Elara's story and introducing the promised elements of romance and fantasy.
—-
The rain started as I hailed a cab, a fittingly pathetic end to the worst night of my life. It wasn't a storm, just a cold, relentless drizzle that seeped into my silk blouse and plastered my hair to my cheeks. The driver, a man with weary eyes and the radio tuned to a static-filled talk show, didn't say a word as I gave him the address to my apartment. He didn't need to. The sight of a woman in a thousand-dollar dress, soaked and shaking, leaving a glittering tower at ten p.m. told its own story.
I clutched the single cardboard box on my lap. My worldly goods, curated by a stone-faced security guard who'd watched me empty my desk: the obsidian paperweight, a photo of my father and me at my graduation, a half-dead succulent, and a spare pair of running shoes. Everything else—my projects, my notes, my reputation—was digital dust. Erased.
The cab smelled of stale cigarette smoke and disinfectant. I stared out the window as Aethelburg blurred past, its gleaming lights now feeling like a million accusing eyes. Lena's words played on a loop in my mind. A unified vision. A single, strong voice. It's mine.
The fury that had kept me upright in the office was ebbing, leaving behind a hollow, aching void. What did you do when the person you'd trusted most in the world decided to atomize your life? The law was a labyrinth she'd already booby-trapped. The court of public opinion would side with the dazzling CEO, not the "disgruntled ex-employee" with a suspicious severance package.
I was utterly, completely alone.
The cab pulled up to my building, a bland, modern block of apartments. I fumbled with my wallet, over-tipping the driver in a daze. He grunted something that might have been thanks and sped off, leaving me standing on the curb in the rain.
My apartment was dark and silent, a museum to a life that had ended an hour ago. I dropped the box on the kitchen counter and shrugged out of my soaked blazer. The silence was deafening. I needed noise, light, anything to chase the cold from my bones. I needed to not be here.
I changed into dry jeans and a sweater, not caring that I looked like a ghost of my former self. I grabbed my wallet and keys, my movements robotic. I knew where I was going. There was only one place.
The Last Drop was a café a few blocks away, a relic stubbornly holding its ground between a sleek co-working space and a vegan bakery. It was the antithesis of Veridian's penthouse: warm, slightly shabby, and smelling of real coffee beans and old paper. It was also, at this hour, nearly empty.
A bell jingled softly as I pushed the door open. The warmth hit me first, then the familiar scent. My shoulders, which had been somewhere around my ears, dropped a fraction.
"We're closing in ten," a warm, calm voice called from behind the large, ancient espresso machine.
"Just a coffee. To go. Please." My voice was hoarse, barely a whisper.
The man straightened up, and my breath caught. It wasn't Leo, the usual elderly owner. This man was younger, maybe my age, with dark, unruly hair that fell across his forehead and eyes the colour of rich, dark earth. He had a quiet intensity about him, a stillness that felt at odds with the frantic energy of the city outside. He was wiping a steam wand with a practiced, graceful ease.
He looked at me, and his routine smile of greeting faded. His gaze didn't skim over me; it held. It felt like he saw everything—the rain-soaked hair, the expensive dress beneath the cheap sweater, the hollow shock in my eyes. He didn't look away uncomfortably. He just… saw.
"Rough night?" he asked. His voice was deeper up close, laced with a genuine kindness that felt like a physical blow.
A hysterical laugh bubbled in my throat. I choked it down, simply nodding as I approached the counter.
"You could say that."
He didn't press. He just gave a slow, understanding nod and turned to grind the beans. The sound was a comforting, normal roar. I leaned against the counter, my energy spent, and watched him work. There was a ritual to it, a focused precision that reminded me of coding—a series of perfect, logical steps to create something whole.
As he tamped the grounds, his fingers, long and deft, brushed against the portafilter. A faint, almost imperceptible shimmer of light, like heat haze on summer asphalt, flickered around his hand for a split second. I blinked, sure my exhausted mind was playing tricks on me.
"Here," he said, handing me a simple ceramic mug instead of a paper cup. Steam curled from the rich, dark liquid within. "On the house. You look like you need to sit down."
"I… I asked for it to go."
"Change of plan," he said, a faint, gentle smile touching his lips. "Sit. The 'to go' part is negotiable. The 'coffee' part isn't."
I was too tired to argue. I took the mug, my fingers brushing against his. A jolt, sudden and warm, shot up my arm. It wasn't static electricity. It was a surge of… something else. A feeling of deep, resonant calm, like the first note of a cello in a silent hall. It was gone as quickly as it came, leaving me staring at him, wide-eyed.
He held my gaze for a moment, his expression unreadable, before turning to wipe down the machine again. Had he felt it too?
I stumbled to my usual corner table, my heart hammering for a new reason. I wrapped my hands around the mug, its heat seeping into my icy fingers. I took a sip. It was the best coffee I'd ever tasted. Deep, complex, and inexplicably comforting. It felt like it was warming me from the inside out, gently pushing back the cold numbness that had taken root in my chest.
I sat there for a long time, watching the rain trace patterns on the window. The café was silent except for the soft clink of him cleaning up. The world had shrunk to this warm, safe bubble. The betrayal, the fury, the devastating loss—it was all still there, waiting for me outside. But in here, for these few stolen minutes, it was held at bay.
Finally, the sounds of cleaning ceased. He emerged from behind the counter, pulling on a worn leather jacket. He looked over at me.
"I have to lock up," he said softly, not unkindly.
"Right. Of course." I stood up, my legs unsteady. "Thank you. For the coffee. It was… it helped."
He walked me to the door, turning off the lights behind us. We stood in the dim glow of the streetlamp filtering through the glass door.
"I'm Kael, by the way," he said. "Leo's my grandfather. I'm minding the place for a few weeks."
"Elara," I whispered.
"Elara," he repeated, and my name sounded different on his lips—like something ancient and melodic. He studied my face again, his head tilted. "Whatever it is… it won't always feel this heavy."
It was a simple thing to say, a platitude people offered all the time. But the way he said it, with such quiet certainty, made me want to believe him.
He unlocked the door and held it open for me. The cold night air rushed in.
"Goodnight, Elara," he said.
"Goodnight." I stepped out into the drizzle.
I was halfway down the block when I heard his voice again, clear and calm over the patter of the rain.
"Elara."
I turned. He was standing in the doorway of the café, a dark silhouette against the warm light inside.
"The stone in your pocket," he said, his voice carrying an odd, resonant weight. "It's older than it looks. It listens."
Then he stepped back and closed the door, leaving me alone on the empty, rain-slicked street.
My hand flew to the pocket of my sweater. I hadn't put anything in there. I'd changed, emptied my dress…
My fingers closed around something smooth, cool, and unmistakable.
The obsidian paperweight.
A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold raced down my spine. I hadn't packed it. I'd left it in the box on my counter. I was sure of it.
I pulled it out. In the dim light, the volcanic glass seemed to drink the illumination around it, looking less like a paperweight and more like a hole punched into the fabric of the night.
It's older than it looks. It listens.
The words echoed in my mind, spoken by a man who made calming coffee and whose touch sent waves of quiet through my chaos. A man who shouldn't have known what was in my pocket.
I looked from the mysterious stone in my hand back to the now-dark café window.
The world hadn't just shifted with Lena's betrayal. It had just cracked wide open. And my revenge, I realized with a dizzying sense of awe and terror, might not be something I forged in code after all.
It might be something I unearthed.