By nightfall, the Archive had emptied. Almost.

  Lyra clutched her notes, her fingers stiff with fatigue, when she spotted Julen leaning against the stairwell wall. His arms were crossed, expression caught between relief and quiet worry.

  “You were with him again,” Julen said, no greeting, no softening.

  Lyra shifted, tightening her hold on the papers. “I was working, Julen. There’s… a lot to go through—”

  His eyes sharpened. “Working beside a creature bound in chains. I don’t understand why the Elders would put you in that position. The others keep their distance. You don’t..”

  The words struck her harder than she expected. “You think I don’t? I saw what happened yesterday. The people struck first.”

  Julen looked away, jaw tight. “Stories aren’t just stories, Lyra. They say Umbralyns don’t age, that they take what they want when it pleases them. They could have been plotting this for years. I don’t want you hurt.”

  Her throat tightened. For a moment, she almost said his name. Then two older scribes passed by, calling for them to join the tavern. Julen seized the moment.

  “I’m sorry, Lyra. I didn’t mean to snap,” he said, voice low. He turned and looked at the others. “Come with me. We could both use a drink.”

  Lyra sighed. She had meant to return to her chambers, but this was no hour to make enemies.

  Not long past the Archives, a tavern glowed warmly, its air thick with the scent of ale. Laughter and chatter filled the crowded room, though fear simmered just beneath the surface. Lyra slipped onto a bench between Julen and Selinne, sitting opposite Marreck, whose cheeks already glowed red.

  Selinne, tall and auburn-haired and near Lyra’s age, wrapped her hands around her cup. “They say the Sanctum steps cracked clean through. Stone split like paper.”

  Marreck snorted. “Stones shift all the time here. Doesn’t mean doom’s coming.”

  Julen leaned closer to Lyra, voice low. “The Elders wouldn’t have called an Umbralyn otherwise, right? This is new. Something’s happening.”

  Selinne shivered. “And yet they chain him. As if binding a shadow could make it safe. Why would they put someone like him among us?” She glanced at Lyra. “They frighten me.”

  Lyra’s stomach twisted. She listened, as she’d promised herself from the beginning, letting the murmurs wash over her. The cracks in walls, failing crops, rumours of evacuation.

  And through it all, she pictured silver links biting into pale wrists — and still hadn’t fully decided whether the chains were meant to protect them, or protect the city from him.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  But better to say little. Better to watch and remember.

  By the time Julen walked her home in the early hours, the streets were hushed. Lanterns guttered low. The sea air was sharp in her lungs.

  He hesitated at her door. “Lyra,” he said quietly, “don’t let him get into your head. Promise me.”

  She forced a smile. “I don’t know who you mean,” she said, trying to reassure him. Or at least keep him quiet. “Goodnight, Julen.”

  Inside, she leaned against the closed door, heart pounding, already knowing sleep would be a battle.

  As she got into bed, her thoughts tangled, circling the day’s fragments: Orell’s scorn, Julen’s warning… and the Umbralyn.

  She drifted at last, her dreams caught between silver light and shadow.

  --

  Lyra woke to the sound of stone screaming.

  At first, she thought she was dreaming; nightmares had become all too frequent since arriving in Eryssan.

  She told herself the roar of shifting walls was just an echo of the whispers she carried to sleep. But then the floor lurched beneath her. Dust rained down. The rafters groaned like wounded beasts.

  She sat bolt upright in her bed as a hairline crack split across her chamber wall, racing like lightning through plaster. A stronger shudder tore through the floor. Books toppled, lanterns swung, shadows twisting wildly across the ceiling.

  Then came a sound she would never forget: the crack of stone rending apart.

  Her door shuddered against its hinges. A scream echoed somewhere down the hall.

  Heart hammering, Lyra snatched her shawl and stumbled into the corridor. The air was thick with dust and the acrid stench of shattered mortar. Apprentices spilled from their rooms, eyes wide; some running, some frozen. Another tremor slammed through the Archive’s foundations. A section of ceiling caved, stones crashing to the floor with a thunder that rattled her bones.

  “Outside!” someone shouted. “Get to the square!”

  Lyra coughed against the dust, clutching the shawl over her mouth. Her legs shook as she pushed toward the exit, but when she reached the outer steps, she froze.

  The city itself seemed to shudder. Beyond the harbour, the cliffs glimmered with a terrible light; faint, like fire trapped in glass, pulsing to the rhythm of a heartbeat.

  The Fracture.

  Another quake rolled through the earth, hurling her sideways. She caught herself on the stair rail, barely upright—

  A groan split the air.

  The building beside her tore free.

  Stone blocks the size of oxen pitched downward. Lyra froze. There was no time to move. No time to think. Her only option was to stand and let the stone cover her.

  The world narrowed to falling shadow.

  Then—

  Something hit her.

  But it wasn’t stone.

  She was thrown hard to the side, shoulder slamming against the ground as something massive crashed where she had just stood. The steps exploded in a spray of shattered rock. Dust swallowed the square whole.

  For a heartbeat, she could not breathe. She coughed, clawing for air.

  Her ears rang and her limbs refused to obey.

  Someone had shoved her.

  She knew it. She felt the shape of it in her bones; the direction of the force, the deliberate angle.

  Coughing even more, she dragged herself upright through the choking haze.

  Shapes moved in the dust. Shadows cutting through ruin. Figures steady where others fled.

  And for the briefest moment, she saw one silhouette standing unnaturally still at the base of the broken steps. Another tremor shook the square, and the dust thickened, swallowing the figure whole.

  When her vision cleared, there was nothing there. Only rubble, screams.

  The broken steps where she would have died.

  Her pulse thundered. Had someone pushed her? Or had the quake thrown her clear? She didn’t know.

  She only knew she could still feel the imprint of a hand between her shoulder blades.