild of survivors. A healer's mantle. A borrowed family.
The stars offered no answer, their cold glitter indifferent as ever.
"How can you tell?" Caspian teased, the words lighter than he'd ever dared with Matthew. Weeks of shared solitude had sanded the edges off his wariness, leaving something akin to kinship in its wake.
The Crystal Forest hummed around them, its prismatic sentinels refracting moonlight into a luminous lattice, a realm where shadows could not drown the light, nor daylight pierce the eternal gloam. Only the violet plains beyond surrendered fully to night's embrace, their Evernight Blooms glowing like captive galaxies. Yet Matthew navigated time itself here, his veteran's marrow-deep attunement to the unseen. Caspian marveled at the thought. Could mastery like this ever be learned, or was it etched into the soul by years of dancing with death?
Matthew smirked, his crimson eyes glinting like shards of stained glass beneath the forest's argent glow. The Crystal Forest defied nature's laws, a labyrinth where moonlight pooled in liquid silver, refracted endlessly by gemstone bark. Yet beyond its borders lay the Evernight Meadow, a sea of violet grasses drowned in true darkness, where blooms drank shadows and time dissolved.
"A Veteran's intuition..." He said, though Caspian noted the faint tremor in his fingers. Even legends bore hidden fractures.
Their footsteps crunched over quartz-laced soil as Matthew recounted tales of guild exploits. Caspian listened, marveling at how the man navigated both terrain and conversation with equal precision.
"My first solo mission..." Matthew admitted, voice tinged with irony. "The Guildmaster forbids lone ventures. Rogues swarm these lands like carrion flies. But when he commands..." He trailed off, reverence threading his words. "His mind is an enigma, yet his foresight steers us true. We trust blindly and live because of it."
Caspian's chest tightened. 'Would such a trust ever extend to an exile?'
The cave yawned before them, its maw choked with vines. Matthew peeled back the foliage, then froze.
Hoofprints. Fresh.
A midnight mare erupted from the shadows, mane rippling like liquid obsidian. She nickered, nuzzling Matthew's palm before turning luminous eyes to Caspian.
"You tended her..."Matthew breathed, awe tempering accusation.
"I found her grazing grass near the eastern ridge." Caspian murmured, fingers trailing her velvet muzzle. "Too gentle to be feral. Too loved to be abandoned."
The horse huffed, warmth fogging the chill air, a silent pact forged in hay and whispered comforts.
Matthew vaulted onto the saddle, extending a hand. "The Guildmaster favors compassion. You'll suit us just fine."
His hand lingered on the mare's neck, his calloused fingers threading through her jet-black mane like a mourner clutching a relic. "Her name is Nyra..." He said, voice frayed with embers of memory. "A foal when the Guildmaster gifted her. She carried me through storms that would shatter lesser beasts."
Caspian watched as Matthew withdrew a parchment from the saddlebag, yellowed at its edges, embossed with the Comet Guild's sigil, a star fracturing into flame. The quill offered to him gleamed faintly, its nib sharp as a surgeon's blade.
"Complete this..." he said, offering Caspian a raven-feather quill. "The questions pry, but secrecy shields us all."
Caspian scanned the document, yellowed parchment dense with ink-blotted queries. Lineage. Magical affinities. Old wounds, physical and otherwise. His throat tightened. "Imposters tried infiltrating before? In a guild of... family?"
Matthew tightened the mare's girth, avoiding eye contact. "Spiders in the rafters. Poison in the well." His voice hardened. "Trust is a blade here, a double-edged. The form weeds out those who'd wield it carelessly."
The quill trembled in Caspian's grip. For a heartbeat, the forest's crystalline hum faded, replaced by memory. Hissed accusations, doors slammed, his own reflection glaring back in frost-rimmed puddles. Monster, abomination, curse.
'Truth...' He realized. '...will be my first test.'
Matthew read the silence. "Not all scars need airing..." He said quietly. "But the Guildmaster sees deeper than ink."
Caspian's quill hovered over the parchment, its nib trembling like a compass needle caught in a storm. The form's questions sprawled before him benign at first, then sharpening like a blade.
Name. Age. Blood Type. Race.
He stole a glance at Matthew, who stood bathed in the cave's spectral light, running a whetstone along Nyra's bridle. The mare's obsidian coat shimmered faintly, as though dusted with starlight. Caspian's relief was fleeting. The lie he nursed burned hotter than the Guild's sigil emblazoned on the parchment.
Race.
The word pulsed like an infected wound. Evarins, pale to umber-skinned, their ears tapered like autumn leaves dominated the Empire. Matthew's own ears, sharp as dagger points, betrayed his heritage. Caspian's, rounded and unremarkable, hid beneath his snowy hair. But his eyes…
He knelt by a rain-fed puddle, its surface glazed with the Crystal Forest's residual glow. The face staring back, pale as moon-bleached bone, framed by snowy hair bore none of the Evarin's telltale pointed ears. Only his eyes betrayed him serpentine eyes, slitted pupils swimming in molten gold, the legacy of a lineage he'd buried deeper than graves.
The quill bit into parchment. Race: Hybrid. A half-truth, sharp as a splinter. Hybrids were reviled, yes, mongrels of clashing lineages but safer than the alternative. To name his true lineage would be to paint a target on his back, a beacon for those who still hunted his kind.
Nyra snorted, her breath frosting the air. Matthew turned, crimson eyes narrowing. "Trouble?"
"No..." Caspian lied, the word ash on his tongue. He folded the form, its edges pricking his palms like thorns. "It's done."
Matthew's fingers traced the parchment's edge, the cave's phosphorescent fungi casting jagged shadows over Caspian's confession. Race: Hybrid. The ink seemed to pulse, a wound laid bare. His crimson eyes widened, a flicker of surprise, swiftly veiled. Eyes flicked to the boy, slight, snow-haired, golden gaze fixed on the cavern floor like a penitent awaiting judgment. The word Hybrid glared back, its letters thorned with subtext. Caspian braced for interrogation, for the inevitable "Explain."
It never came.
The older man said nothing. Instead, his calloused hand clasped Caspian's shoulder, grounding as an anchor in a squall. "The Guild's halls hold no room for prejudice..." He murmured, the words a vow etched in frost and fire. "You'll walk among us as kin, no matter the blood singing in your veins..."
Caspian's smile faltered, a fragile thing. "Even... hybrids?"
Matthew's thumb brushed the Guild's sigil stamped at the form's crest, a comet fracturing into embers. "Especially hybrids..."
The words coiled around Caspian's ribs, warmer than he deserved. Matthew's silence was a language unto itself, no demands, no excavations of the past festering beneath the lie. Only the quiet certainty of a man who'd weathered his own storms.
Matthew slid the parchment into a leather satchel adorned with celestial runes. "The Guildmaster sees deeper than ink..." He warned, though not unkindly. "But courage, too, has its weight..."
As they mounted Nyra, the forest's crystalline sentinels faded behind them. Ahead, the Evernight Meadow stretched a sea of violet grass drowned in true dark, where secrets withered and truths festered. Caspian gripped the saddle, his falsehood a lodestone in his chest.
'Belonging...' Caspian thought, the lie still coiled in his chest. 'Perhaps it begins as a fiction, a mask worn until it grafts to skin.'
The Guildmaster would see through it, he knew. But for now, the illusion held.
'Let them see a hybrid...' He prayed to the indifferent stars. 'Let them never glimpse the dragon beneath...'
˚༺☆༻˚
The silence between them thickened, a living thing gnawing at the edges of Caspian's resolve. Matthew's usual ease had dissolved into uncharacteristic restraint, his lips parting and closing like a man rehearsing unsaid confessions. Caspian clung to his back, fingers digging into the older man's cloak, his body rigid as Nyra's hooves struck jagged stone. Each hoofbeat rattled his bones, the saddle's leather biting into his thighs until his legs trembled. He swallowed bile, the landscape's blur of crystalline trees and violet meadows churning his stomach, but pride sealed his complaints behind clenched teeth.
By midday, the forest shifted. The air grew dense with the scent of pine resin and damp moss, sunlight filtering through canopies of ancient oaks whose trunks bore glyphs carved by forgotten hands. Sylvaren, a realm where shadows whispered and roots coiled like sleeping serpents.
"The territory begins here..." Matthew said, voice taut with unspoken pride. Nyra's pace slowed, her nostrils flaring as if scenting home. Ahead, the path narrowed, flanked by stone monoliths etched with the Comet Guild's fiery sigil. "And... fair warning. My kin greets homecomings...enthusiastically.."
Caspian's grip tightened. "What do you mean...?"
Caspian's question died as the forest erupted in a serpentine hiss, arrows fletched with nightshade feathers streaking toward them, a horn's note split the air, low, resonant, a sound that vibrated in the teeth. Nyra reared, her whinny swallowed by a chorus of shouts erupting from the trees.
"Hold tight!" Matthew's laugh cut through the chaos, his blade a blur of steel as he batted the poisoned shafts aside. Nyra remained unnervingly calm, her hooves planted like bedrock, as if this were mere theater.
Five figures materialized atop the gnarled oak branches, cloaks blending with the dappled shadows. Their hooded faces betrayed nothing, but the Affinity Stones at their throats pulsed. Crimson, azure, emerald, each a silent declaration of guild kinship.
"You dare slink back here, Matthew?!" snarled a voice like rusted chains.
Caspian's fingers clawed into Matthew's cloak, panic a live wire in his veins. "You called them family-!"
"-And family knows no gentler language..." Matthew chuckled, dismounting with the ease of a man stepping into his own hearth. The archers tore off their hoods, revealing faces etched with fury and beneath it, raw, trembling relief.
"Matthew..." Breathed a woman with wildfire hair, her bow clattering to the moss. "A month vanished. No word. We scoured every cursed mile...!"
"The Master barely slept..." Interrupted a broad-shouldered man, his voice cracking. "Thought the forest's maw had claimed you."
Matthew's smile softened, his hand pressing to his bandaged side. "A lycanthrope's parting gift. I'd have bled out if not for Caspian."
All eyes turned to the white-haired youth still trembling atop Nyra. The guild's fury melted like frost under dawn, replaced by a silence thick with unspoken gratitude and curiosity.
The weight of their stares prickled Caspian's skin like a swarm of stinging insects. He hunched deeper into his hood, the fabric a frail shield against their scrutiny. Even Nyra seemed to tense beneath him, her ears flattening as the guild members' curiosity sharpened to a blade's edge.
"Caspian..." Matthew announced, his voice a steady anchor in the storm of attention. "A healer. And our newest recruit..."
A black-haired man with eyes like smoldered coal snorted. "Another fledgling? The Master's been plucking strays like autumn apples." His smirk softened as he appraised Caspian's hunched form. "But a healer… Now that's a rarity. Last one wept at the sight of a splinter."
The bald warrior loomed closer, his shadow swallowing Caspian's trembling form. "Come now, lad. A face hidden breeds suspicion." Calloused fingers reached for Caspian's hood, but Nyra sidestepped with a warning snort, her loyalty as sharp as her master's blade.
Caspian recoiled, his pulse, a trapped bird's wings. Matthew's hand snapped out, gripping the bald man's wrist with a pressure that brooked no argument. "Ease off, Garrick. The boy's had enough storms."
Garrick retreated, chuckling. "Shy and pretty, eh? You pluck him from some noble's rose garden?"
Caspian's fingers lingered on the edge of his hood, the fabric coarse against his skin like the weight of a thousand unspoken fears. Matthew's nod was a quiet command, steady as bedrock, and Caspian clung to it like an anchor. With a breath that shuddered like wind through autumn leaves, he lowered the hood.
Light fractured through the canopy above, catching the snowdrift of his hair strands shimmering with faint teal undertones, as if moonlight had pooled in liquid silver and spilled across his shoulders. His lashes, pale as frost, framed eyes that glowed like molten gold, their slit pupils sharpening under the guild's collective gaze. For a heartbeat, the forest itself seemed to still, the very air crystallizing around him.
The wildfire-haired archer's bow thudded against the moss. "Stars above..." she whispered, her voice fraying at the edges. "Did you rob some fae court, Matthew? Or pluck a spirit from the beyond the stars? His appearance is Ethereal..."
A man with a scar bisecting his brow snorted, though his gaze lingered, wary. "Ethereal? More like uncanny. Those eyes, they're not normal."
Matthew stepped forward, a shield in motion, his shadow draping over Caspian. "Careful, Ryn..." He warned, tone light but edged like a blade. "Call him a spirit again, and he'll vanish with your best arrows." The jest drew scattered laughter, brittle but disarming.
Garrick, the bald warrior, crouched to retrieve the fallen bow, his earlier bravado softened. "Never seen a lad outshine the Master's relics." He muttered, offering the weapon back to its owner. "But if he patched you up, Matt, he's earned his place. Even if he looks like winter's ghost..."
Caspian's cheeks flushed, the warmth a stark contrast to his pallor. Winter's ghost. The words coiled in his chest, too close to the truth. He was no spirit, but something far more dangerous, a secret wrapped in snow, melting under scrutiny.
Matthew's hand settled on Nyra's reins, his Affinity Stone flickering like a captured star at his throat. "Enough gawking..." He declared, though his pride was unmistakable. "The Master's waited long enough. And Caspian..." He glanced back, crimson eyes softening, "....Breathe. They'll adore you once they stop tripping over their tongues."
The group fell into step around them, their banter resuming laced now with stolen glances and hushed speculation. The path widened, ancient oaks yielding to a clearing where sunlight pooled like liquid amber. Ahead, the guild's stronghold rose, a fortress of weathered stone and living wood, its towers twined with ivy that shimmered faintly, as though threaded with starlight.
Caspian's pulse quickened. Somewhere within those walls, the Guildmaster waited, a man who sees "deeper than ink" Matthew had said. A man who might unravel the lie of Hybrid with a single glance.
Nyra's hooves clattered against a bridge of petrified roots, its arch carved with runes that hummed beneath them. The air thickened with the scent of hearthsmoke and iron, the murmurs of guild life spilling through open gates.
"Welcome..." Matthew murmured. "..To the Comet's Heart."
The forest parted like a curtain, unveiling a vista that stole Caspian's breath. The cliff side dropped away to a sprawling basin, its edges cradled by mountains whose peaks pierced the clouds like the jagged teeth of the horizon. Below, a city thrived, not of cold stone and iron, but of wood and living earth. Seven towers rose along its perimeter, their silhouettes sharp as spears, ancient and unyielding. Each bore the Comet Guild's sigil ablaze in molten bronze, their heights threaded with bridges of shimmering quartz that caught the sun like spider silk.
At the city's heart loomed a colossus of timber and slate, a fortress-mansion with vaulted arches and stained-glass windows. Ivy choked its walls, blossoms of nightshade blue spilling from its balconies. Around it, cobblestone arteries pulsed with life: blacksmiths hammered in open-air forges, their anvils singing, market stalls overflowed with spellbound trinkets and herbs that glowed faintly in their jars, children darted between legs, clutching wooden swords and laughter.
Every soul wore the guild's livery tunics of void-black wool, chest plates tooled with constellations, cloaks dyed the deep green of forest shadows. Their Affinity Stones glimmered at throats and wrists, a constellation of trapped starlight.
"A town..." Caspian breathed, his voice lost to the clamor rising like steam from the streets. "This is no mere guild, It's a sovereign town forged in steel and shadow."
As they descended the switchback trail, voices rose in a swelling chorus. Blacksmiths pausing their hammerfalls, scouts materializing from shadowed alcoves, all chanting Matthew's name with reverent fervor. The guildmaster's second-in-command moved through the adulation like a prince among subjects, clasping forearms and trading barbs with easy familiarity.
"Welcome back, you reckless bastard!" called a silver-haired woman, her apron stained with forge-soot.
"Missed your nagging, Lira..." Matthew shot back, grinning as a cluster of recruits nearly tripped over themselves to clap his shoulder.
Caspian lingered at the periphery, his hood drawn once more, yet even through the fabric's veil, he sensed it. The magnetic pull of Matthew's leadership, the unspoken covenant between commander and kin. Here, amid the clangor of anvils and the murmur of strategy, the man was not merely respected.
He is beloved.
˚༺☆༻˚
The guildhall defied every expectation, a cavernous symphony of clinking tankards and raucous laughter, its vaulted ceilings strung with lanterns shaped like captured stars. Far from the austere war room Caspian had imagined, the space thrived as a living organism. Warriors slouched over oak tables recounting exploits, healers mending blistered hands by the hearth, and scouts bartering trinkets from distant realms. Twin staircases of blackened iron coiled upward like serpents guarding a treasure, flanking a reception desk where clerks in emerald-green sashes juggled ledgers and quips with equal fervor.
Matthew's entrance rippled through the hall like a struck chord. Tankards froze mid-swig, tales stuttered into silence, then erupted into cheers. "The Wolf's back!" roared a barrel-chested man, slamming his fist on the table. "Knew death couldn't stomach you!"
Caspian hovered in Matthew's wake, a spectre in white, as guildmates swarmed their returned brother, clasping shoulders, ruffling his chestnut hair, their relief a tangible force. Even the stoic clerks leaned over their desk, eyes glistening.
Caspian hovered in the wake of the adulation, his hood a frail shield against the curious glances prickling his skin. 'How does one man hold so many hearts?'
"Caspian." Matthew's voice cut through the din, beckoning him toward the western staircase. The crowd parted, curiosity trailing them like smoke.
They ascended into a labyrinth of corridors where torchlight guttered over stone arches, their path lined with tapestries depicting comet-streaked battles and mythic beasts. Caspian's boots whispered against flagstones worn smooth by generations of footsteps, his pulse quickening as they halted before an oaken door etched with celestial runes.
Matthew turned, his Affinity Stone flickering like a caged star. "The Master... sees what others cannot..." Matthew warned, his hand lingering on the latch. "Speaks in riddles spun from time's own threads. But fear not. His heart is a compass, true as the north star."
Caspian's pulse thrummed. Beyond that door lay answers or oblivion.
Matthew pushed it open.
Caspian stood frozen, a sapling caught in the wake of a comet's tail. Every instinct screamed to retreat, but Matthew's hand pressed firm against his back, a silent command to endure.
The chamber defied reason. Walls arched upward into shadow, their surfaces etched with constellations that pulsed faintly, as though breathing. A desk of petrified wood dominated the space, its surface cluttered with astrolabes, parchment scrawled in glyphs, and vials of liquid starlight. The air hummed with a frequency that vibrated in Caspian's molars, the scent of ozone and aged parchment clinging like a second skin.
The Guildmaster stood silhouetted against an arched window, its panes stained with constellations frozen in glass. He turned, and the air itself stilled.
He loomed like a monolith carved from starlight and shadow, his stature towering over Caspian, a colossus twice the boy's height, yet his presence bore no threat, only the quiet gravity of a storm contained. His dark purple hair cascaded in thick, silken waves, the hue of twilight steeped in wine, threaded with faint streaks of amethyst that shimmered as if dusted with crushed galaxies. It framed a face both ageless and ancient.
His cloak pooled around him like liquid night, its obsidian fabric embroidered with constellations stitched in silver thread, each star a pinpoint of light that shifted subtly, as though mirroring the true sky's dance. Beneath it, a robe of deep indigo clung to his broad frame, its collar high and stiff, etched with runes that flickered like dormant lightning. At his breast, the Affinity Stone blazed a microcosm of the cosmos, its glass orb swirling with nebulous purples, blues, and golds, as though he'd trapped a fragment of the void within.
"Welcome back, Matthew." The Guildmaster's voice resonated like a bow drawn across cello strings, deep and thrumming with undercurrents of amusement. "I've grown weary of your subordinates weeping at my threshold. Your dramatics test even my patience."
Matthew bowed, his irreverence tempered by deference. "Apologies, my liege. The lycanthrope's claws disagreed with my itinerary. Thanks to Caspian's skill, Master. I breathed to see you once more..."
The Guildmaster's gaze locked onto Caspian. Luminous violet irises glowing with an inner radiance, twin stars forged in the heart of a dying nebula. They pulsed faintly, as though peering through time itself, seeing not just the boy's face but the marrow of his secrets.
Caspian's throat tightened. This was no wizard from children's fables. This was an archmage who'd bargained with temporal tides, a scholar of realms unseen.
"Caspian, was it?" The Guildmaster circled the desk, his movements fluid yet deliberate, like a river reshaping its bed. "The boy who rewrote fate's ledger..." He tilted his head, and for a heartbeat, Caspian swore those glowing eyes flickered, not with malice, but with the keen delight of a scholar confronting a paradox.
His gaze wavered, golden hues flickering. Neither he nor Matthew had spoken his name, yet this stranger shaped the syllables as though it were an old vow returned from exile, a camaraderie resurrected from forgotten time.
"Peace." The Guildmaster raised a hand, his Affinity Stone flaring. "I care not for the lies mortals stitch to survive. Only the truth beneath." He leaned down, his shadow engulfing Caspian. "Your eyes, boy. Gilded serpents in a snowfield. Tell me... do they see the threads yet?"
Caspian's pulse roared. Threads. The word slithered through him, unearthing memories of childhood fever-dreams shimmering strands binding wrist to wrist, heart to heart, life to death.
"N-no..." He stammered.
"Pity." The Guildmaster straightened, his cloak rippling as though stirred by unfelt winds. "They will. And when they do..." His night sky eyes gleamed. "...you'll wish you'd remained in your crystal forest."
Matthew's hand brushed Caspian's shoulder steadying, or perhaps preparing to pull him back from an abyss. "He seeks sanctuary, Master. And a place to belong...A healer that shall thrive as one of our own..."
"A healer, you say? Yet his threads are...knotted... Curious."
Caspian's throat tightened. The man's presence was a forge, inescapable, transformative. Around them, the very walls seemed to lean inward, eager to witness what truths might unravel.
The Guildmaster's lips curved, a fissure in marble. "Sanctuary...My second-command seeks Sanctuary for his savior..." He echoed, the word a spell unto itself. "The Comet Guild shelters many strange stars. We shall see if his light harmonizes... or burns."
Somewhere beyond the window, a comet streaked through the glass-borne sky. A silent omen, its tail bleeding silver.
"Second-in-command?..."Caspian's voice frayed, golden eyes darting to Matthew. "You never...-!"
Matthew rubbed his neck, a boyish grin belying the authority he wore as effortlessly as his cloak. "Caspian, You never asked."
The Guildmaster's laughter unfurled like dawn breaking over a battle-scarred field warm, disarming, yet threaded with the weight of countless wars witnessed. His hand lingered on Caspian's shoulder, the Affinity Stone at his chest dimming to a gentle nebular glow, as though pacified by the boy's humility.
"A bond forged in blood and moonlight.." the Guildmaster mused, his voice softening to an almost paternal timbre. "Rare as a phoenix's tear. Treasure it, Matthew. This one's soul is keener than your blade."
Caspian's tension ebbed, the Stone's light now a balm rather than a brand. 'Not a judge...' He realized. 'But a gardener tending fragile blooms.'
Matthew stepped forward, his Affinity Stone, a steady crimson ember flaring with resolve. "Master, I've seen his hands mend flesh and defy decay. Granny's herbs gather dust compared to his craft."
The Guildmaster's gaze drifted to the window, where the glass-borne constellations shifted restlessly. "Applications have long since closed. To bend the rules now..."
"Rules?" Matthew's laugh was sharp, a blade unsheathed. "Since when do comets heed orbits?"
Silence pooled, thick with memory. The Guildmaster's eyes narrowed, not in anger, but in recognition of the truth coiled in Matthew's words. This man, his steadfast shadow, his brother in arms, had never pleaded for anything. Not when poison gnawed his veins. To ask now was to declare Caspian as kin.
The Guildmaster turned to Caspian, his sapphire eyes reflecting the boy's fragile hope. "Granny will thrash me with her cane if I refuse, won't she?"
Matthew's grin was wildfire. "She'll string your stars into a noose."
Caspian's voice trembled, not with fear, but the weight of unearned grace. "Special treatment would stain my purpose..." He said, golden eyes steady beneath the Guildmaster's gaze. "Let me rise by my own hands...or not at all."
Mikhail's smile deepened, crinkling the constellations embroidered at the corners of his eyes. "Equality is our creed, Caspian. But take care, this guild's equality demands blood, sweat, and the occasional shattered bone." His tone softened, a hearth's warmth cutting winter's chill. "Find peace here, and you'll find it not in comfort, but in the roar of shared purpose."
Family. The word hung between them, sharp as a blade's edge. Caspian's chest tightened. The Guildmaster's presence was a mirror reflecting fragments of a forgotten dream, a sense of kinship that clawed at the vault of his sealed memories. Had those amethyst eyes watched him in another life, another realm?
Matthew nudged him toward the door, his touch grounding. "Wait in the hall. I'll find you once duty's squared away."
He waited until the door sealed behind Caspian before sinking to one knee, his head bowed. "Master Mikhail, I overstepped. Forcing your hand with Granny's wrath, it was unworthy, it was unbecoming of my station."
Mikhail's sigh carried the weight of eons. "Rise, Matthew. You've never bowed to station. Only to your heart." His hand, calloused yet impossibly gentle lifted Matthew's chin. "Your return is an apology. The stars themselves sing relief."
Mikhail's sigh carried the weight of eras. "You think I yielded to threats?" He gripped Matthew's shoulder, hauling him upright with effortless strength. "I yielded to you. To the fire in your voice when you spoke his name..."
Matthew flinched. "Caspian's different. He's...fragile."
"Fragile?" Mikhail's laugh was a low rumble, like distant thunder. "A boy who braved the Crystal Forest's wrath to save a stranger? Who bears a storm beneath his silence?" He strode to the star-strewn window, his shadow stretching across the room like a rift in the world. "No, Matthew. Fragile things shatter. He bends. And what bends... survives."
Matthew's jaw tightened, the weight of failure etching lines into his face. "The creature vanished like smoke. I tracked nothing but shadows and nearly became one." His Affinity Stone, usually a steady crimson, flickered like a guttering candle. "The mission was a farce."
Mikhail's hands gripped his shoulders, grounding as ancient roots. "You returned with more than your life, Matthew. You brought a spark into these halls, one that may yet ignite futures we cannot fathom." His cloak's constellations shimmered, as if stirred by the gravity of his words.
"You knew.." Matthew breathed. "You knew he'd find me. That the creature's trail would lead me to Caspian..."
"The threads of fate are not mine to weave..." The Guildmaster turned toward his desk, where a star chart unfurled across parchment, ink constellations bleeding into margins.
"Only to record. And yours, Matthew, has always tangled with stars."
A silence settled, thick with the hum of the room's enchanted relics. Mikhail's Affinity Stone pulsed, its galactic swirls slowing as though contemplating the boy in question. "The recruits' training begins two sunrises away. Rigorous. Relentless." His galaxy eyes met Matthew's, unreadable as ever. "If he bends, he'll break. If he breaks..."
"He won't." Matthew's interruption was sharp, defiant. "I've seen his spine. It's forged of something... older."
Mikhail's smile was a blade sheathed in silk. "We shall see."
His gaze lingered on the room's shadowed corner, where dust motes swirled in slanted moonlight. Matthew followed his line of sight.
Two figures stood cloaked in the gloom, their outlines blurred as though half-drawn from the void. One leaned against the wall, arms crossed, eyes glowing faintly. A cool, pale pink eyes glinting like frosted gemstones, a gaze devoid of warmth. The other perched on a windowsill, legs swinging lazily, irises shimmering cerulean, liquid mischief, glinting with the chaotic gleam of a lightning-struck sea.
No words passed. None were needed.
The pink-eyed silhouette tilted her head, assessing, indifferent as a blade resting in its sheath. The blue-eyed one grinned, a flash of teeth like lightning in the dark.
The girl's posture was rigid, a blade sheathed in ice. The boy's fingers drummed a silent rhythm against his thigh, as though already plotting chaos.
Matthew's breath hitched. The air thickened, charged with the ozone scent of impending lightning.
Mikhail said nothing. The fire snapped, its final ember winking out leaving only the twin gleam of pink and blue in the dark, watching.