Page 10

Silver Watchers

The next day bled slow and restless over Eryssan. Clouds pressed low across the harbour, painting the sky the colour of an old bruise and dulling the sea to steel. Even the bells seemed reluctant, their tolls swallowed by the mist.

Maia tried to focus on her work, but her quill stuttered against the parchment, dragging ink into crooked shapes. Her thoughts strayed to the shattered fragments, the tremor in the Archive walls, and, most of all, to the Umbralyn who had spoken with ice in his voice.

Caelith.

She’d whispered the name to herself after Master Orell had reluctantly spoken it, as though even the syllables could draw fire. A Guardian. One bound by the Vow.

Julen noticed her distraction and leaned over her desk. “You’ve smudged half the page.” His lips curled, but there was no humour in it. “Still thinking about yesterday?”

She stiffened. “About the tremor,” she said, too quickly.

He snorted, but with a soft smile. “Right. I know you mean the Guardian, or whatever we’re supposed to call them here. Half the hall saw you follow him.”

Her cheeks warmed, though she kept writing. “He asked for the fragments, Julen. I was doing my job. Our job.”

“That was enough,” Julen said darkly. He glanced toward the door of the hall, as though Caelith might step through again. “You don’t want his kind noticing you. My father says the Elders were fools to let them live at all, let alone alongside us.”

Maia bit back her reply. Her father’s voice came to her instead: the thing he’d said until it stopped sounding like a lesson.

A person is not its reputation, and the world is lazy about the difference.

She knew the histories. She knew the accounts contradicted each other. It was the kind of gap in knowledge that fascinated her - a question with its answer torn out.

What she had never done was stand close enough to one to wonder how it felt to be on the other side of all that ink. They had always been a subject. A language she hadn’t learned yet. It did not occur to her, yet, that there was anything wrong with that.

Before Julen could carry on the conversation, a faint vibration hummed through the oak desk. She touched the surface to be certain it was the same tremor as before.

Then there were voices. Faint at first, then sharpening. The vibration strengthened, subtle, but undeniable. Suddenly, there was frantic banging at the door.

“Come quickly!” someone called; a runner, breathless in the archway. “There’s something going on outside!”

She didn’t move at first. She wasn’t meant to. Archivists watched and recorded; they were not meant to interfere. And yet, she turned from the desk, already reaching for her shawl.

Outside, the square seethed with unrest. Merchants, sailors, even temple-cloaked priests had gathered at the marble steps, their voices tangled in anger.

“…shadows on the cliffs!”

“…the vow is broken, can’t you see—”

“…send them back, all of them!”

Maia’s stomach lurched as she saw the scene unfold in front of her. At the centre of the square, the focus of their rage stood tall and still, armour dark as storm clouds.

Umbralyn.

She felt an unexpected relief that it wasn’t Caelith and then the relief turned over in her stomach. It was the one from the harbour wall. The one with the coin. She could see his face properly now; his pale skin and sharp features foreign amongst the crowd. His hands hung at his sides, though Maia saw the tension tight in his shoulders.

“You call yourself Guardian?” a man bellowed from the front, his merchant’s cloak rich with silks. “You and your cursed kin are the reason the Fracture bleeds! If the Elders had any wisdom, you’d all be chained again. Or better, slaughtered outright.”

The crowd roared in agreement.

A fisherman spat at the Umbralyn’s boots. A boy hurled a stone, overarm, like it was a game. It struck the young Guardian’s pauldron with a hollow clang. Another followed, striking the line of his jaw. Silver blood welled and ran, almost bright against his pale throat, catching the light like something that didn’t belong to a body at all.

Gasps rippled through the crowd. Some shrank back, making holy signs against corruption. But others shouted louder, emboldened by the sight.

Maia’s breath locked in her throat. She’d heard about their blood. Every child in Eryssan was raised on horror stories of it. But what struck her more than fear was the expression in the Guardian’s eyes: a tight, cold resilience. A young man enduring humiliation because he simply had no choice.