The Day After
Elias did not sleep well.
He didn't sleep at all — or so it felt. Calling it rest would be charitable, if not an outright lie.
The moment he shut his door after the debriefing, the carefully built emotional stillness he'd been holding for almost two full weeks snapped like a frayed thread.
It happened quietly.
One moment he was calm, steady, precise—
the next, he let the focus he'd been holding loosen, and something inside him let go..
Every fear he had dulled, muted, buried
—every instinct he'd flattened into silence—
—every tremor of terror he'd refused to feel—
surged upward all at once.
A dam breaking.
He had only enough time to sit down on the edge of the bed before the crash hit him like a physical force. His breath seized. His hands shook. His heartbeat kicked into his throat.
He felt the Hunter's mask-face again.
The bandits' knives.
The child Fey's cold fingertip on his nose.
The Winter Noble's eyes—
like judgment made of ice.
He felt the moment she saw him.
Really saw him.
And the moment the frost flake sank into his shadow.
He curled forward, hands on his temples, swallowing sharp breaths as shadows around him rippled in distress, rising and falling like animals reacting to their handler's panic.
He whispered, teeth clenched:
"Stop…stop…"
The shadows tried. They pressed against his ankles, his arms, his back—
not soothing, not calming—
just anchoring him to the room, to the present,
to here.
It took nearly an hour before his breathing leveled.
Before his shaking stopped.
Before the panic receded into something small and survivable.
And when he finally fell into sleep—
—he dreamed.
He dreamed of being stretched thin between shadow and frost.
He dreamed of walking roads that weren't roads.
He dreamed of the Winter Noble leaning close, whispering:
"You do not belong to the bright-blooded."
He woke before dawn, cold and aching, a thin sheen of sweat on his skin.
He sat upright.
Breathing hard.
But alive.
Barely.
The shadows around him pulsed with quiet concern.
He placed a hand on the stone floor.
"…I know," he whispered. "I know. I'm still here."
The shadows settled, though reluctantly.
He wasn't ready.
He wasn't calm.
He wasn't stable.
But dawn didn't care.
And Mirage had already begun moving and it was time for him to do the same.
———————————————————————
Aster's morning did not begin with tea.
Or meditation.
Or the quiet, blissful silence she preferred.
It began with a messenger breathlessly informing her that the Council had convened an emergency session at sunrise.
Then two more messages.
Then three scribes running in opposite directions.
By the time Aster reached the upper administrative hall, seven people were already arguing loudly, and two archivists were pale enough to be mistaken for ghosts.
Aster stopped at the threshold.
Surveyed the chaos.
And thought, with remarkable calm:
"I should have stayed in bed."
High Archivist Renna spotted her immediately.
"Prime-Three," she hissed, storming toward her. "You brought back a Fey incident report. A Winter Fey incident report. Do you know how many treaties that violates?"
"None," Aster said. "We technically didn't provoke, offend, or engage."
"That's the problem!" Renna wailed. "They engaged us!"
Three advisers began speaking at once:
"We must notify the southern kingdoms—"
"The wildlight map needs recalibration—"
"What if Winter demands tithe—"
"What if they want the boy—"
"WHAT IF THEY ALREADY MARKED HIM—"
Aster pressed two fingers to her mask.
"Silence."
Everyone froze.
Even the enchanted lantern flickered nervously.
Aster set down three stacks of reports.
Three different crisis documents.
Three different nightmares.
"Here is what we know," she said, voice sharp as an inked blade.
"One: Elias Marlow survived a Winter Noble's presence."
"Two: She interacted with him directly."
"Three: She left a rhyme. Winter rhymes have implications."
"Four: We are going to handle this quietly, internally, intelligently—"
She paused, voice dropping into a threat.
"—and without panicking."
The room collectively pretended it was calm.
Barely.
Aster inhaled slowly.
None of them needed to know that she had not slept either.
None of them needed to know that she wasn't panicking because she had passed beyond panic and into a new, rarer territory:
Concern.
And beneath that—
Curiosity.
Dangerous, unwelcome curiosity.
But she couldn't say that.
So she said:
"I will handle Elias."
No one argued.
Even the walls seemed relieved.
Elias washed his face, straightened his tunic, and tried—
tried—
to look like someone who hadn't collapsed into a trembling mess five hours earlier.
He stepped into the hall.
His legs still felt unsteady.
His breath still shallow.
But he moved anyway.
Because training waited.
Because answers waited.
Because Aster waited.
He reached the corridor leading to the upper offices just as a scribe hurried by with an armful of scrolls, muttering:
"Winter incident—Prime-Three—Council panicking—someone fetch more ink—"
Elias blinked.
"…Oh no."
Aster appeared at the end of the corridor like a storm cloud given human shape, mask polished to a razor-sharp sheen.
She didn't walk toward him.
She approached with purpose.
"Elias."
He straightened.
"Prime-Three."
Aster stopped in front of him, studying him in silence.
"Did you sleep?"
"Yes."
Aster tilted her head.
"Did you sleep well?"
"…Define 'well.'"
Aster sighed. "That's a no."
She gestured.
"Come. We have much to discuss. The Council wants blood, but I have convinced them to settle for answers."
Elias followed.
"Is this about the Fey?"
"Oh no," Aster said dryly. "This is about the fact that half the kingdom now wants to know why Winter took an interest in you and whether or not you are going to explode."
Elias blinked. "…Can I explode?"
"Let us hope not," Aster said.
They walked in silence for a moment.
Then Aster added quietly:
"You look shaken."
Elias hesitated.
Then:
"I let go of my emotional restraint last night."
Aster stopped walking.
She turned fully toward him.
"And?"
Elias swallowed.
"It all hit me at once."
The Hunter's jaws.
The Fey's eyes.
The shifting forest.
The freezing rhyme.
The weight of being seen.
"I realized," he whispered, "how close everything was. How close I was."
Aster's mask softened by a fraction.
Not sympathy.
Recognition.
"Good," she said. "You should feel that. You must. Otherwise you will become arrogant—and arrogance gets people killed."
Elias lowered his gaze.
"I thought I could handle everything."
Aster tapped her mask lightly.
"And now you know you can't. That is progress, Elias."
He looked up.
Aster continued walking.
"Come. The Council wants to decide your future. I intend to decide it first."
Elias followed, shadows close behind him like loyal, uneasy animals.
For the first time since waking—
he felt steady.
Not calm.
Definitely not better.
But steady, in a way that trees after a massive storm must feel while still standing.
And ready to walk into the light—
even if it burned a little
———————————————————————
The Council chamber was intentionally designed to be uncomfortable.
High ceiling.
Cold light.
Seven masked figures seated like carved statues.
No chairs for anyone who wasn't a Councillor.
Elias stood beside Aster, hands behind his back, posture straight, face composed.
Inside, his ribs were still trembling from the night before.
Aster had warned him:"Speak only when addressed.And if they begin quoting laws at you—try to keep your eyes drifting to nearest exit, they won't like that"
He hoped that last part was a joke.
He doubted it.
A silver-masked Councillor cleared his throat.
"Prime-Three. You bring us… an unusual report."
Aster's voice cut cleanly through the cold air.
"No report involving Fey nobles is usual."
The gold-masked Councillor leaned forward.
"You and the boy vanished from the mortal timeline for seven days—without magical trace, without mana imprint, without any form of travel signature—"
"It wasn't travel," Aster interrupted. "It was wildlight displacement. Also I didn't vanish anywhere. Elias did with the merchant he was with. I mentioned in the report,could it be,you didn't read it properly?"
Gold masked counselor squirmed uncomfortably seemingly more than little guilty
"That is worse," a bronze mask snapped. Joining to the conversation to salvage what was left of the other councilors dignity.
"Considerably," Aster agreed, letting the matter go.
Elias fought the urge to swallow.
The lead Councillor tapped the table.
"And the Fey noble… took interest in him?"
Aster inclined her head. "Yes."
A ripple of quiet horror moved through the table.
The obsidian-masked Councillor spoke next.
"Prime-Three. You are our expert on unusual arcane anomalies. Explain the implications."
Aster's tone turned razor-sharp.
"Politically?
This is a disaster."
Elias almost flinched.
Aster continued, precise and merciless:
"Winter's nobles do not involve themselves with mortals unless it benefits Winter.
If they take interest in someone—
it means one of three things:
A threat they want to observe.
A tool they intend to shape.
A curiosity they may or may not dismantle."
The Councillors shifted in their seats.
And then:
Aster did something bold.
She stepped forward slightly—shielding Elias with her presence without seeming to.
"And yet," she added, "this particular noble did not harm him. She did not threaten him. She did not mark him. She observed him, judged something about him, and allowed him to go."
A Councillor scoffed.
"As if that is better."
"It is," Aster said, calm as stone. "If Winter disapproved, we would not be debriefing a survivor."
Silence.
Heavy, inevitable.
The lead Councillor folded his fingers.
"What is he, Aster?"
The question Elias had expected—
the question Aster had dreaded.
Aster responded without hesitation.
"An anomaly,an Old Soul.
Possibly something else. Most importantly promising seedling"
The bronze mask leaned forward.
"Should he be restrained?"
Aster's answer was a blade.
"No."
"Watched?"
"Yes."
"Controlled?"
"No."
The obsidian mask clicked their tongue.
"And what of the Fey interest?"
Aster turned her head slightly, looking at Elias from behind the mask.
"He will avoid further contact, as well as he can."
Elias nodded, steady.
The Councillors murmured among themselves.
Several quills scratched furiously on parchment.
At last, the lead Councillor raised a hand.
"Very well. The boy is permitted to continue training under Prime-Three's supervision."
Elias exhaled silently.
"But," the Councillor added sharply, "he is to remain inside Mirage for the next several weeks. No external missions. No unsupervised travel. No magical experimentation without sanction."
Aster inclined her head. "Agreed."
"And," the gold mask said, "teach him to hide himself. Whatever the Fey saw—we cannot allow the world to see it."
Aster nodded once.
Then the lead Councillor dismissed them with a wave.
Aster walked silently beside Elias through the corridors.
Elias waited.
She would speak when ready.
At last, she said:
"You handled that better than I expected."
Elias blinked. "I didn't speak."
"Exactly," Aster murmured. "Excellent discipline."
Elias couldn't be sure but it sounded like Aster was making a joke. That or she has gotten used to some blabbering fools who can't help but to hurt themselves by spewing out nonsense even when they should be silent.
They turned down a quiet hallway lit only by pale, humming runes.
Then she added, more softly:
"I am not exaggerating, Elias. If Winter had disliked anything about you, she would have ended you. Or taken you."
Elias considered that.
He didn't enjoy considering that.
"…Why didn't she?"
Aster paused, then answered carefully:
"Because something in you resonated with her domain—but did not belong to it."
A beat.
"Or the worst scenario, she wanted you out in the world." She said, waited a beat then added
Elias. You are not normal. Don't pretend to be."
They reached his room.
Aster stopped.
"One more thing."
He looked up.
"Your shadow practice—continue it. But slowly. Carefully. And… Elias?"
"Yes?"
Aster's mask tilted slightly.
"Fey exposure changes people. Their magic lingers. You may find your abilities—shift."
He nodded.
She walked away.
Elias entered his room.
Closed the door quietly.
The shadows greeted him like soft waves, rising around his ankles and brushing the walls in slow, chilled currents.
Chilled.
He froze.
Shadows weren't cold.
They never were.
He lifted a hand slowly and summoned a thin thread of darkness.
It rose easily—too easily—smooth as ink on glass.
He twisted it.
It didn't break.
Not like before.
He willed it into a thin ribbon.
It held.
He wove two strands together.
They merged seamlessly.
Elias stared.
"…That shouldn't be possible."
He tried forming a small cloth patch—the way he had struggled with for days.
It formed.
Not just formed—
It shimmered faintly.
A shimmer like frost under moonlight.
Elias touched it.
Cold.
Not freezing.
Not painful.
Just Winter-cold.
The same cold as the frost flake that had dissolved into his shadow.
He swallowed hard.
The shadows around him shifted in a slow, spiraling motion—no longer random, but organized. Intentional.
Like they were humming.
No—
vibrating.
Resonating.
He exhaled shakily.
He wasn't imagining it.
His shadow manipulation was stronger.
Smoother.
Colder.
Sharper.
Not corrupted.
But influenced.
Touched.
He whispered into the dim room:
"…This is not going to make Aster happy."
The shadows pulsed once, amused.
Elias sat back against the wall, breath steadying, mind racing.
He had survived Winter.
And Winter had left something behind.
Not a gift.
Not a curse.
A change.
One that the Council feared.
One that the Fey noticed.
One that Aster would watch.
Elias pressed a hand to the cool floor.
Whatever path he had been walking—
it wasn't his anymore.
Not entirely.
———————————————————————
Following day, Elias returned to his quarters after exercises with Rellin, that were mainly him listening Relling rant about this ludicrous situation, and him secretly trying to fade in to the background.
He expected exhaustion.
He expected silence.
He expected shadows gathering like usual.
He did not expect this:
The room was colder.
Not Winter-cold.
Not Fey-cold.
A derivative.
A whisper of frost lingering in the stones.
Not enough to freeze.
Enough to warn.
The shadows pooled near the bed stirred restlessly, twitching like dark feathers shaken by a wind that wasn't there.
Elias stopped just past the threshold.
"…Not good."
The shadows curled toward him, careful, cautious.
As if afraid of something inside themselves.
He crouched, pressed a hand to the floor.
A chill bit his palm.
Residual Frost of Ever-Winter.
From the flake.
The one that dissolved into shadow instead of melting.
His shadows.
He inhaled slowly.
This was the danger Aster had meant.
Unbalanced power.
Unbalanced identity.
Unbalanced truth.
If the shadows absorbed too much alien magic…
They would change.
And so would he.
He stood, jaw tightening.
"I need to stabilize you," he murmured.
The shadows answered with a subtle shiver—agreement, or fear, or both.
He left immediately.
Aster was exactly where he expected her to be:
in the lower stacks of the Archive Hall, reading three books at once and terrifying a junior archivist simply by existing.
She didn't look up when Elias approached.
"I felt it," she said.
He blinked. "You… felt it?"
"Yes." She turned a page. "Your room's temperature shifted by—" she flicked her fingers dismissively "—a statistically impossible deviation."
"Aster, my shadows—"
"—are contaminated," she finished.
He stopped breathing for a moment.
She closed one book.
Finally looked at him.
"Not corrupted," she clarified. "Not damaged. Not possessed. But changed."
He tried again. "So—"
"You are absorbing Winter's imprint."
Aster stood. Not abruptly. Not aggressively.
Just with the weight of someone who had dreaded exactly this outcome.
"Winter's magic dominates everything it touches. Including darkness. Your shadows swallowed a direct noble flake."
She tapped her mask lightly.
"If we do nothing, they will shift toward Winter-alignment. Which will shift you toward Winter-alignment."
Elias swallowed.
"What would that mean?"
Aster paused long enough that he regretted asking.
"Frozen restraint. Emotional stagnation. Instinct over reason. The slow bending of your truth into something colder than you understand."
Aster circled him once, examining the air around him.
"You would not become Fey," she said. "But you would cease to be… human-adjacent."
The world tilted under him.
"…How do I stop it?"
Aster clasped her hands behind her back.
"You balance them."
Elias blinked. "With what?"
"Fire."
Aster led him deeper into the stacks—past old scrolls, past forbidden runes, past the sealed racks of Elemental Theory.
She stopped before a narrow aisle labeled:
Harmonic Opposition
— Principles of Elemental Counterweight
She pulled out a cracked binder.
"Shadows do not have an elemental opposite," she explained calmly. "Because shadow is not an element."
He nodded. He knew this.
"Shadow is truth," Aster said. "A shape of existence. A reflection of what is, not what acts."
"Then why fire?" he asked.
Aster held up the binder.
"Because Winter is not an element in the human sense either."
He blinked.
"In your world, Winter Fey magic is the embodiment of stillness and inevitable cessation.
And what cancels cessation?"
"…Motion?"
"Not enough," she said.
She opened the binder.
Inside was a diagram of a flame drawn as if it were a living creature.
"Fire," she said, "is the world's oldest rebellion against stillness. Against endings. Against inevitability."
She closed the binder.
"If your shadows swallowed a piece of Ever-Winter, then you must feed them a piece of Ever-Fire. Something equally primal. Something equally hungry."
Elias stared.
"That sounds… incredibly dangerous."
Aster nodded. "Yes. If you are lucky."
"…If I'm lucky?"
She ignored him.
"You must embed a controlled fire-aspect into your shadows. Not to overpower the Winter—"
She tapped his sternum.
"—but to temper it."
Temper.
Balance.
Forge.
Elias exhaled slowly.
"And where do I find Ever-Fire?"
Aster paused.
Then, very unhelpfully:
"That depends on how strongly you wish to remain alive in your current shape."
"…Aster."
She folded her arms.
"Most Ever-Fire sources are quite lethal," she admitted. "Phoenix ash. Ignis serpents. Primordial coals. Sunshard embers, and of course Summer courts eternal midday rays. These are the most potent ones"
Elias stared at her.
"Rellin would have fainted, or started to rant about carrots" Elias thought amused
Aster continued briskly:
"But there is one you might access."
She turned another page.
A glowing symbol marked the entry:
"Heart-Flame Ember — Taken from the inner furnace of a Fire-Kin forge.
Only obtainable through trade, negotiation, or… accidents."
Elias raised a brow. "Accidents?"
"Expensive ones," Aster clarified. "Preferably not yours."
She closed the binder sharply.
"You will not acquire Ever-Fire today. Or tomorrow. Or soon. But you must know now: you cannot rely on unbalanced shadows indefinitely."
Elias nodded slowly.
"And until then?"
Aster gave him a look.
"The only thing between you and Fey-alignment is emotional discipline and not doing anything profoundly stupid."
"…That's comforting."
"It is not supposed to be."
Aster returned him to the training hall—this time to a quiet room lit only by floating candlerunics.
His shadows followed reluctantly, like animals sensing a veterinarian.
Aster commanded:
"Shadows forward."
Elias extended his hand.
A coil of darkness rose—but it wavered.
Not with cold.
With conflict.
Aster nodded to herself.
"Good. They know something is wrong."
"…That's good?"
"Yes. Means they are still yours."
She stepped closer.
"Now listen carefully," she said. "Your task is to convince your shadows to return to their natural balance. Not through force. Through negotiation."
He blinked. "I negotiate with them?"
"You already do. You simply don't notice."
A shadow tendril flickered near his wrist, curling like a worried cat.
Aster tapped it with a gloved finger.
"Talk to them."
Elias swallowed.
Then whispered:
"…I am not Winter."
The shadows rippled.
"I am not cold."
The tendril tightened, as if ashamed.
"I am not prey.
Not frozen.
Not claimed."
The coil relaxed.
"And you are mine," Elias whispered. "Not hers."
The room exhaled.
Aster nodded.
"That is your training until balance is achieved.
Keep them anchored to you.
Keep yourself anchored to them."
She turned away, cloak whispering like pages in a storm.
"Once you are steady again… we will begin searching for Ever-Fire."
Elias felt his pulse steady.
The shadows settled around him.
Warm.
Wary.
Listening.
Balanced—for now.