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He didn’t look at her, but his fingers curled slowly at his side, as though still remembering the shape of her hand. When she finally left the room, the storm swallowed the remaining silence between them.

Halfway down the corridor, she realised she was still holding the last strip of linen, silver drying into it. She should have left it for the healers to burn. Instead she folded it small and slid it into her sleeve.

20

The Safer Ache

Maia woke with a gasp in her throat.

Her forehead was damp with sweat. Grey light and the ordinary creak of the building settled around her. She was in her own room, thank the Gods, in the Agarin wing. Not the Archive. Not the dark.

She lay still until her heartbeat slowed, until the cold of the dream let go of her.

She had never read of a Hollow Wraith. That was what wouldn’t let her go. She had studied the histories until she could recite their disagreements, read every commentary the Archive held on the Fracture and the things it bred. The glasshounds were in there. A dozen creatures she’d never seen were in there, catalogued in careful, frightened hands. But the thing that had nearly killed her had no entry she could recall. No name, no warning, no margin-note. Caelith had known it on sight. But she had been given nothing.

That morning, Maia made her way down to the healer’s wing.

She didn’t expect to see Caelith. He’d be hiding his wounds in his quarters, away from any extra attention they may attract. Most of her instincts urged her toward his quarters: to see him, to confirm the charged silence between them had been real.

Her hand still remembered the exact place his pulse had jumped beneath her thumb. She couldn’t let the memory go.

But threaded through that wanting was something darker: a tight coil of apprehension she couldn’t unwind. The circumstances had been horrifying. The adrenaline too high. She had been certain he was going to die.

He had pulled away from her too sharply afterward, as if the moment itself had cost him something. Now fear whispered that if she went to him first, she might find only distance where there had been heat.

She wasn’t ready for that.

She told herself she was being practical when she turned away from his quarters. That Julen needed her more, that his injuries were worse, that he wouldn’t pretend he was unbreakable. All of that was true. But beneath it lay a quieter truth: seeing Caelith now felt like pressing her fingers back into a wound that had barely closed.

Julen had never hidden his dislike of the Umbralyn. He repeated the same bitter phrases his father used. About shadows, about monsters wearing faces. But Maia knew better than most that Julen’s anger was more inheritance than conviction. She had seen the hesitation behind it before. And the night before, when he had asked if she was safe before even asking about himself, she had seen something else entirely, the quiet kindness he always pretended not to possess.

So for the morning, she chose the safer ache.

The healer’s wing was quiet, the storm’s distant rumble barely reaching the thick stone walls. Maia moved lightly between the cots, careful not to disturb the others, until she reached the one where Julen lay. His breathing was shallow but steady; his pale skin was streaked with sweat, and the bandages around his shoulder and chest were dark with drying blood.

“You’re awake,” she said softly, pulling a chair close.

He tried to sit up, grimacing. “Barely. But I had to see if my favourite visitor was around.”

She offered a small smile, brushing a lock of hair from his damp forehead. “I came to check that you’re alive,” she said softly. “Now that I’ve confirmed it, I can leave in peace.”

“Thanks, Colwyn. Well, I am alive. For now.” His smirk faded as he took her in properly: the state of her, the dried blood, the hollow look around her eyes. “But you barely look it. You do still sleep, don’t you? Are you hurt?”

Her hand went to where Julen was staring. His blood was dried along her sleeve, and in her hair, gone dull as an old coin, was Caelith’s. She hadn’t even noticed she hadn’t bathed yet that morning.

“Not my blood,” she admitted. “And I didn’t sleep well… again. Obviously.” She sighed. “After last night, I keep thinking about what the fragments were trying to tell us. It was as if they were warning us.”

“I’ve been seeing things too,” Julen said quietly. “Shadows where there shouldn’t be any. Umbralyn moving through streets they usually avoid. Watching things they never used to watch…” He gestured vaguely toward the city beyond the healer’s window. “…people are afraid now, Maia. Truly afraid.”

Her brow furrowed. “You think it’s connected?”

“Everything’s connected,” Julen said grimly. “The Fracture, the fragments, that thing that came for us last night - whatever it was. And the Umbralyn aren’t all on the same side. At least, that’s how it looks to me.”

The door opened with a soft creak as someone stepped inside. Both Maia and Julen jumped in response, tension still high from the creature. A few cots away, an older patient stirred at the sound, and the healer moved quickly to draw a heavy curtain around Julen’s bed, murmuring something about rest before withdrawing to the far end of the room.

Master Orell’s presence filled the small, curtained space with a quiet authority. His gaze swept over Julen’s injuries, lingering briefly on Maia.

“What happened?” His voice was calm, but sharp, demanding accuracy. “I need your accounts. Explain.”