The win felt small and awful. He'd saved the refugees, people with sunken eyes and shaky hands. He got them to a safe house run by a tough woman. She had Thread symbols tattooed on her knuckles. She took them in with a nod that showed she'd done this a thousand times. No one said thanks; they just knew this was one fight in a war that wouldn't end. He did what was right. The hard thing.
But it also took something from him.
Going back to Samantha's apartment felt odd, like walking on stage after everyone's left. The lights were too bright, the furniture was too sharp, and the fridge hummed loudly. It was a new, empty feeling, not just missing his lost world. It felt like something important was gone, like a tooth pulled from his soul. The anger that was always there, ready to fuel the Bone Serpent and the Eclipse, was now gone. He used it up being a hero, and now, there was only a cold, quiet void in its place.
Kaiphus understood. For days on end, it stayed close to him, like a constant hug. It wasn't just there; it was a bandage on his soul. It usually acted playfully, but now its moves were careful and worried. It would wipe sweat from his face when he thought about the binding-Serpent. It would press against his back if he slouched, to hold him up. At night, it wouldn't let him move around too much. It would hold him still, so he could rest his stressed body.
He began to spend time alone. He sat in Samantha's dark living room for hours after she fell asleep. The only light came from the city outside. He held a cheap romance book, one from the Dark and Light Love and War series. The writing was terrible, as always. The main character was arguing with a space fleet admiral using only the power of love; the lines were bad, and everything was over the top.
But it helped. The simple, happy story, with its guaranteed happy ending, the niceness of it all, it was like applying aloe to burned skin. He wasn't reading to escape, but to get back on track. To remind himself that there were places where love was the most important thing, and kindness was the greatest strength.
The empty feeling needed to be filled. Words started to come to him.He got a notebook with empty pages and began to write letters he knew he couldn't send.
Mother, he wrote first, his writing sharp, nothing like Lys's handwriting. I used the Eclipse today but not as a weapon. As a cage. I think… I think you'd be proud. It took more from me than I thought. I miss you, not as a wound, but like a question I don't know how to answer.
Cassandra, another page, his writing faster, more worried. I saw what might have been you, you told me 'not yet.' I am trying to listen. I am trying to be the man you need me to be, not the weapon our father wanted. Keep fighting. I am coming, it is just… quieter than I believed.
To the Spires of Umbra, he wrote, his words becoming sad. I am writing down all the light. The way it hit the crystal bridges. The sound of the Lantern-Weavers. How the air smells before it rains. I am writing it down, because I'm afraid I will forget it.He read these letters late at night. When the quiet became too much. Writing down his sadness and hope, helped him deal with things. They weren't just scary thoughts; they were papers. He could put them away and read them later, when he felt Stronger.
Then, he went to his collection. All the cups, saucers, and broken pieces. He put them on the floor. Not looking at them, he wrote down things on them, giving each names, a story, a reason to have them.
He held up the first saucer, the one with the blue stars, and said. Keeper of Lost Stars, he whispered for the stories his mother told.
The cup with the silver rim. Sentinel of the Spire, for the city he loved.The clear, broken one. Heart of the Waning Moon, for Lys herself.
He held the broken parts of the cup. Lina said she'd fix it with gold. He didn't throw them away and placed them in a soft box, and wrote down Promise of Repair".
Was not just someone who collected these things, but someone keeping documents, a map maker for his own soul. He named the pieces so that if all he could find was silence, he would have a map back to himself. He made sure that whatever he had to do to save Cassandra, he would remember who he was.It wasn't much, and awful, he had controlled his force, and the cost was a piece of his own fury. But as he sat with his things, the letters put away, and Kaiphus close by, the quiet didn't feel like loss, but like peace he had wanted so badly. The storm was done, and he was putting the pieces together, not to rebuild things back to where they were, but to become someone new from the pieces.