PROLOGUE.

A SILENCE OF THREE PARTS.

NIGHT HAD SETTLED OVER Newarre, and the Waystone Inn lay in silence, a silence of three parts.

The first was an absence, hollow and wide. Doors stayed shut. Windows slept dark. No crackle of kindling stirred hearths, no footsteps brushed dew from the grass. If there had been music, there would have been some measure of comfort. But, there was no music. And so the silence lingered, caught in the spaces where life could have been.

In the inn’s basement, the second silence curled sharp and anxious. Coals in a small forge glowed faintly, their heat fading into whispers of orange light. Tools lay scattered on a workbench, the tongs still tipped with blackened soot and the copper chisel tarnished green. Nearby, acid stained the stone. It hissed as it ate its way inward. Its soft and steady whisper adding tension to the stillness. This wasn't the silence of peace. This was the silence of effort begun and abandoned.

The third silence wrapped around the inn itself, heavy and unmoving. It crept into the locks that were turned tight and lingered in stones that drank more sound than they should. Upstairs, it burdened the man who slowly undressed by the dim light of a single candle.

The man had true-red hair that once caught firelight, but that now was muted in the darkness. His hands trembled faintly as he folded his shirt. His eyes, dark with some great weight, moved restlessly but saw nothing.

The Waystone was his, just as the third silence was his. The type of silence that comes when certainty falters and that lingers when words slip away. One that is born of frustration from enduring with no end in sight. It was the silence of a man who had forgotten his song. It was the silence of a man waiting for time, for change, for an ending.

And so the Waystone lay still. The silence waited on him.

CHAPTER 1.

THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE.

MORNING CREPT INTO THE Waystone Inn. It did not rush. It came on quiet feet, as if ashamed to wake what darkness might still be dreaming. It pooled in the corners, gathered where the stones cracked, and settled into the bones where aches begin.

The red-haired innkeeper lay still, counting his breaths. A pain pulsed through his ribs, waiting for movement before deciding if it was real. Deeper, joints murmured their old complaints, and not all their muttering was from yesterday’s beating. He had been many things in his life, quick and clever and more, but today he was simply sore.

Yesterday, he’d run on borrowed strength. He'd swept the floor and served supper on the back of adrenaline. For Bast. For Chronicler. For the memory of himself. But stamina keeps its own ledger, and the reckoning always arrives.

And so pain greeted him now with the familiar patience of an old collector. Cruel. Exacting. Thorough.

He tried to rise, but failed. It was not the dramatic collapse of a stage tragedy, nor a fall worth laughter. Instead, it was graceless and heavy. No one watches a man fail in private. That’s what makes it real.

He sneezed. The smoke from last night lingered, a bitter tang of scorched cloth and coal that scratched at his lungs. Coalsmoke is not like woodsmoke, not warm, not gentle. It is something harsher. Bitter as iron. Familiar as folly.

He breathed. Gritted his teeth. Tried again.

This time, he made it. No grace, no heroics. Just a small success carved inch by painful inch. He moved like a man playing through a part once memorized. Sit. Wait. Stand. Wait again.

As he passed the foot of the bed, his eyes dropped almost thoughtlessly to the floor. To the space once occupied by his thrice-locked chest. It was gone now. He knew it was gone. He’d moved it himself.

But the space stared back at him.

That was the cruelty of absence. How it left certain corners more full than any presence ever could. The floorboards beneath were paler, the grain untouched, unmarred. The quiet witness to years of weight now removed.

There were grooves too, faint scars where Roah wood had kissed the floor overlong. They’d fade in time. Just like everything else.

He sneezed again. The air caught. His back popped twice.

Stupid.

He remembered how he’d hurt it earlier in the predawn hours, foolish and fevered from insomnia. Too proud for patience, too tired for care. He’d dropped his walking stick under the chest and levered it an inch at a time, breath hitching all the while. Then, after he'd braced the trapdoor open, he nudged the chest until it dropped. Just like that. A clean, heavy fall into the cellar yawning beneath.

The sound should’ve thundered, but it didn’t. The Waystone swallowed it whole. It ate noise the way stone eats heat. What should have been a crash became something worse. A silence too deep to echo.

He’d stared after it for a time before following. Listening for anything. Waiting, maybe, for something to answer back. But the dark only answered with more dark.

The dawn had been near when he crawled out again. Empty in the way that isn’t hunger. Hollow in the way a bell is hollow when it forgets how to sing.

Another ache surfaced. Not sharp, merely insistent. Pain can be set aside. Regret will wait its turn. But nature, blunt and honest, will not be bargained with. There are some indignities a man cannot debate.

* * *

When he returned, the kettle waited. It was soot-black, solid, and familiar. The sort of companion who expected nothing but notice. He set it on the iron ring and lit the flame beneath with careful hands.

From a paper pouch, he pinched the dried leaves. Nahirout. Rare, blunt, and bitter in equal measure. It didn’t cure. It didn’t heal. It stole. It robbed pain of speech for an hour and left you too empty to argue.

The kettle began to whisper long before it sang. This was not the whistle of a young, eager flame. Instead, this was a strained breath. Even boiling water had learned to keep its voice down in the Waystone.

When the steam rose, he brewed the nahirout darker than ever. No honey. No sweetening. Nothing but heat and silence. He sipped once, then again, and felt the ache in his ribs dull to a whisper. He felt the trembling behind his eyes hush for now.

He did not feel better. But he could move.

Praise cleverness, he thought, with a bitterness to match the draught. Clever enough to find his own supply when no tinker was in town. Clever enough to tell himself that a daily cup was nothing more than an old habit. Clever, even, for forgetting whether the ache in his chest was old magic gone to rot or simply broken ribs.

He dressed in silence. Each motion was measured, each breath a quiet bargain. Outside, the light eased its way across the window. No longer abashed, its golden fingers began prodding the room to life.

He left the room without straightening his shirt and without reclaiming his mask. They knew him too well by now.

And pain, after all, was its own mask.

* * *

The common room met him with its usual silence, but this morning, the quiet had edges.

Not the hush of early hour or unlit lamps. This silence was waiting. It clung to the space where ritual usually lived.

The hearth held only ash, and no firewood had been brought up from the shed. In the kitchen, the breadboard lay empty and clean. The pump hadn’t been primed, and no kettle hissed on the stove.

The red-haired innkeeper shuffled along, seeing all of it, and did nothing.

Some mornings, the shape of the day came in flour-dusted fingers and kettle steam. Today, it did not.

Across the room, Bast’s eyes flickered toward the unlit hearth. His mouth opened slightly, then closed again. His normal mischief bowing to the uncertain start.

Chronicler sat hunched low at a table. His page was half-written, half-smudged, and crumpled as if to suggest it had been reclaimed. He was far from ink and farther from words.

“Reshi, you look like death,” came Bast’s voice from behind the bar. “And that’s not a compliment.” A folded cloth dangled limp in his hand. He hadn’t been wiping anything. Just holding a gesture that had long since lost its reason.

“I’m standing,” Kote said evenly, moving cautiously toward Chronicler. “Well, mostly.”

“Barely,” Bast retorted. “Sit. Before the floor claims you and the drama gives Chronicler a nosebleed.”

Kote sat, stifling a grimace and an inward groan. Then, clasping his hands on the worn table top, he stared past them as though listening for something in the stillness.

“The tea helps,” he offered.

Bast rolled his eyes and folded into his own chair like someone sitting beside a wound.

Chronicler twisted in his seat, reaching for new parchment. His freshly dipped quill hovered. His hand waited.

Kote sneezed. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, slow and tired.

“I thought,” he said, “that with my purse full, nothing could stand in my way. That hard times were behind me.”

He let the silence linger. His voice grew softer, more gentle.

“But answers are never so kind. They were just out of reach, and I was smug enough to imagine they might come without a cost.”

He looked toward the windows, then farther. Beyond them. Beyond the village. Beyond himself.

When he spoke again, his tone had shifted, spilling into something deeper, something older. “Gather round and listen well,” he said, his words quiet but commanding. “For this is no triumphant song, no grand tale. This is a story shaped from sorrow. A tale of tragedy.”

The words came to rest. Subtle, but cold in the silence. Chronicler bent to the page, pen trembling once more into motion, and Kote, or at least the man who hid behind that name, spoke the first true words of the day.

CHAPTER 2.

THE FRAGILE WEIGHT OF PEACE.

FOR THE FIRST TIME since the road swallowed up my family and spat me back into its dust, I found peace. Not the brittle kind that vanishes with the slightest breath, but something richer and heavier. The Maer’s coin had loosened the tight, strangling fingers of debt around my throat. My deal with Riem had let me breathe easier still. Together, they made the world feel almost manageable.

This is what peace looked like. Mornings heavy with the scent of ink and parchment. Afternoons caught in tangled chords and experimental rhythms. Evenings thick with honey-gold light and silken laughter. I studied. I played music that made the heart rise and falter. I charmed women whose fire matched my own. Time felt like water cupped in my hands, precious and fleeting.

But I was young, and youth burns like kindling. It does not plan nor ask questions. I thought myself clever, brilliant even. I believed that I could shape the world to my will, one turn of brass and one twist of wire at a time. And that unbridled confidence, as with so many stories, is how “The Stainless” was born.

* * *

It was summer, and Kilvin's workshop buzzed like a hive. Gears ticked, water bubbled, and the air swam with the tang of hot copper and grease. I was hunched over a delicate spring mechanism at my station, sweat beading on my neck. My fingers toyed with a coil of tempered brass, its bright sheen mocking me with each brittle snap.

“If I could,” I muttered, then caught myself. My lips pursed as if that would hold back the frustrated edge in my voice. My hands shifted to my notebook, and I scrawled furiously across the page.

“Bend just enough, like a reed.”
“Snaps back hard. How to temper its force?”
“Needs better mounting.”
“Wears out too fast.”

For days, I chased the idea around in circles. My peers came and went. They dipped iron rods in oil and muttered Alar to stubbornly glowing lamps. They marveled at the mechanisms that failed on my table, but no one lingered, and I preferred it that way.

It took weeks, the kind of weeks that dissolve all thought of food or rest. But when the idea finally clicked, it sang through me. “The Stainless.” The device consisted of an elegant coil combined with a tempered brass surface that bent to punishment. Then, a collection of garnets smoothed the gears that safely metered back the resulting force.

Its purpose? Nothing profound. Just to endure.

It became a small wonder at the University. Students tested its limits with glee, finding it all but unbreakable. My first demonstration of it drew a dry laugh from Kilvin as he watched it with what I mistook for simple fondness. But when the laughter faded, he turned the small contraption over in his hands, inspecting every detail with those thick, deliberate fingers of his.

“It is beautiful, Kvothe,” Kilvin said in a calming tone. “But beauty is never untangled from its costs.”

I stiffened, confused. “Costs, Master Kilvin? It’s harmless. It can’t hurt anyone. It’s just a demonstration of resilience.”

Kilvin shifted his gaze to me, his eyes shadowed beneath his heavy brow. “Harmless?” he said softly, his thumb brushing the polished brass. “Resilience is strength, strength is power, and power rarely keeps to itself.”

Before I could defend myself, he continued, “You are too quick, Re’lar Kvothe. Quick to make and quicker to solve,” he said. “But wisdom is slow to grow. Always slower than the fires of cleverness.”

I wanted to snap back, but the weight of his words landed where I did not expect. My chest, my stomach, my hands. I felt Kilvin’s gaze press into me when I left the workshop with “The Stainless” tucked under one arm. Its polished surface was cool and smooth against my skin, yet strangely heavy on my heart.

* * *

That weight followed me into the Archives the next morning. The stillness there always brought a kind of solace, the light filtering through narrow windows soft as a secret. That day, I sat with Chancellor Herma at a wide table littered with Yllish knots. Their cords curled like spilled ink over the desk, beautiful and beguiling.

Herma’s hands trembled as they worked the rope, his fingers brushing over a tangle of knots like they were alive and needing soothing. The tremor was small at first, a faint note in the symphony of the quiet room.

Then, snap.

The knot came undone, loose fibers unwinding with a sharp finality. Herma’s breath hitched, and his shoulders tightened. The strands in his hands lay limp as dead snakes.

“Master?” I stood, suddenly aware of the stillness my own movement disturbed. “Should I summon someone from the Medica?”

Herma slowly lifted his hand as if to deliberately turn away a tide. “No,” he said, his voice quiet but resolute. He drew a deeper breath and let his fingers rest against the limp cords. It was a gesture of comfort, meant perhaps for them, but more likely for himself.

“These little betrayals,” he said after a moment, his usual steady baritone only slightly rough, “are nothing new, Kvothe. A bit like old friends who overstay their welcome. Bitter draughts and black poultices are our ways of shaking hands.”

I frowned. My mouth wanted to smile. My heart wanted to flinch. Was that a weak attempt at humor or his hurt laid bare by accident? “Perhaps if you?”

Herma cut me off, his voice growing firmer though his smile remained. “Kvothe, there’s nothing to fuss over. I am as I need to be. Some knots slip. The world keeps spinning.”

He leaned back then, his gray eyes catching the light like polished stones, and said something softer. “Who would have guessed, all those years ago? The stubborn boy sitting before me, sharp as flint, proud as a crow. Who could have known he would be unraveling knots alongside me one day?”

The humor in his voice felt warm, but I heard something beneath it. A trace of wistfulness. Of finality.

I forced myself to smile. My shoulders shrugged as if to shed the moment’s weight. “Good friends and teachers make all the difference,” I said. “I am proof enough of that.”

Herma nodded slowly, a touch of pride softening his expression. “And good knots,” he muttered, drumming his fingers over the failed rope, “are worth the effort, too.”

The moment passed, leaving only the faint creak of his chair as he turned back to the tangled cords.

* * *

Hours later, as I slid the last book back into its slot on the Archive shelves, I allowed myself a moment to breathe. The day was quiet, save for the faint rustling of pages and the occasional murmur from students shuffling between aisles. Yet a weight lingered at the outer edges of things, the kind no sunlight could dispel.

I shouldn’t have ignored it.

As I left the Archives, the afternoon breeze did little to shake the knot nudging restlessly at the back of my mind. Questions murmured there in whispers too dim to parse. Chancellor Herma might have dismissed his tremors, but a man steady as stone doesn’t crack without reason.

The world rarely grants peace without a cost. And even then, the toll is never paid up front but instead settles on you slowly, like ash after a far-off fire.

CHAPTER 3.

THE SILENT TOLL.

THE ARCHIVES BREATHED around me, quiet and heavy.

I had claimed a narrow table beneath an arched window, where the light of last bell spilled through old glass like liquid amber. It wasn’t warm. Not really. But it had the suggestion of warmth, the way that word might rest on your tongue even when the fire’s gone out.

Around me, I had built a small fortress of books. “Numbered Names.” “Feyda’s Legacy.” “Child-Charms of the Western Vale.” “Hashar’s Curtain.” Each one a brick, placed carefully, lovingly. A scholar might have called it comparative research. A sympathist might have said I was drawing lines, looking for patterns. But the truth was simpler, I was chasing shadows. Shadows wearing old names.

I was three pages deep into “Numbered Names”, working my way through a tangled verse of Mid-Shaldaic couplets, when Ambrose Jakis stepped into view. His robes were a bright Vintish red that did nothing to flatter the smug tilt of his lips and his hair was swept back with such deliberation it looked like it cost gold. His scent arrived before he did, cloying with rose oil and a hint of whatever powder arrogance is made from.

“Re’lar Kvothe,” he said, stopping three paces from my chair. “Conquering the Archives one aisle at a time, I see.”

He stood and waited, the silence pacing beside him. When I did not rise to the bait, he shifted, like a man seeking dry ground.

“You’ve laid siege to half a shelf of Shaldaic ramblings.” He gestured at my nest of books, his mouth twisting in a mockery of admiration. “What is it now? Lullabies for restless children, or researching adolescent fancies?”

I did what any man does when he finds a roach loose on his dinner plate. I set my eyes hard upon my notes, as if, by staring, I could burn a hole straight through the page.

He leaned closer, “Still charmingly tight-lipped. Must be exhausting, all that silent brilliance.”

He reached forward, slow as disdain, and rested his hand on the open copy of “Numbered Names”.

I looked up at last.

“I'm using that,” I said evenly.

Ambrose smiled. Not the gentle smile of courtesy. Not a smile at all, really. It showed his teeth, tops and bottoms, without any kind of fattening on the upper cheeks. “And yet you did not check it out,” he said, producing a small vellum slip sealed in the red wax of the Arcane Bursar’s desk.

“Filed properly. Logged and stamped,” he said, placing it atop the book like a winning hand in a game I hadn’t known we were playing. “Dreadfully unfortunate, isn’t it? Your claim only counts if you mark it.”

“You did this on purpose.”

“Of course I did. It makes me ill to see Edema Ruh fingers paw at the University’s archive. Scrivs gave years to those shelves, turning dust into order. And you stroll in, thinking you deserve what they built.”

He withdrew the book, gently, lovingly, like he meant to mount it on a plaque. He turned a few pages as he did, pretending to skim.

I reached for “Feyda’s Legacy” instead, but Ambrose just tutted and lifted the carved leather from the stack. “Ah, this one too, I’m afraid.”

He turned to go.

“I still need those,” I said.

He paused. The set of his shoulders softened, just slightly. As if he carried a private joke, and it warmed him from within.

“Then you’ll need to learn to place requests like grown students do. Hunching over some scrolls doesn’t just make them yours. This isn't a midden.”

He walked away then. Not quickly. Not reluctant. He moved with the resolve of a draccus deciding to cross a grove. A thick silence crept in behind him. The sort of hush that settles after something has been stolen, expertly and unfairly, leaving behind no course for the victim to remediate.

Renner’s eyes flicked up. Just for a moment. Then, back to the ledger, as if nothing had happened. As if watching justice slip past had become commonplace, stitched into the quiet rhythm of his days. Rules over reason. Rules over mercy. Always the rules.

I let my fingers rest on the empty space where “Numbered Names” had been. The wood was cool under my skin, the empty space colder still.

I hadn’t logged the books. It was as simple and foolish as that. But part of me hadn't wanted anyone knowing what old shadows I was chasing. That's the trouble with pride. It blinds you to foxes wearing silk smiles.

My hands shook.

Before I could still them, the bell rang.

Not the brassy chime of a class change. Not the shrill peal of fire or folly.

The Iron Bell. Low. Slow. The breath of stone lungs. The heartbeat of an old god turning over in sleep.

I froze.

The knell did not falter. It did not echo and fade. It did not merely pass through the hall. It filled it, slow and steady as a tide. Students stilled. A scroll slipped from one hand and drifted down. A book found its place on the shelf, without thought or reason. Even Renner looked up, caught by the sound.

The Iron Bell sang only one note.

Mourning.

The true kind. The kind that folds the world in half, sharp as a closing book.

* * *

The stillness of the Eolian that evening was unnatural. The tavern, usually alive with song, music, and the clink of mugs, sat dulled and subdued. Even the chandeliers seemed dimmer, their waxy yellow glow hesitant to reach far into the corners.

No one played Tinker Tanner. Not tonight. Not even badly.

Wil, Simmon, Mola, Fela, and I sat in our usual corner booth. It was not the shadowed hollow of comfort it normally was. The air hung too still. The old wood of the table felt cold beneath our hands. We had the hollowed feel of a song struck just off key.

Classes had been canceled for the span, an occurrence that rarely happened. The official notice mentioned administrative shortages, reassignment of duties, and necessary meetings. But everyone knew better. The University never made space for grief unless it absolutely had to. And the absence of Herma, who had been kind, measured, and constant, left a gap you could hear in the silence of the bells.

Wil raised his mug first, the gesture slow and deliberate. “To Herma,” he said, voice coarse with something quieter than anger, sharper than sorrow. He didn’t look at us. He stared down into the dark ale like it might answer a question he’d forgotten how to ask.

“To a steady hand,” Sim added, gentle-voiced. His drink paused halfway to his mouth, hand hovering. A flicker of tension in his jaw. He drank anyway.

“To a good man,” Mola said. She kept her eyes on the candle as she did, the flame reflected in the smooth gloss of her gaze.

Fela took a long breath. Her voice, when it came, was soft and dry at the edges. “To a proper Chancellor,” she murmured. “Whatever that means now.”

I hadn’t meant to say anything at all. But their words hung like threads waiting to be tied. To add nothing would’ve made me feel like the knot had slipped.

“To Herma,” I echoed, though the words left my mouth without weight. They were air across a cold mirror.

We drank.

A bottle arrived a few minutes later, silent and unannounced. The dark glass was shaped like a hushed thought, the cork already split. It was Vintish brandy, the good kind, not something a student could afford even on a lucky term.

The barkeep nodded toward the bar without being asked.

Deoch stood there, glass in hand, not drinking. He wasn’t watching us directly, but he was keenly aware of everything. He hadn’t known Herma. Their circles barely touched. But he knew us. Knew the air of loss when it hung around a table. He sent the bottle and left us alone. That was just like him.

We poured careful portions. No one spoke for a while.

The candle between us leaned in its wax cradle, its flame thinner than usual, as if mourning had its own gravity. My eyes fell to its uncertain flicker, how it trembled without wind.

“Men and their walls,” Fela said at last, not looking at anyone in particular.

Wil’s brow furrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it means,” she said. “You toast like someone marking names off a list. Neither of you could wring a feeling into words if your life depended on it.”

Wil opened his mouth, then closed it again. Sim raised both eyebrows but kept wisely silent.

Fela met my eyes and didn’t blink. “You usually mean your words. When you speak, Kvothe, people look up. That toast? I barely heard it.”

I let my fingertips graze the side of the glass. Cool, smooth, untouched. I could have fashioned a clever retort. Some right-sounding answer to feather over the cracks. But I didn’t have any. Not the good kind.

“He was the first man at the University who didn’t treat me like I’d arrived by accident,” I said. “He remembered my name before I earned it. That sounds small, but it wasn’t. Not to me.”

Mola pressed her fingers briefly to my wrist. It grounded me more than I expected.

“He gave me the kind of silence that doesn’t shame you. You know the kind. The silence teachers use when they want to give you space to think instead of to apologize. He knew how to tie meaning with empty thread.”

No one interrupted. Nothing needed to be added.

We sat there for a while in a shared silence. Thats when the raw words came. The ones I couldn't give voice.

The truth is, I hate losing things. More than that, I’m terrified of it.

Herma’s death wasn’t just a loss. It was a knot left half-tied, a pattern begun but never finished. And I couldn’t stop picking at it. My mind circled back, over and over, searching for the thread that might unravel it all and make it make sense.

It’s a sickness, I think, this need to fix what was never my doing. The ache to lay the world flat on the table and name its shape when all it wants to do is twist. I don’t know how to grieve gently. So instead, I dig.

I didn’t speak those thoughts aloud.

But I think Fela saw something in my face. That open, unfinished part of me I work so hard to bury.

She didn’t say anything else. She just looked at me like she understood that my toast, while incomplete, was as much as I could give. And then she looked away, letting the moment fold itself down like a letter no longer needing to be read.

* * *

The morning after Herma’s death arrived without ceremony. No sunbeam haloed the windows. No birds dared etch the silence. I woke late, liver aching and mouth filled with the taste of last night’s sorrow. Brandy had blunted the edge, but grief had filed it sharp again while I slept.

I didn’t rise at first. I lay still beneath the thin blanket in Anker’s attic room, watching the ceiling crack along a lazy seam, the timber beam above me like a distant road I could never walk.

Memory returned slowly, not as a rush of pain but as a damp cold seeping into the joints. Herma’s face appeared, not with the sharpness brought by illness, but softened in the half-light of recollection. A crooked smile came to mind, along with the way he tilted his head when puzzling over a knot, as if it might reveal its secret if he waited long enough. There was also the rare, warm patience he offered to students who deserved none of it, myself among them.

He was gone. And the world had the gall to keep turning.

* * *

A week had passed and Herma was still gone.

I crossed the stone span to the Archives just before second bell, my best coat pulled high against a lazy wind. The sun blinked through thin morning mist, gray-gold and washed out.

Inside, the quiet felt different today. It wasn't reverent exactly, just simply drained. The scent of parchment and dust seemed thinner. The tension in the air no longer tingled with curiosity. Instead, it hung slack and unstrung, like a harp left untuned.

I offered a nod as I passed the Scrivs’ counter. Only Tempi was on duty this early, his eyes bracketed with weariness. He gave a perfunctory tilt of the head that might once have been a greeting.

My feet turned of their own accord, leading me through the lower stacks, down a marble-inset hallway I’d come to know well. I moved without thinking, the same way your hand finds half-forgotten scars.

There had been a table toward the back, half-hinged and warped with water beneath its varnish, where Herma and I had spent three measured afternoons parsing knot-codes from the Barony of Okorran. We had argued, though gently, about redundancies of vowel-float and semantic inversions embedded in the spacing.

I reached it again. Still warped, still quiet.

Even the dust hadn’t been disturbed.

No record slips. No books left waiting for re-shelving. And most telling: no coils of knotted rope.

My blood ticked louder in my ears.

At the nearest counter, I waited until a scriv noticed me. She had short-cropped hair and the pallor of someone raised on too much lamp-light.

“Excuse me,” I said as easily as I could manage. “I was working with several Yllish texts, mostly unbound knotworks sourced from the Maer’s third donation. They were shelved on level three, alcove M-fifteen. Are they being restored or are they available?”

She barely looked up. “That collection's been recategorized.”

I blinked. “Recategorized?”

“Administrative reassignment,” she clarified, brushing a ribbon of ink from her hand. “Now under the direct supervision of Archivist Brandeur. Restricted until further notice.”

“Restricted?” I tried, casually enough. “I’ve been working with those individual entries for over three terms. I’ve cited them in three separate admissions reviews.”

She shrugged, the motion small and unconcerned. “Doesn’t change the classification. Anything under Archivist supervision requires written clearance.”

That word again. Clearance. A thin veil over countless locked doors.

“And the ledger slips?” I asked, voice just a shade cooler. “There should be records of each knotwork’s circulation.”

“That’s strange,” she frowned scanning the logbook. “Your name should be here. Was there another designation you used?”

I didn’t answer.

Because I had used my name. I logged them distinctly and consistently. Herma had even approved one under his seal for an independent study admission. That knotwork had been my connection to him these final months. And it had been erased.

I didn’t thank the scriv. I walked away before my mouth could come to any ill-considered conclusions.

* * *

Back in the upper stacks, I took a different stair. Not the eastern one, where the marble had worn soft in the center.

I needed to clear my head.

Instead, I found my fingers tracing ink along familiar paper. Not a journal, not exactly. Just a slim folio, always tucked beneath the table’s left shelf. Barely hidden, never sealed.

It wasn’t formally protected because it wasn’t meant to be. It wasn’t an archive. It was something more private, a kind of working sketchbook that Herma used to warm his hands against the cold of translation. It was a half-scribed place to stretch the mind before working real knots.

More than once, I’d watched him undo loops, scrawl alternate glyphs, knot half-thought riddles like seeds scattered in dry soil. It was equal parts study and scribble. The kind of space only someone serious about understanding ever bothers to make.

He always left it here, half-buried beneath old parchment, like a bookmark between afternoons. Not forgotten. Just routine. A kind of ritual. His way of picking up the rhythm of last week so his hands wouldn’t wander today. I’d left margin-scribbles there myself before. Questions beside his thoughts, left like seeds. He never answered. Not in ink.

Then, on the third-to-last page, there is a single, complex glyph. It was knotted in both forward syntax and reversed. It was repetitive. Redundant. Wrong.

I stared at it. The longer I looked, the less sense it made. And yet it wanted something. Not speech, certainly. But structure. It echoed a kind of purposeful confusion. The way a cipher sometimes doubles back and eats its own tail.

“You left me pieces,” I whispered to the page.

And then I noticed it, a smudge. Faint. Not ink, not quite. A grayish crescent was tucked beneath one glyph’s loop, perhaps a thumbprint. It was not Herma’s. The shape was too thick, too firm.

I turned the journal gently in the light.

Branded parchment.

One watermark, just visible, ghosted along the page. It was the Arcane Bursar's own. If ink could tell you who owned it, this page would shout of Hemme's gatekeeping.

My fists itched. I could feel something slithering into shape, but I had too few pieces.

“You were never just failing,” I said to the ghost of Herma’s hand. “Were you?”

Nothing in the book answered. But absence speaks too.

Outside, bells marked third bell with a softer voice. On this side of grief, I heard it differently. There was a pattern here. I could feel it tug, taut as breath. And I wasn’t letting it slip.

* * *

The common room at Anker’s was quieter than usual, with no bellowing arguments over dice and no half-drunken students trying to rewrite ballads louder than the competition. Just the low hum of voices and the knock of tankards on old oak. Life moving forward, as it always does.

Simmon saw me first. He raised a hand from our corner table, two fingers lifted in lazy greeting. Wil was already seated across from him, arms crossed over his chest, one boot up on the bench. A small pile of dice sat between them, the evidence of a game grown tired or one interrupted.

I slid onto the bench beside Sim and laid Herma’s folio carefully on the table.

Wil gave it a glance. “We drinking tonight or introducing bedtime reading to the betting table?”

“He’s brooding,” Sim murmured too gently to sting.

“I’m,” I stopped. No clever deflection came. “There’s something wrong.”

They both looked at me.

Wil’s brow lifted. Sim’s creased with concern.

“Of course there is,” Wil said, leaning back. “The Chancellor’s dead. Hemme’s stomping around with a seal he doesn’t deserve, and Brandeur’s pretending to matter.”

Sim cut in before I could answer. “Whatever you think’s crawling under the floorboards, Kvothe, it isn’t going to undo a funeral.”

I pushed the journal toward them, past the line of dice. “Look anyway.”

Wil didn’t reach for it. Sim did. His fingers brushed against the page I’d marked, one of the later ones where Herma’s writing began to slip sideways into gibberish and broken rhythm.

“I saw the knotwork log erased this morning,” I said. “Three terms gone. Herma’s seal gone too. And now one of his last notes is written on paper from the Arcane Bursar’s desk.”

Wil snorted. “What’s the theory? Hemme poisoned him mid-syllable? Brandeur sent a cursed fruit bowl?”

Sim didn’t smile. He turned another page.

“I’m not saying I know,” I said, my throat tight. “But something doesn’t fit. These are the last notes Herma left. They’re unfinished, cryptic, written like he meant to return to them. Now, just days after his death, they’re locked away, and there’s Bursar ink on one of the final pages.”

Sim looked up, his voice careful now. “Kvothe, do you think you’re following a thread?” He hesitated, clearly trying not to hurt me. “Or are you just trying not to let go?”

That hit harder than I expected. Not cruel. True.

But I said, softly, “Maybe both.”

Wil leaned back, arms crossed. “When does anything ever fit together for you? Honestly, half your cleverest ideas come from stuffing square pegs into round holes.”

“I know, but this,” I began, my mind tangled and my eyes never leaving the journal. “This knot is different.”

Wil groaned. “This is going to end well. So very well.”

CHAPTER 4.

EARS IN THE WIND.

I DID NOT KNOW WHAT I expected to find in the Chancellor’s gram. Only that Mola had called it off-key, broken in a way she could not name. I needed help, something unorthodox. Eyes that might see what hers had missed. Ears attuned to secrets strung quiet and strange, humming just beneath the surface.

And so, my feet carried me to Devi's door. I hadn’t even knocked twice before she opened it.

"Kvothe. Always a delight." She said, her smile already half a dare. "Have you come to lose more of your rare and celebrated dignity? Or merely to bask in my natural radiance?"

“Neither,” I said, stepping inside as the cinnamon warmth curled around my boots. “Though if you're offering radiance, I'll take a double helping.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t stop smiling. “Go on then, sweet boy. What charming trouble have you brought to brighten my doorstep?”

I brought out the request casually, threading enough truth into it to pass for honesty.

“Ah,” she said after I finished. “So we’re experimenting, are we? With borrowed alchemy at midnight? How convincingly not suspicious of you.”

I laughed. “Devi, you’ve always been my preferred source of suspicious materials.”

She considered the shelf with performative thoughtfulness for a beat, took the vial, and let it catch the light.

“No coin,” she said. “No blood markers. Not for such a little thing. But you’ll owe me. A favor. One of my choosing.”

I hesitated. “That sounds vague.”

“Vagueness, dear Kvothe, is the spice of life. Consider it a seasoning I’ll sprinkle on at some future date. You’ll say yes, of course.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll never make you tea again,” she said, bright and terrible. “And you’ll be forced to rot in ignorance, alone and unloved.”

I kept my smile in place, though my gut twisted at the idea of owing her anything undefined. Still, something in the set of her eyes made it feel less like a trap and more like a tally. She wasn’t hunting me. Not today. So I took the vial, bowing slightly. “You are insufferable.”

“Oh, darling.” Her smile widened. “But you suffer so beautifully.”

* * *

Silence filled the Medica, as if the building itself were holding its breath right along with us. Lanternlights hissed at the walls, flickering over polished wood, glinting off copper, glancing off glass. Shadows stretched themselves long and narrow across the floor, slipping away as if they, too, did not belong. The hush pressed in around us. It was too quiet, too careful. We stood where we ought not to stand, and even the air seemed to notice, as if the Medica was waiting for someone to find us out.

“This is ridiculous,” Sim hissed, as close to a shout as a whisper could be. He kept his arms tight against his sides, as if trying to contain the panic threatening to spill over. “Weeks of perfectly good decisions undone by one bad idea and more bad wine. I’m filing a grievance with the world.”

“Two gallons of wine,” Wil corrected, his voice low and steady. Despite his calm, there was a purpose to his steps, the sharp sound of his boots betraying more effort than ease. “And when Arwyl skins us alive, rest assured, I’ll not say a word in your defense. You first, then him, then me.”

“No one’s catching us,” I murmured, feigning confidence. My hands curled and uncurled at my sides, itching for work, aching to quiet the restless knot twisting in my chest.

Ahead of us, nestled unremarkably against the wall, stood the Chancellor's gram in the Medica’s display case. Plain glass, plain brass, easy to overlook. I told myself it was nothing, just another bit of University clockwork, but nerves have a way of finding shadows where there are none. As I stepped closer, my skin prickled. My breath felt shallow. The air pressed close against my ribs, thick and strange, though I knew it was only my own fear. I crouched in front of the case, hands careful, heart beating louder than it ought to. The lock met my gaze, all clean lines and simple metal. Practical. Precise. The sort of design that didn’t trust anyone who got too close.

“You’re sure about this?” Sim muttered, a little too loud. His breath brushed against the back of my neck.

“Honest answer?” I said, keeping my hands moving as I spoke. I didn’t look up, and my voice was quieter than I felt. “Not remotely.”

The lock gave way, its well-oiled mechanism yielding without so much as a groan. I lifted the lid. My fingers slipped into the darkness and found the gram waiting there. It was perfect, at first glance. Symmetrical, smooth as riverstone. Polished to a mirror's shine. A thing built to last, to endure. But it was wrong. I felt it, small as a splinter beneath the skin. Subtle, yes. Almost hidden, almost nothing at all. But once I noticed, I couldn’t unfeel it.

I tipped Devi’s vial over the gram. Slow and careful. The liquid was pale gold, thick as honey. It slipped across the sigaldry, winding into every groove. At first, nothing. The air held still. Then light crawled along the lines, thin and sharp. Each edge glittered like frost finding new glass. Bright, cold, undeniable.

Behind me, Sim inhaled. The sound caught. I heard fear coiling in his breath. “Is that normal?”

“No,” I said, though I felt like I was speaking from somewhere else. “It’s not normal. It’s not expected. And it’s definitely not grief.”

I wiped the gram clean. My movements were careful, practiced, leaving nothing behind. Not a smear. Not a whisper. My hands worked faster than my mind, tugging at the edge of the question that pressed close and heavy. Who could have done this? And, worse, who would? The craftsmanship was clever. Elegant. Dangerous.

I tried not to leap to conclusions. Tried not to let suspicion settle. Yet Hemme lingered at the edge of my thoughts. He had the skill. He had the motive. Sometimes, that is enough.

“Done now?” Wil whispered. He watched the hallway, shoulders tight, each breath drawn shallow.

“Yes,” I said, fitting the lock back into place with a final click. My hands felt steady, my voice even, but inside, my blood ran far from calm. As we slipped back into the darkened halls of the Medica, a single thought emerged and settled low in my chest, heavy as an iron weight. This had been deliberate, and it wasn’t over.

* * *

The night was cold in the courtyard outside, the air crisp and unforgiving. Moonlight spilled unevenly over the cobblestones, pooling in alcoves where ancient gargoyles studied us with chipped and weathered eyes. The chill bit sharper after what we had seen.

“This is where it stops,” Sim said at last. His voice was low, his hands buried deep in his pockets. He leaned against the courtyard wall, close but distant, like he desperately needed something solid. I could hear the weariness in his tone, a line stretched too far and trembling. “We don’t push this. We’ve already gone too far.”

I didn’t respond right away. My fingers toyed with an edge of my cloak, as if they needed to move to keep from curling again into fists. My thoughts twisted, folding and refolding themselves like restless water beneath a frozen bank.

“Hemme won’t admit to anything,” I said finally, each word sharp and distinct, like I’d spent hours shaping them. “Men like him never do. But I don’t need his confession. I just need him to slip.”

“To slip,” Sim repeated, flat and unimpressed. His voice, so often warm, felt far away now. He lifted his head to look at me, his eyes searching for something in my face. “And then what? You want him to tumble down the stairs of your cleverness? When has that ever worked?”

I gave him a faint smile, something quick and dishonest, already moving toward the shadows. “Careful work,” I said. “That’s all it will take. Careful work, and the right ears.”

“That sounds like a terrible plan,” Wil said darkly, crossing his arms as he leaned against the fountain. “Leave Hemme’s name out of it. If you lose control, I don’t even want to imagine the consequences.”

* * *

Later, Mola would tell me she never looked up. She simply sat at her usual place beneath the cracked stair lamp, pretending to read a Medicae botanica text like she wasn’t listening for footfalls she had no business hearing. Her face calm, back straight, mouth pressed into the kind of line usually reserved for uncooperative patients.

She didn't stop us. That was the important part. A single glance in the wrong direction, one question asked at the wrong time, and the whole thing would have collapsed like bad lungwork.

“I didn’t lie,” she told me, later still. “I just redirected Ezra when he started his rounds early. I told him there was a misfiled note in the apothecary. There wasn’t, but it seemed wiser to avoid letting the archives argue with whatever’s left of a pulse.”

She didn’t say it just to justify herself. Mola never needed my approval, not since the day she saved my life in the Medica. But that night, she chose silence over certainty. That choice required more than courage. It called for quiet belief. She believed in me, in Herma, and in what might still be uncovered.

She didn’t write down what she saw. She didn’t even turn her head. But in that hush between lantern flickers, her presence held steady like the last safe breath before drowning.

The kinds of truths we found that night don’t get admitted to ledgers. But without Mola, we’d never have walked out on our own feet. We might not have walked out at all.

* * *

The next afternoon, Brandeur’s measured monotone droned in the lecture hall, filling the air like bad music. He tinkered with theories too dry to spark interest, too dull to linger in memory. Most students stared blankly, their minds somewhere else entirely. I sat near the front, making certain my presence unspooled against his awareness like a snagged thread.

“Hemme might’ve thought this was clever,” I muttered, just loud enough to be heard. My lips brushed the words softly, almost to myself, though I chose them with care. “It seems so simple. But it’s always the cracks. Things slip there first.”

To his credit, Brandeur’s voice didn’t stumble midsentence, but the brief flicker of his eyes told me what I needed to know. Some threads, even careless ones, pulled tighter than others.

Hours later, I caught him moving across the cobblestones. His gait was sharp and purposeful, his steps cutting through the twilight gloom. He moved toward Hemme’s office. I trailed him at a distance, my own movements quiet as I made my way to the gargoyle fountain.

The night deepened around me, my breath curling faint in the cold as I crouched low beside the fountain. I reached out with my Alar and coaxed the overcurious wind to weave its thread. One side drifted toward Hemme’s shuttered office while the other slipped toward Kilvin's. Calling the wind was not force. It was seduction, a kind of charm you encouraged gently, as if leading a bird to your open hand. Slowly, I teased softness into firmness and murmured until it yielded.

Hemme’s voice rode the current first, sharp and clipped. “It was delicate work, nothing more. Not sabotage. A gentle nudge. Something no one should have noticed.”

Another voice, softer, less distinct. “And Herma?”

Hemme’s voice carried through the wall. “Herma was old.” There was a thread of exasperation in it, pulled thin. “This didn’t kill him. Time did. I only helped it along.”

The wind trembled. It slipped free of my words, and the voices dissolved into the night. Still, I had heard enough. My teeth clenched against the weight of it. Hemme’s confession was soft. Ordinary. But true. Herma hadn’t needed to die. I could only hope the current I had set loose would carry his words to Kilvin.

* * *

The trial took weeks to wind its way into motion. Weeks where I made myself stay quiet, an unseen Cthaeh easing pieces into place while others bore the weight of suspicion. Kilvin carried the case where I could not, pulling together threads I’d left carefully loose behind me, his calm authority reshaping what I couldn’t touch directly.

When Hemme finally stood beneath the shadow of the Iron Law, I remained in the gallery, one face in a sea of quiet onlookers. Kilvin testified with grave simplicity, recounting a trail of evidence that pointed unmistakably toward tampering, and toward Hemme. Arwyl followed, dragging the room through his detailed reexamination of Herma’s body. Signs of malfeasance. Tiny, deliberate patterns.

It wasn’t the confession itself that struck Hemme down. It was the weight of too many threads woven against him, and the smallest fray in his infamous control. The records of materials purchased from the Artificery. The faint patterns in Herma’s decline. His accomplice’s silence. It was inevitable, like a rope drawn tight enough to strangle.

But even as the trial resolved, I found no satisfaction. Justice wasn’t sharp, not like guilt. It wasn’t clean. It was heavy and dull, something that settled slowly into grief’s hollow weight. I told myself it was enough, though I could not say for sure if I believed it.

What I know is this. I spent long nights awake, staring at the ceiling, chasing the thought. Wondering if I might have found it sooner. If I had tugged at the thread before it knotted. If it would have made a difference. If it would have mattered.

CHAPTER 5.

THE ART OF LISTENING.

I LINGERED OUTSIDE THE Archives after the trial. I hadn’t meant to. My feet found their way there, tracing old steps, following a thread I could not see. The quiet hung around me, heavy and damp, like wool soaked through with rain. Each breath pressed down against my chest. Thick. Close. The walls leaned in and tightened the space, taking the easy air and leaving only the weight behind.

Somewhere, a bell called out. Its voice came soft and distant, blurred by stone and the stretch of empty halls.

Silence settled over me and refused to leave. It pressed close and closer still. It pressed out the world, the questions that had no answers, the frayed places in my memory, the guilt that clung like a second skin. Silence smothered it all, leaving nothing but its own cold comfort.

“You’ve been thinking too loud.”

I turned and found Elodin standing there, framed by the shadows of the passage behind him. He didn’t so much stand as inhabit the space, like he had been part of that silence all along and had simply chosen now to emerge from it. His robe hung crooked, one shoulder bare. His hair was as wild as his expression was calm, eyes bright as cut glass but unreadable, like they reflected some light I couldn’t see. For an instant, as my gaze met his, I thought there was something strange about the way the shadows moved around him, like they leaned into his edges instead of away. But the moment passed before I could pin it down.

“Walk with me,” he said. There was no inflection to his tone and no hint of invitation. It wasn’t rude. It simply assumed.

Then he smiled, small and sly, as though he’d just told a joke only he was clever enough to hear. Before I could answer, he turned and began moving along the uneven cobbles, his steps an easy glide. I didn’t even have to think before my feet followed.

Elodin wove through the campus like the wind: careless but deliberate. Cobblestones gave way to gravel, gravel to dirt as we twisted beneath low archways and tight alleys, past buildings bathed in shadow. I couldn’t say if he led us by instinct or some private knowledge of paths no one else noticed. Whatever the case, the ground felt uneven beneath my boots, but Elodin walked over it like it wasn’t there.

At last, he broke the silence. “You’re thinking about Herma.” He didn’t ask. His tone was measured and inevitable, as precise as artifacting.

"Of course I am,” I said, though the words felt too clumsy for the weight I wanted them to carry. “It feels wrong. Too quick. It’s like rushing through a verse before the final chord has time to settle."

Elodin hummed in answer. It was not a tune. It was something low and strange, more vibration than music.

“He hated chaos,” Elodin said. His words were soft, half a thought spoken aloud. “But not the way you expect. Herma hated what chaos did to people. Books are simple things. Ropes and rooms can bear disorder. They do not mind. People are different. He tied us together, Kvothe.”

I frowned at him. “Tied how?”

Elodin’s lips curved slightly, like I’d stepped onto the edge of some verbal trap. “Have you never noticed it? The scholars, the errant students, the fools trying to wrap themselves in wisdom too large for them? Herma pulled at their ends. Drew them steady. Anchored them. You never even saw it. Not until now.”

“And now?” I asked, careful.

He did not smile this time. He only looked up, studying the sky as clouds unraveled into long pale threads. Mist drifted, draped, tangled on the wind.

“Now his knots are loose,” he said. “Some still hold. Some slipping, some coming undone.” He watched the sky as if waiting for something more. “I wonder which will last. Which will pull tight and never let go.”

We walked on. When the cemetery came into view, I realized for the first time where Elodin had been leading me.

* * *

The grave was wrong. Not in its size. Not in its shape. Not in the way the stone sat, cold and square and still. Herma never wanted grandeur. He never wanted statues or carved names. But this ending felt wrong in a different way.

The stone lay flat. The edges were too straight. The lines were too clean. It all fit together, smooth and silent, like a finished song.

But where was the knot? Where was the thing that gave it meaning, complexity, weight? It was no grave for a man as full of untied stories as Herma had been.

Elodin stood beside me. He did not move. The wild restlessness I knew so well was gone, pressed down beneath the hush of this place. His shoulders slumped, bowed by something I could not see. For a long time, neither of us spoke. When at last he found his voice, it was low, almost gentle, as if a word alone might rip the silence like cloth. As if the silence itself was fragile, easily broken.

“The art of listening,” he said, “is more than Naming. You already know this. Even if you don’t know you know it.”

Did Elodin know I’d had a hand in Hemme’s downfall? Had Kilvin woven together my loose threads? But as I opened my mouth, I felt the air itself pressing against my words. I let them fall away. The answer wouldn’t change anything.

Elodin stayed a moment longer, murmuring something that felt more like a prayer than a comment. Then he turned and walked away, leaving me there with my thoughts and the weighted silence of the burial ground.

* * *

That night, Elodin’s Naming class was the opposite of the graveyard. Where the grave had been still, the class crackled with restless energy. Firelight from the torches danced across the stone walls, throwing shadows that writhed like living things.

“Kvothe.” Elodin’s voice cut through the air, snapping my name like a bowstring. “To the center.”

I hesitated, but only for a heartbeat. Every eye in the room traced my movements as I stepped forward. I stood in the circle of space Elodin had carved out for moments like this, beneath the heavy gaze of ancient stonework and brighter, watchful eyes.

Elodin paced slow circles around me, his movement oddly graceful, like a bird inspecting its prey after deciding it wasn’t, in fact, dead. “Tell me,” he said quietly. “What do you see in a Name?”

His tone was too calm, too deliberate, and I braced myself. “I see truth,” I replied, my voice measured, even.

Elodin stopped pacing. The faintest smile curved along his lips. “Clever. And true enough. But truth is not simple. It is not clean.” He began to move again, circling me steadily. “Truth is layered, Kvothe. A fragile thread wrapped in lies, in doubt, in sharp things eager to snap under tension.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but Elodin wasn’t waiting.

"A Name," he said, "is more than truth. It is balance. It is connection. It is weight. It is the thing beneath all things."

He paused then, looking straight at me, eyes bright and sharp. "If you pull too hard on one thread," he said. He gestured, and a breath of wind moved through the room. It came light as a whisper, brushing against my cheek.

"Everything comes undone."

The air thickened. I could feel it winding tighter around me, impossibly heavy.

Elodin leaned closer, his voice soft as silk. “Say it.”

The Name hovered on the edge of sense, spinning just beyond my reach. And then, like plucking a string I couldn’t see, it rang through me. Not as sound exactly, but as a trembling resonance that pulled through my chest and fingers. The wind moved, shifting in perfect harmony with the name I didn’t so much call as breathe. A melody hidden within silence, waiting to be played.

For a moment, it lingered at my side, light as breath, alive with motion. Then, thin as glass, it formed a ring around my finger before dissolving.

The room fell still. Papers that had scattered in the sudden wind settled softly to the ground. No one spoke.

"Beautifully done,” he said, his tone a strange mix of reverence and regret. He stepped closer, tilting his head like a bird both curious and wary. “A ring of air. A rare thing. The first step toward something.” He hesitated, studying the space where the wind had been, then nodded faintly. “A pity. So lovely. So doomed.”

I barely heard him. I was still caught in the moment before, held captive by the raw and fragile truth of what I’d just touched. It wasn’t just a moment or a trick. It was proof that I had crossed some invisible line.

CHAPTER 6.

THE BREATH OF THE PEAKS.

THE HUM OF VOICES and the clinking of tankards seeped upward from the packed common room at Anker’s, muffled but steady, like the pulse of a living thing. It was a sound I should have been part of, thickening the air with chords from my lute, stoking laughter with stories. Instead, I sat on the edge of my narrow bed, staring at the pack I had thrown together in no more than ten minutes.

The bag was simple. Too simple, perhaps, for everything I meant to do. Inside, a waterskin, a loaf of bread gone dry at the edges, a tightly rolled blanket. And my lute in its case, strapped to the side. It looked at me, silent. Disapproving.

I hesitated. The air hung heavy in the room, thick with the stale tang of ale and old wood.

It was foolish. I knew that. Irresponsible, maybe even dangerous. But another voice answered, softer than a secret, sharper than a knife. When has that ever stopped you?

Responsibilities do not rest. They pull at you. Work, family, hungry mouths, empty pockets. The things that keep you alive are the same things that sweep you downstream. You dream of stopping, just for a moment, just to breathe or build or sing. But the river is relentless. Always forward, never back.

When you are young, you tell yourself there will be time. Later, you say. After you have done what must be done. But later comes like winter, colder and emptier than you imagined. Old bones ache. Old dreams fade. The mountain you meant to climb has grown taller. The song you meant to sing no longer fits your voice. You realize the river has carried you farther than you thought, and all the things you loved have drifted out of reach, lost in the current you never meant to follow.

Before reason could find its footing, I reached for my pack. The weight of them across my back settled something in me, if only for a breath. It was a grounding, brief and welcome, as my feet found their way forward. Below me, the tavern sounds faltered. Silence stretched through floorboards, thin and unexpected. I could almost hear Anker’s voice, half-accusing, half-laughing, with a smile buried in the words. Off so soon, boy? We’ve a full house tonight.

But I didn’t answer the phantom question. Instead, I scrawled a hasty note and set it neatly on my bed.

“Anker,”
“Something needs tending at the University.”
“I’ll return in a few days.”
“My thanks, as always.”
“Kvothe.”

I knew the note would not satisfy him. Anker was no fool. He would take his irritation and turn it to good use. There would be fuller mugs. There would be thicker slabs of bread. Customers would leave with heavy bellies and light purses, and his scowl would fade in the busy work of the day.

But even so, when I turned to leave, something pressed at me harder than any pack. It was not quite regret. Just the ache of knowing this was my home. These were my people. They would help me, as they always had, and they would understand. But my leaving would weigh on them. I would not be here to share the burden, and the work would be no lighter for my absence.

I stepped out into the night, the air striking my face with a cool relief that startled me after the stale warmth of the upstairs room. The street was quieter than I expected, though the distant hum of Imre’s evening life lingered faintly on the breeze. Overhead, the sky yawned wide, the edges smeared with purples and blues that would soon deepen to black. Beyond that, the mountains lingered more in memory than sight. Their distant peaks seemed to call me, sharp and steady as a plucked string whose vibrations traveled too far to fade.

I took my first steps, slow but sure, letting the rhythm of the walk ease my restless thoughts. The trail wound ahead like a song waiting for its first note.

* * *

The wind met me halfway to the Six Sisters, restless and sly. At first, it was gentle, threading playfully through my hair and snapping at the edges of my hood. But as the land began to slope upward beneath my boots, so did the wind’s mood change. It tugged harder, sharp and impatient, as if testing whether it could pull me back or push me onward.

By the second day, its playful nature had vanished entirely. The mountains rose jagged and solemn ahead, their rocky faces indifferent, their uppermost peaks capped faintly with snow that glinted in the weak light. I climbed carefully, moving with deliberate steps, each breath drawn thinner as though the air itself were shrinking. At times, the wind screamed between the crags, a wild and furious thing. There was no question about whose domain I had entered. Here, the wind was not just part of the weather. It was alive, a raw force that seemed to question my right to trespass.

Each night on the mountainside, I found myself beneath a blanket of stars so wide it seemed as though the world might collapse under their weight. I huddled beneath my blanket, my body aching from hours of climbing, my thoughts circling themselves like a hungry hawk. The wind howled in the night, singing its secrets I was too deaf to hear. What did I think I would learn? Did the wind even have a secret, or had I left Imre chasing ghosts of my own imagining?

The ascent grew steeper with each passing day. By the third morning, I felt utterly alone. The trees had long fallen away, leaving only jagged stone and patches of black ice that glared up at me from the ground like unkind mirrors. I measured my breath in shallow bursts, each careful step anchoring me to the moment.

On that morning, when the wind was sharpest and the air cold enough to sting at my cracked lips, something happened.

I had stopped to rest on a rocky ledge, perched precariously far above the world I had risen from. The wind clawed at me with ferocity, battering my chest and legs, blinding me by whipping my hair into my eyes. And then, suddenly, it stopped.

The absence was so sharp it startled me, as if the world had exhaled once and held its breath in anticipation. My heart pounded in my chest. The wind didn’t vanish entirely. It wasn’t a retreat, but rather a pause that felt still and deliberate. Something brushed my cheek then, soft and faint, not forceful or cruel. Its touch wasn’t tender, but it wasn’t angry either. I could not name what it was, only that I felt something beneath it. There was a recognition, or at least the suggestion of one.

The thread hummed just out of reach. For the first time, I didn’t try to pull it closer. I simply listened.

When the wind shifted again, it almost felt like it lingered a moment longer before moving on.

I descended the slopes with steps that were lighter, though no less cautious. I carried nothing with me but my breath, my lute, and the small, thrilling certainty that when I truly called, the wind would come.

* * *

When I returned to Imre, it was near twilight. The city lounged beneath a sky painted in soft pinks and grays, the evening air cool against my skin. My boots found their way through familiar streets until the rest of the world seemed to fade behind me.

Auri’s rooftop was where it always was, quietly hidden, holding its breath just for me. When I climbed the last set of stones, I found her perched on the edge, her legs swinging over a gap as carelessly as a child dangling them in water. She turned at the sound of my boots, and her face broke into a wide smile, as though the sky itself had gifted her the sight of me.

“Welcome home, Kvothe,” she said, prim and polished, as though I had kept her waiting for precisely this moment.

I returned her smile, setting my pack down with a low thump. “You always know,” I said.

“Of course I do,” she replied, tilting her head with a smug twist to her lips. “The wind told me. Did you catch it?”

I laughed, shaking my head. “Catch it? That’s the wrong question altogether.”

Auri raised a finger, as if to challenge me. “But did you ride it?”

“No.” I sighed, dropping to sit beside her. The stone was cool beneath me, a quiet contrast to the warmth her presence brought. “But I got closer.”

“That’s good enough,” she said lightly. “You’ll be Taborlin the Great before you know it.”

Her eyes drifted to the bulging sack at my side, and she gasped. “Oh! What did you find this time?”

“A few things,” I said, reaching into my pack. “And this.” I pulled free a bundle of rich blue fabric, folded neatly and tied with a thin strip of leather. “A gift for you.”

Her hands flew to her cheeks in delight. “For me?” she asked, her voice hushed the way one speaks of something sacred.

“You said you liked my cloak,” I said, unfolding the fabric. It caught the fading light, the color deepening to the shade of evening skies just before the stars wake. “And since you don’t like used things, I thought you deserved one of your own.”

She let me swing the cloak around her thin shoulders. It settled softly, wrapping her like dusk falling at the close of day. Her small hands clasped the edge, brushing its folds with reverence.

“What’s it made of?” she asked, her voice full of longing.

“Goose feathers and whispers from summer clouds,” I said. My voice held all the seriousness the moment deserved.

She laughed, bright and light, a chime caught in the open air. “Goose feathers alone are cruel. How thoughtful, to soften them with the kindness of clouds.”

“And what did you bring me?” I asked, invoking our ritual.

Auri’s sly grin returned. She reached into her pocket with great deliberation and pulled out a small, weathered book. It was plain but old, its edges browned and its cover faintly embossed with swirls, like frost curling over the surface of glass.

“This,” she announced. “It’s made of shadows and murmurs from long ago.”

I took it carefully, running my fingers along its textured surface. It felt strangely warm, as though it had absorbed sunlight no one else could see. “What’s inside?”

“Secrets,” she said simply. Her tone was so casual, so matter-of-fact, that it made me pause.

“Secrets it keeps?” I asked, curious.

“Secrets it tells,” she said, the words spreading like ripples in a still pond.

Before I could ask more, Auri sprang to her feet, the cloak swirling around her like a storm caught in a teacup. “Play for me!” she said, twirling once, her arms spread wide.

I pulled my lute from my pack, the familiar weight rough in my hands. The first chord rose into the air, soft and buoyant, and she began to turn, her toes brushing the stone with practiced lightness.

The notes carried us both. My fingers guided the melody, weaving it through the cool evening air. Auri spun and spun, her bare feet tracing patterns on the rooftop as though they were writing something too beautiful for words. The stars above blurred with her motion, their light winding together with the sound of my music.

Her laughter echoed briefly before fading into the stillness. When at last her movements slowed and my music trailed off, she collapsed into a heap of soft blue cloak and tangled golden hair, grinning up at me as though she’d captured the sky itself.

CHAPTER 7.

A SONG WITHOUT WORDS.

THE NEWS ARRIVED QUIETLY at first, like the faint rumble of thunder through distant hills. It moved in whispers, trailing through the Courtyards and across the stone benches of the Medica, brushing against ears and tightening brows. By midmorning, it gained weight, carried on the sharp gestures of students gathering under the shadow of the Archives.

Kilvin was Chancellor.

Those words sat like a great stone in the air. Strange. Unyielding. Kilvin of the forges, Kilvin with his heavy hands and thick voice. Kilvin who spoke carefully, who shaped fire and brass. Now seated at the high table, at the head of all things. It was hard to imagine. As if a bear had been asked to rule among books. Strong, yes. Capable. But still out of place.

I heard no proclamation. No formal announcement rang across the University. Not yet, that would come later. But the evidence was everywhere. In the Hall of Stones, Herma’s name had been carefully filed away into history. On the slab of dense, polished rock that bore the names of Chancellors past and present, Kilvin’s name gleamed freshly carved, sharp-edged like it might cut you if pressed too hard.

I saw him that morning, before Admissions. He was hunched over a long roll of parchment, thick fingers wrapped around a quill too delicate for his hand. He did not look up as I passed. I thought only of my tuition. Eighteen talents and six jots. Not the worst I’d owed, but close enough to leave a mark. Looking back, the smallness of my worries makes me wince.

Herma was gone, and Kilvin stood in his place. I imagined his voice huddled behind the weight of that long table, giving counsel in that calm, rumbling tone of his. It wasn’t a bad thought. Kilvin, after all, was what people called reliable. Still, a whisper tugged at the back of my mind like a thread. Did Kilvin know what to do when the knot unraveled?

* * *

Denna was back in Imre.

I never know how these things find me, whether it’s an overheard word or the strange way the air changes when she’s nearby. But I knew. I felt it as surely as the first sharp note of a song.

I found her perched on a low stone wall outside a shop boasting perfumes too delicate for my palate and cigars too expensive for my purse. She was dressed simply, her dark hair dancing faintly in the breeze. But there were signs of elsewhere in her. Subtle changes tucked into the way she carried herself, secrets hinted at in the faint streak of amber kissing her hair and the soft spice clinging to her skin.

“Are you off to dine with kings?” I asked, lifting my voice just enough to break her quiet.

Her gaze found me, and she smiled, quick and sharp like light glancing off a blade. The moment vanished in the next breath. “Only if kings don’t bore me first,” she said, hopping down from the wall with just enough grace to make it seem accidental.

Something about her was different, but not in the usual way Denna was always different, like a song changing key. This was quieter, more deliberate. She was here, but I could tell that some part of her was still elsewhere, drifting outside what I could reach.

We spent the evening walking the streets of Imre, dipping in and out of gilded restaurants where the service came with silver platters and smiles just shy of condescension. I told her stories, absurd things that made her laugh, and her laugh made the night feel lighter. I played for her too, here and there. At one table, I played a simple tune, and at another, something fast and clever. Her bursts of laughter and easy smiles filled the spaces we shared, yet I couldn’t shake the weight of what always followed. It was the quiet, the part of her I could never touch.

By the time we left the last café, I’d spent more of the Maer’s coin than I cared to count. She walked at my side, her hands folded loosely behind her back, her steps as light and careless as falling leaves.

Farther down the street, the dark ribbon of the Omethi River curved its long body through the city. A light caught my eye as I noticed the lantern hanging at the bow of a small boat. Its pale glow revealed the figure of Sovoy, who was paddling along the lazy current. His movements were as smooth as ink spilling over a page. His hat was tilted forward, and his hunched shoulders made him look like an absent thought adrift in the slow water.

“That’s rare enough to catch the eye,” I murmured.

Denna turned her head toward the water but didn’t stop walking. Her voice came softer than the river’s rhythm. “Rare things have a way of vanishing.”

She reached for my arm and tugged me away from the café lights, leading us into quieter streets, and then quieter still, until the shadows of Imre deepened, and the soft hum of the city slipped behind us like a dying breath.

* * *

We found ourselves near the standing stones just beyond the far edge of the city, where the air turned sharp and stars hung closer to the ground. I had walked past these stones many times but never lingered. Tonight, though, something about their presence seemed different. The world felt quieter here, as though holding its breath.

Denna leaned against one of the stones, the faint moonlight pooling silver over her dark hair. She had her arms folded loosely, her usual laughter gentler now but no less sharp. “Why don’t you play me something new?” she asked.

It wasn’t a suggestion.

I hesitated, my fingers trailing over the strings of my lute as I unslung it from my shoulder. I wanted to reach for something easy, the steady comfort of a familiar tune, but there was no comfort in the way she looked at me. Her gaze pinned me to the spot, weightless but unyielding.

Finally, I reached for something older, an unpolished melody from days I rarely dwelled on. Its edges were rough, its rhythm uneven, like the steps of a man staggering home alone on an unfamiliar road. I had written it when I was hungry, longing both for food and for answers that were too heavy for a boy to carry.

The song spilled into the night, and Denna closed her eyes, listening. She tilted her head slightly, as if hearing something beyond the notes. When the final chords faded, she opened her eyes. For a moment, she seemed distant, as if she was farther away than the stars strung above us. Without a word, she stepped forward and brushed her lips against mine.

It was light. Fierce. Unexpected. She lingered just enough to let me feel its absence the moment she stepped back.

“I always knew you were like this,” she said softly, her voice curling into something between satisfaction and sorrow. Before I could speak, she turned toward the distant lights of Imre, the faint spice of her trailing in the breeze.

I stood there, my lute still in my hands, the silence of the stones all the more deafening in her wake. If there was anything sacred left in me, it was sitting in the space where the song had lived for just a moment longer.

CHAPTER 8.

RARE THINGS VANISH.

I WOKE WITH MUSIC in my veins and a singular question on my tongue. Where could I find Denna today?

There are mornings when the world feels newly-minted, and even a threadbare room above Anker’s hums with promise. Sunlight slipped through the shutters, painting gold across the battered neck of my lute. I wondered, not for the first time, what song I could play that would truly reach Denna. I thought about what melody might stir her heart and touch her soul, drawing her closer to me.

The day before sparkled crisp and clear in my memory. Laughter twined with song and a score of flavors were shared across Imre’s scattered tables. At parting, there was Denna’s lips, a sudden, starlit touch. It was the kind of day that makes a man believe that perhaps, this time, the story is taking a turn for the better.

As I dressed, hope made me foolish and I was happy because of it. I rehearsed clever observations, half-remembered poetry, and a compliment carefully crafted to slip past the sharpness of her wit. Maybe I would find her sunning herself on Stonebridge, or browsing the bookstalls, or picking her way through the market square with that smile that cut the dust like light. I tuned my lute softly and practiced a phrase I hoped she might coax from me.

After yesterday, every street in Imre felt greener, every errand a possible encounter. I told myself she would be there. Of course she would.

But noon came and Denna did not. The city spun on heedlessly as I wandered past the bakery where we’d shared a sweetroll and through the alley’s hush where her laugh had once echoed. As I walked, expectation faded and old uncertainty crept in where the promise had been.

I found myself back at Anker’s by habit. Laurel was setting fresh bread on a table and caught my eye.

“Kvothe,” she said quietly, pausing with tray in hand. “I’ve something for you. A message, left this morning.” She held out a page folded small and neat.

It was written in Denna’s hand. Just two words, hurried yet careful as string drawn tight.

“Next time.”

I turned the note over, searching for more, even though I knew there wouldn’t be. There wouldn’t be an explanation. No mention of why she had been near enough to leave a note but wouldn't say goodbye. Just a promise so light it seemed a mercy, or perhaps a curse.

“She said she was leaving?” I managed, though the answer was plain in the empty air.

Laurel reached out to comfort me, sympathy soft around her eyes. “She only gave me this and said that you’d understand.”

If I understood anything, it was that doors open and doors close. And Denna was always caught between them, a shadow in the doorway. Never fully arriving, but never truly gone.

I watched the words blur on the page. Ink and memory, smudged by grief. The paper fit quietly into my jacket. I pressed my hand to it, as if her absence could be carried, close and warm. But the city’s music had lost its sweetness. Something rare had vanished.

By midafternoon, I found my feet drifting toward Devi’s. It wasn’t wise, and it definitely wasn’t fair, not to her and not to myself. Still, the bitter hollow Denna left behind was unbearable.

* * *

Devi’s room always felt alive, but in a way I could never entirely trust. Cinnamon softened the sharper edges of whatever alchemy worked in the shadows, but it did little to cover the tension coiled within the space itself. It was the kind of room that invited curiosity the way a sharp knife invites wandering fingers.

Devi lounged in her chair, her hair tumbling over one shoulder in a pale waterfall, legs tucked beneath her like a cat waiting to pounce. Her grin, sharp and knowing, widened as I entered. “Kvothe,” she said, drawing out my name like a silken thread. “To what do I owe this charming distraction?”

“You flatter me too easily,” I said, leaning against the doorframe.

“Not a word of it is undeserved,” she countered, propping one elbow on the table beside her. “And don’t think you can distract me from the most pressing matter at hand.”

“Which is?”

She waved a finger toward me. “Your hair, darling boy. It’s practically shouting mischief.”

“Mischief,” I said, stepping further into the room, “is just what happens when genius doesn’t sit still.”

“And trouble,” she chimed, “is what happens when it does.”

For a moment, our laughter warmed the air. With Devi, words were a game. A dance of edges and smiles between us. She had a way of turning something sharp into something softer. She made uneasy talk feel gentle. Steady as a hand on your shoulder.

But with Devi, easy talk never lasted. The conversation shifted, deeper and darker. It always did.

Before long, the Four-Plate Door slipped in, quiet and sure. That riddle in the heart of the Archives. Waiting. Watching.

Devi’s grin twisted. Her eyes lit, sharp and hungry.

“Do you know what no one tells you about the Archives?” Her voice went low. Careful. Wrapped in shadow. “They prune it.”

“Pruned?” I let the word hang in the air. It tasted strange on my tongue. I tried to shape it into something sensible, but it slipped away, leaving only confusion in its place.

Devi tilted her head, the firelight catching one side of her face in gold and leaving the other in deep shadow. “There are books locked away. Secrets buried. Oh, they’ll let you play with what’s safe, sweet boy. But the rest? Tucked far out of reach.”

Her grin stretched as she added, “Far from hands like yours.”

There was something different in her smile this time. It seemed tighter, more restrained, and it didn’t sit right. “And you know this? How?” I asked, keeping my voice light but probing.

Devi didn’t answer right away. She reached for a jar on the low table beside her, gently tipping it back and forth, making the liquid inside swirl and shimmer. “Sweet boy,” she said, her voice soft, “you’ve barely crawled through the door, and already you want the whole house.”

“What are they hiding?” I pressed.

“You’re not ready for an answer like that,” she said, her voice low and thick as honey. “And I’m not in the mood to offer one.”

Her deflection didn’t surprise me. Devi loved her secrets too much to give them up easily. But my instincts were growing sharper, and I watched her face closely as I steered the conversation toward Lorren and his brass keys. Just the mention of his name was enough to make the corner of her mouth twitch, her fingers stopping mid-tap. There was a story there, I could feel it.

“Careful, sweet boy,” she said, her voice soft but her eyes dangerous. “Some stones aren’t meant to be turned. You might find sharp things hiding underneath.”

The grin on her face never wavered, but her voice held a chill I hadn’t expected. I pressed her, slowly, delicately, and she let something slip—deliberately or not, I couldn’t quite tell.

“There’s power in keeping things hidden,” she said, her words like a thread caught on a rough edge, fraying just a bit. “But not everyone who hides something deserves to be trusted. Men like Lorren only show you the parts of themselves that they want you to see.”

It wasn’t until much later, after I’d left her, that I realized Devi had been speaking less to me and more to the twist in her memory. Her words rang louder in the spaces between them. They always did.

* * *

I left with more questions than I came with. That’s how walking into Devi’s den always worked. It was easy to go in, but I always left feeling weighed down. Still, she had pointed me just enough toward the threads I couldn’t resist pulling.

Back in my small, rented room, I retrieved Auri’s book. Its plain, weathered cover concealed a strange warmth and a faint sense of rightness. Not everyone would sense that warmth, but I imagined Auri had known it the moment she placed the book in my hands.

I worked quickly, binding it with a sympathetic thread marked faintly with my own blood. A tool needs to be tied to its maker. I intended this book to serve only one purpose, which was to disappear.

The next day, I approached Lorren’s Giller, Dystrol, holding the book as though it had been unearthed from a dusty corner of some forgotten collection. “A donation,” I said, tracing its etched scrollwork as I spoke. I murmured something about the Amyr while his practiced, neutral face gave away nothing. The only sign was the smallest hesitation when his fingers touched the cover, just a slight pause and a momentary tightness in his grip.

Within days, it vanished, just as I had hoped.

* * *

The compass remained steady in my hand, its needle pointing resolutely as I slipped between shelves and down familiar corridors of the Archives. It pulled with the certainty of someone who knows a secret and doesn’t care to explain it.

And when it froze, I found myself in front of the Four-Plate Door.

I stopped, my pulse roaring in my ears. For a moment, I hoped that the compass had faltered, that I’d miscalibrated or made some fatal error. But no. The needle’s stillness was absolute. I pressed my trembling hand against the cold, unyielding stone of the door, its edges sharp and precise under my fingertips, as if taunting me for misunderstanding its purpose all my life.

The book was here. Beyond this impenetrable barrier.

My stomach twisted. I had spent years inside these endless halls of parchment and ink, trusting that the Archives contained all truth, all knowledge, open to those worthy and persistent enough to find it. The University had sold me the dream that all the world’s wisdom lay waiting for those who sought it with diligence and care. But this? This made a mockery of that.

I felt heat rise in my chest, a slow and simmering anger. They called the Archives a library of everything, but that had been a lie. This door, this smooth and silent barrier, was proof that knowledge was not simply out of reach. It was hidden. Censored. Scrubbed clean.

I had believed in Lorren’s rules once. Trusted his cold, immovable logic. But no longer. The door was a betrayal of that trust. A trick. A sleight of hand designed to make fools of the curious. The thought left me hollow and seething at the same time.

I felt small then, standing in the vast, quiet belly of the Archives. Foolish for having bought the lie so completely. And yet beneath the sharp sting of betrayal, determination began to simmer. The truth had been withheld from me, but it was still there, trapped behind this unbreachable wall like a secret whispered into stone.

“This wasn’t how it was supposed to work,” I muttered under my breath. My voice barely registered in the stillness. But the door didn’t care. It wouldn’t answer me, wouldn’t unlock, wouldn’t relent.

The Archives were a lie.

My hand fell to my side, curling into a fist. I stayed there a long moment, staring at the door. The urge to scream or strike the smooth, unyielding surface flashed briefly, but I swallowed it down. Anger would accomplish nothing. Not yet.

I turned on my heel and left without looking back. But as I wove through the darkened stacks again, one thought began to solidify beneath all the others. The door may have kept me out, but it couldn’t do so forever. They had hidden something behind that stone to stop people like me. Now, more than ever, I was determined to know why.

One way or another, I would find a way inside.

CHAPTER 9.

A FOOLISH BARGIN.

I FOUND MYSELF AT Devi’s door once more.

This time, I had no tidy reason. No excuse I could claim. Not to myself. Not to the sly whisper of my pride. There was nothing I could offer that would satisfy my better judgment.

Perhaps this was her intention. She scattered secrets, left clues about the Four-Plate Door behind her like breadcrumbs. She led me through the hollow places of my mind, certain I would poke and prod and dwell. Or perhaps it was something simpler, exhaustion, slow and stubborn as river silt.

I was tired. Tired of pacing my narrow room. Tired of gnawing at the bitter bone of Lorren’s injustice. In the end I stood before her door, spent and empty, lacking even the thinnest excuse.

When Devi opened the door, she barely glanced at me before stepping aside and letting me cross back into her world of peculiar contradictions. Cinnamon warmth clung to cold alchemical glass, and the fragrant hum of something half-forgotten simmered on her desk. Her hair was drawn into a loose knot, and her lips were just slightly crooked, like a blade half-sheathed.

“Kvothe,” she said, letting my name stretch and curl off her tongue. “Back so soon? People will start to talk if you keep this up.”

“Let them,” I said, trying to match her casual tone as I stepped further inside. But her knowing smile and the glint in her eye made me feel caught, as though she already knew I was here at her mercy.

“And?” she prompted, waving a hand languidly. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“There’s more than you’re telling me,” I blurted, every ounce of control snapping under the weight of my frustration. “You know more about what Lorren’s hiding, and you’ve been holding back.”

Devi tilted her head, her smile cutting sharper. “Sweet Kvothe, that’s a bold accusation. And here I thought we were friends.”

“Friends don’t play games like this.”

“Oh, Kvothe, they absolutely do,” she said, leaning back against the edge of her desk like a knife balanced on its tip. “But friendship doesn’t come cheap. You want to know what Lorren is keeping locked away? Get me into the Archives. Then we’ll talk.”

“No,” I said, my voice firm and unflinching. “Not a chance.”

Devi arched a skeptical brow. “So sudden, so certain. Why not, darling boy? Surely there’s room enough for two clever, hungry minds in your hallowed stacks.”

“There are places you don’t belong, Devi. Some doors wouldn’t close so cleanly after you passed through them.”

Her expression didn’t falter, but her fingers drummed slowly against the edge of the desk. “I expected better of you, Kvothe. I really did. I thought you’d understand a simple bargain between civilized people.”

“We’re not even having this conversation,” I snapped, pacing a short, tight line. “I won’t risk it.”

“You owe me,” she said. Her voice cut through mine like a blade.

That stopped me cold.

We argued after that, the words rising sharp and reckless between us. I tried to wield reason like a shield, but Devi cut through it with precision. She was a professional trader of secrets and debts, and I was at best a stubborn apprentice.

By the end, I caved.

“Fine,” I said, the word almost burning on its way out. “But on my terms.”

Her lips twitched into a smile. “How startlingly reasonable of you. And what, pray tell, are your terms?”

“No action until we’ve settled on a solid plan. One we both agree on.”

Devi inclined her head, her fingers resuming their rhythmic tap. “Fair enough,” she said, her grin softening but never leaving her face. “Lucky for you, I’ve already given this some thought.”

From the pocket of her robe, she produced a small vial no larger than her thumb. The liquid inside caught the lamplight, deep red with a faint shimmer that pulsed like a heartbeat.

“This,” she said, holding it aloft, “is a little marvel I’ve been tinkering with. Tasteless, odorless, and precise. A few drops in Lorren’s wine, and he’ll fall into the kind of slumber that dreams are jealous of. More importantly, he’ll remember nothing when he wakes.”

“And while he’s unconscious?” I asked, though her intentions hung in the air like a blade above a neck.

“You borrow the keys,” she said, her tone light as if discussing the weather. “No fuss. No noise. Surgical."

“Surgical,” I repeated, the word bitter in my mouth. “I can think of other words for drugging one of the Masters.”

Her wicked smile curled as she replied, “You know, Lorren keeps the keys to the Four-Plate Door under his robe with little else. Curious place to tuck something so important, don’t you think?”

The room seemed to twist around her words. At first, I felt disbelief and told myself it was impossible. Lorren was far too genuine for something like that. My next thought was less certain.

“What are you saying?” I asked carefully, the words drawing tight like a string.

Devi’s smile stretched, slow and deliberate. “Nothing, darling. Just facts.” Her tone was breezy, but something dark and knowing simmered beneath it. “And let’s just say, I’m rather good at getting close to people who think they’re untouchable.”

The implication hung in the air like an unanswered question, daring me to pull at its threads. I couldn’t decide if I was unsettled by her knowledge or by how easily she wielded it.

“I still don’t like this,” I said finally.

“I’d be worried if you did,” Devi said, setting the vial carefully on the corner of her desk. Then, looking at me expectantly, she continued, “But unless you’ve got a better plan?”

I wanted to argue. Everything in me itched to push back. But I couldn’t. I didn’t have another plan, and I was desperate enough to ignore how the sand beneath my feet was already shifting.

“Fine,” I said finally. “But there’s one more condition. I insist on testing it first. On me.”

Devi’s sharp laughter filled the room, fading almost as quickly as it began. When she saw my face, her amusement curdled. “You have my assurances. It works.”

“That won’t do,” I said, my voice more certain than I felt. “If we’re doing this, it’s my skin at stake. If it doesn’t work exactly the way you promise, I need to know now.”

For once, her mask of confidence slipped. Her free hand curled tight at her side before releasing, and her eyes flicked to the vial.

“Fine,” she said after a long moment, the word clipped and cold as forged iron. “Come back in three days. I’ll have everything ready.”

The weight of her words pressed on the space between us. For a moment, neither of us moved. Then she dropped the vial into her pocket, extinguished the green-tinted lamp, and sent me back out into the biting night air.

* * *

Three days felt like three years.

The first day was unbearable, my thoughts circling endlessly. Vashet’s voice crept into my head, sharp and demanding.

“Which path lies closer to the Lethani?”
“The one that endangers everyone?”
“Or the one that preserves what you hold dear?”

By the second day, it wasn’t Vashet’s voice haunting me but Wil and Sim’s. They cornered me in the dim shade of the Courtyard, their words bouncing off my already fragile resolve.

“People are talking,” Sim said, always too loud. “You’ve been seeing Devi an awful lot lately, you know.”

Wil shot him a glare before turning to me. “This isn’t like you, Kvothe. Do you even know why they expelled her?”

“I heard it was dueling,” I said casually, though the words were thick on my tongue.

“Alchemical experimentation,” Wil said. “Dangerous experimentation. She swore revenge on the Masters after they caught her.”

“And now you’re working with her?” Sim asked, clearly concerned.

I brushed them off with words I couldn’t bring myself to believe.

* * *

By the evening of the third day, my uncertainty had deepened. Doubt no longer sat quietly in the back of my mind. It had become a living thing, restless and sharp-toothed. It gnawed at me whenever my thoughts wandered near. It moved with me as I walked the winding edges of the Underthing. It waited beside me in the half-light while I sat with my lute across my lap, Auri close enough to touch.

The music I found there was thin and strained. The notes stumbled from my fingers, clumsy and half-remembered. They held none of the shape or easy certainty I found in better moments. Still, Auri listened as she always did. Knees hugged to her chest. Hair tumbling round her shoulders. Her face turned up, pale and patient, like a flower seeking warmth. Her eyes, though, stayed strange and unreadable. She said nothing of the music’s failings. She revealed nothing except in the careful silence that lingered softly between the notes.

“You’re tangled,” she said as the last note faded into the still air. Her voice was soft but certain, as if she could see the snarl of my thoughts laid bare before her.

I ran my fingers lightly over the strings, pretending to tune them. “Just restless,” I said with a thin smile that couldn’t quite find its footing.

Auri tilted her head the other way, her pale hair catching the faintest glimmer of light. “No,” she said simply, her voice the quiet certainty of a secret well kept. “Not restless.”

She unfolded herself with the fluid grace of something quick and wild. For a moment, she hesitated, balancing lightly on the balls of her feet. Then, as if some invisible cue had whispered to her, she stepped away into the shadows, her movements soundless, belonging entirely to the dark world beneath the University.

I stayed where I was for a long time, staring at the weathered stone where her feet had danced moments before. Auri didn’t ask any questions, but just being near her reminded me how much she trusted me. That trust was fragile and fleeting, as delicate as blown glass held in hands that gripped too tightly.

This was why I had to be careful. Why I had to be better. The weight of her unspoken faith, thin as it was, added an unbearable heft to the decisions winding around inside me.

But that night, as I stood and made my way back across the river, I buried those doubts beneath the all-too-familiar tug of my own desires.

* * *

The closer I got to Devi’s, the more my thoughts twisted. The nervous rhythm of my steps matched the churning in my chest. And yet I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. The archives had loomed before me for so long, locked and unattainable, that the thought of missing this one chance outweighed every hesitation.

I knew I was moving too quickly and trusting too easily. I knew my plan was patched together with fraying threads. But greed has a knack for muting better instincts, and mine whispered sweet lies.

“This will work.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“Devi’s just a means to an end.”

I knocked on Devi’s door with a resolve that cracked at the edges, but I refused to acknowledge the strain. She opened it quickly, her sharp smile already in place, her eyes alight with purpose.

"Come inside," she said, her satisfaction dripping from each word.

For a fleeting moment, I hesitated. My mind conjured Auri’s unguarded smile, her weightless laughter twirling through the dark. The delicate trust she placed in me to keep her world safe. Then my thoughts returned to the archives, to the answers just out of reach, and I swallowed my hesitation whole.

Devi stepped aside, and I walked in. Greed pressed me forward, and doubt trailed behind like a shadow I refused to see.

CHAPTER 10.

KEYS TO THE PAST.

BREAKING INTO LORREN’S rooms was a terrible idea. It was dangerous and foolish, likely to end with me thrown from the University like an unwanted book. Still, what was one more terrible idea in a life already full of them?

The real danger wasn’t sneaking into the administrative wing of the University. It wasn't slipping through shadows or carefully manipulating the lock on Lorren’s door. Those things were simple mechanics, familiar steps in a dance I’d practiced before. The true threat was the tiny vial nestled in my pocket. Devi trusted me to test it on myself, and that was what worried me most.

I could still hear her voice, crisp and confident.

“Once you know how it works, we’ll move forward.”
“No surprises.”

But surprises were inevitable. Devi didn’t need to hear the results of my test yet. Instead, Lorren would become my unwitting subject. If the vial worked exactly as she promised, I could gain something meaningful from my mistake. That way, I could find my own path and keep her ambitions at a distance.

The night was black as ink as I crept through the University's quiet belly. The hallways swallowed sound, each step pressing into thick silence. Lorren’s door stood like a dark sentinel at the end of the hall, its simplicity concealing the danger it held.

The lock was old but not primitive, the kind of mechanism designed to outwit impatient fingers. Kneeling, I pulled the leather pouch of my lockpicks from my pocket and worked with practiced care. The tumblers whispered their uncertainties before finally yielding, not with a click but with a sound even quieter and softer, almost like a sigh of surrender.

I eased the door open, slipping into the shadowed space beyond.

Lorren’s quarters were as stark as his demeanor. A narrow cot stood at perfect right angles to the wall, its sheets crisp and taut as a bowstring. The desk was unadorned, save for a quill resting in such precise stillness that I felt certain he measured its placement nightly. The books lining the walls were arranged immaculately, their spines unbroken, their contents surely marked in some master catalog to ensure none ever shifted out of place. The room was a monument to order, to discipline. And standing in its center, I felt like a stain.

But I had work to do.

The water jug on his bedside table was plain pottery, as unpretentious as the man himself, though its placement felt deliberate. Even the slight angle of the drinking cup beside it seemed calculated, as though to test if anyone dared disrupt his routine.

I drew the vial from my pocket. Devi had assured me it was potent yet subtle, a slipping into sleep so quiet it could fool even its victim. I uncorked it carefully. The tang of alchemy nipped at my nose, sharp and faintly medicinal.

For a moment, I hesitated. The thought of Lorren drinking from the jug felt like stepping past a line I hadn’t fully admitted existed. But no good story comes without risk. I tipped the vial gently, letting its green shimmer mix into the water. I swirled it with deliberate care, watching the liquid settle into calm transparency, then returned it to its place as if it had never been touched.

Beneath the cot, the world narrowed. Dust clung to the sharp scent of varnish, the space a stifling, airless bubble. My breath quieted into measured beats as Lorren’s absence stretched into a silence so thick it might have been alive.

And then, at last, the door creaked open.

Lorren’s footsteps were deliberate, steady. Not loud, not hurried. The sound of someone who expected his surroundings to obey him. He paused at the bedside, his silhouette cutting across the faint light spilling through the window.

He poured a cup of water and drank it all in three steady swallows.

I waited. It didn’t take long. The draught worked as advertised, though its subtlety made me uneasy. There was nothing dramatic, no sharp collapse. Movements slowed gradually until Lorren sat on his cot, his body sagging under the weight of sudden sleep. Soon his breathing became deep and measured, settling into the natural rhythm of unconsciousness.

I slid from beneath the cot as quietly as a ghost, my eyes already on the keys around his neck. What came next would challenge not only my skill but also my conscience.

* * *

In the end, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Letting go of that greed allowed me to think clearly for the first time in days. The door didn’t guard knowledge or hide some unattainable treasure. Instead, it kept something simpler inside, just ink and parchment, the physical form of words. If this was all I truly wanted, I realized there was no need to open a locked door. I could simply bring the words to me.

Sleep eluded me that night, no matter how I turned or how tightly I closed my eyes. The room was too loud in its silence, and my thoughts moved like wildfire in the dry grass of my mind. A plan bloomed there, hot and insistent, despite the haze of exhaustion.

When morning came, I stumbled to Devi’s door, bleary-eyed. She answered in kind, her hair untidy, her face pale with the look of broken rest.

“Well?” she asked, her words cutting through the fog of my thoughts.

“The dosage was wrong,” I lied. “I woke too early. Lorren will know if we do this.”

Her expression shifted—somewhere between skepticism and guilt. Perhaps it was that expression, so out of character for her, that made me hesitate before admitting my deeper failure. She insisted on no follow-up questions, almost sheepishly sending me on my way. Curious.

On my way out of Imre, I spent a small fortune on enough nahirout to keep me alert for days. I had work to do.

* * *

A burst of inspiration can feel like magic to a fool. However, I have spent enough time under a magician’s hat to know better. The spark is not what matters most. What truly counts are the hours, the work, and the sacrifice. That is the real cost of turning a spark into a flame.

For seven sleepless days, I lived by that truth. I ate thin food, drank nahirout tea in place of water, and drowned myself in the work. My goal was clear. I wanted to take the physical edges of ink and make them move. It would be like rubbing charcoal on paper to trace the raised surface of a coin. I would create a sympathy that translated ink from far away onto an empty page in my hands.

When I presented my clumsy prototype to Master Kilvin, his silence was worse than rage. He stared at the device and listened as I explained its crude workings. At last he spoke. “Cleverness,” he said, as though the word itself were a warning, “is no substitute for wisdom. Promise me, Kvothe, you won’t tread this road again.”

He didn’t order it locked away. He didn’t tell me to refine it. He didn’t even ask to test it. He simply melted it into molten slag with the forge bellows. Hot metal, wasted time, failings lost. That night, I stumbled back to my tiny room and collapsed on the floor.

I slept for two days.

CHAPTER 11.

THE PRICE WE PAY.

I WOKE TO THE GROAN of a chair, soft and uneasy, like an argument left unresolved. My room swam around me as I blinked myself into awareness. Devi sat a few feet away, hunched forward, her elbows balanced on her knees. Shadows pooled under her eyes, and her sharp edges seemed dulled, as if her usual confidence had been shaken loose and left somewhere I couldn’t see.

“Devi,” I croaked. My voice was brittle and scraped against the dryness in my throat. The sound startled me, jagged and unfamiliar, as if it belonged to someone else entirely. “What are you doing here?”

She didn’t answer right away. Her hands were busy weaving and unweaving her hair like restless spiders threading and unthreading their web. The motion wasn’t precise, not the efficient and deliberate movements I expected from Devi. It was unsure. Nervous. When she finally looked at me, her eyes glinted with something I wasn’t used to seeing in them. Regret.

“Kvothe,” she began. Just my name, quiet and weighty as a stone dropped into still water. Then, softer, “I’m sorry.”

The words hung in the air between us, fragile and unfamiliar. Devi didn’t apologize. She negotiated. She angled. She teased, and she pried, but she never apologized. Hearing it now unsettled me more than anger would have.

“Sorry?” I managed to croak out, leaning on my elbows to push myself upright. The room tilted as I moved, and it took everything I had not to collapse back onto the bed.

She pressed her lips tight. I could see her deciding, weighing how much to say and how to say it. Finally, she breathed sharp and fast through her nose. “The potion.” She spoke the words carefully, like they might snap in her teeth. “I miscalculated the nahirout dosage.”

The air stilled, and I felt my chest tighten. “Miscalculated,” I repeated, though my mind had already raced ahead, pulling threads, tying knots.

Devi nodded once, her hands still tugging at loose strands of her hair. “I tested a smaller dose on myself after hearing your report,” she continued. “I thought maybe it was weak. The balance between the sedative and the stimulant was wrong, so I adjusted the formula.” She hesitated, her voice momentarily caught on the next words. “Turns out, it wasn’t weak at all. It was too strong.”

My stomach tightened, but I forced myself to ask. “What happened?”

“I slept,” she said, her tone flat, as if she could iron out the anxiety in her chest by keeping her words smooth. “For an hour. Maybe two. Then I woke up. Wide awake, Kvothe. Three days of it. My thoughts.” She stopped. Her hands stilled in her lap. She began knotting them together instead. “My thoughts were like wildfire. They moved too fast. My body.” She shook her head. “It felt like a bowstring drawn too tight.”

The nausea rose suddenly and violently, crashing over me like a wave. Three days. A smaller dose. What had I done?

My hands moved on instinct. I rolled to the edge of the bed and stumbled toward the basin near the window. My legs felt like half-filled waterskins, awkward and unwieldy under me. I fell to my knees, heaving into the basin, the sour burn of bile tearing at my throat.

Behind me, Devi stayed still, the way you stand too near a fire but don’t dare touch it or move away. She didn’t speak, didn’t try to help. But she didn’t leave, either.

When my stomach was empty, I lay against the cool stone wall and breathed heavily. I tried to summon the calm I had spent years cultivating. This deliberate focus was a skill I had developed through both fireside survival and sympathy. It was slow to arrive, but eventually, it did.

“Devi,” I said, my voice low and cracked. I didn’t look at her, but I felt her stiffen slightly. “I’ve figured it out.” I forced my trembling hand to mirror steadiness. “A way to reach the Four-Plate Door without ever opening it.”

She hesitated only a moment before rising from her chair. The scrape of wood on the floor made my teeth ache. She didn’t reply as she stepped toward the door. Then, just as it swung open, she glanced back, a mixture of hope and caution written in her raised brow. “Don’t tease me, Kvothe,” she said with her usual sharpness, but her voice softened as she disappeared down the stairwell.

* * *

Hours passed, or maybe only minutes. Time bent in strange ways when my thoughts spiraled like this. Lorren’s face lingered at the edges of my mind. I saw his measured steps and his steady hand pouring water from that jug. I remembered the bowstring that was too tight and the sleep that never came.

Finally, I forced myself out of my room and into Imre. The air felt sharp against my skin, crisp as paper freshly creased. Buildings rose like sentinels around me, their shadows cool against the warm stones of the streets. I walked without looking at anyone, keeping my head down, my thoughts louder than the bustle around me.

It wasn’t long before I found Sim and Wilem at their usual spot. The chairs they sat in were old, wooden things with more creak than structure left in them, clustered in a lazy circle outside one of the quieter corners of the Eolian. There was something grounding about finding them there as though the universe had conspired to keep one place steady.

“Look who finally crawled out of whatever deep, dark hole he found,” Sim said, grinning as he clapped a hand on my shoulder.

“I thought you’d burned the Archives to the ground and left town,” Wil said, his grin softer but no less warm.

“Missed you too,” I replied with a thin smile that landed somewhere between forced and genuine.

Their laughter came like water over rocks, smoothing what had been rough for days. Still, something gnawed at the back of my mind. It was the silence. No one mentioned Lorren or spoke of strange outbursts in the administrative wing. No rumors had reached their ears of sleepless nights haunting the Master Archivist. That silence carried weight. It pressed on me, heavy and unwelcome.

Still, I drank in their company. For a short while, I let myself laugh. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t full, but it was something.

* * *

Devi’s door loomed before me again, familiar now in its strange way. This time, when she answered, her grin was firmly in place. The softness from earlier had burned away.

“Back already?” she said, her brow arching. Even before I spoke, I could see she knew why I had come.

I wasted no time. “I’ve figured it out,” I said, the words spilling out almost before I could stop them.

Her eyes sharpened immediately. “What exactly has that clever little mind of yours figured out, Kvothe?”

I took a long breath. My heartbeat picked up again. “How to reach past the Four-Plated Door.”

Her posture changed, leaning forward like a hawk locking onto prey. “You’re serious.”

“Serious as anything,” I said. But my voice held its own hesitation. My work wasn’t done. A storm gathered inside me, flickering with shame and ambition in equal measure. But for now, I had a foothold. And I wasn’t done climbing yet.

CHAPTER 12.

THREADS UNRAVEL.

DEVI’S ROOM SMELLED SHARP, like ink left too long on a hot iron. There was a hunger in the air, a thin tension that vibrated in the spaces between oil-slicked brass, faintly glowing sympathy wax, and pages full of frantic, scrawled equations. It felt like the room itself was restless, as though our sleepless nights had seeped into the wood of the walls.

Our creation sat on the only cleared surface in the room, cobbled together from wire and wood, shaped not with elegance but desperation. It was a strange, squat thing, a birdcage mangled and bent into something new. It whirred quietly, its uneven rhythm filling the room like the breath of something alive.

Devi sat cross-legged on the table next to it, her hair loose and wild, like she’d run her fingers through it too many times to count. Her sharp eyes were locked on the device. I was leaning over its delicate lattice of bindings, adjusting its sympathy alignments with the kind of care I usually reserved for tuning my lute. One wrong move and the whole thing might collapse.

“Again,” Devi said, her voice like the snap of a bowstring.

I took a slow breath and steadied myself. Across the room, an old ledger sat closed on another table. Its leather was cracked and worn. It wasn’t important. If I remember right, it had been inspired by some undermerchant’s petty scribblings in Imre. Still, it served its purpose. The book was thick and heavy enough to mimic something far more valuable.

Devi leaned forward as I activated the device. It made a faint, sighing sound, like an old man turning over in his sleep.

At first, there was nothing except the low, patient hum of the creation. Devi’s hand flexed against the table while her fingers tapped out a sharp rhythm. “Come on,” she breathed.

Then, slowly, the blank parchment quivered. Lines began to appear, faint and hesitant, like a ghost rising from a familiar chair. But soon, the words solidified. Letters flowed across the page in thin, uneven strokes, curling and jagged in places but unmistakable in their meaning.

Devi let out a laugh that broke into something sharper, halfway between triumph and relief. “It worked,” she murmured, leaning over the parchment as though it might vanish if she looked away. Her hand hovered over the page, hesitant, almost reverent. “Kvothe, this is it.”

I didn’t reply right away. My mind was already racing ahead, searching for flaws. “The range is limited,” I said, even though excitement made my chest tighten. “The replication isn’t clean. The alignment could degrade if the connection isn’t stable.”

“Hush, Kvothe.” Devi’s grin spread slowly, sharp like a cat stretching. “Do you have to point out every error in the masterpiece we just created? Listen to me carefully. We pulled words out of a book without even touching it. We took hold of something that can’t be seen, darling boy. Let me have this moment before you bury me in your perfectionism.”

I couldn’t help it. My mouth curved into a smile that felt too sharp to stay on my face. She was right. The idea was beautiful. Even if the result was ugly, it worked. Light and life, it worked. And if it worked here, it would work in the Underthing.

* * *

Later, as day slipped quietly into evening, I surfaced. I had not set foot in the Eolian for days. Perhaps weeks. It was getting harder to tell.

The fresh air did not clear my head the way I had hoped. It caught behind my eyes and drifted away. Still, it sharpened me enough. Enough to put one foot before the other. Enough to lead me toward the place where Sim and Wil would be.

As usual, they were sitting outside one of the quieter corners of the Eolian, hunched over drinks in chairs that were two misplaced gusts away from collapse. The sight of them gave me that faint thread of relief I hadn’t known I needed.

“Look who’s emerged,” Wilem said as I slumped into the chair across from them. “And here I thought you’d been locked away by the Masters.”

“Locked away? Hah.” Sim leaned forward, his grin maddeningly wide. “That’s not it at all. He’s been busy courting a fairy queen in Imre. Or haven’t you heard?”

It took me half a second too long to realize what they were talking about, and the look on my face immediately set Sim off into laughter. Wilem smothered a grin of his own, taking a deliberate sip from his mug.

“Devi?” I finally said, forcing my best frown of incredulity. “You honestly think I’m sneaking off to Devi’s room every night for some grand, torrid affair?”

“Well, you’re certainly sneaking off somewhere,” Sim countered with far too much satisfaction. “And all signs point to Imre. I’m not saying I disapprove, but I’m also not saying I want to know the details. I’m trying to respect her privacy.”

I groaned and cast a strange look at Wilem, waiting for a rescue. But Wil simply smirked and leaned back in his chair, content to watch me dig my way out of this one.

“Okay, enough,” I began, but before I could finish, Sim raised a hand solemnly.

“But you should know,” he went on, quieter this time, “Denna was in town. She came by the Courtyard. She asked about you.”

The world stilled, as if all the air in Imre had folded itself into that moment. My grin faltered so slightly I doubt they caught it, but Wil’s brow knit almost imperceptibly, a flicker of understanding passing behind his eyes.

“And?” I said, feigning a lightness that felt like playing a lute with broken strings.

Sim shifted in his chair. He rubbed the back of his neck in that peculiar way he did when searching for tact.

“We said we didn’t know where you’d gone,” he murmured, eyes fixed on the floor, as if truth waited somewhere in the cracks. “We might have let her think you’d found company. That you were busy. That sort of busy.”

He shrugged, small and sheepish. Even his silence seemed to blush.

“We didn’t mean to,” he added. “But Denna, she has a way of pressing. With her, vague words are only invitations. The more careful your answer, the more questions she asks.”

They waited expectantly, tension stretching between us like a string being tuned too tight.

I summoned my charm with deliberate precision, hoping my smile would hold. “You’re not wrong,” I said, the words falling easy and practiced. But I could feel the shadow of my own lie pressing cold against my chest.”

Sim blinked, open-mouthed. “Wait. You’re saying you?”

“I’m saying you should give Devi more credit as a companion,” I finished smoothly, sipping from Wil’s neglected mug. “She’s not entirely intolerable company.”

Sim was too flustered to answer. He looked down, lips pressed tight. As if the words were alive. As if silence could hold them back. Relief passed over his face, light and fleeting. Here, then gone.

Wil watched him across the table. Silent, careful. For a heartbeat he looked unfamiliar, as if a stranger had taken his place. Someone quizzical. Someone searching. A question hovered in his eyes, half-shaped, unspoken, fading with the soft clatter and low laughter on the patio.

The conversation moved away. But my thoughts didn’t.

Denna had been looking for me. Now Sim and Wil, my ever-loyal and well-meaning friends, had ensured she would never try again.

* * *

Weeks blurred, bound together by endless nights of fine-tuning the Duplicator and days spent navigating whispers and rumors. Sim and Wilem had grown accustomed to my absences, chalking them up to long nights in Devi’s company. They teased me for my vaulted “romantic escapades,” and I let them believe it. Rumors were safer, a smoke screen that obscured the truth from casual prying.

Devi and I refined the device gradually, adjusting its reach and precision and adding new functions to make sure it met our ultimate goal. A pantograph-like rig let the device do more than just transfer content, as it also allowed us to copy material at half-scale, which meant we needed less parchment and ink. The device worked not only on open pages and closed books but also on manuscripts locked behind layers of leather and brass, provided we were close enough to create our link.

At last, when the Duplicator could transcribe from books through both proximity and layers of separation, we took it beneath the University.

* * *

The Underthing held its breath as we moved deeper. The narrow corridors and winding tunnels felt different with Devi close, her sharp presence pricking at the fabric of this sacred silence. I felt it like a song played out of tune, the too-loud scrape of her boots jarring against the rhythm of the quiet.

When Auri walked these halls, the air itself seemed to part for her, soft and giving as water bent around a stone. But with Devi, the walls pressed closer, the shadows feeling less like companions and more like witnesses unsettled by her presence. I hated bringing her here. This wasn’t hers. This was a place of small, fragile trusts, and Auri’s soft, sacred breath echoed in the corners. Devi was a storm where there should only be stillness.

I justified it because I had no choice. There was no better staging ground than the Underthing for our experiment. No better position to reach the forbidden corners of the Archives. But even as we moved deeper, even as I convinced myself of the necessity, guilt stalked close behind, trailing us through the twisting stone.

Finally, we found our staging ground in a hollowed-out space where the wall and earth felt thinner and pulsed faintly to those who knew how to listen. Just beyond the Four-Plated Door, we set the device into place and began there.

At first, it was slow work. The Duplicator was precise but blind. We prodded into the scope of what lay beyond the Four-Plated Door without knowing what we would catch. Each page mirrored came from a book I couldn’t see, a half-glimpse at the world beyond the lock. We catalogued scraps of information, pieced together small fragments of a greater picture.

And then, one day, the Duplicator whispered a name.

The document was ornate, the letters formed by firm, deliberate strokes. They bled onto our prepared page with an almost regal sort of weight, the impression far darker than the usual artifacts of ink. Devi’s breath caught audibly beside me, her sharp inhalation echoing slightly against the stone walls.

“The Order Codex,” she murmured. Her words wrapped around the name like it was a treasure dug up from beneath a thousand years of soil.

I leaned closer to the parchment, my fingers twitching with instinct. I recognized some of the symbols embedded there, hints of authority and secrecy that spoke of power deliberately hidden. My palms were damp, and my heart beat like a muffled drum in my chest.

I adjusted the Duplicator’s targeting carefully, narrowing its focus until the next page emerged. My shoulders tensed as I leaned in again, this time finding words I had hoped for and feared at once.

“The Amyr.”

The letters crawled across the page, dragging every suspicion I’d ever harbored into the light. They weren’t just a story, not simply an artifact of bygone lore. Here they were, marked in layered ink and forming a hidden order that was bound and sworn by terrible oaths, cloaked beneath both secrecy and silence.

My stomach churned as questions made themselves known. Why this knowledge? Why now? Did Lorren protect these books to prevent understanding, or to preserve it for himself? Sudden clarity and doubt hit me all at once, sending my mind tumbling through the possibilities.

Devi broke through my reverie with a hand pressed firmly against my arm. “Kvothe,” she said quietly, her voice almost reverent despite its usual bite. “We’ve done it.”

I nodded, the weight of that accomplishment settling over me like a heavy cloak. But this was merely the first thread pulled free. The unraveling had only begun.

CHAPTER 13.

I WILL NOT BE HELD.

LOVE IS A SOFT THING. Precarious, too. It grows in quiet places, in the hush between words. Born of nearness. Fed by purpose, drawn taut between two souls. I did not see it at first. My thoughts tangled quietly around Devi’s name, roots curling unseen and slow. Easy to step past, in the beginning. She was bristling and clever, quick as spilled wine, bright as broken glass, and just as sharp. Lovely and dangerous, a knife honed on both edges, promising pain for anyone who came too close.

Yet her warmth lived elsewhere, never in her words but in smaller things. In the snug tumult of her little room, steeped in the hum of sympathy wax and the sharp tang of hot iron, I watched her sharper lines go soft. A stray strand of hair brushed behind her ear, lost in thought. Firelight moving in her eyes. Her laughter, sharp and rare, blooming fierce as a frost-lotus, always with softness nestled at the heart.

And there was purpose. Shared purpose. Standing shoulder to shoulder against the impossible. Together, we made a new sort of art, pulling secrets from stubborn doors, bending what ought not to bend. For all her keen edges, she never felt like a threat.

Devi became the only person in my life who seemed to understand the hunger inside me. For knowledge, for answers, for more. And it was beautiful, wasn’t it? To share this kind of closeness with someone who didn’t just tolerate my ambition but matched it, stroke for stroke.

If you’d asked me then, I would have denied it. I would have said I didn’t love her. Not in any way I could name. Yet looking back now with clearer eyes, I know better.

* * *

Devi’s room had begun to feel tighter, the air heavy with the smell of ink and hot iron. Her makeshift library loomed around us. Stacks of ragged, half-stitched books leaned drunkenly against one another, resembling a forgotten city wall. In the past, their roughness bothered me. The bare spines and uneven stitching quietly offended the elegance of knowledge. Over time, though, I began to see them differently. They were not relics to be admired, but tools meant for use.

I ran my hand over one of the stacks as I passed, my fingers catching on the threadbare stitching. Each page felt liminal somehow, ready to become more but still just shy of completeness. Maybe that’s why I found it so easy to scribble and scrawl everywhere, circling words, underlining passages, and folding corners. Perfect knowledge demands reverence. Yet these books felt more like conspirators. I never hesitated to use them ruthlessly.

On one such night, restless from the threads of our work, I leafed through a copy we had pulled from the Archives just days before. The document was thin and unassuming, with copied letters that were uneven in places and looked like the shadow of a poor man. Still, something in its contents caught the edge of my thoughts.

At first it seemed to be a list of common superstitions. There were things like “lights blue as flame,” “shadows moving unnaturally,” and “a grin too wide to be human.” Yet as I looked deeper and the contents became stranger and more tangled, I found things that stood out even more. I saw entries such as “a shattered wheel,” “a broken song,” and “a scar of iron.”

I doubted their accuracy. Still, the thread was impossible not to follow. It led me into an unfamiliar corner of the Archives, a particularly dim and dusty section I had little cause to visit before. There, nestled between volumes on agricultural charms and burial rites, I found the book.

Black leather, cracked with age. The edges crumbled like old pastry as I slid it from the shelf, and I held my breath as the spine groaned in protest. Lighting my thief’s lamp, I opened the cover gingerly, savoring the musty fragrance of ancient parchment. The title greeted me in fading Temic, “En Temerant Voistra.”

My pulse quickened as I began to read. Most of the text was indecipherable, a ravaged artifact of time and translation. Yet a certain words leapt out, sharp as flint against the dark void of my ignorance.

“Chandrian.”

My hands trembled as I hunched over the tome. This was proof, neither censored nor hidden behind the Four-Plated Door. It had been here all along, waiting to be uncovered. I skimmed as quickly as I dared, although the fragile pages resisted my eagerness. The passages spoke of things I did not yet understand, such as enigmatic connections, places, and people.

Then, movement caught my eye at the edge of my vision. At the next desk, a student was bent over a stack of pages. At first, I thought nothing of it. There is an efficiency to solitude in the Archives, and you learn to ignore its other occupants. Still, something tugged at my attention.

His hands glided over the manuscript as if searching for meaning. Then I saw the stitching. It was crooked and uneven, with ragged, naked spines. They were my spines. My stomach twisted, sharp and sudden. Devi had sold the copy.

For a moment, I hesitated, lungs pulling shallow breaths as my options narrowed sharply in the still air. Confrontation was dangerous in the Archives because Lorren's rules were absolute. This manuscript, which belonged to us, was also dangerous in ways no one else had yet understood.

I forced my breath to steady. “Excuse me,” I said as I stepped closer. I kept my voice bright and light, using the friendly tone I had perfected over years of winning favors even when I had no right to ask for them.

The student startled, glancing up like a cornered hare. His face was thin, pale under the faint glow of the thief's lamp on my belt. “What?” he managed, guarded but not wary enough.

"Fascinating piece you’ve got there," I said easily. "Where did you find those loose manuscripts? I’ve been trying to track down something nearly identical."

His hand instinctively tightened over the edges of the parchment. “It’s for study,” he said, sounding evasive. “I found it at a merchant’s stall down in Imre.”

“Ah, Imre,” I replied with a conspirator’s confidence, slipping into another well-worn role. “One of the undermerchants, I’d wager?” I leaned casually against the desk, as if it were mere curiosity driving me to linger. “Had to be. The proper stalls would never deal in something so rare.”

The flattery worked. He eased slightly and lifted the corner of the page, allowing me to catch a better glimpse. “Yes, I suppose so. It cost more than I would have liked,” he admitted.

“But worth every coin, clearly,” I said quickly, nudging past his faint hesitation. I lowered my voice to a reverent hush, using a trick I’d learned long ago while convincing shopkeepers to bring out their best wares. “Tell me, would you mind if I took a look for just a moment? I promise I’ll be careful.”

His expression wavered as the instinct to protect faded beneath the weight of my practiced charm. He said, “I don’t,” then hesitated and finally loosened his grip on the manuscript. “Just for a moment.”

My fingers brushed the edge of the parchment as I reached for it, careful to let my touch seem light and deferential. As soon as it passed into my hands, my stance straightened. I transformed into someone confident and unyielding as stone.

“Thank you,” I said, my gratitude genuine. “You’ve done the University a great service.” The words carried enough ambiguity to blur their meaning, and I didn’t wait for him to realize just how carefully I’d chosen them.

Without another word, I turned sharply on my heel, the manuscript held close to my chest, and made my way out of the Archives before he could voice his confusion or protest. If he dared report me, he’d find himself in the same precarious trouble as I.

By the time the great brass door of the Archives swung shut behind me, my knuckles ached from the strength of my grip, and my fury at Devi burned hotter than ever.

* * *

The cobblestones of Imre echoed under my boots as I approached Devi’s shop. Each step carried me closer to a confrontation I hadn’t yet planned but burned to have. I was brimming with rage, anger so thick it coiled in my gut like an angry snake about to strike. But as I neared her door, I stopped short.

Devi stood in the street, barefoot and furious, her hands loose at her sides. Her silhouette cut sharply against the dim light spilling from the streetlamp. Even without seeing her face, I knew something in her had come unmoored. But she wasn’t alone.

Across from her stood Master Lorren. His calm facade shattered, his usual measured grace replaced by raw force and single-minded purpose. He was nothing like the Lorren I had ever seen. Backlit by a dim streetlamp, his stance was broad, his arms raised like steel girders.

Devi stood opposite him, barefoot and wild-eyed, her disheveled frame seemingly untouched by the late hour or the tension that hung between them. Her grin was jagged as a splintered mirror, as though rage and triumph had struck her simultaneously.

Lorren’s voice rang out, sharp as breaking ice. “Enough, Devi. This is your last chance to end this peacefully.”

Her laugh was cutting, high and brittle. “Peacefully?” she echoed, her tone dripping venom. “Spare me. I know how this ends. You don’t care about peace. You care about control.”

For the first time, Lorren faltered. The change was nearly imperceptible, yet it felt unsettlingly real. His Alar, an invisible tide pressing outward, stuttered for a moment. Devi seized the opportunity with her own Alar surging forward. The air seemed to ripple and visibly distort for the briefest moment, as if the two forces were tearing the world apart between them.

“I won’t be held,” Devi hissed, her voice raw with something that sounded almost like despair. “Not by you! Not by any Master! Never again!”

Her will lashed out like a whip, forcing Lorren to drop into a defensive stance. His breaths grew heavier, and frost formed in his exhalations. Even as she pressed him, I could still see it. Lorren was not fighting to win; he was fighting to contain her. The difference showed in every strained line of his face.

It was her wild defiance against his measured inevitability. And she was winning.

“Devi!” I called out, my voice breaking the silence of the knife-edged conflict.

She turned, her Alar briefly brushing against mine. The force of it was staggering, a wave that nearly sent me reeling. I caught myself, reaching deep into the space between us with my own threads of intent. Barriers. Shields. Anything to stand against her.

“Stop this.” My voice was hoarse, robbed of its deeper confidence. “This isn’t what you want.”

Her smile twisted into something between pity and scorn. “Kvothe,” she said, her voice dripping acid. “You don’t know what I want!”

Her Alar surged, grinding against mine like iron against flint. My head pounded as the binder’s chill crept deeper, turning my limbs heavy with frost. Across from us, Lorren rose to his full height, determination etched into his pale, dampened face. Together, with our forces combined, Devi began to stumble.

I don’t know how long it lasted. The three of us remained locked in that silent, suffocating fight. In that place, time ceased to matter. Piece by piece, Devi’s strength faltered, though not because of anything we did. She simply spent herself, burning too brightly for too long.

When she fell, it was as though someone had cut her strings. She crumpled to the cobblestones, her chest rising and falling shallowly as strands of hair clung to her sweat-slicked face.

I didn’t move. Couldn’t. The chill in my veins spread faster now, turning each heartbeat into a slow, painful echo as darkness pulled at the edges of my vision. In the corner of my eye, I saw guards assembled, their presence both reassuring and ominous.

And then, all at once, the blackness took me.

CHAPTER 14.

NAME IN THE WALL.

BELLS.

They rang at odd intervals, distant and hollow in one breath, unbearably close in the next. They split the world into sharp, uneven slices, carving time into something thin and wrong.

I woke between them. Or maybe I didn’t wake at all. Maybe I had always been here.

The walls loomed smooth as quarried glass, and the damp air pressed cold against my skin. A thin sliver of light fractured the air above, though it was pale and almost colorless. It seemed as if the light had traveled so far to find me that it had worn itself thin along the way.

I frowned, or I thought I did. My face felt unfamiliar. My limbs, unsteady.

A name surfaced, sticky and slow. Haven.

Or had I only dreamed that word?

I sat up fast, too fast. The motion sent a sick, swaying weight through my stomach. The silence between the bells pressed in thick and unbearable, swallowing me whole.

That was when I noticed him.

A figure hunched in the farthest corner, thin and folded, his frame drawn out and too long to seem entirely natural. His clothes clung to him in ragged layers, darkened by dust and tangled at the edges. His head hung forward as he muttered. Words slipped from him in a sluggish drip, slow and lilting, circling back into quiet, familiar rhythms.

I tried to speak, but my own voice curled dry and useless in my throat. My fingers twitched toward water that wasn’t there. I swallowed, tried again.

"Who?" The word struggled to leave my mouth, like I had to pull it from a great distance. It barely breached the air between us. His murmuring did not stop.

I tried to piece together his words, but they tumbled over themselves as half-verses and broken couplets. The meter folded on itself, like a thing too worn for use.

Rhymes.

The realization crawled over my skin. My stomach turned cold. He wasn't just a madman, but worse! A poet!

"I was never the first to follow," the muttering unravelled between us. "Nor the last to call the name."

I swallowed. Pushed to my feet.

"Stop," I rasped. My voice cracked, ancient with thirst.

The rhyming voice continued. Another verse curled between the heavy weight of stone.

I stepped toward him. Then closer still.

The first thing I noticed was his hands. They were pale and thin, moving with the rhythm and shaping soft answers to words I had not asked.

The second thing I noticed was me. The moment stretched. My breathing frayed.

I reached forward, hands shaking for something solid. My fingers met his shoulders, pressed against fabric worn too thin. He shifted. His head lolled forward, rolling loose before turning upward, slowly, carefully.

I saw him.

I saw me.

He smiled first. Of course he did. That’s what I would do.

He tilted his head, sharp and knowing. His eyes were something else entirely.

"Oh," he said lightly, as if I had come late to something inevitable.

And then, in a voice that was my own, he asked, "If you were mad, would you even know?"

* * *

Time in Haven twisted itself into thin, brittle threads, impossible to hold. I measured it by breaths, by the fickle slant of light that bled through the high window and stretched across the floor like a dying thing. Bells rang at strange intervals, distant one moment, deafening the next.

Somewhere between those bells, he appeared.

Elodin. Maybe.

He lounged lazily against the doorframe, if there was a door. If there was a frame. His grin flickered in and out, too wide, too knowing, too sharp. “Good morning,” he said, amused. “Or good evening. But it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

His words should have startled me, but they didn’t. I had heard voices before. Sometimes they were whispers in the walls, rhymes in the dark, or even my own laughter curling back at me from some corner of my mind. This was just another game Haven played, another hallucination.

I closed my eyes. Counted. One. Two.

“You always did like bending rules,” the voice yawned like a stretch, bored and easy.

I cracked one eye open. “You’re not real.”

That made him laugh. And when did he move? He had taken a step, or maybe the room had shifted. He was closer now but still not close enough to touch.

“Real is such a flexible thing,” he said. “Here, even more so.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” I rasped. My throat was still raw, my voice scraping out of me. “Or I shouldn’t be here. I don’t know.” My own thoughts tumbled over themselves. “I can’t remember.”

“Ah.” He raised a hand and pointed a dramatic finger at me. “There it is. The first thing to unravel.” His expression turned rueful. “A shame you were expelled. I had such hopes for you.”

I frowned. Or I tried to. My face didn’t feel quite right. “Expelled?”

“For stealing secrets,” he said. “For breaking sacred trusts.” His voice blurred at the edges, overlapping itself. He was speaking ahead of me, as if I wasn’t keeping up. “Not that I was really listening. I don’t enjoy polite outrage. Too performative.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head as if that might shake loose something useful. “That can't be right.”

He sighed, waved a hand as though brushing dust from his sleeve. “Lorren is dead,” he said lightly. “Some say poison. Some say an alchemical imbalance. But speculation is so exhausting, don’t you think?”

The words hit me wrong, a step missed on a staircase, a knife put back in the wrong drawer. I stared at him.

“Dead?” I repeated.

His head tilted. “As dead as your prospects at the University,” he said, wearing a jagged little smile that didn’t belong on his face. “Really, Kvothe, you should pay more attention.”

I swallowed. My mind felt like wet paper, unable to hold anything without warping. I had known this, hadn’t I? Hadn’t someone told me? Or had I dreamed it?

He took another step forward. The movement was too smooth and too effortless, his shape pulling toward me as if stretched. The room didn’t shift with him this time. That small change shot through me with quiet alarm.

I gripped my temples and tried to force some clarity, begging for something solid. "I didn't," my voice wavered and grew thin. "I didn't mean to."

“Didn’t mean to,” the voice echoed, softer now, like a lullaby sung to a dying ember. His grin didn’t return this time. “Knowledge isn’t free, Kvothe.”

He turned, though I hadn’t seen him pivot. I suddenly noticed a door closing with a soft snick, though I hadn’t seen him touch it. Had there even been a door there before?

I sat there long after he was gone, heartbeat in my throat, walls leaning inward with the weight of silent things. I could almost hear them breathing. I could almost hear me, still laughing from a different corner of the room.

Real. Flexible.

* * *

The shadows curled. The bells rang again.

Or they hadn't.

My pacing had long since collapsed into nothing, a shape worn into the floor and a rhythm with no music. One step. Two steps. Back again. I had forgotten where it started. I had forgotten where I had started.

In the quiet, my own breath felt untethered. It stirred the damp, then fell still.

And then, the smallest sound. A whisper, curled in the crack beneath the door.

"You sound rather undone," it said.

I froze.

Words didn’t come from nothing. Words had to belong to someone. But I had seen my own echoes before, I had spoken in places far from my mouth. This could be another trick, another splinter of myself come to taunt me.

Slowly, like a limb stiff from sleeping, I let my voice uncoil.

"Auri?"

There was a pause. Then, as if nothing in the world had ever been more obvious, she answered, "Yes. And you are still you."

The words struck something deep in me, something buried beneath the fractured lines of my thoughts. You are still you. My ribs tightened. A strange breath caught in my throat.

I pressed my back against the wall and swallowed. "I don't feel like me."

She made a quiet sound. Not quite sad, but something close enough that I wanted to close my eyes against it.

"Mmm. Well," she said lightly. "Even if you've misplaced a few pieces, you're still here."

I wanted to laugh, but I had forgotten the shape of it.

The pause stretched long. Then, softly, there was movement. A whisper of air slipped beneath the door as something small slid through and caught against my foot.

I stared. A silver ring, delicate and thin, glinted faintly in the dim light. Its pale amber stone caught the weak glow and turned it warm.

I hadn't moved, but suddenly, it was already in my palm.

"What’s this?" My voice sounded strange again. I didn't know if I was asking her or the empty walls.

Auri sighed, as if I had said something frustratingly obvious.

"To keep safe," she said.

"For what?"

"For safe-keeping."

The words curled soft around me. The pressure in my chest eased but didn’t fade completely. I turned the ring over between my fingers, watching it catch the slivered light. Keep it safe.

But even with the ring cool against my palm, I couldn't trust it.

She had been here. Or she had not.

I could still hear my own voice from where she had been, repeating her words back to me before she had said them. Somewhere near the door, stone creaked as though she had only just stepped away.

Or had she ever been here at all?

I opened my mouth, stopped, hesitated—but she was already gone.

* * *

The voices wouldn’t stop.

They curled over each other like ivy strangling a ruin, creeping in through cracks, pulling, tangling, pressing in soft as breath against my ear.

One murmured, "You lose everything, you know. Always losing, always left behind."

Another hummed, lilted, sang of bitter things. "Broken and buried, never to rise, little fox trapped under trembling skies..."

And then, "She won’t come again, you know."

It slid into me before I could question who had spoken. But something about it was out of place. A discordant note in a familiar song.

A second passed. Too long. I stalled.

I shook my head, pushing it away.

* * *

The bells had rung again.

From somewhere far outside, a sharp voice snapped like a hinge breaking.

"Oh, for fuck’s sake, Kvothe!"

A pause, seething. Then, "She’s gone."

It came again, frustration cracking at the edges, trying to push his way into my thoughts.

I felt my lips move before I thought about speaking. A faint echo of his name, nothing more than breath. But then the voices took him, too. Swallowed him in the tide.

"She’s gone, Kvothe."

His words distorted as they hit me. Warped in the space between hearing and knowing.

"...a girl in a cage..."

"Chains, fox, she’s caught in the trap..."

"Taken, forgotten, stolen, lost..."

"Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone..."

I winced, pressing my hands over my ears, but it didn’t help. The words twisted and broke on the way down, shifting from urgent to singsong, threading themselves along the meter of my madness.

"She’s..."

"...gone."

Someone exhaled sharply.

"Tehlu’s teeth, Kvothe." Their voice was barely more than a breath. Tired. Resigned. Defeated.

I turned my head toward the door. I meant to look for them, to really look, but the walls shifted wrong, and I caught nothing but a shadow moving. Leaving.

The cell door clanged.

* * *

The empty space left behind collapsed in on itself, folding neatly back into the rhythm of ruin.

My false selves moved into the silence like scavengers.

"He’s gone," one of them mused mildly.

"Gave up. Like everyone does, in the end."

"Maybe it’s better," another murmured. "What would you even do, little fox? Claw at the walls? Call a name you don’t remember?"

"She won’t come again, you know."

The words threaded through me before I fully heard them. They landed and settled like dust.

Something was wrong with them.

It was small at first, nothing more than a missed step, a brief and distant wrongness. My mind moved sluggishly, unable to grip the thought. The words had been spoken before. Just now. A moment ago.

I shook my head, as if that could shake away the splinter of unease.

"She won’t come again, Kvothe."

It wasn’t one of them.

It wasn’t a whisper from the walls. It hadn’t come with the lilt of madness. It hadn’t curled from my own lips in some twisted echo.

It had been spoken. Someone real. Someone with weight.

The wrongness sharpened. Everything inside me recoiled to attention.

Elodin.

Elodin had said it.

My pulse kicked hard in my throat.

I gripped the silver ring, crushing it against my palm. The ache of it burned me back into myself.

Elodin had been here.

This wasn’t some deep dream, some trick of Haven. I hadn’t conjured him from the marrow of my mind.

He had stood in this room.

And I had done nothing.

Like ice fracturing under sudden weight, the realization split through me.

I had let him leave.

I had let Auri’s name fall into the void.

The sickness in my stomach turned sharp, violent. My hands shook against the stone. I wanted to dismiss the thought, shove it away like all the other twisting illusions. But this thought didn’t warp like the others. It didn’t shift when I tried to pin it down. It held.

Auri.

Taken.

The moment stretched thin. My mind resisted one last time, trying to retreat back into the safety of madness. It would be easier to sink. Easier to be lost.

But this was real. And the weight of it pressed hard against my chest, too much to ignore, too much to fade.

I clenched my teeth. I forced breath back into my lungs. My fingers curled tight against the floor, not to search for balance, but to hold myself here.

I forced my head up.

The voices still circled, splintering and snarling, but now I saw them for what they were.

I turned on them and on myself. My own specters, my own fragments, my own ruin.

They didn’t retreat at first. They pressed close, whispering their last venomous doubts. One of them sang a lilting piece he called The Moon Fae’s Plight. Another murmured of horrors that made my stomach lurch. The madman in the corner kept time, nodding, muttering, and chanting.

I bared my teeth and fought them.

It was not a clean battle. It was not a sudden reckoning. I lost my footing. I slipped and fell into silence, and I had to claw my way out again and again.

Piece by piece, I drove them back.

Even when it left me raw and hollow, I fought.

Even when shadows closed in seeking purchase, I would not be unmade.

And in the end, the voices faded. The muttering dissolved. I had only my own breath, my own body, a weak light that stretched thin across the floor.

It was enough.

And in the silence, at last, I found it.

The stone of the wall, worn and cold, whispered to me in a way I didn’t understand. My hands traced its surface blindly, my ears straining against its quiet resistance until, at last, a name surfaced.

“Cyaerbasalien.”

I spoke it hesitantly, then with certainty, and then with the weight of stone.

The wall answered me.

It broke.

The rush of dawn air left me dizzy, and I let it carry me to the edge of the world. Pressing the ring to my lips, I whispered into the wind, “Wait for me, Auri.”

CHAPTER 15.

MISSING.

For someone on the run, I was a poor sort of fugitive. My legs were hollow things, trembling beneath me, threatening to betray me. The rags from Haven clung to my skin, torn and wet, heavy with the sour bite of sweat and mildew. I should have planned. I should have rested. But planning was remembering. Resting was thinking. I did everything I could to avoid both.

The streets of Imre pressed in, bristling with danger. Every clatter of wheels and every flickering shadow sent my heart leaping into my throat. The city felt sharp and alive, waiting to cut me down for daring its streets. When a shutter snapped shut above me, I stumbled sideways like a startled colt, all legs and bone, and too thin for this world. A younger me would have laughed. Perhaps a wiser me would have done the same. Now my fear was a mirror. In its depths, I saw only the madmen I thought I’d left behind.

Still, I found myself before Simmon’s door, shivering and small. My hand hovered, uncertain, my knuckles pale against dark wood. I could hear the rumors already, circling like hungry birds. Kvothe expelled. Kvothe, locked away in Haven. Kvothe, half-mad and guilty of what? Murder, perhaps. Theft, perhaps. The truth was worse, for lacking a name. I did not deserve Sim’s help. Not his kindness. Not even his pity.

But I needed it.

I knocked twice. It was a feeble sound, apologetic in its rhythm.

A pause. The silence that follows when hope tries to gather its courage. Then footsteps, light and careful, carrying their own small tension across the floorboards. The door creaked open, narrow enough for a sliver of lamplight to cut the darkness, and in that narrow seam, a single cautious eye. Sim’s eye. The chain at his neck kept him half-shuttered, half-guarded, but his worry spilled through all the same. His gaze moved over me. He took in the wild tangle of my hair, the filthy rags clinging close as grave clothes, the emptiness carved into my face after too many days spent surviving on nothing but desperation. For a heartbeat, he hesitated. That small hesitation cut worse than any slammed door. Worse by far.

He unlatched the chain and opened the door wider. “Kvothe,” he said, quiet and unsure. For a moment, I thought he would turn me away. Then he stepped back and pulled the door open fully. “Come in.”

The firelight spilled across the room, its warmth striking me like the sun after a cruel winter. I wanted to believe this was normal. I wanted to believe I was simply visiting an old friend. But then the weight of everything crashed in on me all at once. Sleepless nights and haunting echoes of Haven pressed down on me, along with the enormity of what I had to do. My legs buckled and I nearly fell, catching myself against the doorframe with shaking hands.

“Sit,” Sim said quickly, gesturing toward a chair by the fire. His tone was steady, but his brow furrowed sharply as he shut the door behind me.

I sank into the nearest seat, my legs trembling as though finally being able to shed the weight of the world. Sim remained standing, hands fidgeting nervously and his face tight with worry. But he didn’t speak. It was his patience that undid me.

“I made a mess, Sim.” My voice was raw, the words closer to a confession than a greeting. “I’ve done things.” I tried to say more, but the words tangled in my throat. I could not force them out. I could not meet his eyes. For a while, there was only the silence between us.

I looked up only when I could bear it no longer. Then I began to speak, because sometimes the only way out is forward, and all that remains is the telling.

* * *

I told him about Devi. How it began with a favor. A spice of life, as she called it. The warnings I let slip past. The mistakes that followed, and how everything unraveled. I told him how Lorren’s strength wavered. How it cracked, then crumbled, right there before my eyes. I told him about the Duplicator. How I used it to steal from the Archives. How I hunted secrets that should have stayed buried.

I told him how Haven had swallowed me whole, how Elodin had left me with nothing but riddles and warnings. And when the words grew harder to speak, with memories of Auri fragile and luminous in my mind's eye, I told him about her too. I told him about how Auri vanished but that I didn't know how or why. And how the pale ghosts I had conjured murmured reminders of my failure to protect her at every turn. I didn’t deserve his listening ear, yet Sim stood there across from me, silent but resolute, drinking in every fractured thing I had to say.

When I finished, silence stretched thin between us, broken only by the crackle of the fire. Sim’s hands twisted together in front of him. His face was pale, and his lips pressed into a tight, straight line. Finally, he spoke.

“Kvothe.” He stopped and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. His voice softened, gentled by something unspoken. “You should have told us. Told us about Auri, before all this. We could have helped. Protected her. Did you truly think we would not care?”

Shame burned in my cheeks. I knotted my hands in my lap, twisting them together. “You don’t understand,” I said, desperation creeping into my voice. “If anyone found out about her, they would send her to Haven. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t bear it. But I failed her, all the same.”

Sim let the silence hang between us before nodding. “Kvothe, you look like you could fall apart at the slightest push. Seriously, rest. You wouldn’t let me help you before. Let me try now. Tell me about Auri. Let me see what I can find.”

I told him about Auri as best I could. I described the moonlight sheen of her hair, the soft quickness of her movements, and the way she seemed to breathe through the cracks in the world without disturbing anything. Even as I spoke, Sim’s face tightened with quiet doubt. I could tell he was trying not to show how improbable it all seemed.

When my words ran out, Sim stood. He touched my shoulder, gentle. “Stay,” he said. “You're safe here. Sleep if you can. I’ll go see what I can find.”

* * *

I woke to the sound of quiet movement. Sim sat nearby, silhouetted by the fire, his face shadowed but unmistakably weary. He looked at me for a long moment before speaking.

“I found something,” he began, his voice low.

I sat up, every muscle aching. “Go on.”

He hesitated, running a hand through his hair. “Someone matching her description was seen, crying and struggling. The carriage she was in had Ambrose’s seal.”

My stomach dropped. “Ambrose,” I said, the name curling bitterly on my tongue.

Sim nodded reluctantly. “His coachman was seen heading toward Renere. I don’t know what it means, Kvothe, but it doesn’t look good.”

I leaned forward, resting my head in my hands. Waves of anger and guilt surged through me, each pulling sharper than the last. “If it’s him.” I whispered, trailing off.

Sim leaned closer, his voice firm. “You can’t rush this. You’re already on thin ice with, well, everything. He could be baiting you.”

I clenched my jaw. He was right, of course. The thought made my blood boil. “I’ll handle it,” I said, more evenly than I felt. “I can’t just sit here doing nothing.”

Sim studied me carefully. “Then promise me you’ll be smart about this, Kvothe. Don’t rush into his trap.”

“Smart,” I repeated, the word bitter on my tongue. “I’ll try.”

Sim nodded, though his concern lingered in his expression. He didn’t believe me. I didn’t entirely believe myself.

* * *

The clothes Sim lent me hung awkwardly on my frame, loose in the waist and tight in the shoulders, yet they were dry. They didn’t smell of Haven’s damp rot, and that was enough.

I had no plans to return to Sim's quiet firelight. He’d have tried to stop me, I think, or at least slowed me down. He was a good friend, perhaps too good. The kindly weight of his concern was something I couldn’t afford right now.

Instead, I went to my apartment above Anker’s. Getting there was a risk. If Ambrose suspected I had come back, his lackeys might have already gone through it. But I was not about to leave without my lute. I could not do that again, especially with what I still had to face.

The streets of Imre didn’t feel safe, though I used them sparingly. When I finally reached the back ways near Anker’s, I kept to the shadows, ducking under grain chutes and sliding over walls slick with frost. From below, my apartment above the inn looked dark, quiet. Still, my skin prickled with the thought of traps waiting inside, some unseen thread that might snap beneath my weight and betray me.

I scaled the stone carefully, pausing at the window’s edge. The air inside smelled faintly of wax and wood smoke, an oddly familiar scent that made it seem as if I had only stepped out for a drink. I scanned the room, but nothing stirred. I pulled myself inside, and no traps sprang.

The lute hung on its peg, waiting for me, and seeing it there loosened something tight in my chest. I pulled it down gently and ran my fingers along the worn case before placing it in my bag. I gathered the rest of my belongings from the small room, including a few coins, spare strings, and my last clean shirt. Then I slung the bag across my shoulder.

The stillness struck me again, louder now. The fear that lingered beneath it. The knowledge that leaving this place meant leaving the last remnants of stability behind me.

I stood carefully, my bag heavy against my shoulder, and made my way back to the open window. If the room was trapped, whatever teeth it bore had missed their chance.

Ambrose had her. Auri. A thought that iced my veins.

One way or another, I would follow that thread to the end. I would go through cold, through darkness, and through every shadow of that damned city where he might try to escape. Holding my lute close, I slipped into the night and left behind what little I did not carry.

CHAPTER 16.

INTERLUDE.

OMENS.

THE DECK BOARDS outside the Waystone creaked, groaning with the weight of age and weather, or perhaps with the secrets they held. Inside, the low hum of conversation fell abruptly silent, the way it does when an autumn chill presses against the windows, and the wind whips a tired shutter against its home.

A moment passed, and the door swung inward with a weary reluctance. Old Cob stepped through, familiar and worn as an old coin, his boots scuffing against the hardwood as if even the floor itself resisted interrupting the quiet.

“A pint o’ cider, Kote,” he grunted, stomping dust and dead grass from his boots before making his way to the bar. He slid into his usual place, the grooves of the stool seeming to fit him by now. “Helluva long morning. Don’t s’pose there’s any o’ that pie left?”

“No pie, I’m afraid,” Kote said, his voice polite, apologetic. But his hands worked with the assurance of long habit as he pulled a tankard off the shelf, wiping its rim reflexively before pouring the cider. Each movement was efficient, unhurried. If the creak of the boards outside had put a sliver of tension into him, it didn’t show.

Cob clicked his tongue, disappointment quick and sharp. “Pity, that. Best thing to keep you going, you know. Something warm and sweet.”

Kote slid the cider across the counter with a nod, and Cob took it with both hands, drinking half in one pull. He let out a satisfied sigh, setting the tankard down with a soft thunk against the wood. “Now, that’s good. Nothing like cider to settle the dust in your throat.”

He leaned against the bar, his face shifting into something more serious, though it stayed shaded by familiarity’s easy mask. “By the by, I had a talk with the Bentleys earlier. Seen ’em packing up all their things. Big wagon hitched out front, stuff tied down like they meant it for good and proper leavin’.”

“Did they say why?” Kote asked, still polite, still calm. He set the now-empty pitcher aside softly and deliberately. The gesture felt like the fading echo of a dropped pin.

Cob nodded, his lips pressing thin, as if chewing on something bitter. “Aye. Say they saw a something lurkin’ in their backwoods last night. Not quite a man, exactly. Sarah say it didn’t walk right. Legs too long, or too lean. Arms hanging all too low. Gave her the shivers, summat fierce.”

His eyes darted to the window, as if expecting to see the shadow of his words pressed against the glass. “Couldn’t talk her outta it. Say she knew what she saw and didn’t want to stay and see it again.”

Kote didn’t move except to stifle a yawn with the back of his hand. He set the bar rag down, folded neatly over his fingers. “That’s a bit of bad luck,” he said mildly.

Cob snorted, finishing off the cider with a flick of his wrist. “Luck?” He set the tankard down and jabbed a thumb toward the door. “Luck ain’t got a whit to do with it. It’s all this blasted nonsense springin’ up. Shep gone, Carter bringin’ in that odd thing from the woods, soldiers n’ bandits thick as flies on the road. I tell ya, Kote, the Bentleys might have the right of it, runnin’ while they’ve got the legs for it.”

He pushed away from the bar with a groan, his joints popping loud enough to carry in the quiet. “Anyway, I’d best be off. Things to tend to, as ever.” He gave Kote a short nod and turned toward the door, boots heavy against the floor like punctuation to his words.

The door closed behind him with a finality that seemed almost rude and left behind a louder silence than before.

* * *

Kote remained behind the bar, poised in his stillness for just a moment longer. There was nothing unusual in what Cob had said. The superstitious mutterings reflected the usual fears of things that slink under the moon. People had left town before. People had come back.

Still, he leaned slightly, listening until Cob’s footfalls were no longer audible on the deck boards outfront. Then he moved back to the table at the far end of the common room, where the Chronicler waited. The man’s quill hung above the page, its tip blotting a small dot of ink onto the margin.

“Where were we?” Kote asked, his voice lighter now, casual as a well-worn cloak.

The Chronicler didn’t answer right away because he was too busy scanning the last few lines of what he had written. His fingers hovered over the edges of the page. After a moment, he finally spoke. “You were on your way to Renere,” he said.

Kote nodded, but the moment to begin didn’t come right away. He rested his hand idly on the table, his fingers just brushing the edge of the wood. The fire’s light chased shadows down the wall, their shapes twisting and flickering in ways Kote didn’t much care for. He let himself glance at the door, just once, before reaching for the story again.

“Yes,” Kote said softly. “Renere.”

CHAPTER 17.

OF DANCING STONES.

THE FROST THAT PAINTED the edges of windows and cobblestones seemed like quiet promises, each finger curling into itself, delicate and doomed. It gripped at the world as if it might shatter under the weight of the next breath. In this way, it mirrored me. The air was thin beneath the stars, and the night was thick with a kind of silence that made it easy to believe I was the only soul left breathing.

The road ahead was little more than a gray scar stretching into the night. The lantern I’d borrowed from Anker hung heavy in my hand, its light carving a small, uncertain circle in the darkness. Above, the stars blinked faintly, smeared across the sky like chalk, their pale light offering nothing but a vague sense of distance.

Renere seemed impossibly far. Its name echoed quietly in the back of my mind, soft and slippery with doubt. Somewhere ahead, Ambrose pressed onward, and Auri was dragged along with him. To what end, I did not dare imagine. Thoughts of her drifted close, insistent and bright, like moths drawn to a candle flame. I forced them away. I could not let myself linger on Auri, not if I meant to keep the despair at bay.

And so I kept walking. Each step on the uneven dirt road felt like a small rebellion against common sense and better footwear. My boots were borrowed, and they made sure I never forgot it, gnawing at my heels like an insult that clung fast. If my feet bled, at least they had the decency to match the rest of me.

That’s when I saw them. Figures on the horizon, gray shapes surfacing against the dark. My first thought was a trick of the lantern, its erratic light twisting shadows into men. My second thought was more immediate, more solid. I was in danger. But before I could step away, one of them called out.

“Still warm,” It was Wil’s voice, sharp and cutting as his silhouette came into focus. “Better fix that.”

The fist came quick and crooked, a punch full of fury that smashed into my jaw before I could breathe his name. My vision cracked wide as the taste of plum and nutmeg burst bright and bitter in my mouth. For a moment, I swayed, swamped by dizziness, my limbs flailing like a sapling bent too far in the wind.

Anger surged through me, hot and sharp as Wil’s knuckles. My fists clenched on their own, and I took a step forward. Before I could move any farther, Simmon slipped in between us. He caught Wil’s wrist in one hand, holding it tightly enough to restrain, but loose enough that he could let go if needed.

“Damn the both of you,” Sim said, his voice strained not by volume but by weight. His body was trembling, whether from anger or the cold I couldn’t tell.

Wil looked away, breathing hard, though the fire hadn’t completely left him. When Sim was certain we wouldn’t lunge at one another again, he stepped back and turned to face us both.

“You are right to be angry,” Sim told Wil. “I don’t condone what he’s done either. But black hands, Wil. I saw the look on your face when I told you he was safe. You were relieved. Don’t act like you don’t care.”

Wil met his glance but said nothing, his jaw clenched hard enough to snap bone. When it was clear Sim would neither budge nor bark, Wil pulled back, but the anger in his eyes smoldered still, banked but not extinguished.

Sim watched him retreat, then turned to me, his face caught halfway between worry and disappointment. “Kvothe,” he started. My name fell soft, like a pebble into water, rippling outward.

I raised a hand to stop him. My voice pushed up my throat and broke into the suffocating silence. “If I could have saved Lorren, I would have.” The words broke apart in the cold air. Shame wrapped itself around my chest and tangled on my tongue as I tried to speak. I opened my mouth to say something more, but the rest would not come.

Wil’s expression barely shifted. His anger carved lines across his face, but his tone grew colder when he finally spoke. “It’s not just Lorren, Kvothe. It’s the Archives. You put generations of reputation at risk of being tainted, and for what? Your curiosity?” He spat the word like it burned to even hold it in his mouth.

“It wasn’t just that,” I said, defensive without meaning to be. But how could I explain the weight of what I’d found, the truths I had only begun to uncover? They wouldn’t believe me. Tehlu help me, even if I told them they wouldn’t believe.

“Then explain it,” Wilem said, his voice brittle and low. “You can’t keep everything buried. Not this. Not anymore.”

“You owe us the truth,” Sim added gently, though his gaze was firm. “After everything, tell us.”

I breathed out, heavy and slow, as if exhaling might purge the shame lodged in my ribs. I opened my mouth to argue, to deflect, but stopped. They were right. More than that, they deserved it. So I let the fight drain out of me, shoulders slumped under the weight of my words.

“You’d better get comfortable,” I muttered darkly, the words trying and failing to carry humor.

Sim gestured down the road. “Tell us on the way.”

I blinked. “You’re coming with me?”

“Of course we are,” Sim said, incredulous. “Do you think we’d let you do this alone?”

Wilem nodded, his hand darting out to pull me upright with a strength that was startling. “You’re an idiot, but you’re our idiot.”

Something warm and messy knotted itself in my chest. I turned away quickly, shielding my expression from their eyes. “You know I'm going to Renere, right?”

Wil smiled faintly. “And chasing after Ambrose,” he said. “I figured that much out.”

“Then you know this ends poorly,” I managed, biting back a choke of laughter that bordered on tears.

“We’ve stuck beside you through worse,” Sim said, patting me on the shoulder. “We’re your friends, Kvothe. Stop being so surprised by it.”

With that, the road ahead suddenly felt lighter. It was not any shorter, but it was lighter all the same.

* * *

A few hours later, we caught a ride on a passing fetter cart. We clambered into the back and let the farmer flick the reins. The road was rough. The cart rocked beneath us, wood groaning, axles crying, dust curling up behind in lazy snakes. Silence grew thick around us. Only the slow creak of wheels, the tired grunt of an old man, the hush of afternoon light.

It was there, jostled along by road and memory, that I let the words tumble out. The road. The Edema Ruh. The laughter of my parents in firelight. Their murder. The shadow under the stars. The secret name of the Chandrian. I spoke on. I didn’t stop. Wilem was still and silent, eyes fixed on the horizon. Sim leaned forward, broad shoulders hunched, gaze lost among the battered boards of the cart.

And when my story ended, it was as if I had pulled a thorn from my own heart. It hurt. It helped. Teccam wrote that confession draws the poison out, makes the wound clean. Perhaps he was right. Some of the poison bled away.

Not all. Doubt still lingered, faint and flickering between us like a shadow in the dust. Wilem hid it well, but I saw the glance he shared with Sim. Neither spoke, neither needed to. I said nothing. What more could I say?

I shifted focus instead, drawing on my growing skill with Naming. They watched in quiet fascination as I called a ring of stone into being. I slipped into onto my finger beside and the simple amber one Auri had given me.

“Rings like these,” I murmured, flexing my fingers, “are meant to give my enemies pause.”

“Or make them laugh,” Sim quipped with his customary optimism.

Wilem just shook his head. “You’ll draw attention, good or bad. That armor cuts both ways.”

We all knew he was right.

* * *

It was Wil who saw them, his sharp eyes catching the circle of greystones on a bluff ahead. He gestured, drawing our attention to the ancient monoliths. We bid goodbye to the farmer and made our way toward them.

Standing beneath the stones, I couldn’t help but feel their quiet power. They stood like giants too tired to move, their surfaces worn smooth by the slow fingers of time. I was reminded of a passage I’d read in “En Temerant Voistra”, whispering about their use as gates to the Fae. That memory had barely surfaced before I rushed to retrieve the book from my travel sack. Wil, Sim, and I pawed through it under the afternoon light.

As the hours slipped into night, we began to make real progress. Among us, Wilem was undoubtedly the better scholar. His patience and skill in Temic put my hurried translations to shame. Yet even he faltered when confronted with a single word, stopping to ponder its meaning.

He murmured, "Dance?" disbelief coloring his voice as he scratched his head.

Sim let out a short scoff. "That can't be right. Are you sure about that one?"

But I said nothing. In the quiet of my mind, Denna's voice returned to me, her question rising gentle as warmth. “Do you know the secrets of stones?” I placed my hands on the nearest surface and leaned into the hum.

The Name didn’t come as a sound but a shape. Soft at first, round at the edges. Then sharp. The weight of it spread out, vast yet contained, pressing back against me like the tide. When it came whole, it left my lips before I could stop myself. “Cyaerbasalien.”

The stones shifted beneath my hand as the Name took root, a low tremor rippling through the circle. The world paused for a breath, then stilled.

“It didn’t work,” I began, frustration already bleeding into my voice.

But then Sim’s hand settled gently on my shoulder and stopped me. “Kvothe, look,” he whispered, lifting his finger to the sky.

I followed his gaze. The stars above were wrong. They drifted in unfamiliar patterns, trembling faintly, as if unsure whether they belonged. The air clung thick and sweet around us, like the memory of distant music.

We had crossed into the Fae.

CHAPTER 18.

DEFINE LOST.

THE SKY UNRAVELED, thread by thread, as if an unseen hand were plucking it apart. Stars wheeled and drifted through it like embers shaken from a dying fire, their positions subtly, maddeningly wrong. The constellations twisted, caught in some unseen current, spiraling deeper into the dark.

A watching sort of sky. A waiting one.

I led us dayward, or what should have been dayward in a place where no sun shone. Felurian had once told me that moving dayward in the Fae brought you closer to stability, but the air here rang like plucked glass strings, and the ground sloped in ways that changed between blinks. If this was stability, I wanted no part of it.

Sim stumbled at my side, filling the silence with nervous chatter, his voice straining to sound casual. Wilem kept behind us, scanning the horizon with dark, flat eyes, like a wolf pushed too far into the open.

"We’re lost," Wilem said, quiet and certain.

I almost denied it. I had found my way through worse. Tarbean’s alleys had been crueler than any wood, and the Archives more tangled than any maze. But the Fae did not work like streets or bookshelves, neatly aligned. It was something else entirely, shifting and layered, a road that twisted as you walked it. It slipped through your fingers like river mist.

“Say it,” Wilem pressed.

“We’re misplaced,” I muttered.

Wilem shook his head. “Well, we’re not found.”

Before I could argue, something changed. A sound threaded through the trees, light as a breath, quick as a shiver. Not a voice. Not quite. It curled into the hollow of my ribs like a song I had known once but could not name. It didn’t draw me forward so much as wait for me to come.

“What now?” Wilem asked, his voice sharpening.

I didn’t answer. I stepped toward the song.

“Kvothe!” Wilem caught my arm, fingers digging into my shoulder. “You know what this is.”

“We can’t keep wandering,” I said, pulling free. “It’s something.”

“It’s going to be something that kills us,” Wilem snapped.

I turned to face him. “Then I’ll go alone.”

Wilem’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t argue. I stepped into the trees. By the time I reached the clearing’s edge, I realized I wasn’t alone.

“You really thought we’d stay behind?” Sim asked, appearing beside me, his pale face a mix of curiosity and unease.

I wasn’t surprised when Wilem shoved through the undergrowth behind us, muttering in Siaru under his breath.

* * *

The clearing spread before us, a window into somewhere older and stranger than we had any right to stand. Firelight flickered hungrily around shapes that looked almost human. Their limbs bent with graceful twists, their faces smooth as river glass. And in the dim glow, their eyes shifted from silver to green, slow and uncertain as moonlit water.

For a moment they were dancers wrapped in firelight, each movement seamless, poetry brought to life. Yet as the light shifted, their differences revealed themselves in cruel detail. Ribs sloped too thin. Fingers bent at odd joints. Heads dipped too sharply in amusement or curiosity.

“They’re Fae,” Sim whispered.

“The Faen Court,” I murmured, “Felurian described it to me.”

A silver-haired figure stepped forward, hollow cups balanced in long, narrow fingers. Their lips curled as they looked us over, their voice humming like wind over strings.

"No iron. No ugly things," they said. It was not a request.

I hesitated a moment before unsheathing my knife and placing it at my feet. Sim and Wilem followed, though Wil’s grip lingered over his blade longer than was wise.

The cup tasted of honey and thunder, thick and electric as it slid down my throat. I had barely set it down when another figure stepped forward. Sleek and sharp, with hair that burned like living flame and eyes that glowed like smoldering amber, they moved with a dangerous grace.

“If you want safe passage,” she said, her voice musical and precise, “you will dance.”

Sim blanched. “Dance?”

I stepped forward, trusting to luck that I would not embarrass myself. “We’ll dance.”

The first steps were deliberate, measured. But the music had other intentions. The rhythm folded over itself and pressed against my ribs like a second pulse. The ground hummed beneath my feet. And before I knew it, the dance was inside me, turning movement into necessity.

Beside me, Sim faltered, stumbling out of step with something like sickness on his face. I caught his arm and pulled him away from the fire.

* * *

We had barely cleared the tree line before Sim collapsed to his knees and retched into the undergrowth.

“Remind me never to drink something handed to me by strangers,” he groaned.

I crouched beside him, trying to shake off a lingering dizziness. At the edge of my vision, something flickered in a deep orange hue, half-hidden among the twisting shapes of the trees.

An orchard.

The gnarled branches draped low, their fruit gleaming like molten copper. The shapes of them stirred something deep and half-remembered, like a song in another language.

Sim stumbled forward before I could stop him.

“Don’t!”

Too late. Sim plucked one of the fruits and bit into it. Juice dripped down his chin, catching on his lips like fire-lit gold.

“It tastes the same,” he murmured in faint surprise, turning to look at me. “You should try this.”

I slapped the fruit from his hands.

For a moment, we stood in silence, his expression caught between confusion and hurt. Then, somewhere behind us, there was a sound. A snap of branches. The quiet, deliberate weight of approaching steps.

A Fae figure emerged from the trees, silent and watching, their spear leveled at my throat.

Black eyes. Long, twisting limbs. The Thiani.

Sim went still, his breath caught. The Fae’s dark gaze flicked from him to me, then to the half-eaten fruit lying in the dirt.

I raised my hands slowly. “Wait,” I pleaded.

But her mouth had already opened, and a shrill, furious sound carved through the forest. The air brimmed with voices, drawing closer with every heartbeat.

* * *

The hum of voices swelled and shrank, a tide of sound rising sharp and eerie as we were herded into the wide center of the clearing. Everything felt strange, far-off, untethered. My stomach swayed beneath me like a boat taking on water.

“The Talamas Grove has been defiled,” the Thiani leader growled, striking the butt of her spear against the ground. The sharp thunk of it rattled in my skull. “There must be justice!”

The assembled crowd muttered and spat, the sound of it thick and wrong in my ears. I half-registered it, but my world was still sluggish, spinning from too many spirits, too much laughter, all of it soured now.

Then, a voice. Soft, calm. Absolute.

“Bring them forward.”

The crowd parted.

There was a man standing there, tall and still. He wasn’t wearing a crown or armor, but he didn’t need to. His presence alone pulled everything to him, like a silent command.

I blinked at him. Something about him felt important. Sharp-edged and inevitable.

“High Lord Remmen,” the Thiani intoned, her voice a blade cutting through butter. “These humans were caught eating from the sacred grove.”

“Remmen,” I thought vaguely. “That's bad, isn't it?” The name curled sluggishly in my mind. I felt as though I ought to recognize it. A story hovered, half-remembered. There was something about twilight, something just out of reach.

Oh.

Right.

Remmen. The Lord of Twilight. The Telwyth Mael.

A weight sunk to the bottom of my gut.

Remmen tilted his head slightly, those burning violet eyes considering us. Not cruel, not theatrical. He didn’t need to act like he held power. He simply did.

“Is this true?” he asked.

Sim made a sound. It might have been a word.

Remmen’s gaze turned to him, expectant.

“No,” Simmon managed, stumbling over the single syllable. His voice was thick, unsteady, barely more than a breath. If I had been sober, I might have shut my eyes in despair.

Remmen sighed. Not in anger or pity, simply the sound of another small burden settling onto his shoulders.

“Your hand,” he said, extending his own.

Sim blinked at him, swaying slightly. “Huh?”

Remmen didn’t repeat himself. He just waited.

A long, awful moment passed. Then, hazily obedient, Simmon held out his hand. His fingers were smudged in the low light, stained deep in the lines of his palm. The soft orange of crushed flesh, half-mashed under his nails.

A sharp intake of breath. The sound of hissing, low and seething.

“A thief and a liar!” someone spat.

Remmen did not raise his voice. He did not need to.

“Hang them over the Black Morass,” he said, already turning away.

* * *

Thankfully, when Remmen had demanded we hang, he hadn’t meant by the neck, instead we were thrust at spearpoint into a large, elaborately woven orb of roots and vines, and left to dangle over a putrid swamp. Our initial relief that we weren't to be fitted for nooses, gave way after a few hours inside our cramped and uncomfortable cage, the whole thing twisting and creaking when any of us so much as moved.

Sim groaned. “My head feels like Kilvin clamped it in a vice.”

Wilem, tense beside him, didn’t look up. “Next time, don’t eat fruit that glows.”

Sim let out something close to a laugh. Then, quieter, “I haven’t had persimmons since I was a child.”

Wilem stilled for a moment, then turned to him. “Persimmons?”

A hesitant nod. “My parents had an estate outside Renere. They grew wild along the cliffs. That’s why,” he muttered, glaring at nothing in particular, “they named me Persimmon.”

A slow beat of silence stretched between the three of us.

“You’re joking,” I said.

“Hardly.”

Wilem let out a sharp breath, the faintest flicker of a smirk at the edge of it. “And you’ve let us call you Sim this entire time?”

Sim shifted. “I prefer it.”

“Hearing this now feels like a betrayal, Persimmon.”

Sim groaned and slumped back against the cage, resting his head on his arms. “Are we going to die here?”

“No.” I hadn’t meant it to come out so sure, but there it was. Woven from a deeper place than reason. “I promise you. We’ll find a way.”

As their conversation faded into tired silence, my attention wandered from them and settled on the pack abandoned on the wooden platform. Wilem’s knife rested there. Maybe, if I could speak the Name of Iron, if I could find it within myself, there might yet be a way.

I felt Wilem watching me.

“That's your plan?” he scoffed.

I said nothing. His gaze lingered, testing me for an answer I didn’t have yet.

* * *

Time in the Fae does not pass. It pools. It thins. It twists itself into ribbons and knots. There is no sunrise, no ticking clock. But gradually, the air around us brightened, not as if dawn had come, but as if the darkness had simply grown tired and slunk away to gather itself elsewhere.

We were cut from our cage before I had time to stiffen against the fall. The ground met my feet too soon, too suddenly, as if it had been farther away just a breath before.

The Court was gathered again, though it was quieter now. Even the ever-present hum of unseen things was subdued, as if the world was waiting for our story to resolve.

Remmen sat upon the great twisted roots of a massive tree, his sharp features carved from twilight-stained stone. Even at rest, his presence waited in the air around him, thrumming with quiet authority.

The Thiani stepped forward like a blade drawn from its sheath. “They have defiled the Talamas Grove,” she announced. “There must be justice.”

“What,” Remmen mused, “must be done?”

“They have no place here,” the Thiani intoned, “One clean stroke. The head will do.”

Sim made a strangled noise in his throat.

I stiffened. “You would kill a man over fruit?”

A soft, biting laughter rippled through the crowd.

The Thiani did not smile. “It was no mere fruit. It was a sacred offering.” A beat. “Such theft is blasphemy.”

The word dropped like a stone into deep water.

Remmen shook his head.

Sensing she'd overstepped the mark on what was deemed fair punishment, the Thiani proposed another form of retribution.

“Cut out this one's tongue,” she said, pointing to Sim.

“No,” I said, and there was iron in my voice.

Remmen eyes narrowed, “No? And who are you to decide in matters of this court?”

I swallowed. You cannot argue with the Fae. Logic is a poor weapon against stories older than stone.

But games on the other hand.

I lifted my chin. “I challenge the sentence in the old ways.”

There was a stir in the gathered crowd. Some murmured in interest, others in something closer to amusement.

Remmen’s lips curled faintly. “You would challenge me?”

I held my ground, though my heart had begun a slow, warning drum in my chest. “I would.”

Remmen regarded me solemnly for a long moment. Then, with a gesture sharp as falling leaves, he summoned a group of attendants.

They moved quickly. A small wooden table was set before us. A board was placed upon it. My breath hitched in realization.

Tak.

The humming murmur of the Fae around us told me everything I needed to know. This was no idle amusement here. This was not a courtly game for bored nobility.

Tak mattered. And now it mattered more than anything.

Remmen’s violet gaze met mine. He reached forward, placing his first piece.

I let my breath settle. Slow. Sure. Not too careful. Not too slow.

I laid my first stone cleanly upon the board.

“Play to be good.”

Remmen played his next piece, studying the board, studying me. There was no hesitation, no deliberation in his movements. He played like the board was already set in his mind, each piece clicking into place according to a rhythm I could not hear.

I laid my next piece.

“Play to be better.”

Remmen’s strategy bent and shifted like water threading its way through cracks in stone. His actions flowed with a quiet fluidity, natural and unforced. With each move, there was a sense of careful intention, as if every gesture had been rehearsed a hundred times beneath the surface.

I adjusted. I did not try to match him piece for piece, speed for speed. Instead, I played something looser, something uncertain. I tilted my head, let my fingers hover just a moment too long over the board. I let hesitation glimmer at the edges of my expression. Not too much. Just enough.

Doubt is a baited hook. Fear is a blade.

A single small crease formed at Remmen’s brow. He took my hesitation as carelessness. My looseness as lack of understanding. He leaned into the opening I gave him.

“Tak is not about winning.”
“Tak is about making a beautiful game.”

With a final, measured movement, I placed my stone. It settled with a deliberate, whispering click.

The fire crackled. The air between us held still.

Then, softly, I spoke. “Tak.”

The board rested between us. The crowd murmured.

Remmen studied the Tak board for a long moment. Then, with the slow certainty of an autumn wind shaking leaves free from their branches, he brushed the stones aside.

“Well played,” he murmured.

I allowed myself a breath. A slow blink. A moment to believe I had actually won.

Remmen turned toward the gathered court. "A victor must receive their due."

I forced myself to keep still. “My due?”

His violet eyes lifted to meet mine, unreadable. “A wager was made. A cost set. Payment is mine to give.”

In this moment I had little doubt that, had I lost, the price would have been carved from my body. The smooth certainty of the Fae’s sense of fairness had all but assured that. I had won, and so they assumed I expected some compensation. Safe passage, perhaps. A trinket with more history than it rightfully should have.

But then the Court stirred.

A figure stepped forward from the press of watching Fae, and everything in me went still.

He was young and thin, bright as a candle flickering in restless air. His hair was a mess of inky curls that caught the firelight at their edges, glinting deep blue like raven feathers. And bright mercy, his eyes burned with an impossible blue, clever and wild. They locked onto me without hesitation, without uncertainty, without fear.

Not a child’s gaze. Not entirely.

“This is your prize,” Remmen murmured.

A cold knot formed in my chest. “A child?”

Remmen smiled. “Such a small word for what he is.”

Around us, the Court rumbled with a low, lilting murmur. Some curious. Some amused.

I glanced down at the boy, this impossible boy, half-expecting him to look uncertain or surprised or confused. He did not.

Instead, he studied me with a careful, assessing sort of curiosity. Testing. Separating me into pieces with those uncanny blue eyes as if he could weigh my worth in a single glance.

“What exactly have I won?” I asked, suddenly unsure of where I stood.

“My son,” Remmen said simply. “The Prince of Twilight.”

Something inside me pulled, as if some invisible thread had just been looped into the stitching of my life.

Simmon staggered upright beside me, his breath caught in his throat. Wilem swore in Siaru, flat and inevitable.

I opened my mouth. Closed it. I fought for a thread of sense. There was none.

I turned back to Remmen, narrowing my eyes. “Why?”

Remmen studied me. “You called for the old ways.”

“And in what old tale does a game of Tak win a man a prince?”

Remmen tilted his head, a slow, knowing motion.

“In ‘all’ of them.”

And then I finally understood.

This was not the world I had known. Not a place governed by the rules of merchants and men, where debts wore neat ledgers and promises broke like brittle twigs.

This was the Fae. Their laws did not linger in ink and parchment, but bloomed in story. I had reached for an ancient right, seeking justice by the memory of an older law. And in stories, the kind rooted deep and meant to endure, what was victory’s price?

A wife. A throne. A great beast to be tamed. A lost prince waiting to be shaped.

The son of a king.

In this world, it made perfect sense. Because nothing here was given. Only earned. And I had earned him.

My throat tightened. “You would give me your son, just like that?”

Remmen’s smile did not reach his eyes. “No. I would give you my son ‘because’ of that.”

I turned back toward the boy, expecting defiance or resistance. But the scruffy urchin only grinned at me, bright and sharp as a blade catching moonlight. A grin like trouble tied in silk and lace.

* * *

Within the Waystone, Bast looked over the table indignantly. “Who are you calling an urchin?”

CHAPTER 19.

AMBER AND IVORY.

THE AIR BIT at my skin as we stepped out of the Fae. Sharp, cold, honest.

I hadn’t realized how thick the air had been there, thick as amber poured too slowly. How warm and sweet the light had been, pressing against my skin like a hand held too long on the back of my neck. I hadn’t noticed, not until it was gone.

Now the world was crisp again, cut clean in hard-edged light and scent. The earth felt real under my feet. My own body felt heavier, my limbs made of flesh and bone instead of silk and story.

I let out a slow breath. We'd made it.

Wil and Sim shifted beside me, stretching the way men do after too long in bed. I could see the moment they registered the weight of their own limbs again, the sharpness of the world.

Then there was Bast.

Unlike the rest of us, Bast did not move as if shaking off some unseen burden. He simply stood, still and considering. His eyes drifted shut for a moment, his hands loose at his sides.

He drew a slow breath, careful and measured. He was testing.

A small sound escaped him, something almost like amusement, almost like pleasure.

"Ah," he murmured. "Now I remember how heavy all this is."

I turned to glance at him, and there he was, wholly unchanged yet entirely different. Here in the mortal world, the shape of him meant something again. Everything about him was a careful act. His stance, his slouch, even the precise way he breathed all carried purpose.

To his credit, his glamourie was well-woven. It had to be. The Fae do not belong in the mortal world, and the world knows it. Sometimes in whispers. Sometimes in screams. But always in blood.

Bast knew this better than most. So he crouched, adjusting where the seams of himself blurred too thin. A flick of fingers across his cheekbones, dulling their sharpness. A smooth drag down his side, settling the curve of boots that hid the cloven hooves beneath.

When he straightened, he rolled his shoulders like a cat waking from indifferent sleep. Not satisfied, not comfortable. But finished.

Behind him stood the waystones, rising as a tall cluster of gray pillars. I tried to mark their location in my mind in case we needed to return, but their shapes twisted in unsettling ways, and my thoughts slipped away before I could hold them. This was a path never meant for mortal eyes.

Sim exhaled slowly. “I still don’t understand how you knew where we'd come out.”

Bast grinned, teeth flashing. “Don’t you?”

Sim frowned. “No.”

“Good.” He clapped Sim on the back. “That will make it twice as difficult when you try it on your own and fail spectacularly.”

Sim looked no less confused, but as Bast moved forward toward the ridge, he followed.

I did as well.

Because the truth was, whether or not I understood it, Bast had led us true. And now, we stood in the high hills overlooking Renere.

I turned my gaze toward the city spread before us, tangled with bridges and canals, vast beneath the bent light of the afternoon sun.

"Vast," he said, tasting the word as though he might swallow it whole. "Knotted. Hungry."

I cast a glance toward the sprawl of Renere, all tangled canals and sharp spires and streets that twisted in impossible geometry. "You sound like you like it."

"I don’t know yet."

I caught the faint furrow in his brow as his sharp gaze flickered across the rooftops, to the taut linen lines strung between high windows, bright silks drying in the open air. Feelers searching. Measuring.

Then, more to himself than us, he mused, "It doesn’t swallow strangers as politely as the Fae, though. That’s something."

I sighed. "That makes one of us."

Bast turned his charming smile on me, all teeth and mischief.

Then, in one easy flick of movement, he vaulted smoothly from the embankment, landing beside me with uncanny lightness.

He dusted his hands together as if settling the matter.

"Onward to our inevitable doom," he declared brightly.

"Fate hasn’t decided that yet," I muttered.

Bast tipped his head to the side, much like a hound catching a distant sound. Then he spoke quietly, his voice almost sweet. "Hasn’t it?"

* * *

A gondola would have been easier. The dockmen whistled as we passed, mindful of their poled crafts as they cut lazily through the silver-blue shallows. They gestured toward the open seats, calling out offers no true noble would acknowledge.

Sim almost caved. Almost.

Then Wil snorted. And Bast flicked his gaze toward him with a look of pleased curiosity, as if he’d already begun reading Wilem by what he chose to scorn.

"Afraid of a little walking, Simmon?" Bast asked, in the manner of a man dropping a coin just to watch a beggar decide what dignity is worth.

To his credit, Sim straightened immediately. "Obviously not."

Wil grunted his approval. "Then we walk."

That was fine with me. A city can’t be known except by its streets. You have to feel it underfoot, listen to how it sings, how it murmurs, whether it whets its teeth on laughter or whispers secrets in stolen steps.

Tarbean had leered at me, sprawling and broken, full of jagged edges and cutting smiles. Imre had sung, all light and laughter, wealth and easy kindness.

Renere?

Renere did neither.

The city did not welcome. It did not leer. It swallowed.

The streets teemed with people, all moving in the sharp, choreographed chaos of somewhere made to consume coin and breath alike. Silk-sashed bravos walked among hard-eyed merchants. Street performers spun and leapt in wide courtyards, laughter ringing against stone. Everywhere, the sharp scent of cut citrus struggled against the heavier notes of riverwater and the lingering perfume of money.

You could measure a man’s worth by his collar, by the weight of his rings. And you could measure his danger by how easily he walked a city crowded with thieves.

Bast seemed almost relaxed. Almost.

For the last hour, he had prowled the streets at my side, but never where I expected him. One moment, he was just behind me. The next, sidling behind Wil and eyeing street performers from under his lashes. A few minutes later, when I turned to glance back, he was nowhere at all.

Then, impossibly, he was ahead of us, leaning lazily against a lamppost, watching our approach with the smug satisfaction of a cat watching pigeons wander too close.

He wasn’t just wandering. He was testing the city.

He noted rooftops. He pressed palms to market stalls, gauging how sturdy they were. He fell behind for just long enough to poke his head into an alley, then reappeared as if he’d never left.

Bast was listening to the city.

After a time, I realized Wil had noticed, too.

He wasn’t watching Bast with suspicion. Not exactly. It was more as if he stood beside a locked door, pressing an ear against the wood and waiting to make out the sounds within, wondering if he might hear a tune or the low breathing of something hungry in the dark.

Bast caught Wil’s stare. He curved an eyebrow, then smirked and tilted his head just slightly. His smile was slow and sharp-edged, unquestionably a challenge.

“Oh, careful, dear Wilem,” Bast said. “If you stare any longer, I’ll start thinking you fancy me.”

Wil didn’t slow his pace. He didn’t even blink. “I already have one reckless bastard to look after. I don’t need another.”

That startled real laughter out of Bast, bright and genuine. He breathed out, clearly delighted. “Oh! I take back every unflattering thing I have ever thought about you.”

“You’ve known me a day,” Wil said dryly.

Bast shrugged. “Some people inspire insults faster than others.”

Sim narrowed his eyes at Bast. Then he looked at Wilem. Then at me.

Finally, he sighed heavily, as if resigning to fate. "God help me, I think you will get along."

Bast grinned as if he'd just won a bet.

* * *

The noise reached us.

Not laughter. Not the vendor calls. Not the living hum of a city.

Rhythmic, steady. A voice above the others.

A pulse in the air, deep and thrumming.

Up ahead, the street grew crowded. Movement slowed as people pressed together, bodies dense in the narrow space. It was like a clot forming, folk edging away from something uncomfortable. Perhaps it was a sermon, or some kind of demonstration. The sort of nonsense any sensible person would rather avoid, with places to be and no time for trouble.

Wilem frowned.

Sim took an uncertain step forward.

Bast exhaled in something that was not quite amusement. "Now what's this lovely little snarl?"

Sim hesitated. "They're just... street preachers?"

I glanced at their hands.

Not clasped in prayer. Not raised in invocation. Arms crossed tight over thick shoulders.

Not spiritual fervor.

Something sharper.

Wilem had caught it too. His expression had gone stony.

"This isn’t a sermon," I murmured.

The chanting surged. Their voices grew tight, not quite a shout, not quite battle-bright, but dangerously close.

Sim had gone pale. "We need to leave."

Then the first soldiers pressed their way into the crowd. Blue and gold uniforms surged forward, meeting a wall of brown-robed bodies who pushed back without giving ground.

The air had not yet broken, but it was bracing itself. Just a breath, held too long.

A single wrong moment, and everything would turn.

Bast rolled his shoulders, exhaling long and low. As if standing still was costing him something.

I made my choice.

“Bast.” My voice was low. Steady. “Find us a way around.”

Bast turned his head slightly, just enough that the city’s half-light caught in his eyes. His grin was slow and lazy, but there was nothing careless about it.

“Oh,” he murmured. “Now you like my tricks.”

The air in the square grew heavier. Someone had begun to shout.

“Bast. Now.” I said, urgency now tinging my voice.

He sighed, tilting his head back with the air of someone scenting storm clouds. His gaze flicked up toward rooftops, then down a tight alley none of us had even glanced at twice. His fingers flexed by his side.

Then, with the languid ease of stretching his legs after a long nap, Bast stepped away, slipping toward the alley with confident, careless grace.

Wil murmured at my side. "You trust him to know where he's going?"

No.

But that didn’t matter.

"I trust him to move as if he belongs," I murmured back. "And half the time, that's enough."

"Half the time?” Sim whispered, voice rising slightly.

Steel caught the light across the square.

Not yet drawn. Not yet swung.

But enough.

* * *

When the White Citadel gates rose before us, my legs ached and my fine new tunic had gathered the dull grit of Renere’s streets.

If Severen had shimmered with nobility, King Roderick's court simply burned. Everything was too white, polished within an inch of sanity. It was a fortress built to stab upward, high and narrow, its upper towers so distant I tilted too far back trying to count them.

Sim steadied me with a hand before mumbling, “Just as well. Someone would have charged you tax for looking too long.”

It was a jest I would have laughed at. If I hadn't seen what rolled past the gates.

A carriage.

Heavy. Gilded. Loud in color and presence, the kind of garish thing that used gold like perfume, overdone to the point of suffocation.

And on its door, pressed in shining metal, was a crest that made my blood catch fire.

House Jakis.

I turned too sharply. My hands were fists before I had thought, before I had considered.

Sim saw. So did Wil.

I didn't say it outright. I didn’t need to. We all knew. Ambrose was here. With Auri.

Wil stepped neatly into my path, blocking me before I could so much as breathe forward. “I know that face, Kvothe.”

“She doesn’t belong here,” I told him, though my throat had seized up tight.

“She didn’t belong in the Underthing either.” Sim’s voice was almost gentle, and that made it worse. “What if she’s better here?”

“She won’t be.” The air in my chest burned. “She can't be.”

My body made a decision before my mind did. A step forward, toward the gate, toward steel-rimmed doors and a fool’s arrogance.

Wil snatched my sleeve. “Brilliant plan. Charge headfirst into the White Citadel and get thrown in a stone cell before the hour’s end.”

I knew he was right. My fists stayed curled, the heat wound tight in my chest.

“Fine. We bluff our way inside.” My voice hardly sounded like my own. “We find her before Ambrose gets his claws in.”

* * *

Disguises are tricky things. The bad ones depend on deception. The good ones depend on truth, on the careful selection of smaller truths, each chosen with intent and then painted larger than life.

And it happened that I carried a single dangerous truth. Once, I had served as a court musician to the Maer of Vintas.

Wil and Sim, skeptical at first, quickly warmed to the plan when they realized how easily it could be done. The Maer’s name carried weight here, and I carried the writ of patronage to prove it. What I lacked in money, I made up for in arrogant improvisation.

After I arranged rooms at a nearby inn called the Blind Beggar, I moved through the market with practiced efficiency. I gathered only the barest essentials. I chose a silk sash in blue and ivory for the Maer's colors, a ribbon to tuck into Sim's curls, and a tailored waistcoat with silver buckles for Wil. Bast, as I expected, resisted at first. In the end, though, I saw him eyeing himself in the deep navy, and for a moment he almost smiled at the way it suited his sharp frame.

“You’re enjoying this,” I accused.

“I have no idea what you mean,” Bast purred, adjusting his cuffs.

By the time we reached the White Citadel’s outer gate, we looked the part—brilliant in noble colors, fine enough to pass, rich enough to ward off suspicion. The guards eyed us, but I was already slipping the writ into the waiting hands of the officer before he could ask for it.

The man frowned, turning over the parchment before glancing up at me. “You claim patronage under Alveron?” His voice held doubt, but only a little.

“He has sent me ahead,” I replied smoothly, “in confidence. The court at Severen awaits his word in your king’s favor.”

This wasn’t entirely untrue. The Maer maintained correspondence with Roderick’s court, and while I hardly ranked among official diplomats, no one at this gate could be sure of that.

The officer hesitated for only a moment, then waved us through.

Just like that.

Wil let out a slow breath once we were beyond earshot. “You make that look too easy.”

“That’s the trick,” I murmured. “If you pretend to belong, half the time, nobody checks.”

* * *

I left that night with bruised ribs and wrecked pride.

The court had thrown me out, cast aside like a troublesome stray howling at their doors. Bruises blossomed where the guards’ gauntlets had struck, but worse was the turmoil churning in my mind. Thoughts broke apart and scattered, tumbling through endless “ifs” and “whens” and “should-have-saids.”

But most of all, I was drowning in her name.

Not Auri.

Ariel.

They had called her Princess Ariel, and no one had questioned it. No one saw a girl of small, sharp bones and moonlight laughter. No one saw the girl who had danced barefoot in the Underthing. Instead, they saw what they wished. They saw a daughter of Roderick. A piece moved into place. A lamb turned princess.

I had opened my mouth to speak the truth. Had shouted it to the rafters, raw and reckless.

And no one had listened.

No one had seen what was wrong.

How her braid was too tight, the gleam of her hair too perfect. How her shoulders would not rest but locked, sitting still as broken clock hands. How her hands rested in her lap, unmoving, gloved fingers curled with patient tension, hidden and twisted beneath the shimmer of silk. How she tilted her head just so, the gesture measured and precise, like a doll listening and nodding, her smile perfectly arranged.

I had seen it.

And so had Ambrose.

He stood at her side as if he belonged there, speaking in a voice like warm honey left too long in the sun, sticky and cloying. He petitioned for her hand, full of grace and easy, practiced charm. And Roderick, her father, nodded his approval.

It had broken something in me.

I remember shouting. I remember trying to wrench the weight of the world away by sheer force of will. But court does not listen to broken things, and so I had been discarded. A reckless interloper. A fool.

And Auri, Ariel, had spoken just once.

Not with the voice I knew, full of lilt and laughter. But in a whisper, quiet as falling dust.

"Please don’t hurt him."

Then the guards had struck me down. And I had nothing left.

We stood outside the Citadel now, the air heavy with failure. Something brittle had settled between us in the silence.

Wil was the one to break it. “Kvothe,” he murmured, his voice quiet and careful. “We’ve got company.”

I looked up just as the man arrived. He stepped into the flickering torchlight without hurry, dressed in a coat that shimmered like an oil-slick in the evening dark. His mustache was precise as a quill line, his posture effortless, his rings gleaming just enough to catch notice without appearing garish.

Some would have called him a bastard made out of silk and sharp places.

“Quite the bold performance you made in there,” he said, his voice slick with amusement. “Kvothe, isn’t it? Or should I call you by a name that's a bit more inventive?”

I hadn’t given him my name. That fact settled like iron in my stomach.

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” I said lightly, keeping my voice steady.

He smiled, showing all his teeth. “Nor have we. I am Fascino. Regent of nothing important, though I suspect our interests overlap. For example.” He paused, gazing at me with a slow and knowing look. “You seem quite familiar with our dear, luminous Princess Ariel.”

My heart clawed its way into my throat. I was conscious of Bast stilling beside me. Of Wil shifting his weight. Of Sim’s fingers tightening ever-so-slightly at his sleeve.

Fascino saw it all. And smiled again, the kind of smile that knew all the ways a knife could be used.

“She is a delight, isn’t she?” he continued, voice like silk-wrapped steel. “Our lost princess returned. Our jewel of court. They say she was found near the University, wandering half-mad beneath the city streets. A tragedy, really. But fortunate, all things considered.”

I met his gaze. “Fortunate for whom?”

“Oh, for many reasons,” Fascino said easily, flicking a speck of dust from his sleeve. “For King Roderick, it means the joy of having his wayward daughter returned as if by magic. For the ladies of the court, it’s the thrill of welcoming a new curiosity among them. And, more than all these,” he let his words linger, savoring their taste, “there is something for the Jakis heir as well. He now finds himself basking in the golden company of royalty.”

I felt something shift inside me, something raw and wrong.

Fascino tilted his head, watching me with careful interest. “I am hosting a gathering tonight at the Palazzo de Contraier. It will be a private affair, with no guards and no prying eyes. You should come. It might benefit you to mingle with others who hold a certain distaste for that Jakis boy.”

He stepped back, all coiled grace. Then he turned, leaving a faint suggestion of perfume and wealth in his wake.

Wil exhaled sharply. “Kvothe, do you trust him?”

I should have said no.

But I was watching Fascino retreat into the dusk, his movements too smooth, his offer too careful, and I knew.

“It’s not a question of trust,” I murmured. “But of choice.”

CHAPTER 20.

LURED INTO THE CURRENT.

THE PALAZZO DE CONTRAIER did not demand attention the way the White Citadel did. It wasn’t ostentatious or desperate to impress. It didn’t reach for gold or jeweled embellishments like a noble fumbling for titles.

Instead, its wealth was quiet. The mahogany walls had the sort of polish that only old money leaves, as if no one thinks much about it. Rugs lay thick as river moss and softened every footfall. The travertine tile seemed to drink the light, so the whole place felt drenched in quiet. Statues lingered in the corners, each one a figure in mid-stride, caught in some silent moment of elegance.

There, still at the entrance, the half-harp found me. It lilted through the grand halls, running fingers along the ribs of the palace, seeking. It knew where it wanted to go. It led me, and I followed.

I moved carefully, smoothing the deep green waistcoat I'd bought for the occasion. It cost too much. It felt too much. The cloth was too fine, and the fit too precise. Still, it was better to wince at the expense than to stand out as an obvious intruder.

Then I saw her.

Denna.

She sat with her back straight, fingers poised and careful on the strings. Her head cocked, as if listening for something distant and rare. The harp bowed to her will, yielding a melody as fragile as spun glass, a harmony as strong as woven steel. Her voice wove between them, threading the music into something delicate and enduring.

Near the song’s end, her eyes found mine. For a moment, they widened in recognition. Her hands faltered, only for the space of a heartbeat, only enough for me to notice.

The music faded to a thin applause, too polite for what she had given them. The murmur of conversation rose again, meaningless talk and gilded courtesies. Still, Denna’s eyes lingered on mine.

There was a pause before she crossed the room to me. A hesitation, a decision made.

Then she drew me into her arms, so gently it was almost just the thought of an embrace rather than the real thing. “Here we are again, it seems.”

Yet even as she spoke, I heard what she truly meant. There you are. I was beginning to wonder if I should keep searching for you at all.

I exhaled. “Always turning up where I shouldn’t.”

Denna leaned in slightly, her voice silk-soft and dangerous in that way only she could manage. “Especially with the wrong women, I hear.”

I blinked. “The wrong women?”

Denna gave me a knowing look. "Your reputation is very juicy these days."

She was amused. Not hurt. But beneath her amusement, something deeper rested. A pointed curiosity lingered there.

“We weren’t,” I started. Then I stopped. What was I supposed to say? That I had spent sleepless weeks with Devi, not tangled in bedsheets but working late over artificing schematics? That our relationship had been ink-blotted diagrams, alchemical failures, and whispered defiance? That there was nothing more to it?

That sort of answer would only make it sound more suspicious. I could already picture the way Denna would tilt her head and the amused glint that would spark in her eye. “Oh, of course, Kvothe. Weeks alone with a pretty girl, deep in your work. Definitely just artificing.”

She was watching me now, dark-eyed and unreadable, waiting.

I exhaled. “You wound me, Denna,” I said smoothly. “To think you believed I'd betray my boundless devotion to you with an alchemist. No offense to alchemists.”

Denna laughed, full and warm. “See, now that sounds like a lie.”

“Only if you don't believe in poetry,” I said.

Her smile lingered, indulgent. “I don't,” she admitted, amused.

“Then I’ll have to prove you wrong another time,” I said, offering the lifeline to pull us away from dangerous waters.

Denna considered me for a beat longer than necessary, then took the escape.

“Of course,” she murmured, studying me briefly before turning her head toward a rustle at the entrance. Something shifted in her posture, barely, but enough for me to read unease even as it disappeared.

“Ah,” she said lightly, too lightly. “Fascino has arrived.”

She exhaled quietly, looking back at me. “I can't linger,” she said after a brief hesitation, then, softer. “Stay. I'll show you my favorite part of Renere.”

Then she was gone, slipping into the crowd, and for a moment my sense of purpose was swept away with her.

* * *

I noticed Bredon before he noticed me.

Or rather, I noticed him noticing me.

He sat among the watchers, the old-money men whose business was not business but influence. He wasn’t near Fascino, nor was he near the lesser lords of Renere.

Instead, he chose the perfect corner. It was a place to watch, yet remain unseen. He was the sort of man who measured the weight of a room in silence before deciding if he would tip the scales.

His silver-threaded attire would have marked him as some merchant prince if not for the cane that rested against the crook of his arm, its handle set with mother-of-pearl. Not gaudy, but old. A thing passed down.

Bredon watched the way a man watches a game he has already decided the outcome of.

Perhaps it was only my imagination. Yet when our eyes met, I could have sworn I glimpsed the faintest flicker of amusement.

I moved toward him, careful, deliberate.

Then came the crash.

A sudden bloom of red across my new green waistcoat, the sharp scent of wine spilling between fabric and silk.

The man who had backed into me turned, blinking down at his stained orange coat.

He didn’t look embarrassed.

He was older than me, broad-shouldered with the easy posture of high nobility. His coat was of Aturan cut, his insignia woven in gold thread at the cuff.

His accent, when he spoke, was unmistakably Aturan. It was a drawling sound, rich and carrying a tone of constant disinterest.

“Watch where you're going," he said, his voice just a shade too loud.

I wiped at the stain. An accident, I told myself. Play it off. Walk away.

I brushed a hand over my waistcoat and gave a small, apologetic shrug.

“Tragic,” I said lightly, tilting my head at his ruined sleeve. “Killed mid-vintage. A true loss.”

But when I moved to walk around him, he stepped sideways, though not to block me outright. The motion was subtle, yet it carried just enough intent to feel deliberate.

“You’ll apologize,” he said smoothly. “Or perhaps you'd prefer satisfaction instead?”

I let out a slow breath. Ah. Of course.

I didn’t even know his name, and already we were speaking the language of knives.

“Satisfaction,” I said lightly, shaking my sleeve, “is a bit dramatic for an overturned drink.”

At the edge of my periphery, I saw Fascino watching. Not approaching. Not helping.

“And there it is,” he sighed, feigning long-suffering patience as he gave a small shake of his head. His orange coat caught the gold chandelier light as he turned ever-so-slightly to display me to the others.

“The glib tongue of a Ruh, sneering at civility itself.”

More guests began to look our way. I could feel the room tilt against me so I tensed, fists balled, but made no move to answer. I had suffered worse insults without lifting a hand. If I reacted, I was lost.

Then, the man moved.

His foot slid back too quickly, his movement exaggerated just enough. His body twisted at exactly the wrong moment, his weight shifting as if he’d been shoved.

He staggered. His heel caught. The tray of a passing servant flipped with a sudden, crashing sound. Broken glass rained down, striking the stone below.

Gasps spread across the room like ripples.

I didn’t react immediately. I hadn’t touched him. I knew I hadn’t touched him. But that didn’t matter, did it?

Because the guests hadn’t seen what hadn’t happened.

They had seen something else.

The man adjusted his sleeve, exhaling sharply, steadying himself like a man struggling to contain his temper.

“I try to excuse your vulgarity,” he said gravely, “and you respond with violence?”

The weight of the room shifted fully against me.

I stepped forward. At last, I recognized the shape of what was happening, though my realization came too late.

Then, at the perfect moment, Fascino arrived.

“Come now, gentlemen,” he said pleasantly, sliding into place like oil over water. His tone was mild, amused, perfectly timed.

Then, with the measured ease of a practiced hand laying down the final card in a fixed game, he spoke.

“Lord Vatis, Kvothe, surely there are better ways to settle disagreements?”

The world paused.

I could almost hear the pieces clicking into place.

Vatis is a lord.

Not just a wealthy merchant. Not a petty court dandy. A lord.

And there it was.

I had known the moment smelled of a setup.

I had simply been too slow to name the players.

I could feel the weight of expectation around me. The gathered nobles weren’t asking if I would accept. They were waiting for it.

The story had already been written.

Lord Vatis turned toward the crowd, his voice crisp with the well-trained projection of a poet on stage.

“Since this man seems to have forgotten his manners,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back, “perhaps I should remind him how things are settled among gentlemen.”

Polite laughter.

Then, smoothly, he spoke without raising his voice or showing the slightest hint of hesitation.

“A duel, then.”

He let the words linger in the air, offering them to the room as if they had been inevitable from the start.

Gasps rippled outward and calcified into expectation.

I could deny it. I could argue, protest. But no one in this room would unsee what they thought they had witnessed.

A lord had been attacked, or at least something very near enough to count.

If I refused the duel, I was a coward. A dangerous, out-of-control Ruh given a second chance by tuition and charity.

If I accepted, I was playing noble games on noble ground.

I had already lost.

Fascino still said nothing. He didn’t need to.

I glanced toward him, searching his face for any sign of hesitation, amusement, calculation. But he merely adjusted his cuff.

With that single, carefully timed gesture, I understood.

This was never about the duel.

It was about making sure I had no way to refuse.

Vatis arched an eyebrow, his expectant smile leaving just enough room for my words.

I let out a long breath, already regretting my next ones.

“I accept.”

The room exhaled as one, their tension breaking like a fever.

Vatis inclined his head, his grin widening.

Like a man who had orchestrated the whole evening before the wine was even poured.

* * *

Bredon found me watching them.

Vatis and Fascino, moving through the room toward the gilded halls beyond.

They weren’t hasty. That was what unsettled me.

"Your knack for catastrophe is truly unparalleled," Bredon murmured beside me. "One might almost believe it divinely ordained."

“I do my best,” I said, voice dry. “For the greater good, you understand.”

Bredon exhaled through his nose, tipping his cane against the marble. It made a quiet, measured sound.

“No one ever starts these things, Kvothe," he said. "They simply drift into them, like leaves on a river.”

A quiet statement, almost mild, but I felt the weight of it.

Then came the tap of his cane against the floor. Once. Twice. Each sound, a soft punctuation.

“But you, my dear boy," he mused, "seem to make a habit of gravitating toward waterfalls.”

I huffed a tired laugh, the closest I had come to smiling all evening.

Bredon studied me for a moment longer. Then, with a manner as light and as casual as before, he spoke.

“Do you realize your opponent is a poet?”

I blinked. “Oh?”

“Terrible at it,” he added. “Though courtly decorum ensures he will never know.”

Something about the sheer casual disdain in his voice nearly made me smile for real.

Bredon tilted his head, tapping his cane again, as if considering something from a different angle. “He fancies himself an actor as well.”

I went still.

“Oh yes,” Bredon continued, watching the door where Vatis had vanished. “Tragic roles, mostly. The suffering noble. The wronged heir." His cane made another quiet tap against the marble. "His falls could use some work, though.”

The words landed, soft as snowfall.

“You could have led with that,” I said.

Bredon gave me the smallest, most indulgent smile. “Should I have?”

Before I could answer, Bredon shifted his attention to another figure lingering nearby.

“Ah,” he said smoothly. “But we’re being rude. Kvothe, allow me to introduce Prince Trenati.”

“Prince Trenati?” I asked, studying him. “As in Roderic’s youngest?”

Trenati inclined his head, smiling with the restrained amusement of someone accustomed to being recognized.

“One and the same,” he said. “I was eager to meet you. My sister speaks well of you. She says you helped her in Imre.”

“She helped me just as much,” I admitted. “It was mutual.”

Trenati shifted ever so slightly, positioning himself casually near the back of the chamber.

There, against the far wall, a steward stood with idle precision. He was one of those men who remained silent unless addressed directly. A ledger rested on his polished oak desk, the sort used for quiet accountings and for recording names that should never be spoken aloud.

I knew that type of desk.

Trenati loosened the fingers of his left glove, rolling them absently between his fingertips.

Then, with an ease that made it seem unimportant, he pulled the glove off and held it in his right hand just as the steward glanced downward.

No words passed between them. No grand gesture, no notes exchanged. The steward simply nodded once, as if acknowledging something entirely mundane, and then continued his work.

Before I could think further, Trenati slipped his glove gracefully back onto his fingers, as fluid as water running through an open hand. It was natural, unhurried. A gesture done as subtly as breathing.

And yet, it had been a signal.

For what, I did not know.

Had it been a mistake?

No.

This was not accident. Not error.

This was something else.

Tap. Tap.

Bredon’s cane touched the marble beside me. A small, idle sound.

Too casual to be formal.

Too precise to be idle.

But Bredon made no move to acknowledge anything else. Instead, he studied Trenati for a long, thoughtful moment before turning back to me, polite as ever.

Trenati gave no sign that he noticed Bredon. His gaze returned to me, “I saw your altercation with Lord Vatis.”

I let out a slow breath. “Did you?”

He nodded, eyes bright with something unreadable.

“Most wouldn’t have taken the duel, you know.” A pause, measured. “Honor is harder to find these days.”

Not quite the sort of flattery I enjoyed. If anything, it only confirmed the depth of what I had stepped into.

“Oh?” I asked cautiously.

Trenati inclined his head. “I remember when Vatis dueled Captain Hostenner. Over some slight about his wife. A brutal affair. I hear the captain may be able to ride again someday.”

I gave him a slow, unreadable look. “I would hope he’s recovering well, then.” A vague, neutral platitude. Not too interested. Not too indifferent. But Trenati was watching my reaction closely. Too closely.

Bredon let out a quiet sigh, adjusting the cuff of his sleeve. “From what I understand,” he murmured, “Lord Vatis has been a fixture at court for years. He and Baron Jakis go back some ways.”

I did not react outwardly. Inside, though, I felt the last pieces of the evening settle into place.

Ambrose's father had set the board. Vatis was his piece. And Fascino...

Fascino had simply walked the lamb to slaughter.

And yet...

I looked at Trenati now, truly looking.

His tone was light, his posture relaxed, but there was something there. Something intentional.

But I did not yet have the right shape for it.

So I exhaled softly. No more than a breath. As if this were all just idle chatter.

“I’m not terribly worried,” I said at last, turning my gaze toward the back of the room. “I’m a fair hand with a sword myself.”

* * *

I refused another drink, knowing all too well how wine and swords made unfortunate companions, and offered my goodnights to Bredon and Trenati. When I stepped outside the Blind Beggar, the night settled around me like a cloak, cool and edged, the sort of air that notices you in return. I lingered beneath the uncertain glow of a streetlamp, humming “Leave the Town, Tinker” to draw my thoughts away from what the morning would bring.

I was three verses in when Denna’s voice broke gently through my thin defense. “There you are. I thought you'd wandered off with some Vintish strumpet.”

It was a careless sort of remark, tossed out like a stone skipped across still water. Not meant to land hard. But I knew Denna too well to take anything she said at face value. There was something careful to the way she leaned against a low stone railing, her posture loose, her smile easy.

I gave her a lopsided grin. “Denna, you're the only strumpet for me.”

For the smallest fraction of a moment, something flickered across her face. It was not quite surprise, nor was it humor, but something else. Then a pause, and the faintest shift of her weight before she let out a small, dismissive breath and waved her hand, as if brushing away an errant thought. “Well, yes, of course I am, Kvothe.”

And just like that, it was decided.

Whatever she might have thought or assumed about me and Devi, whatever curiosity or hesitation had lingered there, she smoothed over in an instant. The matter was settled. Not by any great revelation. Not by any heartfelt discussion. Just by sheer force of will.

Denna rarely let herself dwell on things she didn’t want to hurt her. She decided, and it became true.

She held out her arm, a gesture so effortless it might as well have been instinct. I took it without hesitation.

Renere stretched before us like a second chance, its streets alive with pockets of firelight and wandering shadows. First, she led me to a tucked-away playhouse, where we caught a bawdy rendition of “The Ghost and the Goosegirl.” A performance saved only by Denna’s laughter, which came soft and helpless, her scarf barely containing it. Later, a chestnut vendor’s crackling brazier offered warmth, and we dirtied our fingers on blackened shells, peeling as we wandered.

We paid a trio of street musicians to play us song after song. Even though they stumbled over nearly every second note, Denna clapped along, urging on their uneven enthusiasm. Still, these were only amusements, flickers of light that lined the path to her true surprise. She led me to a square crowned by a fountain so tall it seemed to cradle the moon. Its waters danced in restless cascades, shining silver in the night.

Lanterns floated in the air above us, their flames like amber fireflies tracing slow, uncertain paths against the night. She handed me one, the fragile paper whispering under my fingertips. Together, we lit its wick and let it rise uneasily into the dark, tugged upward until it became a point of light indistinguishable from the stars.

“I heard about Fascino’s,” she said, her voice light but her eyes fixed on mine. “You can’t brush this off with a clever smile, Kvothe. I’ve seen your scars. I know better.”

Her words, sharper than I expected, left me fumbling for ease. “I’ll manage,” I told her, but my voice carried the weight of someone promising too much. She looked at me then with that strange intensity she wasn’t always able to hide, as though measuring my promise and everything it might cost.

“On your good right hand this time?” she asked, a flicker of a smile breaking the silence between us.

I reached for her hands, clasping them. “On my good right hand,” I said, the promise resting unevenly in the air. As she left me in the square, a shadow folding into starlight, I felt the absence of her warmth more than I cared to admit.

Alone on the walk back, I stopped in an alley and began stepping through the Ketan, hoping muscle memory might calm the nervous stir within me. My movements were stiff, stuttering like a poorly tuned lute, and I faltered on Catching Rain, landing gracelessly on the cold cobblestones.

Instead of trying a third time, I drew in a slow breath. I let the tension spill out of my body, then walked on toward home. By the time I reached the Blind Beggar, I had given myself a promise. If I managed to live through tomorrow, I would not waste another moment.

CHAPTER 21.

KAYSERA.

THE WHITE CITADEL baked under the noon sun, its sandstone walls almost glowing in the heat. The courtyard stretched wide and empty, save for the crowd pressed along the edges. Their whispers curled through the air like smoke. Trellises of red selas flowers framed the space, as if this duel were part of some cruel performance.

We'd drawn a sizable crowd, a few hundred strong watching from the courtyard’s fringes or staring down from the Citadel's stone walkways. At its center stood Lord Vatis. His cream shirt clung to his skin, the cut of his leather armor tight and precise. His rapier sliced through the air in slow arcs, the whistling blade drawing attention like a hawk circling above. As I approached, his eyes landed on me with bright satisfaction.

Beyond him, the Jakis family gathered, impossible to miss with their garish ornamentation. Silks the color of spilled wine, collars stiff as judgment, gold glinting at every wrist and throat.

Ambrose leaned forward, his smirk wound tight as a knotted snare. Behind him, his father lounged with the quiet confidence of a man who expected to win. His patience held steady, measured and sure, the kind practiced a thousand times and always met with its due reward.

Standing beside them was regent Fascino. Yet it was not his presence that caught my eye. My attention slid instead to the woman he faced, speaking in low, easy tones. Meluan. I could not say whether she had come for the wedding or if she had arrived on the very wind of this duel. Still, it was easy to imagine a spring in her step, cruel delight nesting in her smile, eager for the moment I might be brought low. My free hand tightened to a fist, and the wooden ring bit at my skin. Her gift. Her token.

Not all stood so pleased. At her side, Stapes hovered, dutiful and grave, eyes darting, jaw clenched. The Maer’s manservant, close but never quite at ease. Was Alveron here as well? The question burned at me. If he were, surely he would already have made himself known. No. He would not leave Meluan to stand alone.

Though the prevailing court of opinion was clearly against me, I had at least one person on my side, Bast having accompanied me. Wil and Sim, to their credit, managed halfway before turning back, not wanting to risk the sight of their friend’s blood.

“Kvothe,” Bast murmured from behind me, his voice almost amused.

I glanced back. He wasn’t pale, wasn’t afraid. If anything, he looked mildly exasperated. His arms were crossed.

“You know,” he mused, tilting his head, “the best stories never end with a hero bleeding out in the dust over a noble’s bruised pride.”

I narrowed my eyes. “That supposed to comfort me?”

Bast smirked. “Only if you believe in stories.”

He rocked back on his heels. “Just don’t embarrass me in front of these fine people.”

I shook my head, “Watch my back.”

His expression flickered, just slightly. The banter lifted and a more serious look settled over him. “Always.”

In front of me, Lord Vatis's lips twisted into something between a grin and a warning. “You’ve kept me waiting,” he taunted.

I didn’t answer. My hand rested briefly on the hilt of Caesura, then drew it, the blade giving a faint, muted hum like muffled bells. The sound pulled a hush from the crowd, though more out of curiosity than awe. Vatis paused, his grin faltering as he eyed the sword. He didn’t recognize Saicere, which meant he didn’t understand what he was seeing. I could work with that.

* * *

The air held still for a breath.

Then the string snapped. Vatis moved.

His rapier blurred toward me, a blade flashing as swift as a striking kestrel. I caught the motion with Threshing Wheat, turning the blade aside in a clean and measured arc. The ring of steel hummed between us, soft as an opening note.

Vatis pressed forward, relentless but precise. His footwork moved with the careful rhythm of a practiced dance. He was fast, much faster than I had expected.

But even as I blocked and stepped back, I did not strike.

Not yet.

Instead, I adjusted. Tilted. Shifted.

A step just slightly slower than it should be. The weight carried just a fraction off-center. Small things and subtle things that build together into a pattern. These are the kinds of mistakes a predator expects from weaker prey.

And Vatis? He noticed them.

And that’s exactly what I wanted.

His blade flicked faster, controlling the pace and forcing me to react, or at least making it appear that way.

I caught his strikes cleanly, parried lightly where I could, but never countered aggressively.

Nothing bold. Nothing desperate. Just slow, quiet loss.

I felt him maneuvering me. Subtle and careful. Guiding, but not pressing.

He knew this wasn’t finished. Not yet.

The feint came low. A sharp twist. A testing flick.

I saw it a breath before it landed. Chose, quietly, where to let him take me.

A sting across my forearm, clean and sharp.

Blood welled. Small, contained. Harmless.

“First blood.”

The words rolled smooth from his tongue, smug but polite, measured and easy. He flicked the edge of his rapier once, casting aside my blood like a thing barely worth keeping. His stance was elegant, almost careless.

The crowd rustled. An applause here and there with murmurs of polite approval.

I didn’t move.

Not angered. Not shocked. I only adjusted the fingers around Saicere’s hilt and exhaled.

One step in a deeper game.

I rolled my shoulder and flexed my fingers once. The sting along my arm was a thoughtless thing, unimportant. The true injury had nothing to do with blood.

I met Vatis’s gaze, calm and expectant.

I had waited for this moment, but that didn’t mean I liked it.

Then, as I had suspected, Fascino spoke.

“Oh, surely not.”

The words hummed through the courtyard like a perfect note, softly played.

Vatis turned his head slightly, brow quirking as if he hadn’t quite heard correctly. Or perhaps he was acting once again.

Fascino strode forward from the nobility’s ranks, his movements too smooth, too practiced. This was not a request. This was steering.

“A true duel,” Fascino mused, tilting his head. “Settled with this?” He gestured toward the thin line of red beneath my sleeve with mocking delicacy.

The statement wasn’t meant for me. It was for Vatis.

Vatis exhaled sharply through his nose. His posture shifted. Not by much, but enough.

Fascino’s lips curled slightly. “Unless, of course, you’d rather this moment be remembered in smaller terms.”

Vatis straightened, a movement just barely reactionary. He glanced out toward the gathering nobility, toward Ambrose, Meluan, the lords and ladies who would remember this moment in every retelling.

Perception. Stories. Legacy.

The nobility had gathered like vultures, waiting to see how the story would go. Ambrose, resting easy in his seat, already knew his version.

I stayed perfectly still.

Because I had predicted all of it.

Vatis’s mouth lifted in a smooth, unbothered grin, but something behind his eyes glinted sharper now.

“He’s right,” Vatis murmured, lifting his blade. He turned, addressing the court as much as he addressed me. “This barely qualifies as a wound.”

He smiled wide. Unshaken. Polished as a speaking stone.

“Let’s continue.”

Now the game was truly mine.

* * *

Vatis struck first.

He was faster now. Not reckless, but deliberate in a way he hadn’t been before. He had something to prove, to himself and to the court.

But in his renewed confidence, he didn’t notice that I was not the same opponent he had been fighting before.

Before, I had let him pull me into his rhythm.

Now, I was adjusting it. I moved with care, note by note, half-step by half-step. Each change was subtle, just enough that he would not notice.

I angled my shoulders, letting my weight flow differently, subtly shifting into Ademic movement. I was no longer dueling. I was dancing.

Vatis pressed, sensing he was still in control.

That was his mistake.

I turned a breath too quickly, letting him anticipate a false pattern.

A flicker of hesitation. Small, barely perceptible, but I saw it.

The game closed.

Momentum shifted.

Suddenly, somehow, he was overextended without quite knowing why.

His footwork, pristine moments ago, was now faltering at the edges.

I saw his calm expression tighten ever so slightly as awareness crept in.

Something was wrong.

He no longer understood why this was happening.

But he understood that it was.

Before he could adjust, I moved.

A single fluid cut. Not deep, but placed where it mattered. A kiss of Saicere across the inside of his thigh.

The kind of cut that did not kill but did not forgive.

Vatis choked a breath, his stance lost in an instant.

His legs shook beneath him.

He tried twisting past the injury, but something failed.

There was a sharp, cracking break. Small but definitive.

Then his rapier slipped, clattering onto the stone.

The crowd gasped.

I didn’t press forward. Didn’t move.

I only watched as he realized what I already knew.

It was over.

But the realization arrived too late for him to disguise it.

His knee buckled. Not dramatically. Not all at once.

Just enough.

Just enough for everyone to see.

He drew in one hard, shallow breath. He had not yet fallen, but his pride was already breaking.

For the first time, his expression lost all its ease.

His gaze flickered, not to me, not to the blood staining his silk, but toward the watching stage.

Toward Nobles. Toward Ambrose.

Toward Fascino, who stood precisely as he had before.

Had his plan truly unraveled? Or was this just a deeper layer?

He would not find the answer.

I lowered Saicere’s blade. Felt the weight of the moment press into the quiet.

Then, finally, I spoke.

“Yield,” I said steadily. “And remember it was an Edema Ruh who let you live.”

Vatis’s gaze flickered. His jaw was tight.

Then, at last, grinding the words out through clenched teeth, came his voice.

"I yield."

The script was shattered, the onlookers frozen in time. Unable to react to such impossibility.

Then across the courtyard, I saw Fascino's shoulders move as if to let out a quiet sigh. Shaking his head as if disappointed, he turned and left before the first medic even got to Vantis.

To the right, another shift of movement caught my eye. Glancing after it, I saw the wind scatter Auri's hair like autumn leaves in the far cloister.

She did not move. She did not wave. She was watching. That thought sat uneasily in my ribs, like a string tuned too tight. Had she always been there? Was it chance? Or had she known?

The courtyard faded behind me as I turned and walked away, pressing my hand against my wound. My focus lingered only on the thought of the tower. If I couldn’t save her through Roderick, I would find another way.

CHAPTER 22.

INTERLUDE.

CROSSCURRENTS.

A QUIET SETTLED over the Waystone Inn after that. Not the soft hush of an inn at peace, but the brittle stillness that follows a wound. The sort that lingers when the story, and the telling of it, have not quite finished with you, and you are loath to recall the ending. Kote stood and drifted to the bar. Perhaps he only meant to tidy, to keep his hands busy. But cloth in hand, his motions slowed. He polished in thoughtless, deliberate circles, letting the motion carry him away from the memory.

“You made a promise,” Bast said. His voice was lazy as his posture, but sharp enough to cut through to Kote. “Before the duel. You said you wouldn’t waste another moment.”

Kote didn’t look up. “I did.”

“I don’t recall you straining your back over it,” Bast said, too casual to be kind.

Kote gave a dry, drowsy smile. “Only fools keep all their promises,” he said. “But I kept that one.”

Bast arched an eyebrow, skeptical.

Kote picked up the cloth, turned it once, twice in his hands. “As time permitted.” He turned the phrase like it tasted strange. “Which is no kind of permission at all.”

He set the cloth down.

“But I did try,” he said, almost to himself. “So did she.”

Bast tilted his head. “Wilem blamed you for taking twice as long to do anything useful.”

“Because I was chasing ghosts, Bast,” Kote said, and his eyes didn’t quite stay focused on the room. “That’s what we were all doing. Ghosts in noble colors. Ghosts in crests and corridors. Ghosts with rearranged names.”

His hands stilled on the bar, the memory already unspooling.

“I found her arguing with a spice merchant. She was furious. Said his cinnamon was a fraud. Claimed it tasted like sawdust steeped in regret.”

Bast barked a laugh. “That sounds more like her than anything else you’ve told me.”

Kote allowed a smile, softer now. “By the end of it, she had a free pouch of Clovian cinnamé and a crowd of ten arguing whether flavor counts as moral bankruptcy.”

He chuckled once, breath caught in the ribs.

“She never did like to lose an audience.”

“And when she saw you?”

“She didn’t blush. She grinned,” he said. “Like someone caught stealing fire and not particularly sorry about it.”

“Did she say anything?”

“She said, ‘About time.’ Then she took my arm like it had always been hers, and asked if I’d learned anything worth hearing while I was off getting stabbed.”

The room went quiet again for a moment.

Kote smiled. “We started meeting after that. It became habit. Not every night. But often enough. Shuttered teahouses. Ivy-walled gardens no one guarded after dusk. A river bridge where candles drifted like fallen stars. Nothing planned, nothing chased. Never delaying what I meant to do. Only what I should have.”

Bast looked over, more wary than before. “None of us knew.”

“That’s how she wanted it,” Kote said. “And if I had to choose, I didn’t mind.”

He picked up a bottle he didn’t need to polish, turned it in his hands once. Twice.

“It was the only part of Renere untouched by shadows. No ghosts followed us there. No politics. No princes. Just laughter. Shared lies. Quiet music.”

“That’s what she was to you,” Bast said. “Something untouched. Something pure.”

Kote shook his head. “No,” he said. “She’s never been that.”

He turned the bottle one last time, then set it gently behind the bar.

“But for a little while,” he said, “we met where the city forgot to watch us.”

He looked down at the polished wood beneath his hands. Ran his thumb across a grain like music half-remembered.

“And that,” he said softly, “was close enough.”

CHAPTER 23.

THE THREAD UNRAVELS.

THE COMMON ROOM of the Blind Beggar smelled of stale ale, dying embers, and the kind of silence that follows a knife fight no one talks about.

Sim lounged like a man intending to look at ease. His cup rolled between restless fingers, the dregs of his drink tilting back and forth against the firelight.

Wilem, steady as ever, sat stiff-backed with his hands folded too precisely in his lap. His posture looked effortless. Still, I knew what it meant. His tension lived somewhere behind his ribs, buried deep enough to be dangerous.

Bast looked the most at ease, though he had no real reason for it. Draped over a chair like a cat in a patch of sunlight, he set about paring his fingernails with a small knife, the motion as thoughtless as breathing.

No one spoke of the duel, but the weight of it sat between us, an unsheathed blade laid carefully on the table.

I waited for the silence to settle, then placed my own cup down. The sound was not loud or harsh, only gentle enough to send a ripple through the quiet.

I rubbed at my temple. Something was nagging at me, something about the court that felt out of place. It scratched at the edges of my thoughts, like a word just out of reach. There was a sharpness to it, something angled and undeniably wrong.

And yet, when I reached for it, it was just past my grasp.

I exhaled, willing it away, and said, “I saw Auri.”

Her name did not feel right in my mouth. Not here. Not in a place of thick wood and firelight, of rough-stitched quiet and thick ale. It belonged elsewhere, in the hush of old clay pipes beneath the city, in the rhythm of bare feet on tiled rooftops. Here she was Princess Ariel.

Sim straightened. “She was there?”

Bast hummed under his breath. Not quite laughter. “Of course.”

The certainty in his voice dug at me. Because, to Bast, it had to be true. In the Fae, stories were not stories. They were truth. And a lost princess appearing precisely when the tale called for her? Exactly what should happen.

“Prince Trenati was with her,” I said.

Bast scoffed. But it wasn’t his usual amused disdain. “Royal boy’s finally taking an interest in his lost sister? How touching.”

Sim caught the hesitation in my voice. “Do you mean with her, or near her?”

There was a difference.

I exhaled slowly. “He wasn’t speaking to her. But I don’t think it was coincidence. He stood just close enough.”

Sim leaned forward, brow furrowed. “Like someone with authority.”

I nodded. “Like a man ensuring people saw him standing there.”

Wilem, ever watchful, tested his words before speaking. “Maybe he’s more jailor than brother.”

The words did not land lightly. They sat heavy between us, an unsheathed knife laid on the table, waiting for someone to pick it up.

I exhaled through my nose, willing the ache between my temples into something orderly, something I could press into shape.

The door creaked open. A man in the livery of a noble attendant stepped inside.

All four of us turned.

“Apologies for the intrusion. Lord Vatis has succumbed to his wounds.”

The air in the room swallowed the words.

Wil straightened in his seat, forehead creasing. “He was still alive when we left.”

“Impossible,” I said simply. Not angry, not questioning. Just fact.

I saw him.

He was fine.

Bast exhaled sharply, shaking his head as if the whole situation were a joke not designed for laughter.

“Ah, yes. A scratch on the ribs, a bruised leg. Clearly fatal wounds, if you’re an idiot.”

He pause. A slow blink. Then, dull certainty pressed into his voice.

“And naturally, this is your fault.”

The man had only been sent to deliver a message, not to argue. He lowered his head quickly and left.

A long, brittle silence.

Then Wil murmured, “Either someone was careless with the stitches.”

Sim touched his finger to his nose and said, “Or someone wanted him dead.”

Bast drummed his fingers against the table. “Dead men tell worse stories than embarrassed ones.”

None of us laughed. Things had just gone from urgent to dire.

I pressed a hand to my still-bandaged cut, exhaling slow through my nose. There were lines here, I just needed to connect them.

That brief exchange between Trenati and the steward. It was the one Bredon had made sure I noticed. Why?

I reached deeper, searching the half-light of recall.

There had been a ring on Trenati’s hand.

Not Roderick’s crest.

One of those smaller details I had cataloged without thinking, tucked away in the quiet attic of memory where it would wait, useful for some later need.

It hadn’t seemed relevant then. Why would it have been?

Had it been worn down? Reforged? No, something else.

The flame-light flickered against the carvings.

Locked geometry, shifting lines carved into gold. Something about the pattern pulled at me, a hook caught between memory and certainty.

I had seen something like this before, I was sure of it.

Ciphers. That was it. Kilvin had once shown me geometric ciphers used by artificers to disguise alchemical recipes. These patterns were woven to blur their true purpose, to hide meaning in plain sight.

My first instinct was to see the ring as nothing more than a flourish, the sort of idle detail a jeweler might add. But when I told Sim, his fingers grew still around his cup. The firelight caught something unspoken in his expression, drawing the warmth from his cheeks.

His mouth opened, then closed.

No. Not closed. Braced. Like a man about to say something he doesn’t want to hear leave his own lips.

“Tehlu’s wrath.” His voice was soft, too soft. The kind of soft that follows a knife sliding out of its sheath. “That’s Feyda’s Mark.”

I had not recognized it. Forgotten things stay forgotten until someone dares to remember them. But Sim, who found himself far down the line of Aturan succession, knew his history better than most.

“You’re sure?” Wilem asked carefully.

Sim turned to him, voice steady. “You don’t understand, Wil. No one wears that ring. Not in jest. Not in secrecy.” He swallowed. “Two noble houses destroyed their own crests rather than be mistaken for it.”

Bast was still.

Not his usual lazy amusement, nor his sharp-edged mockery. Just still. Watching.

It was only then I noticed his fingers had stopped moving against his knife-hilt.

“Human rulers are stupid things,” he murmured. “But they’re never stupid enough to carve a forgotten name into gold unless they mean it.”

I agreed, though my mind still leapt back toward the ring, toward the pattern. And suddenly, I saw the lines for what they were.

Someone had altered it. The geometries were turned, the perspective shifted, and the framing held just enough difference to hide the true intent. It was a deceit meant for those who only half-remembered, a quiet manipulation designed to let recognition drift away like a passing thought.

My fingers twitched against the grain of the table. No, that wasn’t possible. Feyda’s Mark was a piece of history, exiled long before my father’s father was ever born. A symbol discarded as ruin. I’d read enough about noble crests to know that much.

Hadn’t I?

I frowned, my fingers drumming softly against the table. Except, I realized I never actually had. Had I?

I had studied heraldry under nobles, scribes, merchants alike. Pored over succession laws, court intrigues, ruined bloodlines.

But I couldn’t actually recall any full accounting of Feyda’s Mark.

No descriptions of its exile. No noble family disgraced or cursed for its use.

A story erased unclean still leaves behind its ink.

But there were no stains from this. Nothing left in the margins of history. As if Feyda’s Mark had been swallowed completely.

Not erased in scandal. Not recorded in disgrace.

Just... gone.

A slow breath left me.

Yes, it had to be.

This knowledge had been buried.

But that made no sense. The University hoarded knowledge, even when its masters sought to leash it. I’d spent years among those silent tomes, and I had never once found a full accounting of Feyda’s Mark. Not its meaning, not its exile, not its absence.

And absence, I was beginning to realize, was its own kind of presence.

My jaw clenched.

“Wil.” My voice was too sharp, too pointed, for the delicate question. You worked as one of Master Lorren's scrives, “How many texts in the University speak plainly about Feyda’s Mark?”

Wilem did not answer immediately. His fingers flexed, just barely, against the wood of the table.

Then, slowly, “I don’t know.” A pause. “No one mentions it past references in succession disputes.” Another pause. “But nothing recent. Maybe there’s some work in the locked stacks?”

Sim was watching me now. Tensed, listening. “Kvothe. What are you thinking?”

I exhaled. Thinking of Ambrose Jakis.

I thought of his endless tenure at the University, dragging through his studies with the leisurely pace of a man who wasn’t actually interested in study. I had always assumed he lingered because of decadence, laziness, or spite. Because he was too important to be made to leave.

But that wasn’t right, was it?

No. That was absurd. Ambrose is arrogant and cruel. He wastes effort on insults, on petty vengeance. He isn’t clever. He isn’t patient.

And yet.

Baresh had muttered to me, years ago, that it wasn’t natural for a noble heir to linger at the University so long. Most sons of titled families spent two, three years at most.

But Ambrose? Six. Maybe, longer.

He had no hunger for study. So why had Ambrose stayed?

Had he wasted time? Perhaps. Or had he been buying time?

No, I had to be wrong.

And yet.

The books I never found. The locked stacks. The documents that disappeared before I could reach them.

I had always assumed Ambrose destroyed things because it was inconvenient for me.

But what if it had never been about me at all?

The silence stretched taut, sharp with unspoken conclusions.

Finally, I let the words slip, quiet and knife-edged, “What if Ambrose wasn’t just in the University for himself?”

Saying it aloud gave the thought weight. Ambrose Jakis had been erasing things that didn’t belong to him.

Books. Stories. Names swallowed by burned ink.

And now, he was doing the same with Auri. Rewriting her into Ariel, erasing everything she truly was.

My fingers tightened into a fist on the tabletop before I realized I was clenching them. She hates being looked at. Hates it so much that even when I called her “Auri” for the first time, she had flinched. Not at the sound, but at the weight of it. Having her name acknowledged was as intimate as a knife pressed against her skin.

I had learned what kind of silence to leave for her. I knew when to look away so she could exist as herself, unobserved. I understood when not to see her. Sometimes, the length of a shadow or the hush of moving air was all the proof I needed that she was there.

I remembered once, when I had found her sitting on her rooftop, her face turned toward the wide-open sky with its cartwheel of stars. She hadn’t seen me yet, hadn’t stiffened or folded inward. She was entirely herself. The moment I stepped into the clearing, she had curled away, tucking herself into a place small enough where she thought no one could follow.

And now she is being dressed for court. Displayed before noble eyes. Attendants smooth her hair, arrange her gown, and put her in the name they have chosen for her rather than her own.

I felt the bile rise under my tongue.

I had promised her she would always be safe under my protection. Auri trusted me.

I tried drinking after that. Three sips told me it wasn’t going to help.

Instead, I leaned forward, studying Wilem and Sim across the table. “We need leverage on Trenati.”

“That is not what we need,” Wilem countered.

His voice was measured, but not calm. Not truly. His hands stayed too neatly in his lap, his shoulders too controlled. The way a man settles himself before the first blow lands.

Then, lower, “Kvothe, you don’t understand what you’re reaching for.”

The fire crackled. A chair creaked somewhere in the room.

“This isn’t a game where you upturn the board with a clever move. I know these types. I’ve seen the way their families shape cities, silence rivals. You don’t fight men like this.”

His jaw clenched. “You survive them. If you’re careful. If you're lucky.”

He exhaled sharply and shook his head, as if struggling to keep words from breaking free.

“Damn you, Kvothe.”

His voice held no anger and no plea. It was only simple, weary truth.

“You don’t run from fire. You always run toward it.”

He wasn’t wrong.

But it did not matter. There was no right way to do this, no safe way to tear a locked door off its hinges. I was not hoping for equal footing. I was searching for a weakness, a hidden flaw in the iron or wood. I was looking for the place where their rules could splinter and break.

And I was willing to bet that if we found the right type of evidence, we could convince Trenati to hand over Auri.

* * *

Auri's time was running out.

That thought beat under every moment, more insistent than my pulse.

The court had already accepted Ambrose Jakis as her suitor. The wedding date had not yet been set, but it wouldn’t be long. No royal house would wait to finalize a match like this. If we didn’t act soon, Auri would be bound to him in a way I couldn’t undo.

That truth chased me down the streets of Renere, turning every wasted hour into another hour Ambrose spent tightening his grip on her future.

Trenati left no footprints. That was the problem.

Even the most cautious ones left markers. There might be a favored tailor, a particular vintner who supplied their table, perhaps a discreet card house where debts were quietly settled in gold and sharp glances. No one as prominent as Prince Trenati could move through a city like Renere without leaving some kind of imprint. That would only be possible if someone moved after him, sweeping his footprints from the dust on purpose.

Wilem tried the official channels first.

Four days of court records, audience logs, and public engagements turned up what looked, at first glance, like a perfectly ordinary schedule.

But something was wrong with it.

On the 22nd, the records claimed Trenati had overseen trade negotiations between the glassmakers’ guild and the ambassador from Modeg.

Wilem tracked down a glass merchant who had been present at the trade negotiations.

“Trenati?” the merchant hesitated for just a second, like a man struggling to place a face in a half-remembered dream. Then he scoffed, shaking his head. “Of course, he was there.”

“You sound uncertain,” Wilem pressed.

The merchant exhaled sharply, as if shaking something off. “No, no. I know he was. I just...” He rubbed his forehead, frowning. “It’s odd. Normally, I'd remember something specific he said, a joke, an insult. Trenati's the sort who burns his words into a room. But I only remember that he was drinking. Talking. Something about tariffs.”

He exhaled again, muttering, “Tehlu’s teeth, maybe I need to drink less at these meetings.”

Wil made a note, relief settling low in his ribs. A confirmation. Maybe they were imagining discrepancies after all.

“Wait,” another glassmaker interrupted. “Trenati? No, he wasn’t there.”

Wil turned back. “What do you mean?”

“That wasn’t him. That was Minister Halbrecht. Trust me, I’d remember. Between him and the Modigan ambassador, we nearly drowned in wine that day.”

The contradiction sharpened something at the edge of Wilem’s mind. He pressed the second merchant harder. No luck. The details didn’t match, but neither man seemed to second-guess themselves.

One single mistake in the records? That could be negligence.

But then came more.

On the 24th, Trenati was recorded as attending a formal procession. Yet the uniforms the guards wore that day did not match the season’s colors for the Citadel’s royal escorts.

The 27th listed him as a guest at the House of Seven Wells. This was a high aristocratic gathering, renowned for the way it scrutinized every detail of attendance. Yet when Wilem managed to find an attendant from the event, she merely frowned as she consulted her ledger.

“That can’t be right,” she murmured, brow furrowing deeply at the missing entry. “That night was full. Every guest accounted for.”

“Then why isn’t Trenati listed?” Wilem asked.

She bit her lip. Fingertips tightened over the edge of the ledger’s worn leather.

“But I swear he was there,” she murmured beneath her breath, her words meant more for herself than for anyone else. “I saw him. Or at least, I think I did.”

Her fingers traced the blank space in the ledger, following where his name should have been. Her frown deepened.

Then, her posture changed. Ever so slightly, her stiffened spine smoothed into something different, something more controlled.

That moment’s uncertainty vanished, smoothed over like a crease in silk. “I can’t help you,” she said, voice suddenly even. Too even.

Wilem opened his mouth.

“I can’t help you,” she repeated. And she shut the ledger.

When they left the room, Wilem exhaled. “That was deliberate.”

“You think?” Sim muttered, rubbing his forehead. “She looked like we’d asked her to recall a dream she hadn’t finished having.”

Wilem flipped open his own small record-book. The careful, orderly notes he had made over the last few days filled the pages. His thumb trailed along the empty space where Trenati should have been.

His breath hitched.

It wasn’t empty.

A date, written in his own hand, sat clear as day on the page: “Trenati - House of Seven Wells, 27th.”

He blinked hard.

“I checked this earlier. I checked this four times. It wasn’t there. It wasn’t.”

Sim was still talking, something about how the contradictions were piling up, but Wilem stared at his own handwriting, trying to remember writing it.

He couldn't.

He should say something. He should—he—

No. That was ridiculous. He was exhausted. He must have overlooked it, scribbled the note and misfiled it in his head, that’s all.

Tucking the notebook away, he exhaled slowly. “We should keep moving.”

And so it continued.

His name appeared where presence was expected, but the details frayed at the edges. People recalled seeing him in passing but not speaking to him, not interacting.

It was as if Trenati existed just enough to discourage deeper questions but not enough to truly be observed.

If no one was looking too closely, they would never notice the gaps.

Simmon, meanwhile, took to the markets, the tea-houses, the gossip dens.

Unlike Wilem’s records, which were too polished, Sim expected the lower classes of Renere to provide more natural insights.

He was wrong.

Everywhere he went, Trenati’s presence was strangely fragmented, contradictory.

At the docks, a sailor swore Trenati had overseen an ivory shipment. “Clear as day. Wore that dark blue brocade coat of his, same as always.”

“Same as always?” Sim repeated.

“Sure,” the man nodded. “He was wearing it last time he came, too.”

Sim and Wilem exchanged glances.

“And that last time was?” Wil prompted.

“Dunno.” The sailor frowned. “Feels like no more than a couple weeks back.”

But Sim had already checked. Trenati had been supposedly attending trade talks in Modeg the entire season.

At an upper-market tea shop, one serving girl told Sim, “Oh, no, he never visits.”

“He was here.” The second server insisted. “Blue brocade, same as always. Stood over by the window. I remember the light caught his hair. He had that look.”

The first server hesitated, lips pressing together.

“You’re thinking of someone else,” she said firmly.

“No, I know it was him.”

A pause.

A flicker of hesitation.

“...Don’t I?”

The second server frowned again, her brows knitting as though she were grappling with a loose thread in her own mind. At last, she spoke, her voice edged with something almost defensive. “It was him.”

“And I was the one writing down orders, wasn’t I?” The first woman’s voice had an odd edge now.

“Yes, and you nodded at him, I saw you.”

“Then why don’t I remember doing it?”

The second server opened her mouth, then shut it.

A slow, creeping silence stretched between them and Sim felt a small chill run up the back of his neck.

* * *

When we were back at the Blind Beggar later that night, Sim let out a breath and rubbed his arms. “It keeps twisting under itself,” he muttered. “It’s not just that they’re covering up his movements. It’s as if they’re rearranging them to make sense. The moment you stop looking, it feels natural again.”

He straightened, as if trying to shake off the thought. “It’s like someone’s telling a story, and every time we turn the page, they’ve rewritten it behind us.”

Wilem tapped his notes against his knee, eyes sharp. “Fabrication?”

“No,” I said, brow furrowed. “That would leave mistakes. Slipping details, missing names. But this feels like something else.”

I turned toward Bast. He had been watching the city beyond us, his face cast in shadow. His expression was more detached than usual, not bored but wary.

“You're quiet,” I said.

Bast rolled a silver coin between his fingers, watching the lamplight flicker over the ridges. For the first time all night, he had stopped smirking.

“Nothing to say?” I pressed, my voice carrying an edge.

His fingers never stopped moving. The coin glinted as it flipped over his knuckles, quick, restless. “I don’t like cities that learn how to hold their tongue, Reshi,” he said finally.

Something in the words sent an unshakable chill down my spine.

Wilem noticed my expression. “What does that mean?”

Bast let the question settle, idly flicking the coin and catching it in his palm. “It means,” he said lightly, “that even a place can be taught to forget.”

It wasn't an answer. It was worse than an answer. It was the shape of something hidden beneath a sheet.

“You knew this the whole time,” Wilem said, not accusing, just assessing.

Bast shook his head. “No. I suspected. And now I don’t want to know.”

That made Sim stiffen. “If you don't want to know, should we be worried?”

An easy grin flickered across Bast’s face. “Simmon, I've always assumed you should be worried.”

But there was nothing easy in his hands. Nothing easy in his weight against the table.

I turned, staring at the city beyond the lamplight, at the soft movement of Renere’s streets. For the first time, I wondered if we were the ones leaving footprints in the wrong places.

A slow breath left Bast’s lips. He turned away from the street, glancing toward me with something unfamiliar in his eyes. Not amusement. Not mischief. A small, sharp-edged weariness.

“Follow your prince to The Whispering Quarter, Reshi,” he murmured. “But don't be surprised if the city forgets you when you're gone.”

CHAPTER 24.

THE WHISPERING QUARTER.

THERE WAS NO THRESHOLD marking the entrance to the Whispering Quarter.

No walls. No guardhouses. No watchful merchant guilds staking claim over its streets. You simply stepped forward, and the city around you, though it still felt familiar, began to unravel.

The air grew thinner. The streets pressed closer. The roads you could name folded in on themselves, like the pages of a closed book. The only paths that remained led to places no one could explain.

Bast hesitated first.

I had been watching the streets. But he had been watching the not streets. The spaces between sound, the places between knowing.

And something there had caught him the way a wolf catches the scent of something that has no living thing to claim its name.

He slowed to a halt the way a man steps carefully across thin ice, as if suddenly aware that something beneath his feet is shifting.

“Bast?”

His head tilted slightly, eyes narrowing. Not at the street itself, but at the space around it.

“I don’t like this,” he murmured.

“Neither do the beggers,” Wilem pointed out. His arms were crossed and a controlled tightness in his breath. “Not even the drunk ones.”

Sim rubbed his arms as if an unseen draft had run through them. “This is impossible. There are no secret districts in Renere. The city isn’t built that way.”

Bast tilted his head. The lamplight cast sharp shadows against his cheekbones. “No. But this isn’t a district, is it?”

Sim gave a confused scoff. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Bast ran a hand down the front of his coat as if brushing away dust, gaze flicking toward the street ahead of us. “Borders between places aren’t always well-behaved.”

There was something in his voice I didn’t like. Something edged with Fae lore.

He exhaled quietly and rolled his shoulders before continuing. “The Fae and the Mortal World aren’t just two separate things, divided the way streets are drawn on a map. There are places where the edges blur, and the two begin to bleed into one another.”

Wilem frowned, shifting his weight unconsciously. “Like the Eld?”

Bast let out a small, humorless laugh. “No, the Eld remembers too much. But this?” He tapped his heel softly against the stone beneath him. His expression turned calculated. “This is a place that has forgotten itself altogether.”

The words slipped into the empty air like a drop of ink into water, sinking slow and staining the silence around them.

“Forgotten?” Sim muttered, mouth twisting as he tried to parse the meaning.

I caught the way Bast’s fingers ran absently along the edge of his coat. It was the same way a man keeps a hand near his sword, not as a threat, but waiting to see if he will need it.

“It happens sometimes,” he continued, his voice quieter. “Places do not simply crumble into ruin. Sometimes they come undone, like threads slipping free from a weave. Old promises begin to fray. Old bargains lose their strength. Some roads bend back upon themselves again and again.” He traced a loose, twisting pattern in the air with his fingers. “Suddenly you find something taking shape, something uncertain whether it should have existed at all.”

He tilted his head backward slightly, scenting at the air.

Sim shivered. “That’s absurd.”

Bast smiled. “Not if you know the stories.”

I exchanged a glance with Wilem. Bast was being too careful. He always had the air of someone who had seen more than he cared to explain, but this wasn’t his usual playacting amusement.

* * *

We found our perch along the old market district, an empty sprawl of forgotten stalls that had long since given up being useful.

It gave us the vantage we needed, but not the certainty.

The Low-House we suspected Trenati would use was just beyond the dying reach of Renere’s streetlamps. No signs. No mark of allegiance. Only the quiet, unnatural certainty that it had always been there.

Every rule of the city bent around it.

Over the hours, men passed without looking. Footsteps that should have echoed didn’t. Some slowed as they approached the door as if they had forgotten why their feet had carried them there.

Sim stirred beside me, rubbing his arms, frowning like a man trying to shake off a thought before it took shape. “That’s odd.”

“What?” I murmured.

“That man near the canopied stall,” Sim said. “The one lighting his pipe?”

I followed his gaze. A dark-coated man leaned against a nearby stand, puffing at a twisted-stem pipe. Greenish smoke drifted from his lips, curling against the gray fabric of his collar. He looked utterly at ease. Uninterested.

Sim exhaled sharply. “I swear to Tehlu, I saw that man two streets away. By the theater. He leaned against a different wall, same pipe, smoking just like that.”

“Maybe he moved faster than you did,” Wil murmured, though he was already shifting, subtly adjusting his line of sight.

Sim dampened his lips. “At the theater, he was smoking the end of a pipe. Here, it’s fully packed, just lit.”

That left a thin silence.

Then, something changed. The world drew breath. The hush broke. Light spilled beneath the door of the Low-House, and a figure stepped out, his shadow long on the cobblestones.

He moved with purpose, quick and certain, his coat flaring as he left the Whispering Quarter behind. At the next corner, just before his footsteps faded, he passed two women who were deep in conversation. One of them glanced in his direction and hesitated, her eyes blinking in a slow, startled realization.

“You’re back early,” she said, confused.

The man gave a casual wave, smiling.

“Gods above,” the other woman muttered. “I thought you’d already left town.”

A slow, prickling silence settled between all of us.

Even Sim had caught it. That man was not surprised to be here. He walked with the confidence of someone who knew exactly where he had been.

Only the world itself had lost him.

Wilem, who had been carefully tracking the men entering and not leaving, frowned suddenly.

Then, a sharp edge in his voice, he whispered, “That’s not possible.”

I recognized the tension settling into his shoulders. The kind of weight that falls into someone’s spine right before they realize they’ve seen something they cannot explain.

“What isn’t?” Sim asked sharply.

Wilem didn’t look up. He wasn’t asking anymore. He was checking.

He flipped back through his notes, fingers pressing into the page. Running the tally a second time. A third. His lips parted slightly, exhaling a slow, careful breath.

“There were twelve,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “I know I counted twelve.”

Sim and I exchanged a glance.

“There were twelve,” I said cautiously.

“Then why are there still twelve inside?” Wil muttered, flipping pages back and forth.

“Numbers don’t lie,” Sim said, though he sounded like he wished they did.

Bast, who had been restless beside me, flicked his fingers, face impassive. “Reshi, listen.”

I hesitated.

Silence.

That was wrong. The market should not be silent. Even this late, even in its quietest corners, there should be the scrape of boots on stone, the distant clang of dishes, the gentle ripple of conversation.

But for the space of a lingering breath, there was nothing. As if the city around us had taken a sharp inhale and never exhaled.

Then it returned. Murmurs braided back into the night, a laugh echoed off an empty stone wall. But there had been a moment where Renere had forgotten to let itself exist.

* * *

A figure passed, wrapped in a clerk’s coat, carrying a satchel. He paused by a lantern to adjust the clasp with fumbling fingers.

Bored, I followed the movement absently—right up until his fingers touched the clasp.

Then, more movement.

Prince Trenati.

His step was certain. Unhurried. Measured.

And yet—

I felt him fade while watching him move.

The streets did not resist him. They did not mark him passing through.

Instead, I felt the world shifting itself beneath his weight, letting him un-make the proof of his own presence.

Once he walked forward, it did not matter that he had walked before.

I saw him glance towards a passing street vendor.

The man nodded absently. It was a reflexive motion, the kind of movement a person does not make toward something that has already been erased.

He was still here. In some ways, at least.

“We don’t belong here, Reshi,” Bast murmured.

I kept watching Trenati. “He does.”

Bast laughed under his breath, but it was not his usual laughter. It was a hollow thing. A space left between one breath and the next.

“For now,” he said softly. “‘Belonging’ is a debt this place will come back to collect.”

Sim let out a quiet breath, shifting his weight. “Do people come back?”

Bast’s fingers drummed against his trousers. The shrug he offered was empty. Unconvincing.

Wil’s fingers tightened around his notebook. “I don’t like this,” he murmured, barely moving his lips. “We should reposition.”

“Why?” Sim breathed.

“Because we’re too still,” he said, voice bare of emotion. “Four men, a single table, no movement. We don’t look like vendors. We don’t look like gamblers. We look like men who are watching something they’re not supposed to see.”

I exhaled.

“Wait, no. Too late,” Wilem whispered sharply.

I stiffened. Sim went rigid beside me.

Wil wasn’t looking at the Low-House anymore. He was looking past it, toward the side street where a man had stopped mid-step. His eyes were locked directly onto us.

A casual passerby wouldn’t stop like that. Wouldn’t hesitate. Wouldn’t study us.

The dark-coated man was the second. He now leaned against a lamp post and brought a pipe to his lips. But he was watching, and the smoking was only a pretense.

The third, the store clerk, began to angle back towards us.

The fourth, the street vendor.

The weight of it settled fast. Too fast.

“They’re not just watching Trenati,” Sim whispered, barely breathing the words. “They’re watching for people watching him.”

And now we were the ones being watched.

Wil tensed beside me. “We move now.”

We turned, but too late. The second man flicked his wrist twice, and the others reacted without hesitation.

One moment, the alley was clear.

The next, we weren’t alone.

The first man stepped in behind us, cutting off the exit. The doorman peeled away from his post by the Low-House and began crossing toward us, a purpose in his stride.

We were surrounded.

I measured our odds, they weren’t good. Not in this tight space. Not against four watchers who had been expecting trouble.

CHAPTER 25.

RESHI.

THE FIRST MAN spoke before weapons could be drawn.

“Peace.”

The word sat poorly in his mouth, like an ill-forged coin pressed into the wrong hand. His voice was rough-sewn, shaped by stone roads and cold mornings. A voice that did not beg and did not barter.

The others shifted around him, hands resting too close to their weapons to be coincidence. Not an open threat. Not yet.

Wilem straightened ever so slightly beside me. Simmon curled his fingers in his sleeve. Bast only sighed, as if mildly disappointed in how the evening had chosen to unfold.

I kept my voice measured. “And who,” I asked, “are you to claim peace?”

The leader gave a low, humorless chuckle. In another place it might have been an insult. "Not me," he said, already looking past us. "Regent Lugosi. He would like a word."

Beside me, I felt Bast shift. Not in surprise, not in protest. Just listening.

I tilted my head. “Strange,” I mused. “I would’ve thought the regent’s coin was better spent on quills and couriers rather than alleyway ghosts.”

That earned no reaction, which was typical of men well-acquainted with dull insults. Instead, the leader barely moved his mouth as he murmured, “A whisper from us to the dockworkers, the taxmen, the city watch, and I suspect a certain red-haired mercenary would find Renere suddenly unwelcome.”

A quiet, polite threat. A hand pressed against my ribs, just enough to measure my breath.

Renere could turn against me in an instant.

We could fight. There were four of them and four of us, though Sim and Wil barely counted, it was not impossible. But Renere did not kill you with daggers. It starved you of coin and smothered you under permits and whispers. It made you invisible. I did not need to see Bast’s face to know he carried the same thought.

I smiled thinly. "Then lead the way.”

* * *

They led us only two streets over, which should have been a comfort. It wasn’t.

These streets had forgotten how to be part of the city at all.

The stones were old, unkept, and slippery with algae. The archways narrowed above us, pulling the street into a passage the sunlight had abandoned decades ago. A single thief’s lamp flickered dimly from a rusted alcove.

The kind of place forgotten men made use of.

Then we reached him.

Lugosi did not wear finery. No gaudy rings. No velvet cloak pressing authority onto his frame. His coat was plain, though well-kept. His boots polished, but not new.

And yet, the space had already shaped itself around him.

“Regent Lugosi,” I greeted him with tight civility.

“Kvothe of Nowhere,” he said, dipping his head in a mocking gesture that was nearly a bow. “Time presses on us, so I will be plain. Ariel has much to say in your favor. From what I hear, it was your actions, not that Jakis boy's, that kept her safe in Imre.”

I hesitated, choosing my words with care. "She is dear to me, but she is stronger than most realize. Anything I did for her was small, just spare clothing and a handful of kindness. Truly, she took care of herself."

A hint of a smile flickered on Lugosi’s lips. “That she accepted anything second-hand speaks volumes about trust,” he said. But the humor quickly faded from his voice. The one who returned is not the Ariel I remember. The lessons your university offers come at a high price, and not all of them are paid in coin.

His expression sharpened. The kind of gaze that weighed men against the stones beneath them.

"You shouldn’t have killed Lord Vatis,” he said at last.

There was no anger in the words. Just inevitability, like telling a man that rain had fallen.

I bristled. "He pushed the duel. He demanded satisfaction. I only gave it to him."

Lugosi exhaled, slow. Not amusement. Not pity. Just recognition.

"No,” he corrected me. “You gave the court an excuse to shun you.”

“What if I say you’re wrong? What if I tell you I know for a fact that wound wasn’t fatal?” I pressed back.

Lugosi only shook his head.

"That doesn’t matter in Renere." His voice was even. "Facts are fluid here."

He was right. The duel had never been about justice. Or satisfaction. The court did not care for fairness. They needed a story. And I had gifted them one. A blooded Ruh, a wild thing that should have known its place.

“Then why summon me here?” I asked, more sharply than I intended.

Lugosi sighed. Not out of frustration, but like a man who had predicted the weather long before the storm struck.

“I didn’t.”

He looked at me for a moment longer than was polite, as if weighing something heavier than words.

“I was once invited to whisper in Roderick’s ear,” he said quietly. “Now I count it lucky to speak into shadows.”

He glanced past me again, toward the place where the street no longer remembered its name.

“Until recently, I thought I knew how to pull the strings behind the curtain,” he said. “Now I suspect someone’s unweaving the curtain itself.”

His gaze flicked then. Not to me, but to Sim.

Sim blinked. “Me?”

Lugosi inclined his head. “You bear a name worth listening to," he said simply. “Even if House Cautrine has seen better days.”

Sim stiffened visibly. His fingers curling slightly at his sides.

"I’m no diplomat," he muttered, voice just a touch too tight.

"You were trained as one," Lugosi corrected mildly. "And now here you are, meddling in politics nonetheless."

There was a shift in Sim. A hesitation. Like something long buried had been uncovered too fast.

He breathed once like a man about to wade into cold water. “Fine,” he murmured.

Then, straighter now, “Let’s see if it still does.”

Finally, Sim straightened, but it wasn’t pride. Not entirely.

“Dad always thought the the family name could still mean something,” Sim said. “I thought he was just clinging to mirrors.”

He looked at Lugosi. “Let’s find out who’s right.”

Lugosi measured his words now. “The situation is not so simple.”

A pause. A shift. Then, given the weight of a quiet knife.

“Fascino moves against Roderick.”

The words landed like a dry branch breaking underfoot.

"House Jakis follows that power. Other houses shift in turn," he continued.

Wilem exhaled slowly, swearing in Siaru.

“And Trenati?” Sim asked, taking the lead. Stepping into role he had always sought to avoid.

Lugosi’s mouth pressed just slightly tighter. “He is ambitious.”

“But?”

“But he is still his father’s son. Sometimes youth has more passion than prudence.”

Lugosi exhaled. “I’ve offered him advice. Covered his tracks. Bought him time to come back from the ledge. But mark my words—if Trenati fails, I won’t be remembered as the man who counseled restraint. I’ll be remembered as the one who lit the fire. That is how the court rewrites guilt.”

A realization settled in me, slow as spilled wine soaking into cloth. If the coup failed, as most eventually did, Lugosi would hang for it, in reputation if not by rope.

Then Bast spoke.

His voice was quiet. Not soft. Not whispering. Careful.

“Whispering Quarter’s got threads tangled in that prince now.”

We all turned.

Bast didn’t look away from Lugosi. “It’s not pulling him out of the world, Reshi. It’s pulling the world out of him.”

There was a beat of stillness. Like the air forgot how to move.

Sim's forehead creased. Wilem stirred. Lugosi held his silence, though the sharp line of his jaw told another story. He looked like a man hoping someone else wouldn’t speak a truth he already feared.

Bast leaned forward, one hand loosely curled on his knee. “You think you’re protecting him, but soon there won’t be a ‘him’ left to save.”

“I know,” Lugosi said, now looking tired in a way that couldn’t be mended by sleep. “But to go to Roderick directly would be to implicate myself. Persimon here... I don’t think most know you’re back. Your name isn’t tangled in the bloody Ruh rumors, and you were raised clean of city shadows. Perhaps, if I make some delicate introductions to the right ears Persimon can at least put the Kings advisors on guard.”

That caught Sim’s attention.

Lugosi continued, “There is a certain Lord Veldren Alstair. He and your father studied together."

"Alstair? He used to smell like ink and oranges," Sim murmured, more to himself than us. “When I was a boy, he would send me letters. Looking back, I think he was afraid our official tutor was ommiting things. Is he still at court?”

“He is, and is still loyal to Roderick. Your connection to Alstair may carry weight, or nothing at all. But it's better than silence I get. And persuasion tends to work best before the city begins to burn.” Lugosi folded his hands. “If you can get his ear, perhaps he can see to it that Roderick hears the truth before both Trenti and Ariel are lost.”

“Auri,” I corrected, tightly. “Not Ariel.”

Lugosi merely regarded me, his manner too polite to argue and yet too political to yield outright. Still, it landed.

He didn’t look away when he replied.

Roderick is no saint. But the court he keeps is a patchwork of glass, each shard brittle beneath the surface. If he falls, it collapses, and a dozen little tyrannies snap at what’s left behind.

I thought of her then, though not as Ariel, regal and composed beside some gilded throne, her face scrubbed clean and her voice as gentle and orderly as pressed linen. I thought instead of Auri, who once named the stars like friends. Auri, who wore the Underthing like a second skin. She taught me how to listen to silence, and how to speak without breaking something fragile.

I had shown her how to nod at the world without letting it devour her. That had been our secret.

Now she smiled in court with borrowed grace, her name stitched shut beneath silk.

She wasn’t a crown to win. Not a curse to break. Not a thing they could own.

She was not mine, but she was not theirs either. She was never theirs.

I took in a breath. The shape of it forming in my mind.

“And what about me?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral.

“Careful Reshi,” Bast murmured behind me, “You might not be the knife they wanted. Just the one lying close at hand.”

Lugosi’s smile was thin. "Things are dire. We can not afford to try just one thing at a time. If you have any favor left with the Maer, then go with speed to Severnth. Perhaps the Maer will come to our aid should the coup gain momentum.”

The words settled, measured and inevitable.

The Maer owed me once. I doubted he still did. Worse, Meluan might swallow the sight of me with a smile sharp enough to cost me the whole game.

It wasn’t help he offered. It was a blade lodged in the door. Thin enough to wedge the door. Sharp enough to gut me if pushed too hard.

I took it anyway. The Maer’s court was a knife edge. And I’d be treadding it blind. But I’d tread it anyway because every day Ariel smiled beneath court silks, Auri vanished a little more. And I was already out of time.

* * *

On our way back to the inn, we passed a place that leaned into the street instead of calling us in. It huddled there, the roof sagging and the door a halfhearted apology to the night. Smoke fogged the windows, soft and stained with years of laughter, the dust of old hopes. A bar that wore its age openly. Inside, the glow of oil lamps curled against the glass and spilled golden pools onto crooked tables.

I hesitated in the streetlight, letting the hush of evening settle on my shoulders. There are places in every town where the sharp scent of tobacco and cinnamon clings to the stones, and laughter hangs thick as honey in the air. I have seen such places, and always watched from the street, a passerby pretending not to stare. That changed with Bast.

He saw me hesitate and gave me that fox-bright grin. Mischief already shining in his eyes.

“You’ve never been in a smokehouse, Reshi?” His voice was soft, playful. The question more a dare than a curiosity.

I shook my head, feeling like a boy caught peeking into a cabinet meant for grown men. “It always seemed a little much. Too fine for a trouper. Too easy an invitation to spend coin I never had.”

Bast’s smile grew wider, all milk teeth. “Oh, Reshi, you must. It’s a wicked thing. Delightful.” He leaned in, confiding. “I once spent a week in a place like this with three bottles of plum wine and two girls with clever hands. We smoked until dawn came crawling up the wall.” His eyes sparkled with impossible mischief. “We started a minor scandal and two marriage proposals. Maybe three. Time grows strange round a good smokehouse.”

He laughed, an easy, musical sound. “If you won’t go in for yourself, will you go in for me? It’s been too long, and a man needs his vices.” He tugged at my sleeve, a gentle mockery of reluctance. I followed, knowing already my resistance was only for show—a wall of straw against Bast’s quick fire.

Inside, the air was all velvet and smoke, thick as a crooked promise. Screens softened the light, and corners unfolded like secrets. Hookahs coiled on the tables, glass bellies lit with low, restless embers.

Bast signaled for service with the confidence of one who has known the price of everything and paid it in laughter. He filled the pipe with deft hands and drew a breath so deep it might reach the back of the world. The smoke left his lips in pale rivers.

“Did you know,” I said, keeping my voice soft, letting the moment gather weight, “that the old stories say the first hookah was a gift from the fae? They call it a glass heart that breathes. It was said to be given to mortal men, to ease their winter gloom.”

Bast startled, a breath freezing on his lips, watching me with gold-flecked eyes. For a heartbeat he seemed the apprentice again, hungry for tales. “Is that so?”

“So they say.” I shrugged, letting the story do its work. “But stories lie, now and then.”

Before Bast could answer, a table across the room erupted in mutters. The biggest of them stood, heavy and mean, his eyes flickering from the shining hookah to Bast’s too-bright smile. “Pretty boys like you don’t belong here,” he growled, hand half-raised.

Bast only smiled, all innocence and moonlight, but I stood and let my words fall softly, each one sharp as a new-minted coin. “It’s late. Go back to your table, and let the world turn as it should.”

For a moment, resistance in him like a bent bow. But I have a way with words, and he let them carry him back.

Later, when the quiet returned, Bast turned those impossibly old, impossibly young eyes on me. “Thank you, Reshi,” he said, warmth and mischief and something softer tucked in behind.

I arched an eyebrow, letting the silence curl like smoke between us. “And what does that mean, then?”

Bast’s grin turned sly as a fox’s. “It means the cleverest of clever. The perfect friend. The fucking boss.”

I laughed, a true laugh, the first in what felt like days. I let the title settle onto my shoulders as easily as a well-worn cloak.

CHAPTER 26.

STORIES WE TELL OURSELVES.

“STAPLES.”

I didn’t raise my voice.

I didn’t need to.

It passed through the morning air with the weight of a name long withheld. The street was full of the usual market din. Traders bellowed over bruised apples, boots struck stone, and pigeons rustled as they claimed the eaves. Yet my word threaded beneath it all. It was thin as a blade and cold as a bell’s first ring in winter. The name was not spoken louder than the noise, but truer.

He paused midstride. It was only a half-step, yet I saw hesitation ripple down his spine. His hand hovered near his belt, not resting on a weapon, but moving in that habitual way men have when they are bracing themselves. When they are remembering someone they wished they would forget.

He turned slowly. His eyes squinted through the alley’s hash of shadow and light, searching the shape of me like a man brushing dust off an old portrait he never meant to keep.

“By the Lady’s breath,” he muttered. Not amazement. Not relief. Just the tired weight of old surprise. “Kvothe.”

I stepped from the shadow and let the light find my face. My cloak hung deliberately loose, my hands bare at my sides.

“I wasn’t sure you’d still recognize me,” I said.

He did not approach. Still, his gaze sharpened, both cautious and appraising. “I recognize ghosts well enough. The real question is whether they leave footprints.”

“Only when the snow is fresh.”

That drew the shadow of a smile from him, though it did not reach his voice. He was not aged so much as polished down. The trim of grey at his brow hinted at it, and the quiet carving at the corners of his eyes spoke of it as well. He was the same man, only worn smoother by politics and by consequence.

“If Lady Meluan sees me on this street with you,” he said, his voice half warning and half lament.

“She won’t,” I said. “We both know her reach may be long, though her interest is brief. This stays here. It ends in the dust, the way a forgotten coin might. I do not need much. Only your time. Only this.”

I pulled back my cloak and extended my left hand. Resting there, smooth and ribbed with a pale, quiet gleam, was the bone ring. The Maer’s ring was never worn for vanity, but for memory alone. It was a promise I had never returned, though many had tried to unmake it.

“You still wear it,” he said, voice low.

“Some names don’t wash off,” I said. “No matter how far you’ve wandered.”

He didn’t speak immediately. Just looked. First at the ring, then at me. “You shouldn’t have come,” he said after a long pause. “Not here. Not after what was said. After what came down in Severen.”

“I didn’t come to replay that,” I said. “I came to do the thing I failed to do last time. I came to warn him.”

That stopped him. Not from stepping backward, but from stepping forward.

He looked away, toward the rooftops, toward the fountain beyond, toward anywhere but me. Something behind his eyes moved like dust in a shaft of light.

“She’s still tending the fire,” he said after a time. “Meluan. It has been years. He stopped answering council summons and kept to his quarters. She claims your song enchanted him and your charm made a fool of him.” He looked over at me. “And the court laughed. Not everyone joined in, but enough of them did.”

I said nothing.

“You left, and she pulled the rug from under him. The boy from the road with the wild stories? Turned liar. Turned betrayal. She convinced the old bloods they’d been duped by a stage magician. That he’d been made low by soft words and softer hands.”

“I’m not here to ask forgiveness,” I said. “I’ve brought something darker than regret.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“Then say it plain.”

I looked at him, letting the words form as slowly as they needed. “Old bloodlines waking up,” I said. “Songs written backward. Power hiding in stories. There are names trying to rewrite the world.”

For a long moment, the two of us stood unmoving. Like watchmen in a winter square.

At last, he reached beneath his coat. His hand came back with a small pouch, plain as river stone. The stitching was worn and patient. The drawstring pulled tight and sure, more careful than fine. He opened it slow, as if the moment mattered. From within, he drew a ring, silver dulled by years and the memory of touch. Old sigils lingered on its surface, soft as whispers, faded but not forgotten.

“If I give you this,” he said quietly, “I lose something clean.” He turned the object in his fingers. “But maybe that is what is needed these days. Silver tarnishes, it is true. Yet tarnish remembers the light.”

He pressed the ring into my palm.

“It’ll get you through the gate,” he said. “Don’t expect more than that. Name or no, you don’t belong in that court. Not anymore.”

“I’m not expecting warmth,” I said. “Just space to speak.”

He started patting his pockets. “I need to send a name with you. A note.” He squinted. “Damn, no pen.”

I was already slipping open my satchel. Quill. Ink. Paper. Laid out like old friends.

“You always travel like a scribe?” he muttered softly.

“Scholars carry books,” I murmured. “I carry reasons.”

He wrote efficiently, his handwriting crisp and deliberate, like a man who knew the cost of misunderstanding. When he passed me the sealed note, his fingers lingered just a moment longer than necessary.

“I remember,” he said softly.

“What I did?” I asked, though I already knew.

He shook his head. “Who you were.”

“And for you, is that memory bitter?”

“It’s memory,” he said. “That’s enough to get you past the guards. The rest? Well, the rest is the weather.”

He turned as if to leave, then paused, half-swallowed in the swirl of market haze.

“He kept your ring too,” Stapes said, without turning. “The Maer. Never spoke of it. Never wore it. But never melted it down, either.”

I folded both rings into the lining of my coat, bone and silver resting side by side. One cold with quiet promise, the other warm with remembered service.

“That’s more than I expected,” I said after him.

He glanced back, just once. “You never expected too much,” he said. “That was your trouble.”

A beat passed.

“And your strength.”

Then he was gone. Swallowed by the street. Like a story that had been told once, but whose ending no one remembered well enough to retell.

* * *

The streets near the fountain had fallen quiet. Noise faded, except for the slow complaint of the grocer’s cart, rolling home beneath the fading light. I slipped through the back alleys, weaving past shadow and brick. Perhaps it was faster. Perhaps it only felt that way. Or perhaps, if I let myself be honest, it was only because I hoped those narrow lanes would keep me from crossing paths with Denna.

Still, it wasn’t enough.

“Leaving without saying goodbye?”

Her words were not loud, but they clung to the air the way a single note does when drawn from a harp. Unexpected. Tender. So carefully tuned that the silence which followed felt cruel.

I froze. She was standing in the slivered shade near the old stone bench, loose strands of hair catching the last amber light. I hadn’t seen her approach. I never did, not when it mattered.

“Denna,” I said, my voice drawing more from guilt than greeting. “I wasn’t.”

She stepped closer, arms wrapped tight across her chest. “You weren’t what? Standing me up? Disappearing again? Slipping off like a badly penned epilogue?”

“I didn’t want to complicate things.”

Her smile was thin, brittle at the edge. “Ah, so vanishing without a word is your way of simplifying life? Curious method, but I suppose for some it works.”

“It’s not like that,” I said quickly, feeling the shape of the truth resist my tongue. “I have to go to Severen.”

“Severen,” she repeated thoughtfully, as if tasting the name, not questioning it. “I see.”

Her eyes searched mine, far gentler than her words. “You know,” she said after a pause, “it just so happens I’ve been summoned there myself.”

That stopped me short. “You have?”

She nodded. A wrinkle of mischief, or perhaps misdirection, tugged at the corner of her mouth. “There is a noble in Severen, one of the old bloodlines. My patron asked me to look into their sigils and histories, all for the sake of authenticity. Apparently, the melancholy in my last sonnet needed a touch of genealogical depth.”

Her lips twitched, half-laugh, half-apology.

I tilted my head. “You’re writing songs about family trees now?”

“Only the tragic branches,” she replied. “The ones struck by lightning. They make the best verses.”

“Does your patron often make such peculiar requests?”

She looked past me, toward the cobbled street fading into twilight. “He’s a patron,” she said softly. “They all have their peculiarities.” Then she turned her gaze back to me, steady now. “But I don’t mind indulging him. Not when it aligns with my curiosity.”

“And what is it you’re curious about, exactly?”

“Old names,” she said. “Things buried in stone. Lines inherited but never spoken aloud.” She stopped, watching my face carefully. “Some names don’t want to be remembered. Some songs only make sense in reverse.”

“I thought you traveled where wind and whims took you,” I said lightly, trying to change the current of the moment.

“I do,” she said. “And it seems the wind’s taking me to Severen.” She brushed her cloak tighter around her. “So unless you’re planning to turn me away, I’d say we have a shared direction.”

I hesitated. “You’re sure?” I asked. “This isn’t just following shadows again?”

“Hardly,” she said with a smirk. “This time, I’m chasing names.”

She said it as if it were truth. A commission, a patron, and a sonnet’s whim all drawing her north. A noble house with a family tree longing for verse. And through it all, a straight back and a quirk of a smile.

But I knew.

Not with certainty, not the way I know a chord that rings true or the feel of perfect pitch under my fingers. It was a deeper sort of knowing, the quiet kind you keep tucked behind your ribs.

She lied.

Not out of malice, or play. She lied because truth would have admitted too much. And I let her have the lie. I’d rather a beautiful fiction spoken for my sake than an awkward silence born of honesty.

So I smiled. I nodded. I accepted the story she offered, as if I believed it.

Because if chasing me was simpler when wrapped in a pretext, who was I to take it away?

That’s what we did, after all. We gave each other stories when truths were too sharp to hold. For once, we were not chasing each other in circles. We were walking the same path.

* * *

Dust settled on us in secret ways. It clung thick to the hems of my cloak and lingered deep behind Denna’s knees, where her mare moved easy, smoother than mine ever managed. Her horse, dappled gray with old Khershaen blood, carried her like a promise woven from song. My own mount plodded onward, stubborn as any dockworker and begrudging every mile.

We took more breaks than we needed. I told myself it was for the horses.

It was easier when we were moving.

At rest, our conversations fell into old habits. Half-lies dressed in cleverness. Truths slipped sideways into banter. She spoke of patrons, of cities half-remembered. Places where men mangled poetry and women practiced the art of leaving before they were left. Details blurred at the edges. They always did. I did not press her. She did not press me. Not unless I let my guard down and said too much. That was our rhythm. The silent bargain between us.

“So tell me,” Denna said as we stood beneath a split-beamed tree, our horses chewing with shared disinterest. “Why Severen? Really.”

I hesitated. Too long. “It’s complicated.”

“Oh, come now. You’re terrible at avoiding questions. ‘It’s complicated’ has all the shape of a lie and none of the poetry.”

I pulled in a breath. “There’s someone in trouble.”

She blinked. “A lover?”

“No,” I said, too quickly.

That earned me a smirk. “Said every guilty man ever.”

“It’s not like that. She’s a friend.” I saw Denna stiffen. The conversation was unraveling, everything slipping away in the worst possible way.

“She’s from the University,” I said, choosing my words with care. My voice faltered, heavy with implication. “You might know her now by another name. Princess Ariel.”

That earned a cocked eyebrow.

“And what did you know her as?”

I exhaled. “Auri. She used to live beneath stone and starlight. She belonged to the edges of things.”

“And you think she’s in danger?” Denna pressed.

“I know she’s in danger. Five ways to Felling, they are trapping her.” I said. This time I didn’t flinch from the weight of the words. “She is someone who doesn’t belong in the place she’s found herself. The wrong name’s been hung on her shoulders, and it’s pressing her down.”

Denna cocked her head. “Princesses hardly need rescuing.”

“They do,” I said quietly. “Sometimes most of all.”

She blinked at that, then laughed, brittle half-tones flaking from the edge of her voice.

“You make it sound like a tragedy wrapped in lace.”

“Don’t all tragedies wear something beautiful?”

She narrowed her eyes slightly, then looked out over the ridgeline, where the pine-dark world fell off into distance. “You speak like turning someone into a lady is a kind of violence.”

“For a girl who lived by moonlight and music and the taste of honeyed air?” I said, softer than I meant. “Yes. Now every moment she wears a mask.”

Denna lowered her gaze for a moment, brushing a bit of dried bark from her cloak. “Some of us learn to live behind masks,” she said softly.

“You forget, Kvothe,” she continued, “lace is armor just as much as steel. You think it’s cruelty, but for some, it’s safety. It’s a roof, a bed, hot meals.”

She let out a breath. “It’s more than I had, once.”

“I know,” I said. And I did. But I also understood that Auri’s true self would not survive long among the careful knives. A cage made of music still hums with bars.

A quiet stretched between us, coiling slow and strange. After a long moment, Denna glanced sidelong at me, trying for a smile.

“Well,” she said, her voice like a woman changing the song before you heard its final verse. “I suppose if you’re off to be a gallant rescuer, I’ll be a dutiful scholar. My patron’s request can’t wait forever.”

I looked at her, uncertain. “You said you were researching the sigils of old bloodlines?”

She nodded, too quickly. “The tragic ones. Family trees pruned by sharp things. Dead sisters. Lost sons. It’s a poem, I think.”

“Of course,” I said. “All the noblest lies are.”

“Funny thing,” she said. “I was meant to head this way weeks ago. But I waited. For weather. For words. Hard to say, really.”

She didn’t look at me when she said it. And I was grateful.

If she had, I might have said something foolish. Something tender. Something true.

And neither of us were ready for that.

CHAPTER 27.

OLD ACQUAINTANCES.

THE GATES OF Severen opened slowly.

Inside, the city was not loud. Yet it complained with unrest. Soldiers gathered in knots outside taverns. Wagons rattled and bowed low along the cobblestones. Proclamations fluttered from doorposts, thin and papery, like the brittle skins of trees long dead.

After we stabled the horses, Denna and I parted. A word. A glance. An understanding. We would meet again, when nighttime turned the city to gold.

After we stabled the horses, Denna and I parted. A word. A glance. An unspoken promise to meet again when evening fell.

I was not sure how I would gain the Maer’s attention. I had the shape of a plan, nothing more. It turned out, I did not need one. Before the dust of Denna’s leaving had settled, I showed Stapes’s letter. And then Dagon appeared. Broad, silent. Eyes cold and sharp as frost. He led me through winding halls, the hush of stone on stone, until I stood before the Maer.

Alveron sat alone at his desk. The surface sprawled with documents, with scrolls, with Stapes’s crumpled letter. Fire from the hearth turned the walls the color of autumn. The Maer regarded me, lambent-eyed and unreadable.

A flicker of calculation danced among the flames.

“Ah, Kvothe, do come in,” Alveron said, still hale and healthy, I noted.

“Your grace,” I said, bowing low and formal. “You seem well.”

“I am,” he replied tersely. “I must say your presence is most unexpected. Shouldn’t you be in Imre, drawing on that extortionate tuition they demand of me.” He said icily, before picking up one of the many pieces of parchment from atop his desk, “I’m to understand Stapes gave you this letter, though it fails to say as to why.”

“That is true, your grace. I come bearing troubling news that warrants your immediate attention,” I replied.

“Is Meluan safe?” Alveron said, springing halfway out of his seat. More concern in his voice than I’d ever heard from him before.

“She is your grace, though given what I have to tell you, you may wish to take action,” I said.

He seemed to relax a little, settling back in his chaw. “This news, it must be serious indeed to bring you all the way here. Speak plainly, though do so quickly. The hour grows late, and I have pressing matters of my own to attend to.”

“I have heard word of a coup coming to Renere,” I said. “With Regent Fascino at the center, your grace.”

He raised an eyebrow. His face was all unreadable lines and old patience. “You have news, do you? How did such news find its way to you?”

“Regent Lugosi,” I answered.

He made a small sound, something that might have been a laugh if one was generous. He leaned back, rubbing his hands together in the firelight. “One regent, whispering sharp words about another. It never ends.”

I hesitated before speaking. “Forgive me, your grace, but you seem less troubled than I’d expected.”

“Trouble at my borders is always my concern.” He paused, then corrected himself. “What of Roderick? Has this reached his ear?”

“I cannot say.” A click in my throat as I swallowed. “His inner circle is insulated. Regent Lugosi has plans to warn him, but I left before they could take shape. We both worry he will not see the danger. Not soon enough.”

He smiled then, slow as frost on a windowpane. “If Roderick truly listens, the whispers will find him. I suppose we can all sleep soundly, for a while.”

“Will you send word?” I pressed. “Will you move to reinforce the capital?”

At once, I knew I had asked too much. I felt it in the hush that followed, in the way his eyes weighed me, weighed all that I was not saying.

“And why would I do such a thing?” he said, tone brimming with disapproval. “I didn’t see Roderick ride out when bandits assailed the King’s road or for any of the disturbances in the north. The bastard demands his tithes and then comes crawling to me when he can not secure his own lands. For what possible reason would I risk coming to his aid?”

I took a moment to muster all my powers of persuasion. “Your grace, if Roderick is unseated, it will throw the region into turmoil. Any agitation could very well spill over into your own lands.” Another thought came to me. “Also, should the worst arise, and you are the one who rides to his aid, Roderick would be very much in your debt.”

Looking into the fire, his features fixed in contemplation, Alveron appeared to ponder this a moment. “You were wise to bring this to me, Kvothe,” he said, seeming to come to a decision. “I will consider what you have said. I am due in the capital for his daughter’s wedding in the coming days. Perhaps I shall expand my retinue accordingly,” Alveron added, eying me shrewdly.

Sensing that there was nothing more to say on the matter, I bowed, making it to the door before he called me back.

“Wait. Keep this matter between us for the time being until I’ve had sufficient time to investigate the validity of these claims. Stories such as this carry the potential to cause considerable unrest if not handled appropriately, wouldn’t you agree?”

I nodded. “As you wish, your grace.”

* * *

Outside the Maer’s chambers, Dagon was waiting. He stood silent as stone, his one good eye turning to me as I pulled the door closed behind me. He did not speak. He only nodded, then set off down the hall. I followed.

We had not gone far. The marble still remembered the warmth of the day beneath our feet, and I drifted in my thoughts, half-awake, half-dreaming. Then a ripple of strangeness caught my eye. Something here had shifted. Something small, but out of place.

On the wall between two tall windows, a painting stood. It rose taller than any man. Its gilded frame caught the light, holding it quiet and close. The paint was the work of a master’s hand, the brushstrokes deft and sure, bringing to life the likeness of a woman not yet old. She looked out from the canvas with eyes I knew. Eyes I had seen in the mirror.

Dagon was already two steps ahead, but he must have seen my gaze.

“Lady Meluan’s mother. Anastasia Lackless. They hung it when her ladyship moved in.”

The name barely touched me. I stood staring at the hollow place behind my ribs.

It wasn’t just resemblance. It was recognition. The curve of her cheek, proud and sharp as song. The angle of her jaw, the rare clarity of her gray-green eyes, just as they’d gleamed above an old lute once on a summer afternoon. Those were my mother’s eyes.

No. Not my mother’s.

Natalia Lackless.

The old rhyme fluttered through me unbidden.

“Seven things stand before the entrance to the Lackless door.”

I had learned it in jest, recited as a child in whispers, back when I still thought stories were nothing more than clever lies we gave to truth to make it go down easier.

I remembered her voice telling me tales by firelight. Her laughter at my first attempts to play the lute. Her silence whenever I asked about grandparents, or cousins, or names older than hers.

She had kept it from me. The truth. The name. The legacy.

In that moment, I understood why a song can hurt more than a sword.

I had starved in Tarbean. Slept in alleys like a kicked dog, foraging words like scraps from the mouths of richer men.

And across the map, behind silk curtains and carved stone, a family I never knew had buried me with their silence. A sister denied. A child erased.

I felt my vision narrow. It was not quite fury, not yet. But something sharper took hold. It was more precise than anger, like wonder that had turned bitter in the mouth.

If they knew, what would they do with me?

Would the Maer send for a knife in the night, not to silence a threat but to erase a shame? Would Meluan look at me and see her own sister’s sin dragged through the mud, strung up in street colors and Ruh silk?

I touched the bone ring at my finger. White. Promise-bound. Unbroken.

In a different world, it might have been a signet. In this one, it was a gravestone.

Behind me, Dagon cleared his throat. “Don’t make me drag you out.”

But I stayed another blink longer, just long enough to whisper the name, “Lackless,” before turning away.

“Tell me, why do you serve the Maer?” I asked him as we walked.

“His grace is a man of prominence,” he replied without hesitation.

“And yet, for all we do for him, he still looks down on us. We are just tools for them to use and discard,” I said bitterly.

He shrugged. “We each have our roles to play. This is mine. When the Maer offers the carrot and it fails, I’m the stick.”

I stopped in my tracks, unable to suppress the laughter bubbling up inside me. My conversation with the Cthaeh played in my head. I could see Dagon’s irritation reaching a tipping point, the stoic commander reaching for the wooden cudgel at his waist. But before he could pull it free, I held up my palms in an appeal for calm.

“Tell me, Dagon. How is the road to Tinue these days?”

He paused by the smallest margin. Not the sort of pause you’d notice if you weren’t watching. But I was. His boots lost a breath’s rhythm. His good eye shifted toward me, unreadable.

He said nothing for a long moment. Then he spoke, voice steady. “Long for those who walk the path, and know the way.” It was the very phrase I had pulled from behind the Four-Plate Door.

I turned toward him, letting silence draw out like a string pulled taut.

Then he added, “I heard that in a play once.”

“So did I,” I said, my voice too calm, too quiet. “A very old one. Never staged anymore.”

Dagon turned a corner, gesturing for a pair of minor guards to keep their distance. Then he looked at me properly for the first time, sharply.

“Who taught you that line?” he asked.

“I read it,” I said, watching his eyes. “In a book no one admits exists.”

“A dangerous pastime,” he muttered. “Pages are more patient than people. They don’t know when to keep things buried.”

“I’ve buried things,” I said. “Some that still bleed.”

He considered that in silence. We passed a tall window, and colored light fell across his profile. His features were stern and uncertain, the look of someone marked by a war-scar that would never fully heal.

“If this is a test,” he said at last, “you’re pressing thin ice. The kind of thin that cuts.”

“I’m not testing you,” I said. “I just want to know if what I’ve found belong to anything real.”

Slowly, he nodded once. “Then give me the next line.”

I let the breath hitch in my throat, but I answered.

“And those who do?”

He made a noise like a laugh, but it wasn’t humor. “They do not often return by the same way.”

Silence stretched between us like a drawn bowstring.

I risked more.

“But for those who walk the path,” I said, “and know the way.”

He stopped.

Not blocked the corridor. Not turned.

He merely stopped.

Weight shifted in his shoulders. Breath drawn. The kind of stillness that soldiers learn before drawing steel.

His fingers brushed his cudgel. Not in threat. In readying.

“No more riddles,” he said. “Say what you mean, or say nothing.”

I swallowed. My heart ticked like a counting clock against my ribs.

Then one more gamble.

“For the greater good,” I said.

No flourish. No reverence. I let the words fall like coin on a table.

His eyes searched mine, for what, I don’t know.

Then he echoed it, equally flat, equally exact.

“For the greater good.”

A silence followed.

Then he spoke, his voice balanced delicately between curiosity and caution. “Some of those lines were burnt from doctrine nearly two centuries ago. You’d lose a tongue for half of it.”

“I didn’t take an oath,” I said, “but the cost?” I tapped the bone ring on my finger without a word. “Paid in full.”

Another beat of silence.

At last, Dagon’s gaze shifted beyond me, lingering on stone arches and closed doors. He stepped forward, and half of his form melted into the shadow.

“There’s a town,” he murmured. “Obscure. Cold. Frozen out of memory by newer roads. Leveritis.”

The name rang faint, like a page half-torn from a childhood atlas.

“A tavern,” he continued. “The Weeping Eye. Don’t ask after shelter. Don’t flash coin. Just order finger tea. Then ask for Claude. That’s all.”

My mouth was suddenly dry. “And who is that?”

“No more,” he snapped, quickly. “I’ve already said too much. If I’m wrong about you, I’ll end up with a knife in the gut and my life rewritten in a footnote.” He adjusted his gloves.

Then, as if nothing had passed between us at all, he added brightly. The cheer in his voice was forced, almost blinding in its intensity.

“Of course, it’s all just lines from a bad play.”

I met his eye. “Of course.”

We resumed our walk, both of us quieter than before.

Stories, you see, live in whispers. But some whispers are wearing armor.

* * *

“How did it go?” Denna asked, casually waiting for me beyond the main gates of the Maer’s estate. “I’m guessing from your expression not well.”

“Alveron’s not going to offer any aid to Roderick,” I said.

Though he hadn’t stated as much directly, I had spent enough time in the man’s company to get a sense of his character, and my instincts told me he had no intention of helping.

“Ah, what now then, do we ride back to Renere?”

“Not yet,” I said, turning back to stare at Alveron’s residence. “I need to go north, but before that there’s one more thing I need to do here.”

* * *

The Maer’s estate stretched out beneath the moon. Stone walls lay quiet, windows shuttered like sleeping eyes, but there was tension beneath the silence, waiting. Above, thin clouds floated in silver layers, as gentle as cloth drawn over a restless face, veiling the towers and making them strange. I crouched atop the slant of a merchant’s roof, so near the gardens I could taste the cool dark. From there I watched the patrols move, slow as heartbeats, regular as breath, pulsing beneath scattered patches of stitched-together light. Lanterns drew careful lines along the walkways, each flame precise, too precise for decoration. These were the watchers’ paths. The careful thread of their steps, woven night after night.

It looked different than I remembered. Not simply fortified, but alert. Awake in the way animals are when sensing weather before men can spot it.

I had told Alveron the truth. Or just enough of it not to trip the wire.

But the trouble with truth is that it’s rarely whole. And the things that truly matter don’t live in letters read aloud in the glow of a hearth. They live behind silences. In the things a man won’t say, not even to himself.

I couldn’t walk back in and ask the Maer to unhook a portrait and show me what lay behind it. I couldn’t afford to admit I’d come not just with nation-saving tidings, but for something far smaller, and older, and unforgivably personal.

There are things men will never show you. Not even when they shake your hand. Not even when they pretend to forgive. Not even over wine.

So I planned my own kind of courtesy. Not the kind that knocks at the front door, but the kind that climbs ivy and travels quiet beneath windows. The kind you’re never meant to see.

I tapped the slate beside me gently. Once, twice. A signal. Faint but deliberate.

At the treeline below, Denna shifted just enough for her shadow to shift back. She wouldn’t interfere unless something went wrong. I didn’t say as much when I asked her to wait, but she knew. Denna always knew the things I didn’t want to spell aloud.

I adjusted my shaed, kissed my fingertips, and began to descend.

The outer wall curved treacherously, an old Selic trick meant to befoul ladders. But I didn’t bring a ladder. What I had was a memory’s worth of footholds indenting the stone and fingers calloused by lute strings and harder things.

At the foot of the wall, I crouched beside an old ivy root curled like a dried serpent along the foundation. My hand moved to the right, parting brush. The blue thread I’d left hours earlier remained untouched, taut, and silent. That was good. It meant no patrol had disturbed this stretch since moonrise.

I steadied myself and climbed.

The climb proved slower than the last. Rain had drifted through less than a day before, leaving the moss slick and fragrant in its wake. Halfway up I nearly lost my grip on a loose stone, catching myself just in time by digging my fingertips into a fault-line knot. An old splinter buried itself beneath a nail, and I bit back a yelp as the pain flared sharp and sudden.

I reached the ledge with my pulse stamping sharp in my ears.

Then I saw it.

A glyph. Freshly scored into the underside of the eastward parapet.

It pulsed faintly, like amber eyes hiding in ash. There was no glow to betray it from a distance, yet near at hand, the edge shimmered with the subtle luster of breathing glass. A ward. Crude, but active. Likely tied to alerting a nearby scrying node or sympathist bell.

I cursed silently.

Reaching into my travel satchel, I drew out a tight-wrapped twist of copper ribbon and a cloth pouch of cider ash. I let my breath settle into a slow and steady rhythm, each inhale and exhale shaped by lessons learned in corners of the University too dangerous to name aloud. These were not tools. In my hands, they became promises. I whispered a shape to the ash, holding back the full weight of a name. Instead, I offered only a hint, folded inside a single syllable meant to cool the listening wind around the trigger.

The shimmer in the glyph slowed. Then stopped.

I didn’t move. Not immediately. These things needed to believe you were gone before they looked away.

Several heartbeats later, I stepped gently past it. It didn’t stir.

I let out a breath and slid beneath the wall’s lip.

Below me, the courtyard opened wide, a tongue nestled between twin rows of teeth. Guards drifted along their routine circuits, their movements seeming looser than they truly were. They moved with a studied ease, laughing softly at stories told just for company, yet their eyes swept the space too often for it to be boredom.

Plan A had been the servant’s chute in the west kitchen. The one left untouched since the Maer’s gout soured his appetite for anything but boiled eggs. But that path had been sealed. Bricked over. Forgotten. Plan B was the garden arch by the reflecting pool, where the ivy softened the world and the water waited for company. And Plan C?

I didn’t like thinking in letters beyond B.

I waited for the guard rounds to stagger, dropped to the sculpted trellis with the weight of a breath, and slipped toward the servant’s sub-wing.

Almost.

A glimmer caught my eye.

Another glyph. This one layered beneath a peeling section of paint near the molding.

Sloppier than the last.

But as I ducked beneath it, a gust of wind caught the trailing corner of my shaed and fluttered the edges against the molding.

A flash.

Damn.

I threw myself flat, heart ramming my ribs like a stuck cartwheel. A split-second delay, then a chime. Light, brittle, and not far off. A bell signal. Silent to most. Not to whom it mattered.

They would search this wing. Maybe not immediately. But soon.

No more delays.

I ducked into the first alcove I could find, nearly tripping over a crate of polished pewter. The room was narrow and unlit, lined with piles of linen. I pulled a cloth over myself, crouched behind a wardrobe, and forced my breathing down to a whisper.

Footsteps. Just one pair at first. Then another.

From the sounds, they weren’t on high alert. Still, someone would check. I had only a few minutes. If they checked systematically, I could count on three. If miracles favored me today, perhaps five.

I moved. Fast and quiet. I was no longer a drifting shadow. I had become a thread drawn taut.

The servant hallway smelled of soaproot and tallow, heavier than I remembered. Someone had cleaned thoroughly. I kept to the shadows I knew by name and dodged the brushing threads meant to track presence.

The passage behind the grapevine carving gave way more easily than I expected, whether from luck or from gradual disrepair. I stepped forward, entering the memory of the Maer’s chambers.

It had changed. Not by much. Just enough to feel brittle. It was as if someone had moved things only to set them back in place, arranged so carefully they gave the illusion nothing had shifted at all.

It was hard to tell if it had been done for comfort or for control.

In either case, I had no time to linger in wonder. I paid no attention to the Maer’s collection of jewel-inlaid cases, nor to the bone-inlaid music box that seemed to simper in the corner, nor to the combs fashioned from ivory teeth. I made my way directly to the portrait of Anastasia.

Not just my blood. A gatekeeper.

Carefully, I tilted it aside.

I expected the alcove.

What I didn’t expect was a copper filament unwinding from inside the panel. It pulsed red as it emerged, bright and alive in the dimness.

Breath catching in my throat, I reached in and twisted it taut, murmuring a soft binding, tempting the filament to close the loop instead of completing it. My fingers shook. The pressure on the syl bindings across my chest twitched. If I failed, I would glow like a bonfire to the eyes that listened through copper eyes and silver domes.

It held.

Barely.

I coaxed the panel open and found the box.

Yilish script curled along its edge like laughter caught mid-song.

I didn’t pause.

Didn’t wonder.

Didn’t hope.

I stole it.

* * *

Dawn brushed the horizon as Denna and I rode north. The box rested in my pack, its presence a quiet itch I couldn’t ignore.

“Denna,” I said, breaking the rhythm of hoofbeats. I pulled out the box and handed it to her, watching as curiosity lit her face.

“Oh, this is lovely,” she murmured, fingers brushing its carved surface. “Ruah, perhaps?”

“Maybe. But I’m hoping you’ll tell me what you make of it.”

She hefted it in one hand, giving it a cautious shake. A soft sound stirred inside, a clink that made her brow furrow. “There’s something inside. Stone, perhaps? Oh, these are Yilish knots.” She ran her fingers over the carvings, her expression sharpening.

“Kist and crayle!” I said, barely stopping my horse from bolting at my outburst. “I thought so too. I’ve been studying it all night, but the meaning escapes me.”

Denna’s touch lingered on the box. “It’s old, expertly made. I’ve never seen anything this intricate.” She frowned slightly, as though something about it unsettled her. “Where did you get it?”

“An aunt,” I said, avoiding her gaze.

“Keep your secrets, then,” she teased with a small smile, though her attention quickly returned to the box.

I gave her a moment, the silence stretching until I couldn’t bear it. “Well?”

“Well what?” she replied, looking up with deliberate innocence.

“What does it say?”

She smirked. “Words. Riddles. But deciphering them will take time. And impossible while riding a horse.”

“Fair enough,” I murmured, hesitating as she glanced at me.

“May I hold onto it?” she asked.

I swallowed the instinct to refuse. If not Denna, then who? “Just make sure you return it.”

“When have I ever not?” she said with a smile too bright to trust fully.

I forced a smile of my own, though we both pretended not to notice the sting of the lie hanging between us.

CHAPTER 28.

FOR THE GREATER GOOD.

LEVENTIS WASN’T MUCH to look at, a gathering of crooked rooftops and muddy streets where the Four Corners tangled in trade. Nothing about it demanded notice. Yet places like these often held secrets far greater than themselves.

Denna fell into step beside me as we neared the center of town, her dappled mare trailing lazily behind. The breeze played gently with the ribbon in her hair, the bright red band a rare splash of color against the dull, dusty street.

“So, what’s the plan?” she asked, her voice both playful and curious. “I imagine we haven’t come all this way just for a quiet pint and an early night.”

I hesitated before answering, knowing what I had to say and dreading the reaction it would bring. “I need to go in alone.”

Denna raised an eyebrow at me, the one she used whenever my reasoning amused her. “Forgive me. I wasn’t aware this had suddenly become your quest in your private corner of the world.”

“It’s not like that,” I said quietly, carefully. “There are things I haven’t told you yet. Things I should have told you before now.”

Her expression shifted, amusement falling away and replaced by something sharper and colder. “Things,” she repeated slowly, the word heavy enough to anchor me in place.

“Yes.” I forced myself to continue walking, though each step felt more awkward than the last. “If what I seek is really inside that tavern,” I trailed off, searching for the right way to say it, but everything just sounded like a coward's evasion. “It could put you in danger.”

She reached out, catching my arm and stopping me in the middle of the path. Her eyes locked mine. “Kvothe, I’m a big girl. I’ve taken care of myself far longer than you’ve known me. I’m no stranger to risk.”

“I know,” I answered quickly. Too quickly. “But if things go badly inside, these people have no love for strangers. Especially strangers asking dangerous questions. If I go alone, I won’t hesitate. I won’t be distracted.”

“I know,” I said quickly. Too quickly. “I know that. But if something goes wrong in there…” I gestured vaguely to the squat, sagging tavern at the edge of the square. “These people don’t take kindly to outsiders, especially ones who ask questions. If it’s just me, I won’t hesitate. I can handle it.”

Her grip loosened slightly, though her fingers still lingered gently on my sleeve. “You really are terrible at lying, Kvothe.”

I offered her the best smile I could manage under the circumstances. “Then it’s fortunate I’m not lying.”

She released me then, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Fine. But I won’t wait forever, and I won’t fish you out of a ditch if you stir up trouble.” Then, as if desperate to not part on a bitter note, she added, “Don’t linger too long.”

I nodded and turned toward the squat, sagging tavern at the edge of the square.

* * *

The Weeping Eye was nearly empty. Even so, there was nothing welcoming in its solitude. Dust drifted slowly through a single shaft of sunlight from the twisted window, the air heavy with an unpleasant must. A handful of patrons sat quietly in shadowed corners. Their murmuring voices died away as I pushed the door shut behind me.

The barkeep glanced toward me without much interest, the weary gaze of a man disturbed by an unwelcome arrival. I walked up to the counter, noticing the way the neglected floorboards sagged under a weight that hadn’t changed in years.

“Finger tea,” I said softly.

The bartender grunted, reached for a cup, and began pouring with all the care he might lend to washing his hands.

Silence stretched out around me. I felt the eyes of every man in the room settle on my back. Their gazes pressed into my skin, urging me to turn and face them. Instead, I slid the cup aside when it was placed before me and leaned closer toward the barkeep.

“I’m looking for Claude,” I murmured.

His hand froze mid-motion, but his expression didn’t change. Without a word, he glanced over my shoulder.

Footsteps scraped behind me, followed by the heavy sound of wood dropped into place. Someone had barred the door, and the tavern grew colder by the moment. My fingers brushed Caesura at my side, the leather of the scabbard rough beneath my hand.

Before I could decide what came next, a voice, calm and unfamiliar, broke the silence.

“I’d leave that sword be if I were you.”

The speaker sat alone at a nearby table. His hair was white and thin, his scalp showing through like glimpses of pale parchment. His face was weathered like seasoned oak, worn but unyielding. Despite his age, the room seemed smaller for his presence, filled by a quiet authority that brooked no argument. A slim dagger of Ramston steel rested in a plain sheath at his hip.

“You wanted Claude,” he said, holding my gaze firmly. “You’ve found him. Sit.”

I paused, scanning the dim room. Men stood watchfully at the edges, their hands resting quietly on clubs and knives. They did not move. This was no gathering of common brawlers. It felt sharper, colder.

Slowly, deliberately, I crossed the distance to his table and eased myself into the chair opposite.

Claude’s eyes pinned me like bits of sharp blue ice. “Who sent you?”

“Dagon.”

Claude did not blink, nor did he seem surprised. “Dagon,” he repeated slowly. “If that’s true, he gave you no token or sign known to us. Which leaves me wondering why he’d send a boy here without a proper mark.”

“I told him I had questions,” I said carefully. “He told me you might have answers.”

Claude let out a dry, brittle laugh. “The Amyr rarely speak to outsiders.” He leaned back, fingers drumming lightly on the tabletop. “But I’ll humor you. Ask your question, boy.”

I spoke plainly, unwilling to waste the moment. “How do I find the Chandrian?”

The air grew instantly tighter, sharper, dangerous enough to cut.

Claude’s expression turned cold. “You will not speak their names here,” he warned, quiet and firm. “Do it again and you won’t finish the word.”

I nodded slowly.

“Why do you seek them?” he asked. His voice was gentle, but his words carried the weight of stone.

“To kill them,” I replied simply.

He studied me closely, his expression unreadable. “Others have tried. No one has succeeded. Not truly. What makes you any different?”

I swallowed, my voice firm despite the weight of his scrutiny. “I have the will to see it through. No matter the cost.”

Claude’s lips twisted downward into something harder than a frown. Something older. “Then, if you know their names you don’t need me or mine. Names are a summons. Speak them in the wrong shadow, boy, and they’ll find you before you can so much as draw that pretty sword.”

I let out a slow breath. His words carried an awful kind of truth, jagged-edged and cold.

“You mentioned others have tried,” I said, pressing on. “What happened?”

“They killed the Chandrian,” Claude said quietly. “But death never holds them long. They returned. Fire and ruin. Vengeance and bloodshed. The stories always end the same way. You cannot kill the wind. You cannot drown the sea.”

I leaned forward, determined to press further. “Then what is your role in all this? What do you Amyr do, hiding here in shadow?”

Claude’s face remained calm. “We thwart them. We silence their stories. We erase their names from memory.”

“For the greater good,” I said quietly.

“For the greater good,” he echoed, and for the first time his weariness was visible. “But if you expect us at your back with blades drawn, you’re mistaken. We are fewer now, scattered and hunted.”

My temper stirred within me, but I held it in check. Even if they could not be moved to fight the seven, maybe they could still help Auri. “A coup is stirring,” I pressed. “Renere will fall if no one intervenes.”

Claude regarded me silently for a long moment. “We don’t meddle in affairs of state unless the Seven are involved. Even at our height, we did not fight for kings or their crowns.”

“Even if kingdoms collapse into chaos?” I asked sharply.

“Even then,” he replied, his voice steady.

The anger in me cooled quickly, replaced by bitterness. I rose from my seat, ready to leave, but Claude’s voice stopped me once more.

“A word of advice, boy.” His tone was softer now, tempered by a strange kindness. “The weight of the world will break you if you think to carry it alone.”

* * *

Denna was waiting just where I left her. “Stoic, angry, and frustrated,” she teased as I approached. “I’d recognize that expression anywhere. Didn’t go well, did it?”

“No,” I admitted.

Instead of pressing me further, she fell into step at my side, her silence a rare but comforting presence.

If the Amyr wouldn’t act, I would.

CHAPTER 29.

LOCKLESS.

THE ROAD SOUTH TO Renere stretched long and winding ahead of us. Dust rose in thin plumes behind our horses as we rode in silence. Denna remained focused on the Lockless box, her lips forming the occasional fragment of a word as her fingers traced its carved patterns. Meanwhile, my mind churned with a puzzle of its own.

The Amyr. For years I pinned all my hopes on them, imagining them as avenging shadows, scholars and warriors who would stand beside me and help unravel the mystery of my family’s deaths. Instead, I found nothing but a shadow of the legend I had expected. The order was content to endure rather than act, to hide rather than strike. If the Chandrian were ever to be confronted, it seemed that task would fall to me alone.

Lost in thought, I barely registered Denna’s sudden cry.

“I’ve got it!” she exclaimed, her voice cutting through the quiet air like a plucked harp string.

Startled, I nearly slipped from my saddle. “The box?” I asked as I hurried to dismount and join her on the ground.

“I think I’ve deciphered part of it,” she said, her eyes bright with excitement. We quickly tethered the horses beneath a nearby tree, and Denna sat cross-legged on the grass with the box balanced delicately in her lap.

“Look here,” she began softly, her fingertips brushing over a symbol carved in the top left corner of the lid. “This section suggests something about dual ownership.” She moved her finger to another cluster of markings. “And here it mentions a key.” Her brow creased as she studied the next line. “But this part is strange. It speaks of a ‘lasting male essence.’”

“Male essence?” I echoed, raising an eyebrow.

“I did say it was strange,” she replied with a soft laugh. Her smile faded as her expression grew thoughtful and her voice fell quiet. “Some of these words I still can’t make out. I keep debating whether one is ‘cage’ or ‘coop’. But the last part is clear,” she said, meeting my eyes. She looked back down at the box and murmured, “By their blood, the ring remains closed.”

“The ring?” I asked.

Denna nodded, a frown tugging at her mouth. “Exactly. I was hoping you might know what it means.” Her voice trailed off, leaving the unspoken question hanging in the air.

“What about this part?” I asked, attempting to point her attention at another series of flowing patterns etched near the base of the box.

Denna hesitated. Then she took my hand, guiding my fingers over the final line of carvings as if to share the weight of their meaning. “‘Never free,’” she whispered. “‘For only the something of death lies beyond.’”

The carved words hung between us in the still afternoon. Neither of us spoke for a long moment, and a soft wind stirred the leaves overhead.

“Well, that sounds cheerful,” I said, trying to muster a smile.

Denna’s lips quirked in return, but worry still creased her brow. “That’s all I can make of it for now,” she said quietly, placing the box gently on the ground. “My grandmother was the real expert at this sort of thing. If only she were still alive.” She fell silent and looked away, regret flickering in her eyes.

“You’ve done more than enough,” I said, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Only a rare few could have even this much.”

“You flatter me too much,” Denna said, her gaze meeting mine for an instant before a lighter laugh slipped out. “Where in the Four Corners did you ever get ‘Dance’ from? That wasn’t even close.”

I shrugged to mask my anxiety. “Like I said, I am still learning. Or I was. With Master Lorren’s unexpected passing, it seems my studies are at their end.” We rose and made our way to the horses. As I began to untether the reins, I glanced at her. “What do you think it means?”

Denna paused, her earlier levity fading into unease. “Honestly? I’m not sure I want to find out what’s inside.”

* * *

As twilight fell, the final rays of the sun painted the horizon in hues of fire and ash. Denna and I turned off the main road and made our camp beside a still pond where a toppled greystone jutted from the shallows like the finger of some forgotten monument.

We unpacked with deliberate leisure, laying out a simple feast we had been saving for a lingering dusk like this one. There was thick bread, potatoes baked in the coals and still warm, figs we’d plucked fresh along the way, and butter so rich and firm it might as well have been cheese. By any simple measure it was already a feast. Even so, I had one more surprise tucked away.

“I’ve been saving this for just the right occasion,” I said as I pulled a bottle of strawberry wine from my travel sack.

Denna burst into laughter, falling back onto the grass. “You’ve been hauling that all this time?” she said, wiping a tear from her eye.

“What’s wrong with strawberry wine?” I asked, feigning offense.

“Nothing,” she said with a delighted grin. “It’s just funny you should say that.” With a playful flourish, she reached into her satchel and brought out a bottle of amber mead as her own offering.

I took the bottle gently from her hands and turned it to admire the elegant wax seal. “Metheglin!” I exclaimed. “The mead of kings. Well, if this isn’t the finest coincidence.”

Denna smiled, a flush warming her cheeks. “I picked it up in Anilin. I almost brought it out back in Renere, but I figured you needed all your wits about you for the duel.”

“You, Denna,” I said, sweeping into a dramatic bow, “are truly extraordinary.”

“And you,” she replied, “are far too easily impressed.”

The mead’s gentle fire blossomed in my chest, softening the hard edges of my thoughts. Stars kindled above, and we talked in low, easy voices. At first our conversation was light and unburdened. But as the night deepened and time itself seemed to slow and soften around us, our words grew deeper, and even our silences grew warm and companionable.

* * *

"The Vesumbri Islands," I said. My voice, loosened by drink, carried a hint of song. "They say a volcano god still gathers worship there. I have always wanted to see those islands with my own eyes."

Denna gave a low laugh, swirling the last of her mead in its bottle. "Exotic." She flashed me a teasing smile. "I've never ventured that far myself. Unfinished business keeps me close to home these days."

The lightness left her voice on those last words, and her gaze fell to the ground. I watched her quietly, uncertain whether I should break the hush growing between us.

At last, she spoke again, her tone soft with uncertainty. "That remedy you gave me did help for a while. But my breathing has grown worse again. It hurts more than it used to."

"Denna," I began softly, but the rest of my words died unspoken.

She drew a shaky breath and continued, "I saw a physician in Atur. He was University-trained." Denna hesitated, then went on, "He called it phthisis. Scarring of the lungs that will only grow worse over time." She paused, and the silence hung heavy. She could not bring herself to say the rest.

"No." I leaned forward, my voice suddenly fierce. "Come back to the University with me. Master Arwyl is the finest healer alive. If anyone can help you, he can."

Denna placed her hand against my cheek. "You're kind, Kvothe. Truly." I could hear the sorrow in her voice as she began to protest.

I cut her off before she could finish. "No," I said, more forcefully than I intended. "I don't care about your patron. Forget him. Come with me. Please."

For a long moment she simply looked at me, lips parted as if to shape words that did not come. Then she lowered her eyes and gave the faintest nod. "For you, Kvothe," she whispered. "I will."

The night deepened around us, wrapping us in quiet darkness and pressing us close. We lay side by side on the soft grass. Denna gazed up at the scattered stars overhead, her voice as soft as a sigh. "I thought you would kiss me that night in Roent's caravan," she said.

“Would you have wanted me to?” I asked, my voice unexpectedly nervous.

Denna tilted her head toward me, her meaning clear before she even spoke. “Why not try and find out?”

"Would you have wanted me to?" I asked. I was surprised to hear an unsteady tremor in my own voice.

Denna turned her head toward me, her answer already shining in her dark eyes. "Why not try and find out?"

I leaned in until the space between us disappeared. When our lips met, the rest of the world fell away. It was neither Felurian's careful art nor any practiced technique. It was something messier, simpler, and far more honest. It was Denna.

I won’t share more than that. The rest is mine alone.

Afterward, we lay tangled together beneath the open sky. She was perfect, at least to me. When she noticed me staring as I struggled to catch my breath, a mischievous smile curled at the corner of her mouth.

"What's so funny?" I asked, giving her a gentle poke in the side.

Denna rolled onto her back with a quiet giggle. "You just reminded me of a story I heard once," she said. "They call it ‘The Dulator’."

"I can't say I'm familiar with that one," I admitted, brushing a strand of hair away from her face.

She poked me back playfully. "Ah, the Stealer of Hearts," she replied. "I'll tell it to you sometime." Her eyes glistened with a secret delight as she looked at me. "My Dulator."

I chuckled softly. "I've been called worse." I pressed a tender kiss to her lips.

"Hold me. Keep me warm, my beautiful thief," she murmured.

And I did.

CHAPTER 30.

SWIRLS IN THE WATER.

THE NIGHT STRETCHED ON, calm and quiet save for the faint rustling of leaves and the occasional chirp of crickets. I sat by the dying embers of our fire, wide awake and restless. Denna lay nearby with her head resting on her bundled cloak, the gentle rise and fall of her breathing a rare and peaceful rhythm. My cloak had slipped from her shoulder, and I resisted the urge to pull it back into place for fear of waking her. Instead, I watched her for a long while, caught between thoughts of what could be and what might never come.

For the first time in weeks, my mind strayed toward something simpler. What might life look like when this was all over, if it ever ended at all? Perhaps we would journey to Ralien in the Caeld, or to distant Iskur at the edge of the Commonwealth. I pictured us in a place where no one knew my name, somewhere without Chandrian or Amyr casting shadows over our days. Even that small dream felt fragile, like something delicate cupped in trembling hands.

The ground trembled faintly beneath me, breaking the stillness. A distant rumble reached my ears, like thunder but from a clear sky. I pressed my ear to the earth. Hoofbeats. Dozens of them. No, more.

“Denna.” My voice was low but urgent. “Denna, wake up.”

She groaned softly, turning away. I didn’t have time to be gentle. I shook her shoulder harder. “Denna! Get up! Someone’s coming.”

Her eyes shot open, and confusion gave way to alarm as she sat up. “What?”

“No time,” I said sharply as I sprang to my feet. “We need to move.”

We scrambled to pack what little we could, leaving behind anything that might slow us. The horses were already pawing at the earth, sensing the unease in the air, and within moments, we were in the saddle and riding hard into the night.

* * *

Hoofbeats pounded after us in relentless rhythm, growing louder with every heartbeat. My own mount was sluggish, still stiff with cold from sleep, while Denna’s mare fought the reins, wild-eyed with fear. Whoever chased us meant to see us caught.

“Do you think it’s just patrols?” Denna called out over the pounding of hooves, her voice tight with panic.

“No,” I called back, voice grim. “They’re tracking us too well.”

Each time I angled us off course, hoping the uneven terrain might slow them, they adjusted their path to match. Whoever they were, they hunted us like prey. Moments later, the first shouts reached us, jeers carried on the wind far too close for comfort. I stole a glance over my shoulder. Pale faces flickered through the trees, and torchlight glinted off hungry grins and drawn swords.

“Faster!” I urged, though I knew it was futile. Our horses were flagging, and the ground had grown uneven and treacherous.

It was only a matter of time before disaster found us. We burst out of the trees into open air. A vast, still lake lay before us, stretching in every direction like a black mirror beneath the pale moonlight. Our horses slowed on their own, hooves splashing in the icy shallows as they balked at the water’s edge.

Denna reined in her mare. “Kvothe?” My name trembled on her lips.

I didn’t answer immediately, but my mind was racing. Ahead of us lay nothing but dark water. Behind us, the men were closing in. The far shore was out of reach, and we would be easy targets out on the open water.

The riders emerged along the lakeshore, their silhouettes solidifying into men on horseback in a grim procession. At least a dozen of them fanned out along the bank. At their center was a man in leather armor, his thick black beard woven into a dozen braids. A spark flashed, and a torch flared to life in his hand as he lifted it high.

Tam. The name rose unbidden in my mind, but it brought only a spark of recognition. I had known him years ago, on one of my first journeys with Roent’s caravan. Back then he had been merely a loud-mouthed mercenary. Now he was something far worse.

“Come out o’ the water,” Tam shouted, his deep voice rolling over the lake like distant thunder. “I promise to make it quick.” He paused, then grinned. “Cross me, and I’ll make it twice as ugly for your lady.”

His words tasted like bile. I glanced at Denna and saw that she had drawn a thin steel blade. Her hands trembled, and her eyes were wide with fear. Something tore loose at the sight of her, as if a dam inside me had burst.

“What do we do, Kvothe?” Denna asked in a small, frightened voice.

I steeled myself and met her eyes. “Listen to me,” I said, my voice low and urgent. “When I say go, ride for the shore and don’t stop. Head south. Don’t look back.”

Denna shook her head. “No, I’m not leaving you,” she protested.

“We don’t have time to argue!” I snapped. “Do what I say, Denna. Go.”

Tam let out a harsh laugh and spurred his horse into the shallows after us. His men followed, hesitant, their torchlight casting rippling shadows across the water. I spun and roared at them, my voice thick with contempt. “Cowards! You’re too afraid to face me alone!”

The taunt worked. Tam grunted and kicked his horse forward. His men followed reluctantly.

I split my mind, reaching deep into sympathy. Eight threads of thought. Then nine. With a grim effort, I froze most of them in place. Their horses reared and thrashed, but could not move. Still, three riders slipped free of my control and charged after Denna as she raced toward the shore.

“Damn it,” I whispered under my breath, and the icy lake and cold air seemed to listen. The Name of the water was written everywhere around me. It was etched into the moonlight’s reflection on the surface of the lake and curled within the ripples that lapped at the shore. It was beautiful. It was terrible.

I spoke its Name.

A thunderous roar filled the night as the lake answered. A massive swell surged outward, rising taller than a man before crashing down in fury. It lashed toward the bandits, their horses screaming as they tried to flee. The dark wave swallowed them whole, dragging them down into the water’s cold embrace.

Shivering, I scrambled back into the saddle. “Hold on, Denna,” I murmured as I kicked the beast into motion. The poor animal was exhausted, foaming at the bit as I urged it forward, but it obeyed. Somewhere in the distance, Denna needed me.

* * *

My horse labored beneath me, chest heaving and hooves pounding against the hard earth. It ran as if it could taste the desperation in the air. Ahead, three figures stood in the pale moonlight, looming like long shadows over a small shape sprawled on the ground.

In the distance, I heard Denna’s mare scream. It was a terrible, piercing sound that sent an icy bolt up my spine.

My heart surged. I do not even remember leaping from the saddle. One moment I was astride my horse, and the next I hit the ground hard, my knees nearly buckling. But I was already moving. My hand found Saicere’s hilt and the sword slid free of its scabbard with a ringing whisper. The blade caught the moonlight as I sprang forward.

The first man turned to face me, swinging his sword in a desperate arc meant to cut me down. He was too slow. My strike shattered his feeble guard and bit into his shoulder. He stumbled. I followed with a second stroke, swift and brutal, splitting him from temple to jaw. He crumpled silently to the ground.

The second rushed at me with a furious growl, a torch blazing in one hand and a notched sword in the other. I met him in a whirl of motion, spinning low and sweeping my leg out under him. My boot connected hard with his knee, and he let out a grunt as he stumbled. I brought my sword up in a sharp arc and slashed across his wrist, knocking the torch from his grasp. He bellowed in pain and lunged, swinging wildly.

But he was too close. My sword snagged beneath the corpse of the first man and tore from my grip. For a single breath, my hand held nothing but empty air.

Time seemed to slow. A word rose inside me, unbidden and urgent. It was not born of thought or intention, but of pure instinct. It was raw and sharp on my tongue. I gave it voice before I even realized.

"Fire."

The torchbearer burst into flames. Tongues of fire leapt from his gaping eyes and open mouth. The torch itself had not touched him. This fire bloomed from within. He let out a high, choked scream as his face began to melt like wax. He collapsed into a blazing heap before he even struck the ground.

The third man froze. His sword hung limp at his side and his lips moved in a frantic prayer. “Merciful Tehlu, save me,” he whimpered.

“I am not Tehlu,” I said. My voice sounded hollow and strange, as if it belonged to someone else.

The words had barely left my lips when the night itself seemed to roar. A mass of air expunged from him, unseen but brutal. He gasped and staggered back, clawing at his throat. I watched his chest collapse inward, ribs bending like the staves of a barrel under immense pressure. A heartbeat later, a final crack split the darkness. The third man fell where he stood, lifeless.

I ran past him without a second glance. Denna was all that mattered now. I found her huddled at the base of a tall boulder, her back pressed hard against the stone. Her face was deathly pale and streaked with dirt. Somewhere her lamed mare whinnied softly in fear and pain.

"Denna!" I called, dropping to my knees beside her. I reached out, but she flinched away as if my touch would burn her. Her eyes were fixed on me, wide and full of terror. Her chest heaved with each ragged breath, and her lips trembled.

In that instant, I realized she had seen everything. Every terrible moment.

I tried again, keeping my voice gentle. "Denna," I whispered, reaching toward her once more. Her small knife slipped from her fingers and fell to the dirt with a soft clink. She shuddered, then she broke completely. Fresh tears carved new streaks down her already tear-stained cheeks as her body buckled with sobs.

I caught her before she hit the ground, pulling her into my arms. “It’s over,” I whispered, holding her tight against me. "You’re safe now."

* * *

For all we’d endured, our wounds were merciful ones. Denna’s mare had fallen in the dark, taking her down hard. She brushed it off, but the streak of dried blood in her hair told another story. Meanwhile, I carried no visible scars, only the kind that haunted. My hands trembled faintly at my sides, their shaking unbidden, unwanted.

The mare hadn’t been so lucky. Her leg had twisted beneath her like a snapped branch, and there were no kind roads left for her to walk. I ended it swiftly, murmuring soft nonsense as if I could quiet the breaking of her breath. That was the worst part, the way it lingered even after she was gone.

Denna said little, and moved to keep a cautious distance between us.

I didn't blame her, I needed to keep distance from myself too. So, to distract myself, I turned to a quieter kind of magic. From the bottle I’d scavenged, I poured a ribbon of water into my hands and reached out with a whisper. The Water answered, subtle and soft, then curled into a ring that spun between my fingers. It joined the others I’d gathered over time, rings of wind, stone, amber, wood, and bone. Each one held its own quiet truth.

As the water pooled away into silence, my eyes caught the dying orange nib of a coal in the dirt near where we’d camped. Something simple, nearly hidden under the film of ash. Almost gone, but not quite. The thief in me stooped before the bard could hesitate. I plucked it up with careful fingers, cradling it, listening for the faint whisper of its name.

Fire is a raucous thing, riotous and wild, but there’s a grace to its last glimmer when it’s smoke and heat, its hunger gone. It took less effort than I expected, and the strand of its name came willingly to me. The coal flared briefly, then reshaped itself into a circle, a thin, flickering band of flame around my fingers.

“That’s a pretty thing you’ve made there,” Denna said, her voice catching me between surprise and shame. Her words carried warmth, but her eyes had a sharper glint. She’d been watching me longer than I realized, quiet as frost on glass.

“Comes in handy,” I said lightly, letting the fire spiral away into nothing. Then I turned and offered her the water bottle.

She hesitated, her fingers brushing the lip of the bottle but not taking it. The moment stretched too long before she withdrew. “No, thank you,” she said simply, her eyes settling on the horizon instead.

* * *

At dawn, we set out once more. Denna rode my horse, looking small in the saddle with her arms wrapped around herself like armor, while I walked alongside, leading the horse by the reins. The road was slick with mud and pocked with ruts, which slowed our pace. Still, I found some solace in the thought that we would reach Renere by tomorrow. Maybe at a later hour, but in time to stop Auri’s wedding.

For a while, we walked in silence. The only sounds were the creak of the saddle and the wet squelch of mud beneath my boots.

“How do you think they found us?” Denna asked at last.

I turned the thought over like a stone between my fingers. “Campfire,” I answered, too quickly for it to sound honest. “Most likely they saw our fire and thought we’d be easy pickings. Bandits move fast when desperation bites.”

She kept her eyes on the road ahead and said nothing. I could tell she wasn’t convinced. Neither of us believed it was quite that simple.

I wondered if I should tell her what my gut kept whispering. It warned that the bandits had moved too cleanly and with too sharp a purpose. Someone had set them on us. Someone who knew exactly what they wanted. But I swallowed the words. Denna carried enough of her own silences. I would not pile mine into her arms.

“The one with the black beard,” I said after a moment, trying to sound casual. “I’ve seen him before. He was a caravan guard who turned mercenary. My guess is he fell on hard times and traded his coin for sharp steel and heavier crimes.” I tried to keep my tone light, but the words rang hollow in my mouth.

The silence returned heavier than before. It lingered between us like a weight neither of us dared to name.

The rugged crags forced us to slow to a crawl. Jagged stones bit at my boots, and Denna’s cloak caught in the wind. The sun gave light but no warmth, and my feet ached with every step on the uneven ground. At last we reached an old pass high in the hills. From the narrow path, we could see far into the valley below.

I almost missed it at first. A flicker of movement in the canyon below caught my eye, too organized to be natural. I stopped in my tracks and scanned the hollow below. Then I saw it. Rows of tents stood in neat formation, their campfires burning low. Armed men moved among them with purpose. A camp.

I dropped into a crouch, motioning to Denna to kneel beside me. “There must be at least five hundred soldiers down there,” I murmured, my stomach sinking as I counted the tents. The men moved in clusters, and their steel caught glints of pale sunlight.

“Do you recognize the uniforms?” she asked softly.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. But something else caught my eye. A pale banner snapped in the wind above a large white pavilion at the center of the camp. I froze. It was trimmed in silver and emblazoned with a coiled serpent.

“Jakis,” I said grimly. “That many troops this close to Renere means he must be working with Fascino.”

I stood abruptly, my voice taut with urgency. “We’ve lost too much time already. We need to get back to Renere.”

Denna nodded, but her gaze remained fixed on the camp below, her eyes sharp with thought. The wind stirred, snapping the banner once more. The serpent on it seemed to coil even tighter.

CHAPTER 31.

THE DECEIT.

DIRT CLUNG TO every inch of me, coating my boots, my shirt, and even my teeth. By the time we reached the Blind Beggar, night had folded over the city like worn velvet. My ribs ached with every breath, but I didn’t let us slow. Denna followed without a sound.

I knocked. A shuffle, the scrape of a chair, then Bast swung the door open. “Finally. I was starting to think you’d gone and gotten yourself,” he began, but his words died when he saw Denna. “Oh!” His eyes widened as he caught sight of her.

Behind him, Sim and Wil leaned forward from their seats, their expressions shifting from relief to alarm.

“Denna! Good lord, what happened to you?” Sim asked, half-rising. His voice brimmed with that anxious kindness that might irritate if it weren’t so unerringly genuine.

“Fell off my horse,” Denna said, brushing past him like a ghost propped up by borrowed grace. “Got anything to eat?” She paused, her empty hands hanging loosely by her side. “I'm starving.”

“Er, I think Wil has half an onion left from earlier,” Sim offered hesitantly.

“An onion?” Denna blinked, her voice half incredulous, half amused. “Just an onion?”

“It’s on a stick,” Wil said as flatly as ever. “But if you’re not interested,” he began, but Denna cut him off.

“God’s teeth, it might as well be roasted lamb,” she said, holding her hands out toward him. “Pass it over.”

As she moved through the room, she carried that odd air of hers, light and unshakable, despite the shadows beneath her eyes. I, by contrast, collapsed into a chair and began the laborious task of prying off my boots.

I didn’t want to say it aloud. The words already tasted like old ash. But Sim just looked at me with the same hopeful expression he always wore, too kind, too human for days like these.

“So,” I asked, looking between Wil and Sim, “any luck?”

Wil answered first, his voice clipped. “We got the letter into his hands. Taliver helped. But either it never left the servants’ floor or he read it and ignored it.”

“He ignored it,” Sim murmured. “He has to have.”

“Then the court is deaf on both ends,” I said. “The Maer wasn't cruel, just absent. Cloaked in formality, drowning in caution. He knows something’s coming but would rather wait in safety.”

Bast made a low growling sound, rolled his shoulders. “We’re running out of cards.”

I looked at him, letting the weight of it settle before I spoke. “It’s worse than you think.”

“Oh, good,” Wil muttered, trying too hard to sound casual. “Let me guess, Jakis is having tea with the Maer, or a horde of Shamblemen is about to crash the city gates?”

“I wish you were exaggerating,” I said. “I really do.”

“We spotted an army. Jakis’ colors flying high. They’re camped in a ravine less than two hours from here. Waiting.”

Sim set the onion down carefully, like it had begun to hum.

“I think I’d rather take my chances with the Shamblemen.”

Wil cursed under his breath. Bast’s posture sharpened, like a bow pulled taut. “If they’re that close,” he said, “why not bring it straight to the King?”

I shook my head. “Roderick’s buried beneath silk-tongued flatterers. News worse than ours won’t reach him for a month, if ever.”

“Or ever. It’s not King Roderick’s court anymore,” Sim said bitterly. “It’s a curtain.”

Bast muttered a curse in Faen, low and sharp as broken glass. “Fools die prettiest when the silk’s still warm.”

Wil and Sim exchanged a look. It was short, but heavy as an anchor.

“What?” I asked.

Wil cleared his throat, folding his hands. “It’s not that we don’t agree. We do. It’s just that we’ve started cooking up something else. Not elegant. Not even lawful. But it might be the only way to shake the right trees.”

“Tell me.”

“We start,” Sim said, his voice thin. He glanced toward Denna, then back to me. “With kidnapping.”

* * *

The sound of my boots on stone echoed in the cold halls of the citadel. Despite the disguise I wore, a garish uniform in green and gold belonging to the royal tailor, each step sounded loud enough to wake the dead.

“Not much further now,” said my escort, a short man named Galeshim whose face was pinched and his pace relentless. He snapped endlessly at those who crossed our path. “Out of the way, move aside, urgent business!”

I shifted the cumbersome bundle of fabric in my arms, frilled and blindingly white. It was heavier than it looked, smelling faintly of lavender and starch. My skin itched beneath the false mask I wore, my flame-red hair and sharp edges erased by Bast’s carefully woven glamourie. When I glanced at my reflection, I saw Artemi Ilario, a man with weathered skin and weary eyes, far older than his years.

We reached a doorway guarded by two soldiers clad in the King’s crimson and gold. They stood unmoving, expressions carved from stone.

“Open the door,” Galeshim commanded, waving his hands impatiently.

Neither guard stirred.

“Are you deaf?” he snapped. “This is the King’s personal tailor. Let us through at once.”

The guards glanced at each other but did not budge. Galeshim’s mouth twitched, his confidence faltering. He turned to the guards again, more wary now than commanding. “Gentlemen, I assure you, this delay is not only discourteous, it is dangerous. If the King finds fault in the gown’s fit, it will not be my name he speaks with displeasure.”

Still, they held fast. Galeshim turned to me then, offering a stiff, apologetic gesture. “Perhaps, good master, you might impress upon them the urgency.”

Stepping forward, I lifted my chin and let the dim torchlight reveal the face Bast had crafted for me. Older. Sterner. A stranger’s face entirely. I spoke in an accent carefully learned from a few hurried hours spent in desperate study. “I’d love to waste the night here exchanging empty words,” I said sharply, “but I’ve no patience left for thick-headed guards who confuse stubbornness with duty.”

The younger guard flinched, and the older stepped aside, mumbling an apology.

Within, lamplight spilled from high windows onto mirrors edged with gold and tables strewn with jewelry. A figure sat before a mirror, surrounded by maids hemming and pinning ribbons on pale swathes of fabric.

I shook the thin stick hidden within my sleeve, two quick flicks serving as the signal. A clever toy from Wil, bound with Alar enough to send a faint pulse through the citadel. At the outer gates, the others would be waiting and watching.

The maids around me paused, some freezing mid-motion, others glancing upward uncertainly.

“Ladies,” I began firmly, stepping fully into the role I wore, “His Majesty has sent me to make adjustments. Unburden yourselves of this task. Quickly.”

“We weren’t expecting anyone!” began one maid, but I clapped twice, sharp and firm.

“Go. Now.”

They gathered their sewing baskets hastily, hurrying out until I stood alone with the figure at the dressing table. Her head bowed slightly, frame slender, her brightness veiled by quiet sadness.

Stepping closer, I shook off the mask Bast had given me. “Auri,” I breathed, the name almost a question.

Slowly, she turned, her wide eyes meeting mine. One heartbeat passed, then another, before recognition blossomed on her face. “Kvothe?”

“Yes.”

She rose and was in my arms before the word was fully spoken. She felt slight as a bird, as if a strong wind might whisk her away. She laughed through tears, holding tightly to me as she whispered, “What have you brought me?”

A heavy crash shook the door. My body tensed instantly. “We need to leave,” I whispered, pulling out the alchemical vial Sim had handed me with far too much confidence earlier.

The liquid inside smelled like spoiled vinegar mixed with stale ale. Quickly, I smeared it onto my palms, pressing one hand against the stone of the window to test its hold.

“It’s safe, yes?” Auri asked softly, eyebrows drawn together.

A louder crash came from the door, answering before I could. “Safe enough.”

“Splendid.”

I eased myself onto the outer wall, the sprawling citadel below glittering like a jewel-studded tale. Auri wrapped her arms around my neck as every movement became deliberate, each muscle straining against instinct and gravity.

Then came the slick, sliding sensation as my palm began to slip against stone. The gel loosened, its hold weakening rapidly.

“There,” someone shouted from above us. “He’s escaping! After him!”

“We’ll be alright,” Auri whispered. Her words trembled like a hopeful prayer.

And I couldn’t answer her. Not yet.

CHAPTER 32.

THE FALL.

THE WIND WRITHED around me, humming a note I could almost taste. It was everywhere, pushing my hair, stinging my eyes, filling the space between my ribs and the stone wall I clung to. With it came the pull of an impossible thought. Let go, trust it, let it take you as it took Taborlin.

I considered it for half a heartbeat, but every inch of my body screamed in defiance. Such stories suited Taborlin the Great. But I was not great. Not yet.

Auri clung to my back, a slender bird made of secrets and moonlight. "No," she whispered softly, pressing her cheek against my shoulder. "The stones won’t let you fall. They remember how to hold hands."

I shifted my focus, forcing myself to see the stones beneath my fingers, broad and ancient. I felt their cold weight as the wind roared indignantly, demanding my attention. Then, as clear as my own name, I sensed it, not one stone but three. I reached for the name that bound them. Something inside me shifted. When I spoke, the tension in the rock eased, and the block beneath my toes pushed itself forward.

A step.

I tried again, the effort pressing against the edge of my mind, my focus flickering like a lantern caught in a storm. But it worked. Another stone eased forward. Then another. I crawled downward with agonizing slowness, my hands raw and trembling. Below, a balcony yawned open, a welcome escape. Relief sank its claws into my chest as I finally dropped onto its smooth, slick surface.

Each time, the act pressed the edge of my mind, my focus wavering like a lantern in the wind, but it worked. Another stone shunted out. Then another. I crawled downward in agonizing slowness, my hands raw and trembling. Below us, a balcony yawned open like an escape. Relief sank its claws into my chest as I dropped lightly onto the smooth, slick surface.

Through the open balcony doors an empty chamber stretched ahead. Stone floors polished by centuries of footsteps reflected the glow of an iron chandelier, its candles burning low. A long oak table stood at the center like the spine of the room. I lowered Auri gently, grasping her hand. “Come on,” I said, moving quickly. The sound of boots echoed faintly above us.

The first door was locked. The second opened a pitiful inch before the scrape of metal announced its bolt still held. The third swung wide just as four knights spilled into the room, swords drawn. I pulled Auri close, pressing her against me as the knights fanned outward. A man wearing a captain’s sash barked an order. “Hold!” His eyes darted between me, the broken window, and Auri. He was piecing the story together in fragments.

“Trust me,” I murmured into her ear. Then, quick as a magician’s flourish, I drew a knife from my boot and pressed it to her throat. “Stay back!” I shouted, my voice lashing through the room.

Auri gave a small, frightened gasp, trembling like a leaf caught in wind. "Oh, please," she whispered, eyes wide and glass-bright. "He’ll cut the moon right out of me."

The captain froze, his hand tightening around the leather-wrapped hilt of his sword. “Easy,” he said carefully. “No one has to get hurt.”

“Over there,” I hissed, motioning with the knife. “All of you, to the far wall.”

The steel-clad soldiers obeyed, their boots scraping across grout until their backs touched cold stone. With my knife still held against Auri’s throat, I maneuvered us toward the door they had entered, my pulse hammering in my ears. Three paces from escape, I heard new footsteps, measured and deliberate.

Roderick entered, his chest heaving, crimson cloak trailing behind him. Baron Jakis hovered at his right, pale and stiff, flanked by two of his guards. Normally, royalty might freeze me in place. But I was too close to breaking, too close to failure. Behind Roderick, more armored men poured into the room, lining the walls like wolves stalking prey.

“Unhand her!” Roderick spat, his voice trembling like a taut bowstring. “If a single hair is harmed, I will have you carved into pieces and fed to the crows.”

“You’ve left me no choices, Your Majesty.” My words came quick and desperate, angling instead of striking. My grip tightened. “Your city isn’t safe. Your court isn’t safe.”

“I’ve heard enough of your conspiracies!” Roderick hissed, but then he hesitated.

I pressed deeper into the silence between us. “Ask Jakis,” I said calmly. “Ask him about the army.”

“What?” The King’s eyes cut to the Baron. “You would swear to me, Vito?”

“If this sorry liar had seen an army,” Jakis said steadily, though he shifted slightly on his feet, “he would be dead already. He scrambles for lies to save his own skin.”

“Send scouts then,” I countered sharply. “Let them sally forth and finally see with their own hungry eyes.”

Before Roderick could reply, Fascino Regent appeared at the edge of the room. His stride was unhurried, his detachment of guards surrounding him like vipers. Unlike Jakis, Fascino smiled.

“Fascino.” The King’s voice shook with fury and wounded pride. “What madness is this? You would betray me, after everything?”

Fascino gave a cold smile, meeting the King’s eyes without fear. “Madness? No, Roderick. Only clarity. Jakis brought his little forces, but mine never truly left.”

Roderick turned red, then white. “You! After all I’ve—”

Fascino waved him off lazily. “Spare us the lamentations, Roderick.” He spoke darkly now. “You ruled with song when the world demanded flame.”

The sound that followed broke the air in two. Screams rose, metal clanging sharply below. Roderick shouted something, but his words were lost as Fascino’s men drew their weapons. Blades flashed. Swords clashed with fury, blood spilling mute and black across pale stone.

“You! Move!” I snarled at Roderick, dragging him and Auri toward the door as chaos devoured the chamber. “Which way?” I demanded without looking back.

“North,” Auri said, pulling at my sleeve. “The Tower of Tears.”

Roderick blinked, his breathing ragged, and nodded. “That way.” He stumbled forward, leading us left.

We ran. It was a small mercy that the halls were clear. The only sound was our frantic footfalls echoing off stone. Remembering the plan, I fumbled in my pocket for the sticks that would signal the others that everything had truly gone to hell.

“Kvothe!” Auri’s small cry caught me. I looked back to see them, a dozen knights with Fascino’s sigil bright on their chests, rounding the corner less than forty feet behind us.

I stopped without thought, planting myself between them and the others. “Keep going!” I shouted over my shoulder. “Get to the tower!”

“Kvothe, no!” Auri’s voice broke, but Roderick grabbed her, pulling her onward.

I turned to face the enemy. Perhaps I looked pitiful, no armor and an arrow quivering from my shoulder, but power roared beneath my skin. When I called the Name of the Wind, the walls seemed to tighten in fear.

It ripped forward like vengeance, howling. Curtains tore free, slicing through soldiers with rusted iron rods. One screamed as he flew backward and smashed into the wall. Another tumbled through the shattered window, armored body plummeting to the chaos below.

But not all of them fell. The second rank knelt, crossbows at the ready. I saw the bolt too late. It punched into my left shoulder and pinned me back against the wall. Pain shot through me like lightning through a jagged crevice. Still I drew myself forward, spilling my Alar wide enough to hold them rooted.

Steel flashed, and the third bowman crumpled, gurgling as Sim retracted his blade from the man’s chest. Wil stepped forward, axe in hand, eyes sharp. “Charred body of Tehlu, I thought you would be dead by now.”

“So did I,” I croaked, clutching my shoulder.

“Denna’s waiting at the gate,” Sim said, already hauling me upright. “Let’s end this.”

But as the screaming continued above us, I turned toward the Tower. “Not without them.” With steel crashing at our backs, we ran toward what remained.

CHAPTER 33.

THE TOWER.

THE SMELL STRUCK first, sour ale soaked into wood, rancid grease spilled and left to linger, the close, heavy scent of unwashed bodies pressed too tight together. The garrison was a shattered remnant of itself. Sixteen guards slumped in a space built for twice their number, fingers curled loosely around bottles, eyes glazed by drink. Some regarded me blankly, faces slack, while others ignored me entirely, heads bowed and shoulders limp like scarecrows abandoned to a storm.

This was no fortress. It was a hollow shell drowning in surrender.

Roderick paced the center of the room, his voice sharp against the drunken murmurs. “Ready yourselves! Get moving, damn you! They’ll be at the gates any moment!” His commands stumbled uselessly against their indifference. The strength he tried to summon was fragile, a brittle mask pretending to be stone.

My eyes met his then, and in that instant I understood. The panic behind his commands was not meant for his men alone. It was a refrain he spoke for himself, something to hold back the crushing weight of betrayal.

“Kvothe!” Auri’s voice snapped me back. She hurried toward me, eyes wide with worry fixed upon the crimson stain blossoming slowly across my shoulder. “You’re hurt!”

Glancing downward, I finally took measure of the crossbow bolt lodged beneath my clavicle. Four inches of blackened oak jutted out mockingly, shallow enough to let me stand yet deep enough to remind me how thin the line was between breathing and silence. Lucky, I thought, though the word felt bitter on my tongue. What kind of fool calls himself lucky with a shard of wood buried in his chest?

“I’ll live,” I said, though every movement sent fire blooming beneath my skin.

Sim paled visibly behind me, stepping closer to peer at the wound. “Looks pretty awful.”

“I know what to do!” Auri announced suddenly. Her voice, always airy and light, now held a firmness I’d never heard before. She grasped my arm, guiding me firmly toward a nearby stool. Auri wanting to help was expected. But Auri taking charge felt like stepping into another world entirely.

She was already tearing a strip from her sleeve. Her voice softened, patient yet firm as a mother’s command to a restless child. “You’ll sit right here. No moving around until I've set this straight.”

I opened my mouth to protest but found linen pressed firmly between my teeth. “Bite down,” she instructed sharply. “A hedgehog with a bolt sticking out of him isn't fooling anyone.”

I glared, but her quiet strength allowed no room for argument. She gestured quickly toward Sim, who hovered uncertainly. “Steady the bolt. Just behind the base, yes, good.” Then her eyes flashed toward Wil. “Break the shaft. Quick and clean.”

Wil frowned deeply. “Quick I can do. Clean is the trick.”

Auri offered no response, busying herself with quick, confident movements. Wil reached forward and snapped the bolt. The sound was sharp, like stone cracking in frost.

Pain flared bright and blinding, scattering every thought into splinters. The world narrowed sharply to agony. I hardly felt Auri draw the bolt free, her small hands swift and merciless, each motion practiced and exact. Somewhere beyond the edges of pain, Sim choked back nausea, and Wil turned aside, murmuring dark curses.

“You’re lucky,” Auri murmured finally, after tying the last strip snugly about my shoulder. Her voice had gentled again, soothing as a cool breeze after fever. “No bone, no veins. Only your pride damaged.”

I blinked away the tears clouding my vision and looked clearly at her then. This was not the shy hermit I'd coaxed from shadowed corners. This was someone else entirely, steady, certain, capable. Had she trained in the Medica? No, surely I would have known.

Nearby, Roderick watched her with an expression I could not easily name, a tangled blend of confusion, pride, and perhaps a shadow of guilt.

“Did you learn that at the University?” the King asked cautiously.

Auri’s hands paused, just for an instant, and she lifted her gaze calmly to his. “Of course,” she said softly.

Roderick began to speak again but caught himself sharply. He turned away instead, jaw clenched tight as stone.

* * *

The tower groaned as I stumbled to the narrow arrow slits. A few men had risen, their faces pale beneath flickering lamplight. I peered outside and felt hope wither inside my chest.

Fascino’s forces moved in rhythmic precision, scarlet banners streaming like tongues of flame. Tight ranks surged around the tower’s base, shield bearers pressed at the front. Their every step spoke a sharp hunger for battle. At their center, the massive timber ram loomed, a dark god surrounded by men with bowed heads, preparing their charge.

I pressed a palm against cold stone, breathing through the ache in my shoulder. Beside me, Sim spoke softly, “We're trapped, aren't we?”

I did not answer.

“Lugosi will come,” Roderick muttered behind me, his voice thin and distant. “He has to. Any hour now.”

“No one's coming,” I said, my words heavier than I intended. “This is what we have.”

Wil swore quietly. Sim stayed silent, fingers brushing the stone window frame. I felt the turning of his thoughts like slow, grinding wheels.

“What do we have left?” he asked, looking toward one of the sober guards.

The guard shrugged. “Oil. Pitch. Some gear upstairs. No tunnels out. Just us. That's all.”

Sim glanced at me, eyes lingering on my wounded shoulder. “You can't lead like this,” he said bluntly.

“I'll manage,” I replied, even as darkness threatened the edges of my vision.

“Tehlu’s breath, you can barely stand. Let me help,” Sim snapped, a rare edge in his usually gentle voice.

I stepped back, leaning against the wall. My voice softened. “Alright.”

For a long while, I'd wondered why Sim had never stepped forward despite his quiet strength. Once he'd told me that his father, the Duke of Daloni, had tried to mold him into a leader. Tried and failed. Sim had no craving for power, no hunger for control. Kind hearts never grasped the reins. They shied away.

But perhaps his father had been right to hope. Perhaps leadership did not always grow from ambition. Perhaps it grew from necessity.

Sim squared his shoulders, mouth tightening into a resolute line. “Wil, bring down the oil. Start with the murderholes.” He turned to the guards, voice clear enough to pierce their fog. “You two, gather anything sharp. Swords, arrows, chair legs if you must. Bring everything here.”

To my surprise, they obeyed. Sim’s voice now carried weight.

Outside, Fascino began his ultimatum, his smooth words rising like poison on the breeze. “Surrender the King and the rest of you leave alive. Refuse me and you'll see your own bellies spilled before the sun sets.”

The guards shifted uneasily. Before doubt could set its roots, Sim lifted his voice. “Don't believe him.” He stepped further into the lamplight, calm and steady. “Look outside. Look at the street. Tell me how many brothers and sisters Fascino has left alive. Go on. Count them.”

A heavy silence filled the room. Sim let it linger.

“That's what I thought,” he said. “He doesn't want mercy. He wants your fear. Don't give it to him.”

I'd never seen him like this, standing not as a friend but as a leader. For the first time, beneath the darkening shadow of battle, the room steadied itself.

* * *

The ram came first.

From the tower, I watched Fascino’s soldiers surge forward. Some bore shields, others shouldered the massive timber, heavy as a felled tree. They swarmed into place. Sim barked orders, his voice steady, a note of certainty new to his tongue yet fitting all the same.

Roderick’s voice rang out behind us. “For Vintas! Hold the fort, men!”

Even amid the uproar, I heard how his cry rang false. There was no time to dwell on it. The ram reached the bridge. Sim’s command snapped through the air. “Loose!”

A volley of arrows met the front ranks, striking where the shields were thin. Soldiers tumbled, their bodies dragging the ram askew. Yet others stepped forward to fill the gaps, shield bearers pressing onward, and the gate trembled beneath the weight of the blows.

The tower groaned, sending a shiver of dust down from the old stones. Each strike found its way into my bones. Sim shouted again. “Ready the cauldron!” He rushed to help the others, together heaving the vat of boiling oil above the gate.

“Now!” The cauldron tipped. Fire poured down, cruel and bright. The ram crew screamed. Bottles of dreg crashed after, igniting wherever they struck. The courtyard flared with sudden light, and Fascino’s soldiers scattered like startled insects beneath a sudden torch.

For a breath, hope lived. Then, on the far side of the field, I saw the mangonel rise.

CHAPTER 34.

COMMAND IN THE CHAOS.

THE MANGONEL GROANED AS Fascino’s men readied the first strike. Its massive arm was drawn back, ropes straining and creaking as if the machine itself despised the work it was about to do. They loaded a stone into the sling, a stone as large as a child, and in my chest, the ember of hope guttered low, flickering like a candle in a sudden breath of wind.

“We don’t have the defenses for this.” The words slipped out bitter and thin. I let my back rest against the cold stone wall. Every movement sent a fresh ache through my shoulder, a reminder of its cost, a reminder of how little I had left to give.

Wil’s hand landed on my good shoulder, firm and grounding. “What is it?” His voice was tight, every syllable carved sharp.

“They’re bringing a mangonel,” I said, the words tasting of failure. “If they strike true, this tower is gone.”

Wil’s curse was quiet but rough, like a stone scraping against another. Across the room, Sim heard the edge in my voice. He turned toward us, his face pale, but his step steady.

“Tehlu spare us,” Sim murmured, stepping to the arrow slit. He looked through it in silence, his lips pressed thin as he took in the sight of the siege engine. He stood still for a moment, shoulders slack, gaze distant. He was lost in the same place I was, where the walls were crumbling and no good choices remained.

But then Sim straightened. He set his shoulders as if lifting a weight that could not be seen. He let out a slow breath that felt like the sharpening of a blade.

“No,” he said. The word struck clean and sharp. “We’re not done. Not yet.”

Wil arched an eyebrow, voice dry as dust. “I’m not sure what you’re seeing that we aren’t, friend.”

Sim turned to face him, and something fierce had kindled in his eyes. The fire there was a stranger to Sim’s gentle face, but it burned all the same. “We still have arrows. Oil. Pitch.” He gestured toward the few guards gathered near the wall. “You’ve faced worse odds on the frontier, haven’t you?”

Wil’s eyebrow lifted again, and though his mouth shaped into something wry, there was no mockery in his tone. “Barely,” he said, but his eyes were watching Sim differently now, as if measuring him anew.

Then Sim looked at me.

“Kvothe,” he said, and my name sounded like an oath. “I’ll need you on the Wind.”

I stared at him. Pain and weariness blurred the edges of the world, and his words seemed distant, as if they were meant for someone stronger. “I—Sim, I don’t know if I can.” My hands trembled, slight but unsteady, and my breath caught on the edge of what I did not want to say. That calling the Name of the Wind might break me more than it broke our enemies.

Sim stepped closer, his voice softer now. “You don’t have to stop it. Just slow it down. A glancing blow. That’s all we need. A little time.”

Time. That was all we were ever grasping for. Time measured not in hours but in moments, fragile and fleeting, to be stolen in the space between heartbeats. He wasn’t asking for the world. He wasn’t asking for a miracle. He was asking for me.

There was something in his voice. It was not desperation. It was belief.

I drew a breath, sharp and thin, and pulled myself upright. My body ached, but it obeyed. “Alright,” I said. “Do what you can down here.”

* * *

“Wil,” Sim said, already striding toward the guards who had not yet found their purpose. “Take three men. You’ll get the oil down. That comes first. Tip the cauldron straight over the courtyard when I give the word. No half measures. I don’t care if it spills across their shields.”

Wil answered with a mocking salute, all flourish and grin, but he gathered the men without another word. “On it, Commander Sim.” His voice still held its familiar edge of wit, but his steps rang sharp with purpose.

Sim turned to the others, the handful of guards still standing in the room, still caught between doubt and duty. “You two. Every bolt. Every arrow. Gather them all. If it flies, we shoot it. Aim for the siege crew. No excuses. No mercy. Not one of them leaves without an arrow in their gut. Do you understand?”

The men nodded. Their faces were pale and strained, the look of men unused to clear commands. They were used to being shouted at, shoved about by men too drunk to remember what orders they had given a breath before. Sim did not shout. He was not barking them into line. He was giving them something to hold on to.

Even King Roderick sat silent, watching Sim with an expression I could not easily name. There was pride in it, sharp and clean. But there was something quieter beneath. Something slow and heavy. Something shaped like guilt.

Sim met my eyes, and for a moment the question hung between us. Would it be enough?

We did not give it voice. We did not need to. We both knew the answer. It did not have to be enough. It only had to buy us time.

* * *

The first stone launched.

I was waiting. My hand pressed flat against the cold wall, feeling the sure weight of it beneath my fingers. The stone was steady. The stone was still. I let its stillness settle the unsteady churn of my thoughts as I reached for the Wind.

It came slow, reluctant, like luring a shy animal from the brush. My body was too battered, my mind too frayed, to summon it with the sharpness I wanted. But Sim had been right. I did not need sharpness. I needed to be careful. I needed to be exact.

When I spoke the Name of the Wind, my voice was no stronger than a breath, but the world listened.

The air twisted outside the tower, a breath held in the throat of the world, just before the stone arrived. The great weight of it tilted. Not much. Barely enough to notice. But enough. Enough to shift its path away from the heart of the tower. The stone struck the outer parapet instead. Stone shattered. Shards of it rained down like knives. The impact rippled through the tower, rattling its bones, rattling mine. My legs buckled. I fell into the wall, clinging to it for balance, for breath.

Sim was at my side in a heartbeat. His hand found my arm, holding me upright. “You did it,” he said. His voice could not decide whether to believe it.

“I slowed it,” I said. My voice was cracked and thin. “That is all.”

He looked at me as if that were enough. “You bought us time.”

Then he was gone again, sprinting back toward the defenders. Above us, Wil’s voice rang out. “Oil’s ready!” His shout cut through the stone and smoke. A moment later, I heard the hiss of boiling liquid, the sharp crackle as it met air. Then came the roar. A rush of sound that filled the courtyard, the hungry voice of fire finding its feast.

* * *

Through the narrow arrow slit, I watched Fascino’s crew scatter beneath the falling fire. The boiling oil had fouled the cranking mechanism, and one of the men at the mangonel stumbled back, his arm aflame. He clutched at the blackened flesh as he fell, his screams cutting sharp against the chaos below. The siege engine would not fire so swiftly now.

But it still stood. The engine itself was not yet broken.

Wil returned, breath tight, sweat beading his brow. “That’s their last clean volley for a while,” he said. His voice lost a bit of its edge when he glanced at me. “If you’re going to play with Names again, try not to die before the rest of us.”

“They’re still loading,” Sim muttered. His face had grown dark.

I stepped forward. The world wavered around me, but I moved anyway. “One more,” I rasped. The mangonel’s crew were gathering themselves, cranking the stiffened mechanism with grim determination. They worked slower now, but they worked still. My shoulder pulsed with every heartbeat, but that familiar, foolish fire inside me flared hotter than the pain. “I’ll get one more shot.”

I reached for the Wind again, though my mind trembled on the verge of breaking.

Before I could summon it again, Sim’s hand caught my arm.

“No,” he said, his voice sharp and certain. “They’ll keep coming. You’ll burn out too quickly. We need to try something else.”

“What else is there?” I rasped. My breath came rough and uneven, tearing at my throat.

“You bought us time,” Sim said. “It’s enough for one counterstrike before they gather themselves. Let me figure out the rest.”

I sagged back against the wall as Sim turned away, his voice rising to call fresh orders to the defenders who still remained. I let my eyes slip half-closed. I was not resting. I was counting heartbeats.

Outside, Fascino’s voice cut through the din, smooth as silk, sharp as a blade.

“Still standing, are you?” he called. “Your tower’s a corpse on its feet. Look around you. Tell me, was this worth it?”

I gave him no answer. What was the point of trading words with a man who pretended to stand above the ruin when his world was crumbling just like mine?

Instead, I turned back to the others, the ones preparing for the next assault. Blood had begun to seep through the bandages on my shoulder, slow and steady. My voice, when it came, was soft but certain, meant only for Sim.

“Whatever you need, I’ll still be here.”

CHAPTER 35.

THE PRICE OF LOYALTY.

THE ROPES GROANED as they drew the mangonel’s arm back for another blow. I leaned against the cold stone, my shoulder burning, my breath thin and shallow. Every motion sent a sharpness through me, like broken glass grinding bone to splinters. I wanted to move. I wanted to act. But my body had grown treacherous, trembling beneath the weight of pain and weariness.

Then came the horns.

The sound split the air, sharp and cold, rising above the crackle of fire and the cries of the dying. I turned toward the arrow slit, the movement tearing at my wound. Below, the battlefield writhed, a shattered tide of bodies and blood. Fascino’s men, wild in their jeering and slick with slaughter, froze as the sound washed over them.

Knights broke through their lines, their armor flashing with sapphire and ivory light. Two banners flew in the vanguard. The first was House Calanthis, red and gold, dragged through the mud and blackened by soot. The second banner twisted my stomach with its weight: sapphire and silver, the sigil of the Maer Alveron.

I watched as the Maer’s forces carved through Fascino’s ranks, not with fury but with a cold, clean precision. Dagon was there, the Maer’s dark-eyed captain, and his saber sang as it swept through Fascino’s neck. The body crumpled. The head struck the ground. Baron Jakis fled on foot, his fine cloak torn, his hands bloody, his eyes wide with a desperate kind of fear. The Maer followed, not quickly, but with the certainty of a thing that cannot be stopped. His voice rang out, heavy as iron.

“You thought to poison me. You thought that would be enough.”

Jakis did not die quickly.

The room filled with a hollow quiet when the screams ended. It pressed against the walls and settled in our bones. Roderick’s voice cracked into that silence. “Raise the gate!” he called, brittle with hope. His words felt sharp against my skin, wrong in a way I could not name. When the portcullis lurched upward, I heard my own voice rise.

“Wait.”

No one waited.

The Maer’s men entered the courtyard in a flood of steel and shadow. Alveron dismounted, his knights spreading behind him like the wings of some slow, inevitable storm. He began to climb the tower, step by step. Each footfall struck the stone and echoed upward. Each sound demanded attention, and we had no choice but to listen.

The boots came first, slow and steady, rising toward us one measured step at a time.

* * *

Alveron entered with a measured purpose. His knights flowed around him, filling every shadow in the room until there was nowhere left untouched by their presence. The Maer’s expression was cool as an autumn lake. Whatever kindness I had once glimpsed in his sharp features was gone, not hidden but erased, as if it had never been there at all. He carried no pretense of warmth. He had no need.

Roderick stumbled forward, his hand outstretched, the silver seal of his house catching a faint sliver of light. “Lerand,” he said, his voice bright with forced delight. “You came. You saved me.”

Alveron stopped him with a single word. “No.”

It was not shouted. It did not need to be. The sound of it struck Roderick as if it had been a blade. The Maer’s next words came quieter, but with a certainty that brooked no misunderstanding. “I didn’t come for you.”

The room pressed close with silence. Only the soft creak of leather stirred the air as Alveron drew his sword. Roderick stood motionless. He had seen his death. The streak of crimson that followed was almost delicate, a thin bloom that traced his throat as his crown toppled free, rolling away as though eager to be rid of him.

Auri screamed. She broke forward, trembling and desperate.

“No!” Sim’s voice rang sharp, cutting through the air.

I caught her first. My fingers wrapped around her wrist, though they shook as she struggled against me. Sim had stepped forward, his face bloodless but set in iron. He grabbed for a weapon, finding a fallen sword. The hilt sat awkwardly in his grip, but his hands did not waver.

“For all your cleverness,” Alveron said, turning his gaze upon me, “you chose to bind yourself to this drowning wreck of a king. Did you believe you would be spared the harvest of what you have sown?”

He gave Dagon a nod so slight it could have been mistaken for a breath. The captain lunged. I raised my hand and spoke the Name of Fire, ready for the struggle I had always known it to be. But there was no struggle. What came forth was fury, unchained and wild. It struck Dagon full in the chest, flames twisting around his armor, searing his face until it became a thing unrecognizable. His screams did not sound human.

But the price was steep. The fire left me hollow. I crumpled against the wall, my breath shuddering in my chest. Dagon, though burning, did not fall.

* * *

Sim stepped into the gap before I could move.

“Stay back!” he roared, his voice sharp enough to make the air flinch. The knights hesitated. For a breath, I feared he would freeze as well. But then his feet shifted, steady and certain, as though the ground itself had given him leave to stand.

The Name settled in him. It did not break like thunder, nor did it whisper like a secret. But there was a change in how he gripped the borrowed blade. A quiet truth. As though the sword had always known his hand.

Iron.

His focus narrowed into a single, unforgiving point. Sim’s first strike came swift and sure, bending his opponent’s blade as if guided by weight beyond his own strength. He stepped into the arc of the swing, moving with a precision too perfect to be chance, as though another hand steadied his own.

The knights stumbled under Sim’s fury, their iron bowing to his will. He cut through one. Then another. Each step forward stripped the softness from his face, carving it into something harder. With every strike, his shoulders bowed, his limbs trembled, his body burning coin for coin the price his mind demanded.

Wil surged to his side, his axe heavy in his hands, cleaving into a knight who dared too close. “Sim!” he bellowed, voice ragged. “Fall back!”

But Sim did not hear him.

I called to him too, but my voice was a pale thing against the storm of his focus. He never saw the knight closing from his blind side. The blade slid into him, cutting deep, and the sound of it was soft and awful. Like something vital giving way.

Wil roared, a wordless sound that shook the air. He charged, his axe carving through two men with reckless force. But it was not enough. Too many blades turned on him, piercing from every side. He fell beneath them, his body folding into the earth like a toppled stone.

Sim fell first. He turned toward me, eyes wide and wild, lips moving in a soundless plea. Whatever word he meant to give me was already lost, caught somewhere between his breath and mine, fading before it ever reached the world.

* * *

Heat flooded through me. Not a burning heat, but sharp and cold, like the edge of a blade scraping along bare nerve.

I spoke the Name of the Wind, though this was not the wind I had called before. This one came raw and untamed. It came hungry. It came violent.

It screamed through the room, slicing through Alveron’s knights as if they were no more than parchment. Dagon stood within it, his body blackened and burned, yet still he refused to fall. The wind clawed at him, tearing at what little strength remained.

The storm faltered only when I did. My legs tangled beneath me, my Alar splintered from within, no longer able to bear its own weight. I never saw Dagon’s lunge. His saber found my chest before my eyes could follow. My breath left me in a soundless gasp. That gasp was all I had left.

But in the hollow of my ear, Auri’s voice whispered, faint and fragile. “Kvothe, live. Please.”

And then, as I fell, the Wind was the only thing that remained.

CHAPTER 36.

INTERLUDE.

BURDENS.

KOTE STOOD BEHIND THE bar at the Waystone Inn, polishing a mug that had already surrendered its every stain to his careful hands. The amber light from the hearth painted it gold, then copper, then gold again as he turned it in endless circles. His movements carried the weight of ritual, each pass of the cloth a prayer to the present moment, a tether to keep him from drifting into memory’s darker waters. Outside, the wind pressed its face against the shutters like a beggar at a feast. Its voice found the gaps between wood and nail, threading through the quiet corners of the room with a sound like old grief seeking new ears.

The scratch of Chronicler’s quill went silent as a held breath.

“You’ve stopped, you know,” Kote said suddenly, his voice low and flat. “Why?”

Chronicler shifted in his chair. The wood creaked a question. “I thought perhaps this part of your story might not be something you wanted written.”

A sound escaped Kote’s throat, sharp and bitter as winter wine. His hands stilled on the mug, the cloth frozen mid-circle. For a long moment he stood thus, caught between motion and stillness, between speaking and silence. When he finally set the mug down, his movements were careful and slow, as if the simple act required all his concentration. The mug touched the bar with barely a whisper, but his hands trembled as they released it, and he gripped the edge of the bar to hide their shaking.

He turned toward the hearth, one hand braced against the bar’s worn wood, the other pressed to his chest as if holding closed a door that wanted desperately to open. His breath caught once, twice, then shattered into something raw and terrible. The sob that tore free from him sounded like cloth ripping, like something vital giving way beneath impossible weight.

“I led them to their deaths.” The words fell from him like stones into still water. “Wil. Sim. They came for me. Broke through stone and steel to pull me from that place, and I wouldn’t leave. Not without her.” His voice cracked on the last word. “They followed me to the tower because they trusted me. Because they believed I knew the way through. They walked behind me the way children follow their father through the dark, certain of the path ahead.” He tried to laugh, but the sound caught in his throat like water in a broken pipe. “An arrow in my shoulder and too much stubbornness in my bones, and still they followed. They died because I couldn’t abandon Auri. They died because they trusted me to lead them home.”

His knuckles bloomed white where they gripped the bar’s edge. Chronicler set his pen down with the care one might use to lay a sleeping child in its bed. “Kote,” he began.

“Let me finish what I’ve started.” Kote turned, and the firelight found his eyes, red-rimmed and glassy. When he spoke again, his voice had found its footing. “Heroes are liars, Chronicler. We tell ourselves pretty stories about wit and triumph, about clever tongues and clever hands. The truth tastes different. The truth is that good men die forgotten. No bard remembers their names. No song keeps their memory warm.”

He reached into his pocket and drew out a small vial filled with milky liquid. For a moment he simply held it, watching the firelight break and scatter through the glass like promises through time. “Wil was one of them,” he murmured. “A man with an axe and a heart too large for his chest. No grace in his movements. No training in his bones. And yet, when the room filled with knights, when Sim and I were on the edge of breaking, Wil stood.”

Kote opened the vial and took a careful swallow. His face softened, but his words kept their edges.

“He threw himself at them, swinging that axe not with skill but with a prayer. It bought us moments. Just moments. But he knew. Wil always knew where his road would end. He walked it anyway.” His voice dropped to barely more than breath. “Tehlu forgive me. That road should have been mine to walk.”

“And Sim.” Kote’s hand trembled as he set the vial on the counter. For a long moment he stared at it, as if the answers he needed might be hiding in the dark swirl of liquid within. “Simmon the gentle. Sim the scholar.” His voice softened with each word. “The boy who could hardly hold a blade without grumbling about its balance. I never thought I would see it. Sweet Tehlu, not Sim.”

He drew a hand down his face, slow and weary as a man carrying stones uphill. “I cannot say how it happened. One moment he was the same Sim I had always known, anxious and thoughtful, turning every problem over in his mind like a puzzle box with too many pieces. The next moment he was something else entirely.”

Kote closed his eyes, let the silence fill the space between heartbeats. “He spoke the Name of Iron. How he found that terrible word hiding in his throat, I will never know. There is a horror in watching someone you love become wrath itself. He did not simply swing steel through air. He became the blade, moved like he had been born for that single moment of violence.” Kote’s voice grew quieter still, as if speaking the words might summon back that terrible moment. “It cost him everything.” He opened his eyes, and they held no anger now, only the deep weariness of stones worn smooth by countless years of rain. “Each strike took something from him. When the knights lay scattered and still, when the blood had finished its flowing, he died on his knees in the settling dust. Not from fear. Not from wounds that would heal. He died beneath the weight of what he had become. He carried us that day, and it crushed him like grain beneath the millstone.”

The fire crackled, filling the spaces between words with its own small violence. Kote leaned forward, his forearms resting on the counter, anchoring himself to this moment, this place, this particular grief.

After a long silence, he spoke again, his voice no louder than the fire’s whisper. “The world will forget Wil. It will forget Sim. Men like them fall through the cracks of history like rain through broken roof tiles.” He looked up at Chronicler, his gaze sharp as winter starlight. “But you remember things, don’t you? That’s your calling. Your burden. The pen only stops dancing when you let the music die.”

The fire crackled and hissed, filling the empty spaces where words might have lived. Kote leaned forward, forearms resting on the bar as if he might anchor himself to something solid and real.

After a long pause, he spoke again, quieter now. “The world won’t remember Wil. Or Sim. People like that slip through the cracks of history.” He glanced up at Chronicler, his gaze sharper than before. . “But you remember. That is why you carry ink and parchment, is it not? Your pen stops only when you choose to let something die.”

Chronicler nodded once. No words would serve better than silence.

“Write them,” Kote said, his words firm and clear. “Not today. Not tomorrow. But someday, when you find yourself alone with only ink for company, write them as they were. Give Wil his graceless glory. Give Sim his quiet brilliance breaking into terrible bloom. Let them breathe again on your pages, even if only for the span of a candle’s burning. They deserve that much. They deserve more than I can give, but this is all I have left to offer.”

He reached for the vial once more but held back, his hand hovering over it. His eyes drifted to the hearth, seeing through the flames to some distant place where different fires burned. When he spoke again, his words were soft as ash falling.

“Sim. Wil.”

Their names settled over the room like snow over gravestones.

Kote straightened then, pulling the innkeeper’s mask back over his features with practiced ease. He smoothed his apron and gestured to the pen resting in Chronicler’s hand.

“Someday you’ll write their stories whole and true. But today, this piece of their ending belongs in my telling too. They are threads woven through my tale, and to leave them out would be to tell a lie through silence.” He gestured toward the waiting pen. “So write it down, Chronicler. Write how they died for me. Then we move forward. My story has far to go before it finds its rest.”

He turned back to the hearth, squaring his shoulders beneath the weight of memory. “The day is patient, but not endless. Best we continue while we can.”

CHAPTER 37.

THE BREATH AFTER THE FALL.

I FELL.

The world came undone in that breathless moment. Wind sang its terrible song against my ears while the white walls of the Citadel blurred to nothing more than a chalk smear above me. The mangonel’s wound gaped down like the hollow socket of a dead god’s eye. Below waited the city with its cobblestone teeth and rooftop bones. The ground promised itself to me with the certainty of stone and the patience of gravity.

Wind tore at me then. It pulled at my clothes with angry fingers and tangled itself in my hair like a scorned lover. My ribs sang their own broken song with each breath I stole from the rushing air. Pain had a voice and it was screaming.

But something deeper than panic stirred in me. Something older than fear. My fingers found only emptiness when they reached for purchase, grasping at air the way drowning men grasp at water. Through the red haze of pain and the white blindness of terror, I felt it waiting. The Name of the Wind hung there at the edge of my knowing, patient as starlight.

I spoke it. Not gently. Not kindly. I wrenched the word from some deep place where desperate things are born.

The wind heard me. And it sighed.

I had called it too often today. Named it like a master who forgets his servant needs rest. Named it until my voice had worn grooves in its nature. The wind knew me now the way a horse knows a cruel rider, and it came to my call with all the enthusiasm of a beaten dog returning to its master’s hand.

It obeyed. That was the binding. That was the law written into its true name. But obedience and service are different creatures entirely. The wind caught me in fits and starts, doing precisely what was commanded and not one breath more. It held me the way you might hold something distasteful. Barely. Reluctantly. With the absolute minimum of care required by the compact between us.

Air pushed and pulled like a sullen child forced to help with chores. My descent slowed, yes. But the ground still rose to meet me with all the tenderness of an anvil meeting steel.

The impact broke across me like thunder breaking sky. Pain bloomed through every bone I owned and several I had only borrowed. I lay there in the wet grass, crumpled like a letter someone had read and thrown away. Each breath a shard of glass finding its way through my chest. Above me, faces appeared at the Citadel’s broken edge. Pale as winter moons. Their shouts reached me the way sound reaches you underwater, distant and strange and somehow less than real. The earth beneath me felt too solid and I too broken to bear its weight. The darkness that came for me was patient and certain as stone.

* * *

I woke the way men wake from drowning. Gasping. Burning. My lungs remembered what air was and demanded more of it than the world seemed willing to give.

A shape moved above me. Pale skin and ink-dark hair resolved themselves into something familiar. Into someone familiar.

“Reshi, lie still.” Bast’s voice held an edge I rarely heard from him. Sharp words with something soft and frightened underneath. “You’re broken in more ways than I can count and several I haven’t thought to look for yet. Let me hold you together before you finish what the fall started.”

His hands on my shoulders were light as leaves. Careful. As if I were made of ash and might scatter at the slightest wind. I tried to speak his name but my throat gave me only the sound a door makes when its hinges have gone to rust.

“You’re alive,” he said. The words seemed more prayer than observation.

Footsteps approached through the grass. Bast’s eyes went from gold to green the way forest light changes when storm clouds gather. “Well, if it isn’t the queen of impeccable timing,” he said dryly.

Denna knelt beside me and her movements were quick water over stone. Her cloak came free with practiced ease and she folded it into something soft for my head. “I came because someone needs saving. You’re welcome to keep growling at shadows while time bleeds away if that suits you better.”

Bast muttered something that might have been a curse or might have been a prayer. The difference between the two had always been a matter of perspective.

Denna turned to me then and her face held too many things at once. Worry and tenderness and something harder underneath. She brushed hair from my forehead with fingers that knew how to be gentle with broken things. “Kvothe. Can you stand?”

The question might as well have asked if I could fly. If I could turn lead to gold. If I could speak the moon down from the sky. My answer was a groan that barely qualified as human.

She didn’t wait for better words. My arm went over her shoulder and she tried to lift. Her strength surprised what little part of me could still feel surprise. But even she couldn’t manage alone.

“Help me.” Two words aimed at Bast like arrows.

He showed his teeth in something that wasn’t quite anger and wasn’t quite a smile. “If I break what’s left of him, remember whose idea this was.”

“I’ve carried heavier burdens than blame.”

They moved me with all the grace of people trying to fold a map in a windstorm. Careful and clumsy in equal measure. Together they managed to drape me over the waiting horse like a sack of grain that had learned to feel pain. I held the reins the way you hold onto thoughts in a fever. Something warm and wet painted itself across my fingers but I couldn’t spare the effort to care.

Between them passed glances sharp as knives and silent as snowfall. Some wordless negotiation played out in the space between their eyes. But I couldn’t hold onto the shape of it. The darkness rose again like water from a well, and I let it take me.

* * *

Hours dissolved into indistinct flashes of sensation. The horse beneath me beat out a rhythm that might have been minutes or might have been days. Every small motion sent fresh letters of pain through my ribs, written in a script I couldn’t help but read. Their voices reached me in fragments. Bast’s curses sharp as winter. Denna’s responses soft as snow.

“How much farther?” Bast snapped, though it sounded more like desperation than impatience.

“Far enough to matter,” Denna replied. “Not far enough for you to complain about it.”

When I stirred to consciousness on a particularly rough stretch of road, her voice found me first. She was humming something that might have been a lullaby or might have been a dirge. In Modegan, the two are often the same song sung in different keys. Before I could catch the melody, before I could hold it like water in my hands, the darkness pulled me under again.

* * *

I woke to rough wood beneath my palms and the sound of stone teaching echoes how to dance. The room held me in dim light the way cupped hands hold water. Carefully. Temporarily. Most of me didn’t care where I was, only that the world had stopped trying to kill me for the moment.

Denna’s voice pulled me back from the edge of nothing. Low. Urgent. Close enough that I could feel the words as much as hear them. “Bast, steady his legs.”

“Might as well steady smoke,” Bast muttered, but his hands were there when she needed them.

Together they moved me to something that might have been a bed or might have been clouds. I couldn’t tell and didn’t care. Cloth pressed against my chest. Hands packed something that burned and soothed in equal measure. Then came bitter liquid, thick as regret, forced between my lips.

“Drink,” Denna commanded. “And don’t argue.”

Another swallow, and whatever strength I’d been hoarding fled like birds before storm. But beneath the exhaustion, beneath the pain that had become my closest companion, a single thought bloomed. For Auri. For Sim. For Wil. My hands moved weakly, catching at air, holding nothing but holding it fiercely.

* * *

The ceiling above me was walnut wood striped with shadows from the shuttered window, and I studied it the way scholars study dead languages. Slowly. Without much hope of understanding. Light crept through curtains like a thief testing locks, and I knew this place wasn’t the University. Too clean. Too quiet. Too empty of the thousand small sounds that learning makes.

“Denna?” The word barely escaped my throat.

No answer came. Just the patient silence of a room that had been waiting for me to wake.

I forced myself upright, though my body filed several formal complaints about the process. Pain bloomed through me in a garden of varieties.

The rest of me was painted in bruises like an artist’s study in purple and gold and green. There, the sharp ache where the crossbow bolt had bitten deep, Auri’s careful stitches holding despite the Tower’s chaos, each one precise as her gentle hands could make them. Here, the deeper throb where Dagon’s blade had found its home, the stitching crude as truth but holding. Amateur work by someone who cared more for my living than for leaving pretty scars. Each bruise a memory of falling. Each wound a reminder that I had survived it.

My clothes waited on a chair like patient servants. Caesura lay on the table, faithful as a hound. My shaed hung there, darkness waiting to wrap itself around me again. Dressing took forever and hurt for most of it, but when I finally pulled the shaed over my shoulders, something in me remembered what it was to be whole. Or at least to pretend at wholeness convincingly.

In my pocket, my fingers found unexpected weight. I drew out the compass Wil had made for us in the Tower. The needle trembled like a living thing, pointing toward something I couldn’t see but desperately needed to find. “If Denna still has hers,” I whispered to the empty room, and the thought burned brighter than the pain.

* * *

I stepped into the street, hood drawn low against the light and recognition both. Every step cost me, but I had currency to spare. The sign above the door creaked in the wind, and when I turned to look, I saw it for the first time. A willow tree wound around a blooming rose, painted with the careful hand of someone who understood that beauty and thorns often grow from the same stem.

The Willow Blossom.

Denna’s sanctuary. Of course she would bring me here, to this place that stood between worlds. The Citadel’s men would never think to look for me in such an unassuming place. They’d expect grander hiding.

For the first time since the Tower had fallen around me like a house of cards in a hurricane, something in my chest unclenched. Not hope exactly, but hope’s younger sister. The one that whispers maybe when the world insists on never.

I was alive. That had to count for something. That had to be the beginning of something.

Somewhere, Auri waited. Somewhere, the compass needle pointed toward answers or at least toward better questions. Somewhere, in all this darkness, there had to be a door that opened onto light.

I pulled the shaed tighter around me and began to walk.

CHAPTER 38.

THE WOLF AND THE OWL.

THE STREETS OF Renere twisted and turned, leading me deeper into the city. I walked carefully now, favoring my left side where the rough gut stitches pulled, sending sharp reminders of yesterday’s violence through my ribs. The compass needle had been dancing in my palm for what felt like hours, its frantic motion my only guide through these unfamiliar alleys. When it suddenly stilled, my pulse quickened. The needle pointed steady as a finger of accusation toward another narrow alley.

At the end of the alley, and through the gaps in the boarded windows, I saw her. Denna sat with her shoulders drawn in, making herself small the way rabbits do when hawks circle overhead. The man standing over her was tall and white-haired. His back was to me, but I knew the language of his body. I had learned it in Tarbean’s alleys, where grown men would corner children with that same predatory lean, that same casual ownership of space that promised violence if you didn’t give them what they wanted. His voice came muffled through the walls, but the melody of it was clear enough. Anger. Command. And the promise of worse to come.

Instead of entering immediately, I circled to a side door and found it unlocked. Slipping inside, I stayed low and silent, creeping toward the sound of their argument. Only fragments of the conversation reached me at first.

“This is how you repay me?” The man’s voice carried cold authority, its weight pricking at the edges of some vague memory. “After everything I’ve done for you, you lie to me?”

“I brought what you asked for,” Denna replied, her voice trembling but steady. “Why do you need him so badly? Why does it have to be Kvothe?”

He wheeled on her, words sharp enough to draw blood. “Because I command it. You are what I made you. Nothing more than an instrument, and instruments do not question the hand that plays them.”

I stayed in shadow, though every fiber of my being screamed to act. This man, this voice. Was this her patron? The mysterious Master Ash she spoke of in riddles and silence?

Denna flinched. “Please, I can’t!”

The crack of his palm meeting her cheek snapped through the room, loud as a splitting branch. She stumbled, her hand flying to her face, and the sound she made was small and broken and lit a fire in my chest that burned away all thought of pain or caution.

I crossed the room in three strides and put my fist into the side of his face with all the force my battered body could muster. He went down like a felled tree, his cane clattering across the floor in a rhythm like scattered bones.

Denna turned, fear written across her swollen face. She pressed her palms against my chest, her touch gentle despite her urgency. “Don’t,” she breathed, glancing back at the fallen man. “Please, Kvothe, you have to leave.”

But I couldn’t look away from him. The light caught his face just so, and the world tilted on its axis.

Bredon. The owlish old man I had shared wine with. The man I had played tak with through countless Severen afternoons. The man I had called friend.

“I see you’ve finally joined us,” he said, brushing dust from his coat as if I had done nothing more than jostle him at market. His tone was dry as autumn leaves, amused as a cat with a cornered mouse. “How wonderfully efficient.”

My stomach churned as I stared at him, this wolf in sheep’s clothing. Memories of the Citadel, of the Cthaeh’s cruel words, screamed back at me.

He beats her, you know.

“What kind of man are you?” The words tasted like copper in my mouth.

Denna pulled at me, her voice breaking. “Kvothe, please, you promised you wouldn’t get involved.”

But my eyes had found something else. There on the table sat a box of dark roah wood, its surface gleaming like oil on water. The Loeclos Box. My blood turned to ice, then fire, then ice again.

“Why do you have that?” My voice came from somewhere far away.

Denna looked at the floor, and in her silence I heard volumes. “He said he knew people who could open it,” she whispered, each word smaller than the last. “I thought if I could solve it for you, if I could hand you the answer like a gift, then maybe you wouldn’t have to go searching for answers. Maybe you would stay.”

She leaned into me then, fragile as spun glass, her tears warm against my shirt. “Please,” she breathed against my chest. “Let’s just leave. Please.”

For a moment, I almost listened. But then I looked at the box again, my family’s legacy sitting there like a wound. “We leave,” I said through clenched teeth, “but not without what’s mine.”

As I stepped forward, Bredon blocked me with his cane. I grabbed his wrist to shove him aside, but before I could a sharp freezing sensation bit into my hand. I looked down to see my ring, that simple band of water-blue, crystallizing into ice.

My breath caught as memory surged forward from the recesses of my mind.

You will know them by their signs.

“Cinder.” The word eked out of my throat like poison.

His smile spread like spilled ink, too wide for any human face. And then he wasn’t Bredon anymore. He was the creature from my nightmares, the monster who had torn my world apart and laughed while doing it.

The air around us crackled like brittle frost. My hand flew to Caesura, and I drew her clean, the blade whispering like a drawn breath. My strikes came wild, vicious, but Cinder moved like flowing water, each of my blows cutting empty air.

“Angry, are we?” he said mockingly, sidestepping another ill-timed slash. His grey sword, dull and lifeless as the edge of a gravestone, flashed into existence from his ash-colored robes with serpentine grace.

I lashed out again, slamming Saicere toward his throat, but he met the strike casually, moving faster than seemed possible. Each clash of our blades sent shivers spiraling through Saicere’s edge.

The breaking was a sound like the world ending. Like trust betraying itself. Like a heart giving up.

Saicere fell in pieces, bright as tears.

Before I could mourn her, before I could think, Cinder’s blade swept past me, grazing my ribs with a whisper of cold death. Then he turned to Denna.

“Ferula!” I screamed, raising a binding, but my strength was sand through fingers, and his resistance was a ravenous force. His hand closed on Denna’s arm, and his grey blade pressed to her throat.

“Drop what remains,” he said, his voice now low and rasping with something unhuman.

I let Saicere hilt fall, my mind spinning helplessly.

“Better,” Cinder said with evident amusement. And then he spoke a name, once, twice, thrice, each iteration colder than the last. “Alaxel. Alaxel. Alaxel.”

The air tore like silk. Darkness poured through the wound, thick as old blood and cold as forgotten graves. From that darkness stepped shadows given form, and among them, one whose darkness was absolute.

Haliax had come, and with him, the end of all things bright.

The air turned suffocating as he spoke. “Do you have what we seek?”

Cinder smiled, holding out the Loeclos Box and gesturing toward me. “I do, Lord Haliax. Both of them.”

Haliax turned his attention to me, and being seen by him was like being known by the dark. When he spoke again, it was to Cinder. “Bring them. Bring everything.”

Cinder’s blade pressed closer to Denna’s throat, drawing a thin line of red. “You heard Lord Haliax,” he said to me, his voice pleasant as poisoned honey. “Walk with us, or watch her bleed out on these filthy boards. Your choice.”

He began backing toward the darkness Haliax had left in his wake, dragging Denna with him. The darkness hung in the air like a wound in the world, thick and grainy as wet sand. As Cinder stepped into it with Denna, they seemed to sink into its depths, the darkness pulling at them with a hungry weight.

Denna’s eyes found mine through her tears, wide with terror. The darkness was already at her waist, drawing her down and through.

I had no choice. I never had a choice when it came to her.

I stepped into that grainy dark, feeling it close around me like quicksand made of shadow, cold and thick and wrong. It pulled at me with patient hunger, and I let it take me.

For Denna. Always for Denna.

CHAPTER 39.

THE WEIGHT OF SHADOWS.

THE WORLD BENT itself backward and I fell through the center of nothing.

There was no spell here, not as the University taught them. This was older magic, the kind that lived in the spaces between heartbeats, in the moment before a candle dies. The air became thick as amber honey, pulling at my bones with patient, ancient fingers. For a breath that lasted forever, I hung suspended in a void that howled without sound, weightless as smoke, heavy as stone.

Then reality remembered itself, and I landed.

Cold struck my face like an open palm. The darkness peeled away in layers, each one revealing a jagged outcrop of stone jutting high above the world. The moon hung low on the horizon, swollen and pale, its light cold against the cracked expanse of the mountain landscape. The ground beneath my feet felt foreign. The stones were too smooth, their edges too sharp, as if the earth here still remembered the Shapers' hands.

A red flame guttered to life ahead, bright as fever-dreams. Haliax cupped it in his shadowed palm, and the light struggled against the darkness that clung to him like a living thing. Where it won free, it threw wild splinters of light across the uneven cliff.

“We move,” Haliax said. His voice was quiet in the way that deep water is quiet. “There is much yet to do.”

Something hard pressed between my shoulder blades. I turned to find a woman watching me with eyes like frostbitten glass, cold and clear and pitiless. Pigskin covered her mouth, stitched crude and tight,leaving her features disturbingly incomplete. She tilted her head, a motion too smooth to be entirely human, and gestured forward with a short silver blade toward the path ahead.

I walked. Each step crunched against loose stone, the sound too loud in the mountain quiet. Denna drifted to my side, her face pale as paper, arms wrapped around herself to ward off the chill.

“I didn't know,” she whispered. The words came quick and desperate. “I swear to you, Kvothe. I didn't know what they were. What he was.”

“You couldn't have.” The words felt heavier than I meant them to. “You trusted him. We both did.”

Her eyes found the shapes moving in the darkness ahead. Cinder. Alenta. The others whose names I'd learned from stories meant to frighten children. Denna's voice cracked, trembling with something raw. “I never meant for any of this.”

“I know,” I said, though knowing changed nothing.

She walked in silence for three steps, then four, then five. When she spoke again, her words came halting, like stones across a river. “He had me searching. Old families with older names. Loeclos. Laclith. Songs about Lanre that nobody sings anymore, the kind that make old women cross themselves and look away.” She paused, gathering herself. “I traveled from city to city, collecting pieces of things that made no sense alone. Like gathering smoke in my hands.”

Her arms tightened around herself, and her voice dropped to barely more than breath. “When you showed me those knots on the box, the ones that you couldn't read, I thought I could help. I thought if could get Master Ash to translate them, then maybe you'd stay.” She stopped, swallowed hard, then started again with words that came out smaller. “Maybe you wouldn't need to go searching elsewhere for answers.”

The words hit me like cold water. She thought she needed to earn my presence, to purchase my attention with usefulness. As if I wouldn't have stayed simply because she asked. As if I hadn't been hers since the first time I heard her laugh across the caravan's campfire.

“I wanted to give you a reason to stay,” she whispered, each word a small confession. “I wanted to be the one who helped you.” Her laugh came out broken. “Look how well that turned out.”

I wanted to ask what they wanted with us, but the question died in my throat. I already knew she had no answer.

Cinder turned then, his smile sharp as winter wind. “Patience,” he called, the word dripping sweet as poisoned honey. “All things reveal themselves to those who wait.”

Heat pulled into my chest, reckless and familiar. “Why should we believe anything from you? You're Chandrian. You're nothing but betrayal wearing human faces. Centuries of ash and ruin, and for what?”

“What do you think they want with us?” I asked, though I already knew she had no answer.

Her silence was answer enough, but before she could speak, Cinder turned. His smile cut through the darkness sharp as winter wind. “Patience,” he called, the word dripping sweet as poisoned honey. “All things reveal themselves to those who wait.”

I stumbled closer, and the taste of plum flooded my mouth, sweet and wrong and familiar. The anger came with it, hot and reckless, pushing words past my better judgment. “Why should we believe anything you say? You're Chandrian. Betrayers. Murderers. You've spent centuries lording over ash and ruin.”

The grin dropped from Cinder’s face like melted wax. Haliax turned slowly, shadows gathering around him thick as funeral shrouds. When he spoke, the mountain itself seemed to lean in to listen.

“You dare speak of what you know?” The words came out soft at first, then louder, building like a storm. “You parrot the Amyr's lies, their carefully crafted stories. You know nothing, boy. Nothing.”

His shadow surged forward, swallowing stars. “We gave everything. Our lives. Our loves. Our very names. All of it sacrificed to save people who later danced on our graves.”

“And now you slaughter innocents.” My voice came out harder than I expected, steel against stone. “Families. Children. Whole cities turned to smoke and memory.”

He drew back, just barely, shadows flickering like dying coals. When he spoke again, his voice had gone soft and hollow. “Burn,” he murmured. “You think we burn without reason? You could not endure one day of the life we've lived. The memories that follow us like hungry dogs.”

Then cold steel pressed against my ribs, and Usnea's breath came ice-sharp against my neck. “Another word,” she whispered through her mask, “and I'll take her pretty ears for trophies.”

I didn’t doubt her.

* * *

Time moves strangely when you're walking toward something terrible.

The silence of our walk stretched for what felt like hours, broken only by the crunch of gravel underfoot and the sound of our own breathing. The wind cut across the mountain face, alive and bitter, coiling around us like something that had learned to hate. It found every gap in our clothing, every exposed bit of skin, and bit deep with teeth of ice.

The path led to a flat expanse of raw stone, strewn with outcrops and jagged broken rocks that jutted up like accusations. Haliax stopped at its edge, looking down at something I couldn't yet see.

I approached carefully, each step measured, and looked over the edge.

What lay below stole my breath away. Someone or something had carved a circle from the earth itself, precise beyond nature. Stone and dirt piled high around its edges like the walls of an impossible bowl. And at the center of that circle lay a darkness I'd never seen before. Not the darkness of night or the darkness of closed eyes, but something else entirely. Something that made ordinary shadows look pale as noon.

“Come,” Haliax said, his voice calm as death. “It is time.”

We slid down the crater’s slope, loose earth shifting beneath our boots. Inside, the space felt larger than it had looked from above, the way fears grow bigger when you face them directly. Haliax placed a pale candle on the ground first, the red flame flickering unnaturally high in the darkness. Then he lit a second candle, this one a deep, greasy black.

Its flame didn't burn. It darkened.

The black flame ate light the way silence eats sound, the way forgetting eats memory. As it burned, or whatever word describes what it did instead of burning, shapes began to rise from the darkness. What I'd taken for scattered stones became obelisks, tall and patient, arranged in two perfect circles. And at their heart, the largest stones loomed, a massive trilithon, its top lintel spanning larger than Anker’s inn, and beneath it, a curtain of shadows darker than deep night.

Haliax looked up at stars I couldn't see, tracing patterns in the sky that meant nothing to me and everything to him.

“The time has come,” he said. “Bring the boy. Bring the box.”

Stercus grabbed my left arm, his fingers finding every bruise Cinder had given me. Alenta took my right, her grip cold and final. They dragged me forward, and I fought them with everything except hope.

Haliax stood still as stone, still as waiting, the Loeclos Box hanging from his hand like a hanged man from a tree.

“You will open it,” he commanded.

The box seemed to drink moonlight, its once-beautiful surface now gave back nothing. “I don’t know how,” I managed through the tight cage of my chest.

Cinder's laugh shattered against the ancient stones. He stepped closer, his pale face alight with cruel delight. “That’s no trouble. We’ll teach you.”

At some signal I couldn't see, Alenta grabbed my wrist with one hand while the other brought forth her blade. She drove it through my palm in one clean motion, the way you'd push a needle through cloth if the cloth could scream.

I did scream. The sound tore from me raw and ragged. First came heat, bright and impossible, a star being born in my hand. Then came cold, immediate and absolute, filling the hole the heat had left behind. My fingers went strange and distant, no longer mine, no longer anything.

Blood fell onto the box in fat drops, and the box drank them down like parched earth drinks rain.

“Open it,” Haliax said again.

I said nothing, gasping, the world tilting and swimming.

“Open it,” he repeated, and this time his voice wrapped around my mind like wire. “Or we give her the same lesson.”

His shadow-wrapped arm pointed past the circle of monsters to where Denna stood at the gathering's edge, her hands folded against her chest like broken birds.

“No.” The word came out cracked. Then stronger. “Don't touch her.”

“Then speak the word you know.”

I met Denna's eyes. They were wide and frightened and fixed on me with a faith I didn't deserve.

I closed my eyes and reached out with more than hands. My blood had soaked into the box, and blood remembers. I found the sympathy there, the connection between what was inside me and what was now inside the wood. Like following a thread through a labyrinth, I let my mind flow along those crimson paths.

The box revealed itself to me in layers. First the grain of the roah wood, tight and twisted as a secret. Then deeper, to the mechanisms hidden within. Three locks, each one listening for something different. The first wanted a word. The second wanted a tone, accurate and precise. The third wanted intention, pure and unflinching.

I knew it then, completely. Every joint, every hinge, every clever piece of artifice that held it closed. And in that moment of perfect knowing, I felt something more. I could unmake it. Not break it, not destroy it, but unweave it from the world entirely. Make it so it had never been. The knowledge burned in me like a star being born, and I wanted it. Wanted to watch Haliax when the thing he needed simply ceased to exist, had never existed, would never exist.

But then I saw Denna's face, and the blade still pressed against her throat, and I knew the price of that satisfaction would be paid in her blood. The cost was too high. It would always be too high.

“Edro,” I whispered, but the word was more than sound. I pitched it to the frequency the second lock craved, shaped it with the intention the third lock demanded. The word fell into the box like a key into its proper lock.

The Loeclos Box opened with a sound like every lock in the world agreeing to betray its door. I flinched, waiting for fire, for light, for the world to come apart at its seams.

Instead, there was only darkness lined with material that had never known human touch. And nestled within, a shard of black stone no larger than a broken promise.

Haliax lifted it out with the reverence reserved for holy things and terrible ones.

“Our suffering ends tonight,” he announced, the words hanging in the air like smoke. Then he turned to Denna. “Bring her.”

“No!” I scrambled to my feet, desperate as drowning. “Take whatever you need from me. Leave her out of this.”

Haliax tilted his head, considering. When he spoke, his voice had gone gentle, which made it infinitely worse. “For what comes next, young man, you are entirely the wrong instrument.”

They seized me again, threw me aside like a letter already read. I hit the ground hard, the impact punching air from my lungs. When I recovered enough to look, Denna was standing before him, her frailty outlined in the harsh moonlight.

“Cinder speaks of your talents,” Haliax said, his tone distant, almost fond. He held out the shard to her, its sharp edge casting an unnatural, liquid gleam. “Now you will sing. Look upon the door, and sing the words that are forsworn there.”

She trembled. “I don't understand.”

“Look at it.” His shadowed hand caught her chin, turning her face toward the ancient arch. “See it truly.”

Denna trembled, tears slipping down her cheeks, but her gaze became distant, fixed, as though the arch were rewriting her. Seconds passed, and the silence of the gathering deepened, heavy as an executioner’s hood.

Dalcenti approached her then, her mask drawn back to reveal her ghostly, ruined face. She whispered something into Denna’s ear and Denna’s eyes found mine one last time. Frantic. Questioning. Betrayed.

Then, like a marionette pulled by its strings, she drew in a long, shuddering breath and opened her mouth.

What came from her was not song in any way I had ever known it. Three notes, perfect and terrible, each one written in a language that predated words. They carried the weight of stones grinding beneath oceans, of doors that should never open creaking wide on ancient hinges. The notes hung in the air like hanged men, like prophecies, like the last words of dying gods.

The black curtain beneath the arch began to move. It bulged outward, pregnant with possibilities that should never be born. The ground shook, not with violence but with recognition, as if the earth remembered what was coming and tried to flee.

A sound emerged from beyond that door. A heartbeat, if hearts could be the size of mountains. A breathing, if breath could rot the air.

Then they poured through.

Wolves the size of horses, their jaws dripping with light that burned. Birds with human teeth strung like pearls in their beaks. Spiders tall enough to cast shadows on the moon, eyeless and eager. Things that had too many joints, or not enough. Things that moved in ways that made my eyes water to follow.

And then, stepping through them all like a shepherd through his flock, came Iax.

His flesh hung in tatters that might have been shadows or might have been skin. His arms stretched wrong, too long, too thin, reaching for things that weren't there. From beneath hair black as the space between stars, his face grinned without joy, without humor, without anything that could be called human.

“Welcome, Dreamer,” Haliax said, and for the first time I heard something like reverence in his voice.

Iax’s soulless eyes surveyed us, fixing on Haliax. When he laughed, it sounded like rust on iron, like doors that hadn't opened in a thousand years suddenly remembering how. “Lanre,” he said, soft and full of dark humor. “How fitting that you would stand here, among the ruins you wrought, to set me free.”

Haliax raised the shard of black stone, steady despite the trembling in his shadow. “Not free. Not yet. I come seeking your power, Dreamer. Our curse has run too long, our torment endless. I ask your boon, Dreamer.”

Iax’s laugh deepened into something brutal, scarred and ancient. “Ask, then, hero of old. Tell me, what price would you have me pay?”

Haliax stood straighter. For the first time, I thought I saw something fragile at his core. “Shatter the curse. Burn these shadows to smoke, and let me pass through the doors of death.”

Iax considered this with the patience of someone who had nothing but time. Then he spoke a word that made the air scream, took the shard, and crushed it to dust between fingers that weren't entirely there. The dust scattered on wind that came from nowhere, went nowhere, meant nothing.

The shadow that had wrapped Haliax for longer than kingdoms had stood began to peel away like paint from a burning house. Beneath it stood a man. Just a man. Old and tired and broken in ways that had nothing to do with bones.

He reached up with trembling fingers, touched his own cheek like a blind man remembering sight. A sob escaped him, small and private and devastating.

“It has been so long,” Lanre whispered. “Too long.”

Then he turned, and on his face was the kind of smile you see on men who've finally put down burdens too heavy to bear.

“Someone end it,” he said. “Please.”

Cinder obliged.

The blade sank deep, and Lanre collapsed, the bitter smile still gracing his face as shadows stirred and the candle hissed out.

CHAPTER 40.

CINDER.

“WE’RE FREE,” CINDER said, his voice spilling over with a relief so vast it bordered on reverence. He turned to the other Chandrian, the remnants of shadow still licking at their forms as they came together, each embracing the others with something raw, desperate, and uncomfortably human.

The sight turned my stomach. They didn’t deserve this joy. My parents lay beneath the earth, their songs silenced. My troupe had burned to nothing while these monsters danced in the ashes. Cities had crumbled at their touch, and now they stood here celebrating as if pain could be washed clean by time.

My hands made themselves into fists without my permission. But what was I against the weight of their years? One man with broken fingers and a heart full of righteous fury. One man was nothing.

Then memory stirred, faint but clear. Marten's voice drifted back to me from the depths of the Eld, dry and knowing. "Call me the proper way, and I will come." He had shown me more than I had understood at the time, but I understood now.

I stepped forward, feeling the air in my lungs burn as I drew it deeper. Then, I spoke.

“Great Tehlu, wrap me in your wings. Protect me from demons and creatures that walk in the night.”

The Chandrian continued their reunion, oblivious.

My voice grew stronger, climbing like flame up dry wood. "Tehlu, in your name, watch over me."

A tremor rippled through them, subtle as wind through wheat. Still, there was no immediate reaction.

The words tore from my throat, each one sharper than the last. "Tehlu, shelter me from iron and anger. Tehlu, who the fire could not kill, watch over me in fire."

Cinder's head turned slightly, his face narrowing with curiosity as he sought my voice.

"Tehlu, who held Encanis to the wheel, watch over me in darkness." The prayer had become a battle cry, each word a stone thrown at heaven. "Tehlu, whose eyes are true, watch over me. TEHLU, SON OF YOURSELF, IN YOUR NAME, WATCH OVER ME."

"Kill him," Cinder commanded, his voice cutting cutting through the stunned silence.

Stercus surged toward me first, his massive form barreling through the night. But the wind knew my name better than I knew it myself. I called, and it answered. The gust that came was not gentle. It lifted him like a child's toy and flung him into the darkness.

Usnea came next, her silver blade singing its cold song. Again I called the wind, and again it obeyed. She tumbled across the stone, her mask catching moonlight as she rolled.

But there were seven of them. Seven against one. The math was simple and terrible.

Cinder hurled himself forward, the dull gray sword in his hand aimed for my heart.

Light split the world in half.

The first bolt fell between us like a judgment. It was bright. Bright as the birth of stars. Bright as the death of darkness. So bright that for one perfect moment Cinder became nothing more than a shadow painted against white fire. The air around us turned sharp and strange, filling with a distinct, sharp, and somewhat metallic smell.

He stumbled backward, his killing stroke forgotten, one arm raised against that terrible brightness as if he could ward it away with flesh and bone.

Another bolt carved the earth open, like the finger of God spilling fire where it touched. The air itself screamed, not with fear but with the simple physics of being torn apart and sewn back together in the span of a heartbeat.

Then they descended.

Eight figures wreathed in flame that was not flame but something holier and more terrible. Wings spread wide enough to shame the sky. Their swords burned with light that made looking painful and not looking impossible. Tehlu's angels had come wearing war like wedding clothes.

The battle that followed had no words. The Chandrian met them with fury born of centuries. The creatures from beyond the door fought with hunger that had festered in darkness since the world was young. But the angels moved through them like truth through lies, their blades leaving nothing but light in their wake.

I stood frozen, the sheer force of ancient power consuming everything around me. “Time to go,” Denna whispered, grabbing my wrist.

We ran. Behind us, angels screamed war songs that had no words, only fury. Behind us, creatures older than names howled their hunger at the stars. Behind us, stone melted and air burned and the mountain learned what it meant to weep. We ran toward the ridge with the singular focus of prey, toward anywhere that was not here.

"Where do you think you're going?"

The voice stopped us like a wall.

Cinder stood before us, having moved through space in ways that space should not allow. "You thought you could slip away?" He stalked forward, lips twitching into a feral grin and black eyes gleaming with cruel amusement. “Foolish children.”

I called the wind again, throwing everything I had into a screaming wall of air between us. Cinder simply planted his blade in the earth and leaned into it, unmoved and unmoving. His laugh was the sound of ice cracking under weight.

He moved again, that terrible speed, but this time his target was not me.

It was Denna.

"No!" The word tore from me as I threw myself forward, graceless and desperate. My body met his in a tangle of limbs and fury. We went down together, but Cinder spun away like lightning, and I saw the glint of his sword too late.

Pain shot through my left hand.

Then a deeper, quieter pain washed over me as three of my fingers fell to the ground.

I choked back a scream, staggering under the savage blow, but even as agony coursed through me, something in my chest burned brighter. Fury took root, and fury became strength. I crashed into him with everything I had left. My fist found his face once, twice, three times. I felt his nose break beneath my knuckles, heard the wet crack of cartilage giving way. My ruined hand found his silver hair and I drove his skull against the unforgiving earth.

Cinder roared, throwing me aside with inhuman strength. He pinned me, his fists falling like hammers. My face went slack from the impacts, blood filling my mouth as my vision blurred.

He smiled then, the same smile he had worn the day he killed everything I loved.

My ruined hand reached to his face, smearing my blood across his eyes. For one precious moment, his vision was blinded. I tried to roll away, but his sword appeared in his hand as if it had always been there. He drove his boot into my chest, pinning me to the earth.

The blade rose high.

Then he froze.

Behind him stood Denna, breathing hard, her hand still wrapped around the handle of the knife she had driven into his neck.

"Pity," Cinder said, his voice conversational despite the steel in his spine. "You would have made a fine apprentice."

He turned with the blade still in his neck and drove his sword into her belly with the casual efficiency of a man closing a door.

“No!” I screamed, my voice breaking with raw anguish. A gale swelled beneath my fury, and the wind exploded outward, tearing Cinder from the ground and sending him spinning through the dark chaos.

I was beside Denna in an instant.

“Help me up,” she whispered, clutching the wound as her blood seeped between her fingers.

I obeyed without thought, pulling her to her feet. We stumbled toward the ridge, her weight against me, my blood mixing with hers on the ancient stone. Behind us, the carnage dwindled into background noise. Survival became everything.

And yet, I turned. I don’t know why I turned, but I did, and I saw Cinder pull the knife from his neck with no more concern than a man removing a splinter. He tossed it aside and his eyes found mine. In that moment, I knew in my heart of hearts that he would never stop. That his act in this new lease on life would be to hunt us down.

But as I looked at him, something else happened. Like with Loeclos Box, the world peeled back his skin and showed me what lay beneath.

I saw Cinder as he truly was, down to the cold core of his being. I saw the young man he had been in Murellaa, who those closest had once considered virtuous. I saw how the malice that existed within him had taken hold. I saw how small betrayals layered blood upon his hands until he was forced to burn down his own people's silver tree. I saw how this first act had opened a door in him that could never quite close, and how the centunes of torment that followed had made him bitter, and cruel.

I lifted my ruined hand, blood spilling onto the ground, my voice filled with all the power that still stirred in me. “By my own blood, I bind you. By your own name, let you be accursed.” I roared a word, a chill wind tearing across the mountainside as I spoke the long name that lived at the heart of Cinder’s being. “This is my doom upon you. Your own name will turn against you. You and all who follow you will know no peace. This is my doom upon you!”

Cinder's face twisted from amusement to rage to something that might have been fear. He lunged toward us, only to be met by a burning sword as one of Tehlu’s angels descended upon him.

Denna tugged at my arm, her voice weak and pleading. “Let’s go.”

And so, we fled into the night.

CHAPTER 41.

THREADBARE AND BOUNDLESS.

WE FLED LIKE broken things flee. Not with purpose or direction, but with the blind momentum of the wounded, the way a struck bird beats its wings against the ground, knowing only that stillness means death.

My left hand had become a stranger to me. Where three fingers should have been, there was only absence and a pulsing heat that matched my heartbeat. I had wrapped it in torn cloth, but blood still found its way through, leaving a trail of dark coins on the stones. Behind us, screams of the Chandrian and the thunder of Tehlu’s angels tore holes in the night. Thunder that was not thunder. Light that burned without flame. The screams of the Chandrian discovering what it meant to be mortal enough to fear.

Denna leaned against me, her weight both a burden and a blessing. A burden because my legs already heavy and sore. A blessing because it meant she still lived. Her hand pressed against her stomach where Cinder’s sword had written its cruel message, and between her fingers seeped a darkness that looked black in the moonlight but would be crimson come the dawn.

“I can walk,” she whispered.

“Of course,” I said, but kept supporting her anyway.

We both knew how to lie when lying was a kindness.

The mountain gave way to foothills as the first light touched the world’s edge. We found shelter in a copse of ironwood and desert willow, their branches made a meager shade, but it was enough to let us stop. To let us breathe. Breathing seemed important. Breathing meant we were not dead.

While we rested I took time to examine Denna’s wound. It was worse than I’d feared and better than I’d expected. Worse because it went deep, the kind of deep that speaks of organs and arteries, the kind of deep that makes even University-trained physicians shake their heads and speak in careful, quiet voices. Better because Denna was still breathing, still conscious, still herself enough to try to smile when she caught me staring.

“That bad?” she asked.

“I’ve seen worse,” I said. Another lie. Another kindness. In the Medica, I’d seen wounds like this. I knew their rhythm, their slow waltz toward fever and infection and the sweet smell that meant the body had begun to surrender. I pushed those thoughts away and locked them in the same place I kept my memories of my parents’ burning wagon.

I tore strips from what remained of my shirt, the fabric already more memory than cloth. My fingers worked with the careful precision I’d learned in the Medica, cleaning the wound as best I could with nothing but spit and hope. The stitching was rough work, rougher still with only three fingers on my left hand answering my commands. Each pull of the thread drew a sound from Denna that she tried to swallow, and each sound cut me deeper than Cinder’s blade ever could.

When I finished, I wrapped my shaed around her shoulders. That gift of shadow, starlight, moonlight and fire that Felurian had woven with grammarie and secrets I’d never understand.

I’d worn it through gentle summer days and bitter winter nights without harm, but I’d never asked it to endure a desert. The sun here was different. Cruel. It beat down on us, my shaed had begun to fade at the edges, dissolving like smoke into memory. But what remained still held its nature. It was cool against her fever-bright skin and dark enough to shield her from the worst of the desert’s attention.

By the time I’d bound her wound and settled the shaed around her, my hands trembled and sweat ran into my eyes. I pressed my palms against them, hard enough to see stars, hard enough to push back everything that threatened to spill over if I let it.

Denna looked at the dark threads holding her together. “I look like something from a story,” she said.

“The heroine,” I agreed. “The clever one who outsmarts death and makes it home for dinner.”

She smiled, just barely. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m getting better,” I said. “I’ve had an excellent teacher.”

* * *

The desert stretched before us, an endless, sun-scorched expanse. The sand was the color of old bones, and the heat rose from it in waves that made the air dance like fever dreams. I held the shaed above us when I could, trying to shield Denna from the worst of the heat, but my shadow cloak tired quickly beneath the desert sun. Each morning it would emerge from my pocket whole but weary. And each day it would falter, tiny holes appearing like stars in a dark sky, growing slowly wider until I had no choice but to let it rest.

By the second day, the shaed barely lasted through the afternoon. By the third, I was tucking it away as the sun reached its full height, cradling it in my pocket like a wounded bird. Even magic, it seemed, could not endure the desert’s hunger.

“Bad luck?” Denna asked.

“For the shaed, maybe.” I gestured toward the endless sand. “Just a bit farther.”

She laughed, or tried to. The sound was dry as sand. “You’re a terrible liar when it matters.”

“I’m an excellent liar,” I protested. “I’m just choosing not to be.”

“That’s the worst lie yet.”

We walked on. Denna leaned against me more and more until walking became a memory and carrying became the only truth. My legs had stopped feeling like legs sometime the day before. Now they were just things that moved when I told them to, automatic as breathing, reliable as pain.

I played the games that desperate men play with themselves. Count to one hundred steps and you can think of water. Count to fifty and you can remember shade. Count to ten and you can keep walking. Count to ten again. Again. The numbers became a song without melody, a prayer without words. My world narrowed to the rhythm of footfalls in sand, to the weight across my shoulders, to the next step, the next breath, the next lie I told myself about how much farther I could go.

I was watching my feet, mesmerized by their stubborn persistence, when a voice cut through the desert silence.

“Ho there! Stragglers in the sand!”

I looked up, certain the heat had finally won, that my mind had begun to paint salvation on the empty canvas of the desert. But the figure grew more solid with each blink, more real, until I could make out the pack on his back, the brass pots that caught the sun like fallen stars, the wide-brimmed hat that cast a shadow you could trust.

By the time we reached him, Denna was barely conscious. “Water,” I croaked.

He handed me a leather skin with a look of pity. I poured some into Denna’s mouth before taking a swig myself. It tasted of sweat and old leather, but in that moment, I swore it to be more precious than wine.

“I have little else to spare,” the Tinker said, gesturing to his pack. “Some bread hard enough to drive nails. Cloth for your faces against the sun. The desert gives less than it takes, I’m afraid.”

I reached for my purse, though I knew what I would find. Three iron drabs. A broken gear from some forgotten project. A button that had once belonged to my father’s cloak, though I’d never told anyone that, never admitted I’d kept such a useless thing for such a sentimental reason.

The Tinker’s eyes didn’t linger on my poor offerings. Instead, they found Denna’s hand, where her silver ring caught the light like a promise about to be broken.

She saw his look. Her fingers found the ring, turned it once, twice. A gesture I’d seen her make a hundred times when she was thinking, when she was nervous, when she was about to run. But there was nowhere to run now, only the desert stretching endlessly in every direction.

“Take it,” she said, pulling the ring free with a motion quick as tearing off a bandage. “It was never really mine anyway.”

The Tinker hesitated, that moment of pause that exists between kindness and commerce. Then he took the ring, and gave us what he could spare, and pointed us northwest. “Follow the dunes until they dip,” he said. “Half a day’s walk, you’ll find the Tahl. They’re good people, though strange. They’ll help if they can.”

As he walked away, pack jingling with the music of small trades and smaller profits, I looked at Denna’s naked finger. There was a band of pale skin where the ring had been, like a ghost of something that had mattered.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be,” she replied, but her voice was smaller than before, as if she’d traded away more than silver.

* * *

We did not find the Tahl in half a day.

We did not find them in two days.

By the third day, Denna had gone quiet in the way that people go quiet when they’re saving their strength for one last thing, though they haven’t decided what that thing will be.

I carried her through that third day, though my legs had begun to betray me too. They trembled with each step, buckled without warning, sent me stumbling to my knees again and again. Each time I fell, it took longer to stand. Each time I stood, I could carry her a shorter distance.

I talked to keep us both alive. Told her stories of the University, of my friends, of all the times I’d been clever and all the times I’d been lucky and all the times I’d confused one for the other. I told her how we would escape this desert, find water, find shelter, find a bed where she could rest and heal and laugh at how close we’d come to ending.

When I fell the last time, I knew I wouldn’t be getting up again.

The sand received me without judgment. It would be easy to close my eyes, to stop fighting what had already won. I’d fought well. Sometimes that has to be enough.

I wrapped my arms around Denna and held on. Above us, the sky stretched endless and empty, too blue to look at, too vast to comprehend. The sun pressed down, patient as stones.

I thought of my mother singing while she cooked. My father’s hands painting stories in the air. I thought of Denna, who was worth more than salt or the moon on a long night of walking.

The desert waited.

I closed my eyes.

I held her close.

I listened to two hearts beating, growing slower, growing quiet.

CHAPTER 42.

SEVEN WORDS FOR SILENCE.

THE DESERT HAD seven words for silence, and we were learning them all.

The first was the silence of absence. Wind that should have sung through sand dunes lay still as a held breath. The second was the silence of waiting. My cracked lips formed prayers that had no sound, only shape. The third was the silence of sand itself, endless and patient, knowing that all things eventually belonged to it.

Denna lay against me like a child’s cloth doll worn soft from years of holding, her head lolling against my chest the way dolls do when their necks have lost all substance. One side of her face had gone slack with fever, the way a doll’s face sags when the stitching comes loose, leaving her mouth pulled into a stranger’s expression she couldn’t control. I kept her hand in mine, feeling the threadbare pulse beneath her skin. Weak. Growing weaker. Around us, the desert waited with the patience of stone, and the sun pressed down steady and merciless as truth.

My throat had forgotten water. Each swallow scraped like sand finding its way between stones, wearing them smooth through endless repetition. I reached out with what little Naming I had left, searching for water the way roots search through darkness. Deep beneath us, I could feel it sleeping in the earth’s hidden places. But my voice couldn’t reach that far. My will was a rope too short for such a deep well.

Denna stirred. Her lips moved, shaping words without breath, like thread pulled through cloth with no knot to hold it. At first I thought she was remembering how to sing. Then I heard it too. Voices threading through the heat. Not the wind’s voice, but human voices carried like seeds on its back. A rhythmic chanting that rose and fell, rose and fell, patient as breathing.

I found strength hiding in the marrow of my bones, in that last reserve the body keeps for dying. My ruined hand rose into the air, the bandages stiff with old blood. “Help.” The word came out cracked down the middle. I tried again, pushing past the sharp edges. “Please. Help us.”

The chanting stopped the way a thread stops when it reaches its knot. Silence. Then it began again, closer, as if the singers had been listening to our silence and decided to answer it. A shadow fell across us, blotting out the sun, and for a moment all I could see was darkness. I was certain death had finally come to collect what the desert had been softening for it. But the darkness had a human shape, and when it leaned down to look at us, its eyes were curious and alive.

* * *

The Tahl saved us. There’s no simpler way to say it. The woman who held the flask to our lips had hands like old leather books, creased and brown and full of stories. She gave us water in small, careful portions, not from stinginess but from wisdom. She understood thirst the way only those who live beside it understand it. She knew the body could mistake rescue for attack, that too much kindness could kill as surely as too little.

Denna drank like a baby bird, all instinct and need. Sputtered. Drank again. The fever in her eyes burned bright as new copper, but she was alive. Alive was the only word that mattered. Alive was the only prayer worth praying.

They gave us bread, flat and hard and gritty with the desert that found its way into everything. The old woman who offered it ate her own piece with the careful, grinding patience of someone whose teeth had learned the true cost of desert living. Denna managed three bites that stayed down. I managed more, though my hands shook like leaves remembering wind. The Tahl watched us with the steady curiosity of those who find unexpected seeds blown far from their proper soil.

Words failed us. I tried Aturan first, and when they only tilted their heads I tried slowing down and speaking louder like one does with children or the very drunk. When that didn’t work I tried Tema, then Siaru, then the scattered pieces of other tongues I’d collected. Nothing worked. Finally, one of them gestured for me to wait. When she returned, she brought an old woman who spoke in halting Adem hand-talk, her gestures too large and too many, like someone shouting in whispers.

“Heal her,” I tried to sign, but my left hand betrayed me. Where fingers should have shaped meaning, there were only gaps and bandages. The gestures fell apart like words with missing letters, meaningless and broken. I stared at my ruined hand for a heartbeat, then switched to my right, signing awkwardly with my clever hand where my strong hand should have spoken. “Heal her. Please.”

The old woman’s eyes moved to Denna, taking in each thread of her unraveling. The dark stain spreading beneath makeshift bandages. The shallow pull of breath barely moving cloth. The fever writing its signature across pale skin. She spoke to the others in their rolling tongue that sounded like water over stones. Voices rose like heat. Argued. Settled like dust.

When the old woman returned, two men flanked her, their faces weathered into the same patient stone as the desert itself. They lifted Denna with the care reserved for things that might shatter if you breathed wrong. Her lips parted, releasing sounds that had forgotten how to be words. Her eyes found mine, full of questions I couldn’t answer.

We walked toward the promise of shade, toward the promise of more than just not-dying. Hours passed, or minutes that had learned to feel like hours. The desert released its grip finger by finger, reluctant as a child letting go of a favorite toy, until trees appeared on the horizon like wishes becoming solid.

The trees were silver things that had learned to sing. Not truly sing, but make a sound like singing, the way memory makes a sound like truth. Their broad flat crowns caught wind differently than ordinary trees, turning it into something that had almost learned to be music. Their leaves whispered harmonies that had no names, only the shapes of feelings. The sound pulled at something behind my ribs, something that remembered what songs meant before we taught them words.

The Tahl’s camp sprawled around an oasis where water caught the late light and held it like cupped hands. They carried Denna into the largest tent. I stood there, swaying slightly, unsure if I was allowed to follow, but no one so much as looked at me or gestured. I was a stranger in their place of healing, covered in desert dust and old blood, and I didn’t know their customs. Did they permit men where women did their work? But Denna was in there, and that was the only thing that mattered. I pushed through the tent flap.

Inside, they had laid Denna on a low pallet covered in worn blankets. She was getting worse the way a cloth unravels, slowly at first, one thread at a time, then faster as the weave loses its will to hold. The fever had grown teeth and appetite. Her words tumbled over each other like drunken dancers, making no sense, making too much sense. Her hand found mine and held on with the terrible strength of those who know they’re falling.

The tent flap stirred, and the eldest of the Tahl entered, her face written over with years like a palimpsest of sorrows. She placed a hand on Denna’s forehead, and her expression told me everything in the space before words arrived.

“She is far from us,” the old woman said in Aturan that had rust on its edges from disuse. “Very far.”

My heart cracked like ice in spring, the kind of cracking that means everything is about to change. “I’ve heard stories. Your people know songs that can heal. Magic that can mend what’s broken.”

The old woman gave me a sad smile. “Once, yes. We sang the sun to sleep and taught it to wake. We sang rain from cloudless skies and taught rivers their names.” She paused, looking at her hands as if they belonged to someone else. “But that was when the world was younger and believed in such things. Now we are shadows of what we were, trying to remember the shape of power. What strength remains is thin as the last light before dark.”

“Please.” The word cracked as it left me. “Anything. Whatever you have left. Please.”

She studied me for a long moment. Then, with a tired sigh, she placed her hand over mine. “I will gather the others,” she said.

* * *

Night came dressed in stars, and the Tahl built their circle of fire like setting a table for old gods.

I heard them before I saw them, a rustling of robes and whispered preparation. Then five women emerged from the shadows between tents, wearing robes the color of storms that haven’t decided whether to break. They moved like water returning to its course. The camp fell quiet the way rooms fall quiet when someone starts telling a true story.

Denna lay in the circle’s heart, pale as paper waiting for words, fragile as the moment before everything changes.

The women began to sing.

Their song had no words I knew, but I knew what it meant the way you know what tears mean. It was the song of things ending and beginning in the same breath. It was the song of the space between heartbeats where everything is possible. It was the song of threads coming together and threads pulling apart, and not knowing which was which.

The singing trees joined them, their silver leaves adding harmonies that shouldn’t have existed, like colors that have no names but your eyes know anyway. The wind rose, carrying the song higher, spreading it like seeds across the desert. Like seeds finding cracks in stone, like seeds that remember what they’re meant to become. The fires leaned inward, reaching for Denna with tongues of light that wanted to taste her shadows.

The song grew stronger, the women’s voices braiding together into something more than music. The air itself seemed to thicken and pulse with their singing, as if remembering older magics.

Then one of the women cried out like a string breaking and crumpled to the sand. Another followed, then another, until all five lay still as stones that have finished falling, and the silence that followed was the fourth kind. The silence of things that have given everything and failed.

The eldest of them, the one they called Taeylia, struggled to her feet like someone carrying invisible stones. She moved as if years had been added to her life and subtracted from her strength. Her hands found Denna’s chest, stayed there for a moment that lasted as long as hope takes to die.

When she stood, I already knew what she would say. The words were already there in the careful way she moved, like someone carrying water in cupped hands, afraid to spill a drop.

“The song has done what it can,” Taeylia said, her voice soft as ash falling. “Her pain will ease. She will have peace for a night. Perhaps a day. But the wound goes deeper than our songs can reach. Some doors, once opened, will not close for any amount of singing.”

I nodded. My throat had closed around words that wanted to be screams, swallowing them back down where they could hurt only me.

“Make your time count,” she said, and her hand on my shoulder was gentle as rain on dust.

The singing trees had gone quiet, their silver harmonies fading to whispers, as if they too knew what was coming.

* * *

The fires burned low, painting the world in ember and ash, in all the colors that come after. I sat beside Denna, watching her breathe, counting each rise and fall like the last verses of something I should have memorized.

The wind stirred once, bringing with it a single leaf from the singing trees. It settled near my foot, silver and perfect. I picked it up, turned it over in my fingers.

Her eyes opened when I pressed it into her palm. They were still her eyes, despite everything. Despite the fever. Despite the stranger’s expression the sickness had written on half her face.

“What’s this?” Her voice was thin as thread about to break.

“You wanted a leaf from a singing tree,” I said.

She smiled, and it was like watching the sun remember how to rise, even though it knows it will have to set again. “You remembered.”

“I remember everything about you. I always have. I always will.”

“Liar,” she whispered, but her fingers closed around the leaf like it was the answer to a question she’d been afraid to ask.

“I love you, Denna.”

The words hung between us, simple as breathing, terrible as the truth. Her eyes were already growing distant, looking at something behind me, or beyond me, or through me to some other place where pain was just a word and dying was something that happened to other people.

“Hold me, Kvothe,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “I can’t die alone.”

I moved without thinking, gathering her into my arms, careful of her wounds, careful of everything, as if careful could change what was coming. She weighed nothing. She weighed everything. Under the singing trees that sang their silver song, under stars that didn’t care, under the weight of all the silences we’d learned and the ones still to come, I held her.

The fifth silence was the space between her heartbeats, growing longer. The sixth was the moment when they stopped. The seventh was everything after.

Under the singing trees, under the patient stars, under the weight of all seven silences, I kept my arms around her. Between her fingers, the silver leaf whispered the only song left to us, a song too small for the world to hear, too perfect to belong anywhere but here.

CHAPTER 43.

INTERLUDE.

OUT OF THE CHILL.

KOTE’S VOICE SIMPLY stopped. Its absence was like a lute string that stops singing when a careless hand falls hard against the fretboard. Sudden and final and wrong. The kind of ending that makes everyone in a room look up from their drinks, wondering what has broken, wondering why the world sounds different now that the music has gone.

The quill in Chronicler’s hand stilled against the page, the last word only half formed. The life drained from the Waystone Inn like water from a cracked bowl, leaving behind such a hollow that the walls seemed to lean inward and the ceiling to bow down, as if the room itself grieved. The kind of emptiness that makes you understand why some stories cost more to tell than anyone should have to pay.

Bast’s fingers found the edge of his sleeve and worried at it, pulling loose a thread that had been waiting all day to unravel. Then his arms wrapped around his knees and he rocked back and forth, his gaze flickering to the rafters as if the ceiling might hold back what threatened to spill from his eyes. “Oh, Reshi,” he said, the words tumbling out before he could stop them. “I never knew.”

Kote sat perfectly still, his hands flat against the table. He studied the wood grain as if it held answers, as if following those dark lines might lead him somewhere other than here. The muscles in his jaw worked once, twice, then stilled. When he stood, the chair scraped against the floor, the sound harsh in the grieving quiet.

“It’s late,” he said, his voice coming out a little too steady, a little too careful. “There are things I need to tend to before dark.”

A smile tried to find its way onto his face. It was the sort of smile that served as armor, the kind you wear when the alternative is letting the world see you shatter. “Eat something. We’ve more to get through tonight.”

He turned toward the kitchen, and neither Bast nor Chronicler moved to stop him. Some exits are too necessary to interrupt. The door swung closed behind him with the soft certainty of a book being shut.

* * *

Kote moved through the kitchen without seeing it, his feet carrying him past the familiar stations of his daily work. The cutting board. The copper pots. The herbs hanging from their hooks. He pushed through the back door and into the night beyond, where autumn waited with teeth bared. The cold struck him like a slap, like a blessing, wrapping around him like water around a drowning man. Shocking and sudden and somehow exactly what he needed.

He walked to the rain barrel that stood in the shadow of the inn’s back wall and gripped its edge, the old wood rough beneath his palms as he let his head hang forward. For a moment he stayed like that, braced against something solid and real in a way that nothing else seemed to be anymore. Then his knees gave way like they’d been waiting for permission, and he slid down to sit in the dirt with his back against the barrel.

He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until he saw stars that weren’t stars, just the protest of a body pushed too far. But the memories came anyway. They always did.

Denna’s voice, singing that terrible song that had torn the world open. The weight of her in his arms as they fled through the desert. The way her breathing had slowed and slowed and slowed until it simply stopped, like a clock winding down, like a story reaching its end, like everything that mattered finding its way to nothing.

The tears came without ceremony or warning. They traced hot lines down his cold cheeks, and he let them fall. There was no one here to see. No one to judge the great Kvothe brought low by memory and regret. Just a man named Kote, sitting in the dirt behind an inn, learning again what it meant to grieve.

A faint rustling cut through the quiet. Soft. Subtle. Wrong.

Years of a past life stirred in his blood. His breath stilled and his eyes searched the treeline, waiting, calculating.

The branches of the oak tree swayed, but there was no wind. Not even a breeze to excuse the movement.

Then he saw it. A soft flutter. An owl shifted on a branch above, its feathers brushing against bark as it rose and resettled. Kote exhaled, forcing himself to breathe slowly, reclaiming his pulse. It was nothing. Only an owl.

As he stood to leave, something caught his eye. A splash of color where color had no business being.

There, growing beside the inn’s foundation despite the frost that silvered the ground each morning, despite the dying of the year, despite every reason it shouldn’t exist, bloomed a single selas flower.

The crimson petals caught what little moonlight filtered through the clouds, holding it like cupped hands hold water. Precious. Temporary. Perfect.

Kote crouched beside it, his fingers stopping just short of touching those impossibly delicate petals. The flower faced the moon with the quiet confidence of beautiful things that know they won’t last. It was the sort of flower a young man might have picked for a girl with dark hair and a crooked smile. The sort of flower that meant more than words could ever say. The sort of flower that bloomed in stories but rarely in life.

“We’ll be together again soon.” The words escaped before he could stop them, soft as secrets, certain as sorrow.

He stood and turned away from the flower, from the moon, from all the things that insisted on beauty in a world that had forgotten what beauty meant. The door of the Waystone welcomed him back to warmth that wasn’t quite warm enough, to light that wasn’t quite bright enough, to a life that wasn’t quite life enough.

Behind him, the selas flower continued its impossible bloom, a small defiance against the coming winter. A promise, perhaps. Or maybe just a flower, doing what flowers do when no one’s watching.

Inside, the silence waited for him, patient as always. It had learned to be.

CHAPTER 44.

THE HOLLOW CROWN.

For two days I did nothing but lie on a thin mat in the Tahl’s camp. I ate when they brought food. I drank when they brought water. I slept when the sun grew too hot to do anything else.

It was not rest. It was something else. Something less.

When I closed my eyes, I saw faces. Wil first, still and patient even in death, his blood dried to the color of old wine. Then Sim, looking at me with those soft eyes that had never held anything harder than worry for a friend. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His silence said everything.

Denna came differently. She walked through my dreams with her back always turned, always leaving through doors I couldn’t reach. I called her name and she would pause but never turn. I reached for her and found only empty air. She was smoke. She was wind. She was gone.

Through it all, Auri’s plea wormed through my grief, eating small holes in the darkness. Live, she had said. One word was all. But that one word tethered me to the waking world when letting go would have been so much easier.

On the third morning, Taeylia came to my mat. Her weathered face held the same kindness it had shown when she’d tried to save Denna, but now it carried something firmer too. She lowered herself to sit beside me with the careful movements of age, and when she spoke, her Aturan came slow and rusty, like a door that hadn’t opened in years.

“You must go,” she said. The words weren’t cruel, but they were final. “We have done much. The desert has little to spare.” She paused then, her fingers moving as if she could pluck the right words from the air. When she spoke again, her Aturan came more careful. “Grief is hungry. It will eat more than we can give.”

I understood. The Tahl had given me water when I was dying. They had given me shelter when I had nowhere else to turn. They had even given me time to pour my sorrow into their silence. But I was a stranger who had brought death to their door, and their kindness had boundaries. They had their own bellies to fill, their own water to guard. A broken man who did nothing but grieve was a weight they couldn’t carry.

Taeylia’s hand touched my shoulder, gentle as falling sand. “Your woman is at peace,” she said, and I could hear how carefully she chose each word. “We sang her to the stars. It is done well.” She studied my face for a long moment, her dark eyes reading something written in the hollows beneath mine. When she spoke again, her voice carried a different weight. “But you are not done. The living must walk.”

Another of the Tahl stepped forward then, a younger woman with sun-dark hands. She pressed warm bread into my palm and held out a waterskin, already full, the leather still damp from filling. No words passed between us. None were needed. Taeylia knelt in the sand and drew me a map with one weathered finger, tracing the path through the mountains while she murmured landmarks in careful Aturan mixed with the gestures her people used when words failed. But beneath all this kindness lay iron. I had to go. Today.

I gathered what little I owned. My body moved through the motions while my mind stayed somewhere else, somewhere gray and quiet. The Tahl watched me leave from a careful distance. Taeylia stood at their head, her face unreadable as stone worn smooth by wind. No one waved. But as I passed the camp’s edge, I heard her voice one last time, so soft I might have imagined it.

“Walk well, broken one. Walk until you are whole.”

As evening fell and the stars began their slow opening above the desert, I walked west. Each step took effort. Not because I was tired, though I was. Not because I was weak, though I was that too. But because some part of me wanted to stop. To sit. To stay. To become one more piece of the desert, worn smooth by wind and sand until nothing remained.

But Auri had told me to live. So I lived. I walked. One foot, then the other. Again and again. It wasn’t much of a life, but it was what I had.

The stars came out, cold and distant. I spoke their names under my breath. It was something to do with my mouth besides scream. Something to do with my mind besides remember. The exercise felt hollow, but I did it anyway. Sometimes the motions of living are all we have.

* * *

Renere was not the city I remembered.

I arrived at the gates with my clothes in tatters, my feet bare and bleeding. The guards didn’t look at me. They looked through me. No one in Renere was looking at anyone, not really.

The city wore a weary silence. Not the quiet of evening or snow, but the careful hush of people who had learned that words could be dangerous. Merchants whispered their trades and hurried away. Children played in alleys but watched the streets. Everyone moved with their heads down, the way you do when you have mouths to feed and no time for trouble.

Then I saw the first sign.

Feyda.

The name was painted in red across a wall, the letters tall as a man. I found it again on the next street, scrawled across a banker’s door. Then again on a tavern’s shutters. The dead king’s name bloomed across the city like a rash, spreading from wall to wall in crimson defiance.

As I watched, two figures emerged from an alley’s mouth. One wore a mask and crouched on another’s shoulders, reaching up with a dripping brush to mark “Feyda” across a shop’s sign. They vanished before the patrol could round the corner, leaving only wet paint and questions behind.

The Maer’s soldiers were everywhere and nowhere. They walked in pairs with lanterns held high, their white and blue livery clean as fresh snow against Renere’s gray stones. They stopped anyone who walked alone too long, but their questions rang hollow. These streets had already chosen their loyalty, and it wasn’t to the new king who wore a stolen crown.

The Blind Beggar stood where I’d left it, wearing its shabbiness like comfortable clothes. The windows were boarded, the door marked with that same red paint. “Feyda.” Even here, rebellion had found purchase.

I slipped around to the side where memory served me well. The window latch yielded to my good hand, and I climbed through into darkness that smelled of dust and abandoned hopes. Our room waited, patient as a held breath. The furniture stood exactly as we’d left it. The bed still bore the impression of bodies that would never return to fill those spaces.

No message waited. No sign of passage. Bast had vanished as completely as smoke in wind.

I climbed back through the window and dropped into the alley, my feet finding the ground with barely a whisper.

“You’re losing your touch, Reshi.”

The voice came from shadow, but I knew it before my eyes found its source. My shoulders dropped their tension. My ruined hand, which had risen in defense, fell back to my side.

“Bast.” The name left me as a sigh.

He stepped from darkness wearing his familiar grin, all sharp edges and mischief. In his hand, something gleamed. A compass. The needle trembled against its housing like a living thing.

“I kept it,” he said, and for once his voice held no jest. “After everything went wrong. After they were gone. But look.” He held it toward me, and I saw the needle dancing, pointing straight at my heart. “The moment you entered the city, it woke. Like it was waiting.”

“Wil’s compass.” The words scraped my throat raw.

Bast nodded. “I kept it after everything went wrong.” His eyes found my ruined hand then, and his breath caught. “Reshi, your fingers.” The words came out strangled. He reached toward my hand but stopped when I pulled it away.

“Gone.” I tucked my hand against my side, not ready for that conversation. “The compass needs to be destroyed, Bast. If anyone else finds it.” I stopped, seeing understanding dawn in his eyes.

He held it out to me. “I had to be sure it was really you first. Where have you been? It’s been twelve days. I searched everywhere I could think of.” His voice carried an edge I rarely heard from him, something between anger and relief. “I even went looking for that girl of yours, thinking maybe you’d run off together. But she vanished the same night you did.”

The words hit like cold water. Of course. Bast didn’t know. How could he?

“Denna’s dead.” The words came out flat and final.

Bast seemed to shrink into himself, shoulders dropping as if the words had added weight to them. “Reshi.” His voice came out soft, almost bruised. He started to reach toward me, then let his hand fall, understanding that some griefs don’t want touching.

“We need to destroy the compass,” I said, taking it from his hands. The needle still danced, pointing at my heart with unwavering certainty. A liability I couldn’t afford. Not with fifty gold marks on my head.

Bast watched me for a long moment, reading something in my face. Then he said quietly, “There’s an old furnace two streets over. Hot enough to melt the bindings.”

I nodded, grateful he wasn’t pressing for details. Not yet. The story of what happened in the desert, of Denna’s last breath under the singing trees, would have to wait. Right now, I could barely carry the memory, let alone speak it aloud.

I turned away from the weight of that, seeking safer ground. “The city looks ready to tear itself apart.”

“After what happened at the tower, how could it not?” Bast shifted his weight, and I heard the leather of his boots whisper against stone. “After the King died, after Fascino fell, the Maer gathered what remained of Renere at the Citadel gates.”

“Let me guess. He played the grieving ally?”

“Oh, better than that.” Bast’s voice carried the kind of admiration one reserves for particularly clever predators. “He told them you did it. All of it. That you murdered the entire royal line in cold blood.”

A bitter laugh escaped me. “Of course he did. How convenient for him. I appear from nowhere, kill everyone between him and the throne, then vanish into air.”

“He had answers for the doubters too. Admitted you’d once served him, claimed complete ignorance of your plans. Then, for those still unconvinced, he went one step further.”

“Which was?”

“He brought out priests. Knelt before them in front of everyone. Proclaimed his repentance for not stopping you, swore he’d accepted Tehlu’s iron chains in penance.” Bast’s expression twisted with the particular disgust the Fae reserve for human religion. “Went on about justice in his heart and service to the divine. You know how your kind eat that up.”

“So he crowned himself.”

“Oh yes. Full ceremony, blessed oils, the works.” Bast’s grin returned, sharp as winter. “After they crowned him, his first decree concerned you and any who’d helped you. Said you’d all face the same justice as Wil and Sim already had.”

The names hit me like physical blows. I thought of their families learning their sons had died as traitors. That Alveron would use their memory as a weapon made my hands curl into fists.

“That’s when I got an idea,” Bast continued, his voice gentle now. “I took work carting bodies after the coup. Found them both. Found this.” He touched the compass again. “It was so still I almost threw it away. Then you got close, and it started moving like a living thing.”

“Did you see to them?” The question came out small and ashamed.

“I did what I could. They’re buried together, south of here. I don’t know all your manling customs, but I did my best.” He paused, then added quietly, “They deserved better than what they got.”

I placed my good hand on his shoulder, feeling the solid warmth of him. “Thank you, Bast.”

“That’s not all I learned, Reshi.” His grin returned, bright as a blade. “Auri lives.”

The world stopped. The city’s noise faded to nothing. Even my heart seemed to pause between beats.

“What?”

“She’s alive, Reshi. Hidden, guarded, but breathing.” His eyes danced with something that might have been hope. “We’re not done yet.”

CHAPTER 45.

ONCE KING, ALWAYS KING.

“RESHI, IS THIS really necessary? It’s colder than the Fae Queen’s heart up here,” Bast groused, hugging his arms tight against himself.

"Shhh," I hissed, motioning for silence. My eyes stayed fixed on the streets below, scanning the trails of torchlight that wound through Renere’s dark alleys.

The rooftop of the Counting House wasn’t a comfortable perch. Loose tiles shifted underfoot, and the air was sharp with the bite of winter. But none of that mattered. Auri was out there somewhere.

“She deserves better than this, Bast,” I murmured.

He didn’t argue. Instead, he filled me in with what little information he’d gathered. Auri had been taken from the White Citadel two nights ago, stolen by a group of Feyda cultists. The why of it didn’t matter to me nearly as much as the fact that no one had stopped them. Prince Trenati and his followers were using her to prop up their delusions: pawns and sacrifices in their fractured game of thrones.

“I’ll burn this city to the ground before I let them harm her,” I said softly.

Bast shivered, though it had nothing to do with the cold. “Reshi, you don’t have to handle this alone.”

As he spoke, I caught it. The faint sound of jangling metal carried on the wind. My gaze traced the noise to three figures moving by torchlight near a bakery on the corner of Teccam Square. They were masked, their movements sure. Painters of revolt, vandals of the night.

“Time for answers,” I said, already moving toward the awning we’d climbed earlier.

“Finally,” Bast muttered as he dropped down after me, his usual humor laced with anticipation.

* * *

The painters hadn’t gone far. They were still at the bakery, the tall one holding a bucket while another painted bold red letters across the glass. Feyda. The dead king’s name, slashed onto the storefront like a bloody epitaph.

The man with the bucket saw me first. He nudged the tall one, who paused mid-laugh and turned. None of them looked particularly threatened by my sudden arrival. I couldn’t blame them. I was barefoot, half-starved, and unarmed. Not a threat, just a walking specter.

“Where is Princess Ariel?” I asked, my voice sharp as flint.

The tall one tilted his head, staring at me like a puzzle carved half-wrong. “The who?”

“Ariel. The girl you took two nights ago. The one who doesn’t belong to your broken gods.”

He opened his mouth as if to respond, then closed it again. He looked, briefly, at the spray of paint dripping across the bakery glass: Feyda scrawled like blood.

Beside him, Clyde—young, soot-streaked, more boy than man—stammered uncertainly. “She… she was taken somewhere. The, uh...” He frowned, eyes flicking left and right like chased birds. “To the… stone place. North of the Citadel. There’s a gate. Old and black.”

“Who ordered it?” I stepped closer, voice low. “Who gave the command?”

Clyde blinked. “He did. He—” He stopped. “I—” His hands trembled. “I don't remember his name.”

His brow furrowed. His lips moved without sound—trying to press meaning into shape.

“Tall man?” I supplied. “Dark-haired. Wears a ring you can’t quite look at.”

Clyde’s face twisted, as if remembering something painful. “Yes. Yes, that’s him… He had a title, once, I think.” He shivered. “But it feels like I dreamed it. He wasn’t… he wasn’t anyone. Not really.”

“He was a prince,” I said.

Clyde blinked. “Was he?”

He looked at me, confused and afraid. Then his eyes widened in sudden clarity.

“You’re… him,” he whispered.

I met his gaze. “Say it out loud.”

“Kvothe Kingkiller,” Clyde repeated, his voice barely audible.

“Good.” I leaned in closer. “Now, Clyde, tell me where they’ve taken her.”

* * *

The boy’s information led us to the graveyard on the outskirts of the Citadel. Neither Bast nor I had any idea where the crypt might be, so we searched in silence, following paths that twisted among weathered stones and frostbitten elms.

It was Bast who found it first—a gate of black iron left half-open, the name Calanthis wrought delicately in the bars. We stepped inside, moving carefully along the gravel path lined with gnarled trees. Ahead, faint voices reached us, their cadence low and unhurried.

“Reshi,” Bast whispered, his tone cautious. “This doesn’t feel right. Maybe we should wait—see how many we’re up against.”

On another night, I might have agreed. But not then. Not with her so close. “Wait here if you want,” I said, my voice hard. “I’m going.”

Rounding the final bend, we came into view of the crypt’s entrance. A large stone slab sealed the tomb, and five figures knelt before it.

Something cold settled inside me. “Where is she?” I demanded.

One of the figures straightened. His robes sagged wrong on his frame, as though he'd forgotten how shoulders worked. His mask dangled from one hand, thin fingers twitching. He turned toward me.

No sneer. No defiance. Just a kind of distant awareness, like the light behind his eyes flickered from some other room.

“Too late…” he mumbled. “The river’s run. The name’s gone dry...”

“Trenati.” I said his name aloud—cutting through the dark like a thrown blade.

He looked up at me with wide, washed-out eyes. His irises were gone—only misted marble where color should be. It made it hard to tell whether he looked through me or past me.

“I had a name,” he whispered, as though I’d mentioned it first. “Didn’t I? They… they sang it once. In white halls. In summer light.”

“Where is Ariel?” I repeated, more gently. A priest in the ruins of something he didn't understand.

“Ariel…” The syllables lingered on his lips like dust. “Yes, she was meant for the stone. Meant to make things right. To remind them. But I... I forget what she was meant to remind.” He smiled. “It's all full of holes inside. Can you feel them?”

One of his followers turned toward him at that—confused by the lack of leadership. Their gaze held no reverence. Just mistrust. They didn’t know him—not really. They obeyed the habit, not the man.

“She’s still alive?”

He drew in a rickety breath, then offered the only true gesture left to him: a nod.

“Good.” I leaned in closer, my voice dropping to a whisper. “For her sake, you’ll live.” I pulled my hand away. “Now go. Run. Don’t let me see your face again.”

Trenati spoke one last time—his voice like leaves blowing through bone.

“You can’t open it. It knows me. And I’m… not me anymore.”

I turned toward the slab of stone. Great and grave and ancient. A gate unsealed only by those the world still remembers.

“Then it’s lucky I’ve kept my Name,” I whispered.

Closing my eyes, I listened for it—the quiet thrum that threads through stone, the weight of it beneath names and nations. I knew stone. Knew its silence. Knew how to ask gently.

I didn’t break the door. I asked it to forget who it had been locked for. And to open for me instead.

The slab shuddered, trembled once like a sleeper woken out of true, and fell crashing to the side.

Behind me, Trenati slumped to his knees, hands rising to grasp his own face as if trying to remember how it once fit. “That should have been mine,” he whispered.

I left him behind.

* * *

I wasn’t sure what I expected—chains, rituals, some cruel geometry drawn on the floor.

Instead, I found stillness.

Auri sat in the center of the chamber, moonlight painting her as though she'd been waiting there all along. Like she'd planted the moment weeks back, just so it could bloom now. Cradled in shadow, she looked so small—and so shockingly alive.

“Auri…”

Her head snapped upward. And just like that, the spell broke. She ran, her feet slipping almost soundlessly over ancient stone. She crashed into me like rain, not a weight, but a joy too old to remember.

“Kvothe,” she said, breathing the name against my chest like a psalm. “My Ciridae. You came.”

I held her fiercely, and felt the ache uncoil.

“I thought I’d forgotten your face,” she said, drawing back slightly, eyes wide and wild. “Everything was unraveling. But I remembered your name. Over and over. I knew if I had that, then I was still real.”

I swallowed hard. “You are real.”

Auri smiled, faint and glowing.

“Good,” she said still holding my hands. Her face gleamed in the moonlight, a mixture of relief and exhaustion.

"Take me home, Kvothe. Back to the Underthing, where everything is proper and safe and true.”

CHAPTER 46.

THE ILLUSION OF WHOLENESS.

WE LEFT RENERE under a cloak of darkness, slipping through the eastern gate like shadows fleeing the light. Caesura was sheathed at my hip, its weight a cold reminder of everything I wanted to forget. I didn’t look back for long. The city’s walls loomed in the distance, pale and sharp as teeth in the night. It was a place that had gutted me, and I swore, as I turned my back on it, that I would never cross its threshold again.

Bast led the way to the nearest Waystone, guiding Auri and me through unseen paths with the quiet confidence only he could muster. Crossing through the Waystone paths was a disjointed affair, the twists and turns feeling like someone had taken reality apart and put it back together wrong. Bast eased us through, and I trusted his guidance despite the unease curling at the edges of my awareness.

We emerged closer to Imre than I thought possible, stepping into a breeze as familiar as a forgotten melody. Stonebridge rose against the deep blue of the Omethi River, and the rustle of distant voices from the far bank reminded me of the life I had once known. For a fleeting moment, it felt like coming home. And then my stomach turned. It would never be the same. Wil and Sim were gone, and their absence shadowed every street and corner. The University, once a lantern lighting my way, now seemed like only dim and fading embers.

* * *

Auri led us beneath the University. She lifted a heavy grate with a smile, her small hands moving easily against the rusted metal. Her excitement flared into the air, brighter than I’d seen it in months. Her steps were light, her motions fluid, and I let her take the lead.

“This way,” she whispered, her voice dancing like candlelight.

I had been to the Underthing before, but not like this. She wound us through twisting passages with cryptic names: Yellow Twelve, uneven Cricklet, the shadowy halls of Mantle. Stones whispered underfoot, walls hung with faint echoes of forgotten voices. My skin prickled, not from fear but from the strangeness of it—how this place breathed beneath the world. After what felt like an eternity, Auri led us into a room carved from quiet.

It wasn’t much: a small, round space with low ceilings and warm, flickering light. But it was hers. Every corner shone with her touch—trinkets on little shelves, treasures no one else would think to save. A bent strip of silver here, a spool of pale thread there. In one corner was a crooked shelf that caught my gaze. On top of it sat neatly arranged baubles—a brass button, a shard of glass, the bones of a story I didn’t yet know.

“You looked so tired when you came in,” Auri said gently, her eyes soft. “Now you can stay as long as you need.”

I couldn’t bring myself to answer. My throat tightened with gratitude, with grief. I sank into the space she had made for me, feeling more of a trespasser than a guest.

“We’re safe now,” she said with quiet certainty, her words wrapping the room in something warm.

I nodded slightly but didn’t trust myself to speak.

* * *

For a time, things slowed. The Underthing muffled the world above, closing the door on everything that hurt. I felt myself begin to heal in small ways, though only in fragile, fleeting pieces. I would catch myself smiling—truly smiling—but it was always short-lived. Too often, the joy would curdle into loss, a cold realization dragging me down. There were moments I thought of Wil and Simon. They came unbidden, their faces stitched into my every quiet moment, reminders of things undone and words unsaid.

Bast offered his own brand of healing, though I barely deserved it. One night, he summoned me to a small corner of Mantle with an air of practiced mystery. He produced a sliver of Fae ingenuity, muttering something under his breath in a tongue that ached to hear. I watched as the magic worked, forming the illusion of fingers where I had lost them. They looked real enough—solid, unmarred. They even wore my naming rings, glimmering faintly in the low light of the room.

“They’re not real,” Bast said, his usual grin tempered by an edge of gravity. “But even illusions can be useful.”

I flexed my hand experimentally, and though I didn’t feel the fingers, they moved as if responding to me. It was impressive, though it left me hollow.

“Thank you, Bast,” I said finally, though there was no weight behind the words.

He gave an easy shrug, but his sharp eyes lingered on me a moment too long.

* * *

Much later, Auri approached me in Mantle, her head tilted to the side. “The moon was so lovely last night,” she said, as if picking a thought from thin air. “It sat so close to the world, the way an old friend might.”

I blinked, startled by the break in the silence. “It must be nice to know the moon so well.”

“Not as well as I know you.” She sat beside me, folding her hands neatly in her lap. “I went above last night—to see Fela.”

I stiffened as a rush of shame spilled over me. “Fela?”

“She needed to know about Simmon.” Her tone was light, but there was something else beneath it, something that tugged just beneath her words. She didn’t linger on the details. Auri never did. But her eyes lingered in the silence that followed, watching me carefully.

The sharpness of her words struck me harder than they should have. Guilt roared up, raw and merciless. I should have been the one to tell Fela. It should have been my voice speaking Sim’s name, carrying the weight of his memory. Instead, I had spent weeks buried in the dark world beneath the University, wallowing in my failures.

* * *

The next morning, I sat at the small shelf Auri had made for me, a plain sheet of paper spread before me. I wrote two letters. The first was to Wil’s family, the second to Sim’s. Each was a fragile tapestry of emotion—a steadfast refusal of the Maer’s lies woven through with trembling apologies for the part I’d played in their deaths. More than once, I had to pause, my hand shaking too much to hold the pen.

When the letters were finished, I placed them beside me, too drained to move. Those letters stayed by my side for days, gathering dust as my resolve faltered. I thought about taking them to the families myself, thought of their faces and how they might receive me. The shame alone pinned me in place.

Bast noticed. Of course, Bast noticed. “What are these, Reshi?” he asked, one eyebrow raised as he eyed the addressed envelopes.

“Letters,” I said shortly, my voice distant.

“Letters to ghosts don’t often change much.” He crouched beside me, picking one up carefully. “Do you want me to take them?”

I opened my mouth to argue, to say this was my responsibility. But the weight of the task was already too much. I nodded stiffly, and Bast tucked the letters into his coat like they were precious.

As he stood, he offered a small, knowing smile, a flicker of warmth lighting the edges of his features. “You’ll be all right, Reshi,” he said, though his tone carried more hope than certainty.

I sat alone after he left, staring at the crooked shelf Auri had made for me. I thought of Wil and Sim, of Auri and Bast. And for the first time in weeks, though faint and thready, I felt the stirrings of something like hope. Something like strength.

CHAPTER 47.

THE RECKONING.

THE UNDERTHING WAS no place for Bast. He was young and eager, restless and brimming with a hunger to do. Expecting him to cloister himself underground, even for my sake, was selfish and unfair. I told him as much. Reassured him that he was free to leave whenever the mood struck him. But he didn’t.

I knew why, of course. Bast was worried about me—not that I deserved it. He pretended at indifference most days, teasing me as he always had. But I could see it in the way his eyes lingered too long when he thought I wasn’t looking, the way his words sometimes faltered mid-sentence.

I let him go topside as often as he liked, knowing he needed it. Auri had shown him the way—her strange paths through climbs and grates and hidden doors. Then, one Hepten morning, Bast came back too soon. His steps lacked their usual carefree bounce, and his bright smile had faded into something darker.

“You look troubled,” I said, blowing absently on a bowl of porridge. “Anything the matter, Bast?”

He hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck, his gaze flitting between me and something crumpled in his hand. “I didn’t want to bring this to you, Reshi.”

My eyes narrowed. “Go on.”

Bast tossed the parchment onto the table. I smoothed it out, the crude ink lines staring back at me. A face—my face, more or less—was splashed across the page. Beneath it, in bold lettering, I read the words:

“KVOTHE ‘KINGKILLER,’ SON OF ARIDEN. 100 MARKS.”

I snorted, sliding it away. “Nice to know I’m appreciated at such a fine price.”

“There’s more,” Bast said, his voice lower now. “I saw him. Your old friend—the one with the stupid hat and the punchable face.”

It didn’t take much to guess. “Ambrose.”

Bast nodded grimly. “He’s in town, Reshi. He’s been spreading the word, whipping up anyone who’ll listen. Telling them you killed the king, that you’ve dirtied their streets with your Ruh filth.” His tone turned venomous at the last word, and his hands curled into fists.

“That doesn’t surprise me.” I exhaled slowly.

“He’s saying worse,” Bast continued. “He’s telling people you stole his bride.”

I froze.

“Ariel. He claims she’s his and that you’ve hidden her away like a thief. He’s promising to find her, drag you through the streets, and take her back to Renere.”

I felt something flicker inside me—an ember catching in a dry forest. “Take me to him.”

“Reshi, wait—”

“I mean it, Bast. Take me to him now.”

I didn’t think about the Lethani. I didn’t think about the University’s Codex, or the Iron Law, or any other piece of wisdom whispered to me over the years. I simply moved, guided by the single instinct I had left.

* * *

Ambrose stood in the square, right by the fountain. His entourage flanked him like a wall of polished steel, armed with swords and spears that gleamed in the sharp morning light. It was an oddly fitting place to find him—the very spot where I’d first called the wind years ago. Where I’d broken his arm and cemented our enmity.

He was midway through a blustering tale when I stepped into view. His voice carried easily over the gathering crowd, his wide-brimmed hat dipping as he gestured and sneered. Even at a distance, I could see the smirk curling his lips.

“I hear you’ve been looking for me,” I called out, my voice cutting cleanly through the buzzing square.

The murmuring died, a hush sweeping over the onlookers. Ambrose stilled, his grin faltering as his eyes scanned the crowd. When he found me, the smile snapped back into place like a blade drawn too quickly.

“You filthy Ruh bastard!” he roared, his voice trembling with hatred. “So you’ve finally shown yourself!”

I stood unmoving, watching as he shoved through his followers to put himself at the front of the group. The gap between us remained wide, though I caught the guarded edge in his steps. He didn’t dare come too close.

“I knew I’d find you eventually,” he hissed. “Kvothe the Arcane, murderer of kings, traitor of Vintas.”

“I’m not here for your lies, Ambrose,” I said, my words even. “I was there. But it wasn’t me. Alveron was the one who saw it through.”

“You lying Ruh! Nothing is ever your fault, is it?” He spat on the cobblestones. “Your blood is as filthy as your kind.”

He reached into his pocket and took out a small vial, holding it aloft for all to see. The blood inside sloshed in the sunlight.

I went cold.

“Your Copperhawk was clumsy, but they served me well enough. Did you think I wouldn’t find a way to make use of this?”

“Don’t,” I said softly, the word hanging heavy in the air between us.

Ambrose ignored me. “Once I’ve dealt with you, I’ll take Ariel wherever I please. Renere will be delighted to see her again, I’m certain. And you? I’ll leave your body in pieces, your head on a spike for all to see!”

I took a step forward. My voice was calm when I spoke again. “If you do this, I will kill you.”

Ambrose paused. His fingers tightened around the vial, his uncertainty flickering for a brief instant. But then his smirk returned, his ego demanding a show. He unstopped the vial, dipped his fingers into the blood, and whispered a word.

* * *

I saw Ambrose feel it—the resistance. His smirk faltered, his fingers trembling as he tried to bind me. Sweat beaded on his brow as he leaned into the effort, his lips curling into a snarl.

But I wasn’t moving. I wasn’t yielding.

The world tightened, narrowed, until it was just him and me, locked together in this terrible, silent struggle. The binding clawed at me like thorns in a furious storm, but I stood unmoving. Against me, Ambrose was nothing. Against my Alar, he was a child holding a thread, trying to tame a maelstrom.

“You think you can take me?” I asked, my voice low and sharp, a blade unsheathed. “You think you can own me with such a pathetic trick?”

Ambrose flinched at the venom in my words, but his ego—damn his ego—steeled him. He gestured sharply, shouted another binding, his voice cracking against the tension of what he didn’t understand.

He didn’t see it yet, but I already had his Name. It hovered there, unveiled, like a thread shimmering in the light. Fragile. Bare. His arrogance left him vulnerable—it always had. And now, he’d handed himself to me.

“Bind him! Now!” Ambrose shouted, summoning his men as though their crude hands and ropes could finish what he could not.

The ropes never reached me.

I raised my arm and spoke the Name of the wind. It wasn’t shouted. It wasn’t forced. The word flowed from my throat like the strike of steel, effortless and sure.

The air bucked and screamed, exploding outward into a cacophonous thunderclap. Ambrose’s men were thrown like ragdolls. I didn’t see where they landed. It didn’t matter.

The crowd shrieked and stumbled back as debris flew in all directions, pebbles and dust scattering like the remnants of a broken world. But I didn’t care about the crowd. My gaze never left Ambrose.

He staggered, his hat tumbling off his head, and for the first time, I saw real, unbridled fear bloom in his eyes.

“Stop, Kvothe,” he said, and his voice wavered on the edge of begging. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Oh, I know exactly what I’m doing,” I growled, my steps slow and deliberate, each footfall cracking the ruined cobblestones beneath me. “I know you, Ambrose. I know you better than you know yourself.”

I saw him shrink, his shoulders curling inward. He didn’t even run. He simply stood there, his lips trembling. He was a cornered animal now, and for the first time since I met him, I understood what that meant. Not strength. Not defiance. Cowardice.

The Name came to me in perfect clarity. Ambrose’s essence—what he was, the hateful little threads that wove him together. I didn’t hesitate. I sang it.

But the Name couldn’t stand alone. It wasn’t enough for how much fury I felt, how much he deserved this. His Name became part of a chorus: stone, air, fire, and water all wrapped around him, folding into a perfect note of unmaking. I wove him into the Names of the world, then tore the tapestry apart.

The square erupted around him.

The cobblestones shattered beneath his feet. The great stone fountain hissed and cracked, steam rising as the water burned itself to death. The very air around us shuddered, waves of pressure rolling outward. For a moment—just a moment—the sky itself darkened, the light winking out as though it couldn’t bear to witness what I’d done.

Ambrose screamed, but it wasn’t a human sound. It was raw and piercing, a final note before the chorus consumed him. And then, silence.

The square stilled. My throat burned like acid, and I stumbled, my knees threatening to buckle. But I steadied, locking my legs beneath me. I had to see. I had to look.

Less than nothing was left of him. The crowd stood frozen, their faces pale, and as I turned to them, I saw myself reflected in their eyes. There wasn’t admiration or belief there. Not even anger. Only terror.

I saw familiar figures among them. Elodin stood like a statue, his face unreadable except for the terrible weight in his eyes. And Fela… Fela looked at me with open revulsion, as though she didn’t recognize me at all.

Their gazes burned into me. My chest felt hollow. My throat stung. I couldn’t stay.

So, I ran.

CHAPTER 48.

A TRAP OF MEMORY.

KOTE SAT HUNCHED at the table, shoulders pulled inward as though sheltering from some unseen storm. Quietly, he nodded to himself before speaking, his voice burdened by the weight of memory.

“And the rest,” Kote began, his voice dry as parchment, “is just what you’d imagine.” His lips quirked into a ghost of a smile as though at some private jest. “With a price on my head and folks poking their noses where they shouldn’t, we disappeared.”

“Disguises,” added Bast from the corner of the room, his tone tinged with distaste.

Disguises,” Kote repeated, voice flat. He gave Chronicler a small, knowing look. “Stolen names, shadows for companions. This time, I was searching for somewhere no one else would think to look—hidden in the teeth between nowhere and nothing.”

His lips twisted into something like a smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes. Chronicler’s pen scratched across the page, the crash of its quill tip like boots on distant gravel.

“But leaving—truly leaving—that required pieces.” Kote raised two fingers, ticking off shadows on a hand that once strummed strings. “I would need money more than anything. Enough for horses. Food. Tools. And enough left to build this place from the ground up.”

Here, the innkeeper’s voice grew quiet, unspooling thread by thread. “The day before we left, I made one last trip to the University. At sunrise. I took backroads and alleys with nothing but a shadow wrapped tight as a cloak. Basil was at Stocks that morning. Call it dumb luck or the turning of a coin. Either way, it worked in my favor.”

Kote’s hand rested on the table. His fingers tapped once, twice. “The Stainless had done decent enough, more than I hoped. But my Bloodless? They were a king’s ransom. With all that trouble in the East—coup, rebellion, broken crowns on bloody floors—people were desperate for safety. Desperation opens pockets wider than greed.”

He paused, letting his words soak into the room. Chronicler’s quill faltered for a moment.

“The irony of profiting off that chaos wasn’t lost on me,” Kote said softly, voice tinged with something like regret.

He shifted in his chair and continued. “Of course, once I'd emptied the Stocks of every shim and drab, I did something ill-advised. I went to Kilvin's office. I knew it was foolish, but… I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye. Old habits die slow.”

“And?” Chronicler asked.

“And nothing. His forge was cold, his desk drawer open—though knowing Kilvin, I suspect my visit was expected, even without a letter to say as much.” He sighed, the sound low as a bowstring tense from disuse. “I left, heavier than I’d arrived but quieter.”

Chronicler finished writing the thought and glanced up. “And what then?”

“What then?” Kote’s eyes drifted across the inn, settling on the beams above. He gestured around him. “I built this. Carved wood with my own hands. Heaved stone. Wrought iron. I put everything I had into it. Hidden edges, clever seams, and pieces I hope no one would ever examine too closely. This is what became of me. What became of Kvothe.”

He placed his hands flat on the table. His voice cracked, too quiet to echo. “Do with it what you will.”

He spread his calloused hands wide across the scarred tabletop, an old gesture weighed down by something strangely final. “I have paid the price of remembering. Do with it what you will.”

For a moment, neither Bast nor Chronicler spoke. The faint scrape of the fire in the hearth filled the void.

Then Chronicler set down his quill. His face twisted with hesitation, thoughts forming—and failing—on his tongue.

“There’s a question you aren’t sure how to ask,” Kote said, breaking the silence. It wasn’t a guess.

“Questions, actually,” Chronicler admitted. “When you said you left Imre, you said… ‘we.’ Bast came, clearly, but what of—” He hesitated, but pressed forward. “What of Princess Ariel?”

Kote’s expression darkened as a hand reflexively curled around the stem of his polished mug. “Safe,” he said tightly, centering his gaze on Chronicler. “That’s all you need know.”

Chronicler deflated but nodded slowly. “And the second question?”

“Folly,” Chronicler murmured, looking up at the blade mounted above the bar. “You haven’t spoken of her.”

Kote’s lips tugged to one side, his gaze climbing toward the weapon. “She was my attempt at an apology,” he said after a moment. “There’s an art to making a good sword, and I got most of it right. But not all.” He gestured vaguely. “She’s the wrong color. Perhaps a fault in the metals, or…” He trailed off, his expression faraway, lost to some hidden pain.

“You forged her?” Chronicler asked.

“I owed it to them,” Kote said. “The Adem. Her shape is wrong, but her edges are keen. She waits for them when all this is over.”

The room fell silent again. Chronicler closed his ledger, but Kote’s voice stopped him mid-motion.

“You want to see it,” Kote said flatly.

“Your hand,” Chronicler replied, trying for nonchalance.

Without speaking, Bast rose from the shadows and unclasped the mirage covering Kote’s left hand. The smooth illusion faded, exposing the truth beneath. Two fingers gone. The thumb cleaved above the knuckle. Ugly, puckered scars ran the length of his ruined flesh.

For a long moment, Chronicler stared.

Kote flexed what remained of his hand and spoke softly, facing no one. “Some days, they still feel whole. It’s a cruel trick of memory. Success cuts hard, but failure cuts deeper.”

Chronicler stared at him, mouth parted slightly. His voice dropped several degrees. “That’s not how I see it.”

Kote’s reply was bitter, nearly spat. “It doesn’t matter how you see it. Look around, Chronicler. Everything’s gone wrong. Every path I’ve taken turned to ash beneath my feet. So spare me your philosophy.”

Chronicler set his quill down deliberately, standing sharply in his chair. His voice rose, trembling with something greater than anger. “No. Look around. Every stone of this place, every carved beam. You made this. You built it. And everything before wasn’t luck or misfortune—it was you. Trebon. Renere. Levenshire. The hero of those stories hasn’t vanished just because you’re too cowardly to remember what he stood for.” He slapped the table hard enough to send a tremor up the polished wood. “You’re Kvothe. And forgetting won’t change that.”

The innkeeper said nothing, his gaze hollow, sinking into the shadow of himself as silence claimed the room.

The door creaked open.

* * *

A figure stood in the doorway. He was thin, hunched, and pale, with wisps of white hair clinging stubbornly to his liver-spotted scalp. His shadow sprawled across the doorway, stretching unnaturally long in the flickering lamplight of the inn.

Kote straightened slightly, his green eyes narrowing beneath the shadow of his hair. He placed the tankard on the bar with deliberate care, the soft clink as it met the wood betraying nothing of the swirling unease gathering in his gut. “We’re closed,” he said evenly, his voice calm but carrying an edge that no one who knew Kvothe would mistake for mere politeness.

The man stepped forward, his soft-soled shoes brushing the floorboards with a faint scrape. “Closed to weary souls? Surely not,” he said, his voice matching his appearance: dry, brittle, and just a touch too thin. “Have a heart, friend. I’ve traveled long and far beneath a cold moon. Can’t a poor man share a piece of your fire?”

Kote tilted his head, considering him. Those black eyes glimmered in the dim light like wet stones, watching him too closely, lingering too long. There was something in the way the man moved, in the awkward, almost lurching rhythm of his unsteady steps, that struck Kote as just slightly wrong. The faintest sliver of a frown carved its way onto his face.

He let the air hang heavy between them for a moment longer before finally speaking. “I suppose it’s no trouble. Have a seat,” Kote said, gesturing to one of the scarred wooden tables nearest the hearth. His voice carried an easy cadence, as if this were the most mundane of exchanges. But his hands, unseen beneath the bar, had unconsciously balled into fists. “I can fix you something to eat. There’s not much left at this hour, though.”

The man shuffled farther into the room, each step slow and measured, as though he were feeling his way forward. He dragged one hand across the back of a chair as he passed, his fingers curling over the wood like pale claws. “Beet soup, perhaps?” he asked, cocking his head like a crow amused by its own question.

Kote’s brow furrowed ever so slightly. There it was again, that thread of something strange in the man’s tone. He turned his head toward Bast, who had been leaning in the corner, his dark eyes sharp and predatory. “Bast,” Kote said, his voice steady as stone and utterly devoid of the warmth he’d offered his guest. “Our friend here could use something warm to eat. Take care of that, and while you’re at it, switch out the barrels in the cellar. They’ll need a firm hand tonight. Devon can help with that.”

Bast blinked once, his expression unreadable save for the subtle clench of his jaw. “Of course, Reshi,” he said at last, his tone calm, though the edges of his words wavered just enough for someone like Kote to notice. His gaze flicked momentarily to the strange newcomer, and then he moved toward the stairs, his fluid steps betraying none of the tension in his wiry frame.

Chronicler followed after him, his confusion plain. “Barrels?” he muttered quietly before the cellar door swung closed behind them, the latch clicking into place.

Kote’s attention slid back to the pale man, who now hovered near the bar. The man’s posture had grown just a bit straighter, and for the briefest moment, something flickered in his eyes—something sharp, something knowing.

“Can I get you a drink while you wait?” Kote asked, his casual manner returning, though the corners of his mouth remained tight.

The man glanced back at the shelves of bottles behind the bar, then smiled. It was a strange smile—thin, deliberate, and far too pleased for the circumstances. “A beer, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Not at all,” Kote said, already reaching for a tankard. His left hand brushed the shelf beneath the counter, and there, his fingers found the cool leather grip of something much heavier than a beer mug. “You seem… familiar,” he added lightly, keeping his voice smooth as he turned toward the kegs. He began pouring the beer, the faint hiss of liquid breaking the tense silence. “Have we met before? You might remind me of someone.”

“Perhaps,” the man replied, his airy tone making the word seem like a wisp of smoke. “Far and away, perhaps. Time has a way of blurring faces, does it not?”

“True enough,” Kote said, sliding the filled tankard across the bar. But his smile, though faint and polite, didn’t reach his eyes. “Funny thing, though. Time usually doesn’t blur a smile quite like yours.”

Something flickered across the man’s face—a momentary ripple that didn’t quite fit his composed demeanor. He took a long sip from the tankard, his eyes on Kote’s the entire time. When he set the glass down, his smile had returned, wider now, his lips curling like the blade of a knife.

“Ah,” the man said softly, his voice lingering in the air like the chill of night. “And here I thought you might have forgotten me.”

The world froze for an impossibly long moment. And then, in a blur faster than the eye could follow, Kote’s hand lashed out—strong, precise, and utterly merciless.

The blow hurled the old man backward. He slammed through a table with an ear-splitting crack, scattering wooden shards across the floor. For a moment, his body lay motionless in a heap, limbs bent at odd angles.

Kote’s breath was steady as he flexed the fingers of his right hand, steam rising from the bare, scarred flesh. Slowly, he unraveled the rag that had been wrapped around it, revealing the battered knuckle dusters beneath.

“You,” Kote said quietly, his voice low and stiff as gravel beneath a boot.

The crumpled figure on the floor began to shift, laughter bubbling up like blood from a wound. It was louder now, deeper, and colder. “Little rabbit,” the man hissed.

Kote’s face was impassive. He turned and pulled Folly from its perch on the mounting board. The weight of the sword settled into his hands as if it had been waiting for this moment.

“I was wondering when you’d show up, Cinder,” Kote said, his voice bitter. “You’re early.”

The figure rose, flickering and shifting. The old man’s body melted away like frost under sunlight, replaced by something sharper, crueler. White hair fell around a pale, angular face. Silver-blue eyes shone with an unnatural light, and his grin stretched unnaturally wide.

“So clever, little rabbit. Did you miss me?” Cinder’s voice was sharp, like glass shattering, and threaded with mockery.

“We’ll see who’s clever,” Kote muttered, stepping toward the wall. He pulled a hidden handle, and the inn answered. Iron bars crashed down over the windows and door with a scream of metal on wood. The hearth roared to life, its flames leaping high and wild, casting chaotic shadows across the room.

Kote raised his burned hand, smoking and trembling. In his fingers, he held a single lump of coal. His voice was low, faint, but steady. “Ferula. I bind you. By the name of stone, be still as stone.”

Cinder’s movements faltered, his limbs locking in place as though he had been trapped in amber. His grin never faltered, but his eyes burned with hate. “You’re playing a dangerous game,” he said, his tone shifting from mocking to icy.

“I know,” Kote replied. Without another word, he disappeared into the cellar.

* * *

“Charred body of God, what’s going on up there?” Bast hissed, his sharp voice cracking as he met Kote at the bottom of the basement stairs. His pupils were wide and wild, his usually unshakable confidence gone.

“It’s Cinder. He’s here,” Kote replied, his tone quiet and clean. No wasted words, no fear. His green eyes flicked over Bast and then to Chronicler, standing wooden and pale nearby. “I’ve slowed him, but we need to go.” He pointed to the far side of the room. “The cellar hatch. It’ll take us out to the stables.”

Bast moved instantly, bounding over the barrels to reach the hatch like a cat stirred to urgency. “A hand!?” he barked, glaring at Chronicler, who seemed frozen in place.

Chronicler flinched before fumbling forward, his fingers shaking as they wrapped around the heavy iron batten. With a grunt, he lifted it, casting it aside. It hit the wall with a reverberation that rolled along the stone walls and floor. Bast didn’t wait. He threw the hatch open, shoving Chronicler up the steps with impatient strength.

Kote trailed them to the foot of the stairs, watching silently.

Chronicler had barely cleared the opening when Bast turned, freezing in place. His face twisted with disbelief as Kote reached forward, his hands steady and his movements deliberate. The innkeeper grasped the thick iron bar and swung it down with a single hard motion. The latch clicked into place, the sound definitive as a snapped string.

“Reshi!” Bast’s voice cracked, loud and raw, as he slammed his hands against the hatch doors. “Reshi, what are you doing?”

Kote leaned his weight against the locked door for a long, still moment. When he spoke, it was with a voice as calm as still water. “Go, Bast. Take Devon and run.”

“Reshi, no! Don’t do this!” Bast pounded harder, and the impact sent small eruptions of dust from the seams of the wood, scattering like tiny stars in the pale lamplight. “OPEN THIS! Reshi, damn it, please!”

Kote closed his eyes for a breath, his face unreadable. Then he turned from the door and moved toward the stairs leading back into the common room. Behind him, Bast’s voice broke, spilling anguish into the dark.

“Don’t leave me...”

The words hung there, trembling, but the innkeeper didn't pay any heed. Instead, he made his way back to the stairs leading up into the common room. From his pocket, he pulled two small cubes of dull, blackened metal. Their appearance was plain, but they rang faintly against each other in his hand, a sound too high and sweet for their weight.

He crouched near the doorway and placed the cubes on the floor—one to the left, one to the right. No wasted motion. His fingers lingered on them as he muttered soft words under his breath, his voice just a thread against the thickening air.

The room shifted the moment he finished. The weight in the air tightened further, like a drawn bowstring. The fire stuttered and leaned sideways for half a breath, then surged back with a roar. The trap was set—silent, invisible, waiting.

Kote stood, already turning toward the chest near the forge. His gaze locked on it, a flicker of tension shadowing his otherwise controlled expression. Dust sifted from the ceiling as the boards above him creaked under heavy boots. Each step was slow and deliberate, and the sound set his teeth on edge.

He reached the chest in three strides. His hands moved automatically now, unhooking the ring of keys from the nearby shelf. The copper key first, fitting into the first lock with a satisfying click. The next lock turned with iron.

Another step overhead. Louder this time, closer. The distinctive creak of the staircase at the far end of the common room.

Kote’s hand hesitated on the third lock for the briefest instant, his knuckles tightening. He inhaled once, sharply, and forced his focus back to the task at hand.

The steel key slid home. The lock clicked—louder this time, almost like an accusation. The last tumbler gave, but the lid didn’t move.

Of course it didn’t.

Kote straightened, his head tilting slightly toward the stairs. Cinder was here. He could feel him, as though the man’s shadow stretched ahead to brush against his skin. The footsteps drew closer, the creaking announcing each one like the toll of a bell.

Kote turned back to the chest, his breath tighter now. His throat felt dry. His fingers flexed once at his sides, then he let the words come—quiet, as though he feared even the walls would hear.

“I am Kvothe.”

The lid didn’t stir. Dust settled. The silence thickened.

Kote’s lips tightened and he whispered again, fiercer this time. “I am Kvothe.”

The golden insignia on the lid gleamed faintly for half a heartbeat. But still, nothing. The chest remained closed.

The boots reached the first step of the staircase leading down into the common room.

Kote’s jaw clenched. His voice, lower and rougher now, broke the air.

“I am Kvothe.”

The lid of the chest stirred, then slowly swung open, revealing a light too sharp and raw to be just light. It burned golden, yes, but there were cracks of something else within it: strands of emerald and threads of pale, flickering violet. It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t smooth. It was alive, spilling out unevenly like a bloodstain spreading across linen.

As the light touched him, Kote inhaled, his chest rising as though breathing for the first time in years. His scars didn’t fade, but something in the way he stood now felt straighter, sharper. A tension he’d carried for years seemed to melt away.

For the first time in too long, Kvothe smiled—not a faint shadow of a smile, but something real and dangerous.

“Thank you,” he whispered to the chest, his voice quiet but steady. There was no time for more.

The boots reached the stone floor of the common room. Behind him, the air turned cold, heavy with malice.

Kvothe stood, his back straightening fully as he turned to face the shadow that awaited him.

CHAPTER 49.

TO ASH ALL THINGS RETURN.

CINDER APPEARED, ONE step from the doorway, his dull grey sword in hand. His lips curled into an eerie half-smile, more wolf than man.

"There you are, little rabbit," he said softly, voice as cold and thin as frost. "It’s time you joined your parents."

I stood across the room, calm on the surface but raw beneath—anger, fear, and something sharper all tangled in my chest. My fingers brushed the scarred grain of the bar as I replied, the words coming with a steady precision. "Not yet," I said, voice laced with a taunting edge. "I've still something to show you."

Cinder tilted his head, pale locks catching the ebbing firelight, his dark, sunken eyes narrowing. "Such cowardice. If you won’t come to me," he said, mockingly quiet, "then I shall come to you."

He took a step forward—and stopped. An invisible ripple flared in the dim firelight, faint as a needlepoint shimmer. He lifted his hand, pressing to the empty air before him as though feeling for an invisible wall. His fingers met resistance.

"What is this?" His brow furrowed, and with a flick, his sword cut a silent arc. It struck the air, not stone nor wood, yet the same ripple flexed beneath his blade. Annoyance flickered in his face, twisting his mouth into a sneer. "What trickery is this?"

With steady hands, I traced the rough stones of the pillar beside me. "Did I mention I built this place?" My voice carried a soft, sharp note, calculated and calm. The distortion before him flexed again as Cinder pushed against it, his thin smile returning with brittle anger. He didn’t answer, but his sword drifted back, readying.

"Each and every stone," I continued. "Dragged them all here myself. Set them down. Made sure they fit. All for a purpose." I began to circle the room slowly, my hand brushing across the timber beams until I stopped near the hearth. "Do you want to know why I named it the Waystone?"

Cinder stood still now, watching me, a snake uncoiled, waiting.

"I thought you might." I tilted my head at him sharply, then whispered the name of stone. It wasn’t shouted or spat, but rather hummed through my teeth, a reminder, a command.

The whole room answered. The walls groaned loud and deep, the sound rolling over us like the harrowing first note of some dreadful symphony. The inn trembled to its bones, bits of dust and stone flaking loose from cracks and crevices.

Cinder staggered, eyes darting to the rafters above as the wood let out an aching wail. "You fool," he hissed, his voice tight with mockery and alarm, all the amusement gone. "You’d crush us both."

"Perhaps I would," I said, "but not before I make my point."

I spoke the name again, with more weight, more surety. The inn shuddered. A support beam behind Cinder cracked violently, wood splintering with deafening finality. Bottles and jars rattled loose from their shelves, tinkling to the floor. Another thunderous crash—louder this time—echoed from above as dust filled the air.

I moved quickly, making for the cellar hatch. A single grunt of effort and the heavy iron batten slid free, falling to the floor with an accusing clang. I grabbed the edge and bolted up the stairs, throwing the hatch shut behind me.

"I’ll see you outside," I said, though I knew he wouldn't hear me over the groaning weight of the failing inn.

* * *

The wall of the Waystone didn’t just fall; it erupted outward in a violent spray of timber and stone. The force rattled through the ground as a figure emerged through the chaos. Cinder pushed into the open air like a predator passing through the brush, unhurried yet lethal.

He swept away the haze of drifting debris with a single motion of his hand. As the mist of stone dust cleared around him, his expression shifted. His gaze lifted to the scene waiting beyond, and the breath that followed was sharp—not with fear, but with surprise.

The Fae stretched out before him in strange, otherworldly magnificence: rolling hills covered in vibrant blue blossoms rippling without wind, their petals glittering like the soft shimmer of stars. Above, the sky burned deep purple, a rich, impossible hue dappled with streaks of gold flaring like distant comets. Butterflies too large and too bright drifted lazily through the air, their translucent wings trailing ribbons of light.

"You brought me here," Cinder said, his words inflected with astonished disdain. "This was your plan?"

"Not a plan," I replied evenly, stepping forward across the perfect grass. "A reckoning. For Trebon, for my parents, for everything in Renere." My voice sharpened. "For the crimes you’ve committed. This is the only fitting place for you to die."

Cinder smiled, the grin twisting across his charred and weary face like the edge of a rusted blade. "You think this changes anything? Twice you’ve failed to kill me, and twice I’ve spared you." His grip on his sword shifted. "No more sparing, little rabbit."

I advanced with deliberate steps, speaking softly. "Have you not heard? Third time pays for all."

At the final word, I snapped my hand up, my fingers framing the air. The wind answered first, rushing in a wild surge and lifting me sharply from the ground. My feet hovered above the earth, the wind making a banner of my hair, copper-red streaks blazing against the violet sky. I shaped my hands. I called the ground, and it answered.

The hills beneath me trembled as chunks of stone, some no larger than a fist, others as wide as carts, tore from the earth. They rose, glittering faintly with veins of iron, encircling me as though caught in some celestial orbit. Cinder watched me, his expression unreadable, but his blade tilted down, and he moved.

The first shard of stone shot forward, hissing through the air with a scream sharp enough to cut the silence. Cinder darted sideways, silent and unnaturally fast, and the shard struck the ground with explosive force, dirt and earth spraying upward in plumes.

I didn’t stop. Stone upon stone shot toward him, and Cinder spun between them with impossible grace, a wraith in the grass. One caught him, the edge shearing into his shoulder, stumbling his next step. Blood darkened his coat, but he kept moving.

He closed the distance faster than I expected, so I spoke again. The wind surged once more, but this time differently: a roaring vortex that tore the ribbons of the strange Fae flowers into its current. The gale slammed into Cinder, halting him mid-step. He fell back, bracing himself and driving his sword deep into the ground to hold his footing.

The tempest consumed him. Its fury wrapped around him. Only then did I call the fire.

With a whisper of my own blood, the flames surged upward from the grass. The inferno snaked through the vortex, wrapping into the wild churn of wind, forming a column of fire and motion. It engulfed him, and for the first time, I heard Cinder scream.

Still, he endured.

When the flames faltered, my breath came hard. I lowered myself to the ground, knees trembling. The ash and smoke churned, whirling together in shapes barely discernible. In the chaos, there was movement.

"It can’t be," I muttered under my breath, disbelief bitter on my tongue.

From the smoke, Cinder stumbled forth, his flesh scorched raw, his clothing no more than hanging scraps. His eyes still burned—if not his fire, then some hollow will that kept him upright. He grinned, teeth blackened by the ruin of his face. "Come, little rabbit," he rasped, broken but still mocking.

* * *

I sank into the Ketan, every ounce of will sharpening to a point. Folly’s grey-white blade cut through the heavy forest air as I faced Cinder. His ruined body betrayed the savagery beneath: one shoulder hung low, blood streaked his pale, raw skin, but his black eyes burned as sharp as ever.

“You’ve run far,” he said, voice smooth and bitter. “But all rabbits tire eventually.”

I let my reply come with the blade. Climbing Iron sent Folly carving toward his chest, but Cinder was faster than he had any right to be, deflecting it with fluid ease. I pressed forward, flowing from one form to the next—Iron, Crossing the River, Breaking Oak. Each motion came with ferocity and discipline, but always, Folly found only steel.

Then, in Maiden Dancing, the tide turned. I spun low, Folly arcing upward. Her edge sliced deep into his shoulder, carving muscle and bone. Cinder staggered, his feral scream echoing through the night.

But his anger made him stronger. He came at me with sudden, blinding speed. His attacks rained down, heavy and precise, each strike a step closer to death. I tried for Chasing Stone, but he slipped through my guard. His blade bit deep into my right bicep, piercing through muscle. Pain tore through me, white-hot and overwhelming.

Focusing became impossible. My sword arm trembled, and my strength waned. Cinder saw it, and he smiled.

I couldn’t fight him—not here, not like this. Survival was my only choice.

I turned and fled, forcing my legs to carry me through the dense, alien forest. Thorned brambles ripped at my sides. Roots tripped and clawed. Behind me, I could hear Cinder crashing through the undergrowth, relentless, closer with every step.

“Run, little rabbit!” he called, his laughter as sharp as ice.

The forest deepened. Thick-trunked trees spiraled into the sky, their bark glimmering faintly in the pale blue starlight above. These were not the Fae woods I’d visited before—this place was older, colder, stranger.

When I burrowed to the edge of my resolve, I stopped. My hands worked quickly, pulling the shaed around me, wrapping me in darkness. The forest swallowed me. I crouched low, hidden, silent, waiting.

Cinder stumbled into the clearing. His breath came ragged; his blood-slicked blade hung loose at his side. He scanned the shadows, his voice cutting through the silence. “Rabbit, where are you?”

The wind answered for me. A single whispered word: “Ferula.”

Cinder froze at the sound. His head turned sharply, searching.

“Ferula,” I murmured again, letting the breeze carry the sound further.

He snarled, spinning toward the whisper, teeth grinding together. “Face me!”

The final Ferula whispered past him, curling faintly at the edge of his hearing. Enraged, he thrust his sword into the ground and spoke a binding word of his own. Light erupted again, sharp and harsh, flaring pale and unnatural. Bark glowed ghost-white; shadows stretched long.

But his light did not drive the darkness away. Instead, it summoned something.

The ground trembled faintly beneath us, and the air shifted—heavy, alive, expectant. A sound followed: soft, uneven, like velvet dragged across a splintered floor. Then came the light. Pale and bluish-white, it seared through the glade.

Cinder staggered back, throwing an arm instinctively over his eyes. Above him, something vast began to shift, its edges sliding unnaturally into view.

It was like flesh—not flesh like ours but something pliant and pale, stretched and uneven. It moved as though underwater, its bulk overwhelming the senses. And at its center, a subtle yawning—a mouth?—began to open. A cold, hollow sigh filled the space between stars and trees.

Cinder trembled. His defiance broke apart, and raw fear tore through his voice. He screamed, falling to his knees as the light grew brighter. The thing above him pulsed again, a final draw of breath, and something bright and vital was pulled from him. That dreadful sigh echoed once more, and with it, the creature folded back into the nothingness from which it came.

The air fell still.

Only when I was sure the creature above had gone did I emerge, Folly balanced in ready hands. Cinder remained crumpled on the ground where the light had abandoned him. His face was broken in every way possible, his coal-black eyes empty of whatever fire had kept him going. He moaned softly, incoherent and hollow.

As I approached, he lifted his hands toward me, trembling. Almost… seeking help.

I paused, watching him. The Cthaeh’s words echoed unbidden in my mind: Your father begged before the end.

This was not mercy I felt. It was resolve.

I stepped closer and, without a word, brought Folly down. The blade severed his hands cleanly at the wrist. Blood pooled around him as his shattered form collapsed further into the dirt.

CHAPTER 50.

THE PROPER WAY.

WHEN I STEPPED through the jagged wound in the Waystone Inn’s wall, dragging it back into Temerant, the air outside clung to me. Sharp, cold, unnatural. Bast and Chronicler stood waiting, their faces full of questions.

Bast broke the silence first, his voice tight. “Kvothe—”

I held up my ruined hand to stop him. The fresh wound throbbed, a steady pulse in time with my heart. “Later,” I said with a finality that left no room for argument. “There’ll be time enough for questions later. But now, there’s this.”

I shrugged the heavy burlap sack higher onto my shoulder, feeling its damp weight shift slightly. The smell had settled in—iron and something darker, something cloying that turned in your stomach like sour milk.

Bast’s sharp eyes tracked it, his mouth uncertain. “Do I dare ask what that is?” he asked, one brow curving upward.

“You’ll see soon enough,” I said, brushing past him before my gaze shifted purposefully to Chronicler.

“Where are we headed?” the scribe asked, his voice calm but tight, like a man taking great care not to show fear.

“Martin’s,” I said simply, already moving forward, my strides purposeful. Breath came short as the strain of the sack wore on me. But I welcomed it. It felt proper. Necessary.

“Crazy Martin,” Bast muttered behind me, half to himself. “Oh, joy.”

* * *

The moon hung low by the time we reached Martin’s hovel, its pale light bleaching the tree line like dead bone. I knocked three sharp times and waited.

The door opened just enough to show a sliver of Martin’s face. “Tehlu’s teeth, do you know what hour it is—” His voice cut off as his eyes landed on me. Or rather, on the sack. He opened the door wider, his sharp gaze flicking from the sack to my face.

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked, his voice flat.

“It is,” I said, pushing past him into the hovel. The sack’s weight seemed to follow me, heavier now than when I’d first shouldered it. “Is everything ready?”

Martin snorted as he bolted the door behind us. “For over a year now. But I’d hoped I’d never have to see you with… that.”

The space inside was cramped and dark, the air thick with woodsmoke and something bitter underneath it. Martin moved quickly, lighting lanterns and working his way to the center of the room. He knelt and rolled back a thick, threadbare rug, revealing two large wooden trapdoors set flush with the floor.

“Stand back,” he said curtly, grabbing an iron gaff from the wall. He hooked it into an iron ring and heaved. The trapdoors groaned as they opened, revealing the pit below.

Torchlight flickered across the scene: the pit was deep, the bottom layered with ash, elm, and rowan. At its center sat the wheel.

The iron looked dull, heavy, and worn—but something about the way it rested gave it weight beyond its materials, as though the thing itself were waiting.

Chronicler shifted uneasily, his fingers twitching as if searching for his pen. Bast’s lips pressed into a thin line, his tail curling and flicking in nervous arcs.

Martin folded his arms, his tone dry. “I assume you remember how this works?”

I answered by stepping forward and resting the sack on the floor with slow deliberation. Its weight sagged against the boards, leaking silence into the room.

Chronicler spoke first, his voice low, solemn. “Let me tell you what to do.”

Bast followed, his tone softer, the words laced with reluctant familiarity. “Dig a pit that’s ten by two.”

I finished, my voice steady as I stared into the pit. The words came easy, roots grown deep. “Ash and elm and rowan, too.”

For a moment, the hovel seemed smaller, the air too thick, the space too tight. The pit below carried its own kind of silence—a waiting void of breath and darkness.

“Get me the ladder,” I said.

CHAPTER 51.

A SILENCE OF THREE PARTS.

IT WAS MORNING AGAIN. Dawn had crept quietly over the hills, painting the sky in soft hues of gray and gold, but the world itself seemed reluctant to wake. The town crouched on the horizon like a wounded beast, blackened scars visible even at a distance. Ash lingered in the air, so faint it was almost a memory. The road stretched wide and dry before us, open and empty, and in that emptiness lay silence—a silence of three parts.

The first silence was the most obvious, sharp-edged and hollow. It was the silence of things lost and broken. Once, there might have been a crackling hearth here, its warm fingers plucking laughter and conversation from the throats of men and women. There might have been tankards clinking, chairs creaking, the fumbling, joyful notes of a fiddler’s jig. But the inn was gone now—reduced to soot and rubble. No fire. No fiddler. No laughter. Where once there was noise and life, there was now only the brittle silence of their absence, loud and immense. I could feel it pressing against my skin like winter’s first frost.

The second silence hung heavier, closer, as if the air itself held its breath in witness. It was the silence of the townsfolk who had come to grieve but found their grief too private, too raw to share. There had been no eulogy for the innkeeper, no flowers dropped like whispers onto a coffin, no songs sung for the dead. Most had simply come to gawk at the ruin, shuffling away with their heads down before the ashes could stain their memories too deeply. In their place they left behind only this—an unanswered quiet, deep as a well and cold as stone.

The third silence was the faintest and the truest, and it lay on my shoulders alone. It was harder to hear, though if someone listened closely, they might sense it curling in the stillness like smoke. It was not the silence of an empty road or an abandoned home. It was my silence: the stubborn, unyielding quiet of a man who had lost too much and held what little remained with trembling hands. A silence full of weight and sharp edges, older than I cared to admit.

We walked for miles down the dry dirt road, my two companions behind me. I did not know if they felt the same silence pressing on them—but I doubted it. Their whispers rose and fell behind me like the timid flicker of a candle, inconsequential things I barely heard. I kept walking, shoulders square, each step deliberate like the counting of coin. The distant town was no longer visible behind us. There was only the road, stretching forward in whispers of gray dust and brittle grass.

And then I stopped.

* * *

The lute rested on my back, where it had rested faithfully for so many miles. To some, perhaps it was only an instrument—wood and strings, held together with glue and a touch of polish. But for me, it was a voice. I had traded my own for it too often, let it say the things I could not find words for.

I took it in my hands now, gripping its neck with something between reverence and defiance. The road was empty ahead of me, the morning sun still faint and weak. My fingers moved on instinct as I pulled it close to me, brushing the strings just once—lightly. A whisper of a sound came, a note that might have been mourning, but also might have been hope.

My companions fell silent. They had been bickering about something unimportant, and now their words caught in their throats. I felt their eyes on me, but I did not turn to meet their gaze. This moment was not for them. It wasn’t even for the burned-down inn or the absent townsfolk or the innkeeper I’d never had the chance to mourn.

It was for me.

I began to play.

The notes came soft at first, quiet as the sunlight on the road. They slipped free, climbing into the empty morning air. A simple melody, without flourish or artifice. But there was power in simplicity, and as I played, the silent world around me seemed to slow and pause, listening.

I let my mind drift. The melody was one I’d heard before, though I couldn’t remember where. Maybe it was at the Eolian, played by some nameless girl with freckled hands and a voice of silver. Maybe it was something my father had sung once, long ago, his voice warm as pipe smoke. It didn’t matter. The melody belonged to the world now, not me. My fingers guided it forward, coaxing it out like a thread pulled from a tapestry, unraveling itself into the air.

The road no longer felt empty. The brittle grass seemed less dry, the sunlight warmer, the silence—not gone—but different.

* * *

When the song ended, the silence returned. But it did not press as heavily as before. It no longer felt like stone on my chest or a cold hand pressing against my throat. It was a silence that held something else now, some small thing I couldn’t name.

I breathed deeply and placed the lute gently onto my back. For a moment, I stood there on the road, holding that silence close. Then, without a word, I began walking again.

My companions followed a few paces behind. They still said nothing, but I could feel their eyes on me, as if seeing me for the first time. I kept my own forward, fixed on the horizon. The road stretched on, wide and waiting.

The end.

EPILOGUE.

THE LAST NAME SPOKEN.

PEHYN DREW A long breath, steadying herself. The morning air was sharp and cold, as if to remind her that the moment was real. Vashet had said she was ready, but doubt clung to her all the same. What if the words failed her? She’d practiced until her throat burned, repeating the Atas under her breath even in the dark of night. Still, Vashet’s teasing words rang in her head: “Three days was all it took, once.” Pehyn had said nothing, but her cheeks had flushed in quiet frustration.

Her mother waited for her outside, wrapped in white, sharp-featured and steady as weathered stone. Penthe’s hands rose, asking a silent question: Are you ready? Pehyn nodded, though the motion felt heavier than she expected. Penthe tilted her chin in the barest approval and turned, leading her daughter through Haert’s winding streets.

The pathway beneath their feet was ancient, pale stones smoothed with use. Shadows played across the old village walls as the sun broke higher. The breeze teased Pehyn’s hair, red as flame, and for a fleeting moment, she imagined herself something closer to courage.

* * *

At the steps, Pehyn stopped. The crowd had gathered, their faces drawn but expectant. This was no personal moment—it belonged to them all. The air seemed to hum with their silent presence.

She climbed and turned to face them. Standing there, she suddenly felt the weight of their eyes. She searched them for judgment and found something far worse: trust. For all her fear, this was her place to stand, her duty to fulfill.

“First,” she began, her voice unsteady, though it steadied as she spoke. “First came Chael.”

The Atas began to flow, sharp and sure, until Pehyn no longer spoke but became its vessel. Name after name rang out, each one unfurling like steel tempered by fire. Her voice found its rhythm, her fear falling away, replaced by a quiet certainty. Through her, the blade’s history unfurled, its story sharp enough to cut silence itself.

And yet, when she reached the end, her breath stilled.

“Last…” Her voice caught, the final name heavier than the blade itself. The crowd seemed to lean forward with her.

“Last came Kvothe,” she said, quieter now, but stronger. “The one who reforged me for a great and noble purpose.”

The audience didn’t move. The name lingered in the air as if etched into the sky, a thread tied taut between past and present.

* * *

For a long beat, there was no sound. The silence felt alive, dense and full. Pehyn stood still at the top of the steps, her body light, as if unmoored from her fear. She looked out across the crowd and saw not judgment but unity, a shared story now as much hers as theirs.

Penthe stepped forward as her daughter descended. Her hands moved with deliberate clarity: Well done.

The words hit her not like praise, but like a tether. Grounding. Real. Pehyn’s shadow no longer danced ahead of her. It stood still, matching her stride as her mother turned and began the walk home.

Pehyn followed her mother home, her legs steady now, her shadow no longer dancing ahead but moving alongside her own.

APPENDIX.

COLLABORATIVE MANUSCRIPT

The living workspace containing the latest changes.

• https://github.com/frypatch/The-Price-of-Remembering

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT

TacticalDo's original fan fiction release.

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/1dgnqjd/the_price_of_remembering_bk3_fan_fiction_release/

SOURCES AND CITATIONS

Devi, behind FPD is knowledge, K’s heart’s desire.

• https://old.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/6vmwt9/final_theory_before_i_head_off_to_vintasthe_story/

Doors of stone and lackless door are one and the same.

• https://new.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/57j3ka/the_lackless_door_where_it_is_what_stands_before/

Proof Chandrian and possibly Kvothe either bitten by Ctheah or consumed the Rhinna

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/17badh4/chandriancthaeh_flowers/

Reason to doubt Ctheah’s line about K meeting Cinder as a ‘twice in a lifetime opportunity.’

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/17h3hpy/comment/k6qforq/?context=3

More proof its missing books behind the four-plate door.

• http://web.archive.org/web/20081212102239/http://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/2008/12/exclusive-excerpt-from-patrick-rothfuss.html

Proof Iax is inside Lanre

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/101ocb2/is_tehlu_the_leader_of_the_sithe_are_demons_and/

Lyra at fault

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/952afq/spoilersit_could_be_all_lyras_fault_and_other/

Why DoS wont have a simple cut and dry villain.

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/17cbbgy/narrow_road_qna_4/

Logical deduction of events at Drossen Tor

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/10jgizm/drossen_tor_wth_actually_happened/

Four Plate Door and Doors of Stone are not the same

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/10gxoaj/reasons_the_four_plate_door_and_doors_of_stone/

Why it will be Denna who collects and uses the Rhinna

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/10lsz62/what_flower_would_you_bring_me/

Proof Bredon is also Cinder

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/5fgnot/spoilers_all_who_is_bredon/

The chandrian and the cities they betrayed

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/n9eqlu/spoilers_the_chandrian_the_cities_they_betrayed/

Taborlin is the "real" story

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/52uk8y/kkc_spoilers_all_taborlin_is_the_real_story/

Why Skarpi’s account of Drossen Tor is formatted in an odd way

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/1524nea/formatting_of_drossen_tor_story_why_lanre_and/

Caesura sounds, proof Kvothe doesn't kill Roderick

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/ylttrr/spoilers_all_kingkiller/

Who are the Sithe, and Cinders past.

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/15nult7/history_of_the_sithe/

Denna’s fate, will the sequels be her as Lanre returned?

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/6c3xkg/kvothe_aslyra_spoilers_all/

Left enough room for the blood elements of this theory to possibly be true.

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/10exuzy/theory_amyr_keep_two_bloodlines_separate_lackless/

What is the Chandrian's plan?

• https://chaen-dian.com/the-trebon-vase/

Present day chapters

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/gcv88c/is_there_a_list_of_chapters_for_the_present_day

CAST

(in order of appearance)

• Kvothe - custom
• Devon - Mark Strong? or custom?
• Bast - Ben Barnes or custom?
• Master Herma - lars mikkelsen
• Will - Alfred Enoch
• Sim - Jeremy Sumpter
• Master Brandeur - Harvey Fierstien
• Master Hemme - Bradley Whitford
• Master Elodin - David Tennant/Neil Gaiman
• Master Elxa Dal - Vincent Price
• Master Arwyl - Toby Jones
• Master Lorren - Bill Nighy
• Master Kilvin - custom
• Devi - Emma Laird/Ana de armas
• Remmen - Custom - Marcus
• Thianni - Custom
• Roderick Calanthis - Rupert
• Calanthis guard Ywick - Andy
• Trenati - Latin for Third son - Liam
• Regent Fascino - Eddie
• Lord Vatis - Douglas
• Bredon - trained
• Regent Lugosi - Tommy/Jarvis
• Amyr Claude - Edwin
• Galeshim - Kipling
• Baron Jackis - Gilbert
• Artemi Ilario (Kings Tailor) - Noah
• Talyia - Conny
• Old man Cinder - Gideon
• Maarten - Andy
• Auri - custom - Emily Kinney
• Denna - custom

NOTES.

BOOK 3 PLOT POINTS ADDRESSED

Twenty things stand before, the beginning of book four:

• How Kvothe got to Newarre and became Kote (see chapter 47/48)
• Where/what are the Human Amyr and what became of them (28)
• What’s in the lockless box (39)
• What/Who is behind the doors of stone, and where is it (39)
• What’s behind the four-plate door (8)
• The demon Kvothe tricks to get his heart’s desire (8) and the angel he fights to keep it (?)
• Who is princess Ariel (19) and how does he rescue her (45)
• Who is the king that will be killed and how does he die (35)
• What starts the war and who is the penitent king (31)
• Who does Kvothe kill in Imre (47) (Ambrose)
• Who is Denna’s patron (38)
• How Kvothe meets Bast (18)
• What do the Chandrian want? (39) to elaborate there are several things 1) initially, to destroy all records of themselves (I’m guessing to stop the irritation/pain associated with having their names spoken (Selitos spoke... “May your face be always held in shadow... Your own name will be turned against you, and all who serve you.” I’m guessing but by pledging allegiance to Lanre/Haliax you are then afflicted by the curse), 2) Ultimately they want free of the curse, if Iax can possibly break the curse for them then they are inclined to set him free, Lanre (Haliax) knows Iax is an extremely powerful namer/shaper as he helped imprison him. They need the Loeclos box, more importantly what's inside - this was why they waylaid the tax collectors between Severen and the Lackless estates, and also why they killed Acuelias Lackless, in their attempts to track it down, and why the family originally fractured in order to hide it.
• Where and how does Kvothe acquire the Rings: Stone (14), Wind (5), Amber (14), Wood (WMF from Meluan, doesn’t acquire name), Bone (WMF stapes ring, doesn’t acquire name), Water/Ice (30), Fire (30), Blood (?), Copper (?)
• Who is Encanis? — A warped amalgamation of the Chandrian and the Cthaeh, concocted by the Tehlin church to make Tehlu their god.
• Why did the Chandrian wait so long - (39) They held out, but after thousands of years of pain, accepted their names will never be forgotten, possibly Cinder was working against them stirring people up to seek out their names in order to force Haliax to work toward breaking the curse instead. Tortured long enough they started searching for a way to set Iax free as a trade to remove the curse, and end Haliax’s immortality.
• Why does Kvothe call Skarpi a rumourmonger - His version of events with regards to Lanre’s past is an Amyr framed version. The Ruarch used mankind as soldiers then after the creation war went back to lording it over them (details kept vague as we have little from this period to go on). Lanre, seeks power and gains it from the Cthaeh, he is also being driven by the Breath of Iax, what I assume is a small part of him that Skindanced in from the Great Beast at the Blac of Drossen Tor, both conspiring to drive him to unite humanity against the Ruarch, continuing Iax's war. Selitos never saw it coming, though the twist will be that it was warranted. Lanre then gets to be the tragic hero, and Skarpi gets to be called a rumourmonger, rather than outright liar, in the frame. The song of seven sorrows is the Chandrian’s attempt to get the truth out after living for centuries listening to The Amyr's confounded version of events.
• What/who is the Cthaeh - Most likely the Tinker mentioned in Hespe’s tale of Jax, however I have left enough room that it could also be Selitos, bound by Tehlu to the iron wheel, punished for his attempts to bring justice before crimes are committed. (This is purely guesswork, and I also imagine the Cthaeh’s fate will come into effect in what would have been books 4 through 6)
• Who betrays Kvothe - The Maer (35) and to a lesser extent Denna
• What is the significance of the Lackless Rhyme. (39) Seven things stand before The entrance to the Lackless door, One of them a ring unworn (The ring of unearthed standing stones that form the portal), One a word that is forsworn, (Denna made to sing out a phrase to unlock the door, one of the reasons she was being trained by Cinder), One a time that must be right (phase of the moon, has to be a full moon(seems more poetic that way)), One a candle without light (Haliax’s negative light candle which reveals the standing stones that are the Doors of Stone) One a son who brings the blood (Kvothe is a lackless heir his blood opens the Loeclos box), One a door that holds the flood, (the Doors of Stone are the cell doors constructed at Drossen Tor imprisoning Iax and his shaped army, opening them allows Iax and his army to flood out into Temerant) One a thing tight-held in keeping (the Loeclos box), Then comes that which comes with sleeping.(I suspect this involves needing to sleep/dream to open the DoS somehow, maybe passing through Faeriniel, however there isn't enough info to go on, and it is just another impediment to opening the doors, which is the main plot point, so i’ve unfortunately opted to skip it)

PERCEIVED CHAIN OF EVENTS

Source:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/1i6vq6c/a_beginning/

5000 + years ago:

• The Ruarch exist and some among them can Name
• Iax Lackless(was probably closer to Luckless but we’ll go with Lackless here to make it simpler) becomes a Shaper and creates the Fae
• Iax visits the Lady (She is a version of Ludis from Hespe’s Jax story) from ‘How Old Holly Came To Be’ plays her music, and shows her the art of Shaping, promising to teach her if she returns with him.
• At some stage Humanity, and those of the Fae are shaped/created
• Iax and The Lady marry, and she becomes Lady Lackless/Luckless
• The Old Knowers become angry, thinking Iax and the other Shapers are going too far.
• The Lady confronts Iax over his creations and they fall out, she then leaves and returns to Temerant
• Iax isn't content, perhaps out of fear of reprisal from the Knowers who he considers jealous he desires even more power and speaks to the Cthaeh (likely the Tinker/hermit referenced in Hespe’s story, and not yet bound to the tree by Tehlu)
• On the Cthaeh’s advice Iax tries to pull the moon into the fae
• The attempted theft of the moon sparks the Creation war, with the Old Knowers attacking first
• Iax and the proud dreamers Shape weapons of war, creating creatures such as Durruna, Scrael, Skin Dancers, Draccusi, and Gremmen, and leave the Fae to invade Temerant.
• The Old Knowers start losing, need to increase their numbers, in their desperation they draw humanity into the fight, directing the attacks of Iax onto them
• Lanre and Lyra (likely a Ruarch herself) join the namers/old knowers against Iax and the shapers.
• Iax attacks and destroys cities of the Ergen empire, where the Old Knowers rule hiding as humans
• Iax attacks Belen but is foiled
• Iax is pushed back along the great stone road as Lanre unites humanity against the Shapers
• Humanity and Ruarch push the Shapers into a final confrontation with the plan to imprison Iax and his army within a space constructed in the same manner as the Fae realm.
• Lanre slays Iax’s Great Beast at Drossen Tor, a breath of Iax skin walks into him as he lays dying
• Iax and his remaining forces are defeated at Drossen Tor and shut beyond doors of stone, Lyra and Lady Lackless are key in this.
• Lyra pulls the now Iax corrupted Lanre back from beyond the doors of death, speaking his new name, inadvertently making him immortal, as the rest of Iax is alive trapped behind the DoS, so whenever he dies he is pulled ‘like a lodenstone’ back into the mortal realm.
• The Doors of Stone are buried (sidenote the lackless door/doors of stone is supposedly on the oldest parts of the lackless lands, in old holly she isn't far from her home when the final battle occurs, the location then becomes desolate over time, much like the desert over the other side of the Stormwal.)
• Matters return to as they were before the war with the Ruarch ruling over humanity.
• Lyra leaves Lanre to go on a journey maybe sue for humanities freedom
• Lyra ill,Lyra kidnapped, Lyra died(but no one sure)
• Corrupted Lanre (the enemy moving like a worm in fruit) speaks to Cthaeh to obtain power to bring her back, but he still cannot (I’m thinking it was when Lyra brought Lanre back that his name changed as he is now Hal-iax - the breath of Iax - as the other part of Iax is alive and beyond the DoS he is brought back drawn like iron to a lodenstone, but either at then or at this point, one of them made it so he can no longer sleep, or forget, no solace in madness, or death.)
• unable to reach or resurrect Lyra Lanre blames the Ruach for everything
• Corrupted Lanre (the real Taborlin) convinces 6 other lords/kings, those who had served him during the Creation war, to raise their trusted armies and to destroy the cities of Temerant, and cast out the Ruach
• Selicotos in his anger at this seeming betrayal of a lesser species binds Lanre to shadow, Cursing any who follow him.
• The Angels and the Amyr are formed
• Due to the curse Haliax and the Chandrian feel pain when their names are spoken
• Haliax hopes in time they will be forgotten, only this doesn't happen (perhaps because of Cinder, as he wants to be free of Haliax and cannot until the curse is lifted) and all seems hopeless. (side note maybe Haliax knows their names but they don’t know his.)
• The human Amyr tries to hide the Chandrian’s names, for the greater good, as anyone who finds and speaks their names dies.

3000 years ago (roughly):

• The descendants of Lady Lackless, likely of the Yllish branch of the family, who inherited the key to the Doors of Stone, shape a box to hold the key, locking it away to ensure its safety. This is then passed down through the Lackless line for generations.

3000 years ago to present:

• Thousands of years pass, and finally Haliax can stand it no longer, their plan is to free Iax in return for ending their suffering. So their purpose becomes to set him free in return for ending the curse, and removing the skinwalker part of Iax from him, so he can become Lanre once more and die.
• Iax is freed, his Alar being greater than Selitos’s, he is able to interrupt it, and thus break the curse. The reason for Haliax’s immortality was that a part of Iax left the body of the great beast when Lanre Slew it and entered him, Iax is able to extricate this part of himself from Haliax reducing him back to Lanre. The stone shattered is left deliberately vague, but is specifically the key originally used to lock the doors of stone, and is not the mountain glass used by Selitos (simpler this way, otherwise there would need to be A key as per the Lackless rhymes and the Mountain Glass coming together at once.)

Reasoning for the above chain of events:

I'm paraphrasing, but Shehyn's story mentions, the following key points:

The Ergen empire had an enemy - This is unclear at this point, it could be a number of people, possibly Iax, or Haliax, or maybe even the Ctheah.

The enemy was not strong enough to destroy Taranial - Lanre succeeds in this which means by process of elimination it is likely Iax being referred to here.

Moved like a worm in fruit, not of the lethani, poisoned 7 others against the Ergen empire - Again I'm leaning to Iax manipulating Lanre from within. Iax being the worm, Lanre being the fruit.

Of the names spoken only two are Deep Names I suspect;

Ferule (Cinder) and Alaxel (Haliax) I believe Kvothe does this as one is dead in the frame (Lanre/Haliax), and the other he wishes to lure to the Waystone (Cinder/Ferule).

This is the big one, what would make those who are already lords or possibly (as stated in both Cyphus’s case) kings amongst their people, trusted according to Shehyn, raise an army and turn on their own cities? This I suspect is the distortion in Skarpi's version of events, the reason he is called a rumourmonger in the frame. They were indeed lords amongst men, but they were ruled by the Ruarch, their possible creators, perhaps even hiding amongst them. Though I doubt it, it's also possible they were all birthed into the world like Menda supposedly was via immaculate conception. These ‘lords and Kings’ along with their armies, which would be Lanre’s former allies and subordinates from the Creation war then turned on them, betraying their Ruarch oppressors, including Selitos.

The reason I say this is simple, each of the Chandrian could have been swayed by the promise of power, they doubtfully however could have convinced whole armies to do so on their behalf, they would have needed a reason to take such a risk.

I'm still of the mind that the 'thing' the Chandrian were originally attempting to do was cast out the Ruarch from Temerant or at least the human occupied territories, who were in large part oppressors of humanity.

With Aleph being the original creator/shaper of man, and thus having sway in how they are treated. We know from Felurian that mankind didn't exist at one stage, so why would they become embroiled in a war with the Shapers unless possibly forced or tricked into it by the Ruarch?

Where Tehlu states: "I will leave this world behind so that I might better serve it, serving you.” This would imply the Ruarch come from another world, and via a means (implied immaculate conception based on Trapis's tale) are able to access Temerant. I wonder if Lanre learnt this. Possibly from Lyra?

Lyra was probably of the Ruarch (see Laniel young again), and sought Aleph's council in order to obtain better conditions for humanity, however the other Ruarch murdered her, so they could retain the status quo. This being the final straw for Lanre who then started the rebellion. Which is referenced here as a betrayal, the idea that a mere human, a lesser race, would oppose them.

RATIONAL BEHIND CERTAIN PLOT CHOICES

• As Pat doesn't strike me as the sort to write one-dimensional, good-vs-evil characters, it was important to give the Chandrian justification and some form of redemption. This is backed up by Denna’s song, which appears to indicate that the Chandrian, or at least some of them, want to set the historical record straight. They feel slighted.
• Though I agree there is some merit that Denna is a Lackless, ( see https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/1pvew4/is_denna_a_lackless_long_post_spoilers/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=KingkillerChronicle&utm_content=t1_e7ityff) I really hope Pat doesn’t opt to go in this direction, and thus ruled it out.
• Lack of resolution regarding the Cthaeh. Kvothe himself says at the beginning this is as much a story of the Chandrian as it is about himself. Given this, and his lack of knowledge on the Cthaeh indicated in WMF, I suspect Pat intends to leave Cthaeh’s fate to the sequels.
• Kvothe is descended from Iax on his mother’s side, again I hope there isnt any any substance around Iax somehow raping Laurian/Netalia from beyond the Doors of Stone. It would get really messy if the plot goes in that direction. Also the text clearly implies Kvothe resembles both Laurian and Arliden. Mother's eyes. Father's hands and voice.
• What's in the box; I like Zhorangi’s theory Auri is in the Waystone, and maybe in the box, but it's really hard to write that in a way that doesn't come off as stupid. So went with the implication that he may have retrieved a part of himself and his shaed which has now healed.

ELEMENTS I CONSIDERED CHANGING

• This one only came to recently and I would change it if I wasn't so near completion, inside the Lackless box is the moonshard used to bind the moon to the Fae realm, this is said to be Iax/Jax’s greatest desire, Haliax bargains it to Iax in return for freeing him from life.
• https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/le2ucq/severen_is_located_where_myr_tyraniel_used_to_be/ This thread makes a great case for Severen being Myr Taraniel and the seat of original power for the Amyr possibly, could have had Dagon reveal the human chapter are within Severen still, Instead of having him ride slightly further out to the Leveritis.
• Considered having two stones in the Loeclos box the other being the mountain glass used to curse Lanre, but just didn't feel right or really add anything
• Could have done with another scene, just Bast and Kvothe, to help build the Camaraderie. Considered having them venturing out in Vintas alone together, maybe some locals picking a fight with them, where Bast gets to see another side of K and he teaches him something.
• I subscribe to the theory Auri’s in the thrice locked chest and it's a portal of some kind, but I couldn't think of a way to write it that didn't come off as a bit weird.
• No visit to Junpui, although PR has indicated this will be in DoS.
• I love the theory of Bredon being Aculeus Lackless and not Cinder, and think it would make a great twist especially if Kvothe kills him when he was only trying to aid him in secret, and is after the same people he is, perhaps is a Modegan Rider? however I couldn't then think of a suitable way/twist to reveal the Chandrian at the end.
• I considered having the final battle be the 6 remaining Chandrian versus Kvothe's allies hiding in Newarre, Elodin masquerading as the priest, martyn as crazy Martin, Auri, maybe keep will and sim alive, Devi, and Fela, and this would have been cool, but also really messy, and would have taken away from Kvothe's rivalry with Cinder.
• These aspects of the girls and boys version of the lackless rhyme are purposefully ignored, 'She's been dreaming and not sleeping. On a road, that's not for travelling. Lackless likes her riddle raveling' and 'Then comes that which comes with sleeping'. As theorised by some this likely relates to travelling through Faerinial after the DoS are opened, however I suspect they don't alter the final conclusion, and as there is so little information covering them, I've opted to skip them.
• Toyed with Kvothe calling Denna back from beyond the doors of death at the end, then having to fight and kill one of the ruach, and then Denna escapes in the night, but no way would he be waiting in the Inn if this were the case, so I opted to leave it.
• For an added twist I considered having Cinder allude to the Chandrian not being responsible for killing Kvothe's troupe, but decided against it. https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/10hw76y/were_some_of_kvothes_troupe_killed_using_arrows/
• Considered having Elodin be Abbe Leodin but there are two reasons why they aren't the same person; Kvothe says he buried the Scrael wrong, and Elodin taught chronicler after Kvothe left which means he's likely still at the uni. From a story point of view his presence just gets in the way. Also as previously mentioned this would rob Kvothe of some of his agency in the final confrontation.
• I originally considered adding a key to the Loeclos box to be in the archive, the Chandrian then make an appearance to claim it with a huge set piece ensuing, but It was hard to conceive of a scenario that would make that work.
• Would have loved to include more of Denna’s backstory, her relationship to Yll and who is chasing her that makes her keep moving on, but there just isn't enough there, without inventing whole new sections, which is against the remit for this fan edition.
• File this under doubtful but possible - Is Cinder to Haliax the equivalent of Bast to Kvothe, attempting to manipulate the Chandrian into action. Maybe originally Haliax wanted for the Chandrian to be forgotten by time, but now Cinder acts as a Patron to people (Arliden perhaps, and Denna very likely) to get them find and call their names, until Haliax has to accept they cannot hide, and need to break the curse.
• In another completely different direction, what if Kvothe pledged allegiance to Haliax for some reason? This would explain why he changed his name and created the thrice locked chest to seal it away. Perhaps the original High King of Modeg was the ‘one who remembered the lethani’ and locked his name away so that Haliax couldn’t speak it and cause him pain like he does Cinder, exerting control over him. Question is; why would Kvothe pledge allegiance to Haliax? Perhaps forced to do so in order save someone, this creates other problems as well though, why free Iax before the frame if not to clear the curse? In this version by swearing allegiance he too would become one of the Chandrian, and his sign would be silence.
• Scene between Kvothe and Fela when he returns to Imre after Sim’s death.
• Scene with Manet when he takes up the Master’s chair.
• Scene near the end before nightfall and Cinder arrives where Kote shaves, maybe add a line about it being proper to be clean shaven in some cultures before death.

ALTERNATE ENDINGS

• All the Chandrian come to the Waystone, but Kvothe has more help waiting in secret, i.e. Elodin, Auri, Devi possibly ect.
• In his battle with Cinder, Kvothe blows a horn in the Fae which summons the Scythe who in turn take Cinder.
• Same as above, but Cinder reveals the Chandrian acted based on what the Ctheah told them, Kvothe then goes and burns down the Ctheah, with the audience left to wonder if this was what the Ctheah wanted all along. - This ending has the added benefit of closing out the entire story, rather than leaving it open-ended.