The Night Before the Weeping Forest Assignment
Most students slept early the night before an anomaly mission.
Dorm Nine did not.
Dorm Nine pulsed.
Fear.
Excitement.
Rumors burning like lanterns in the dark.
Jalen paced so aggressively the floorboards complained.
Marenne reorganized her notes for the fifteenth time.
The other students whispered in corners, stealing glances at Caelum's door as though expecting it to explode.
Lira sat on her bed, knees pulled to her chest, hair unbraided and falling like the last remnants of calm she hadn't quite held onto.
She should sleep.
She couldn't.
The bond wouldn't let her—not because Caelum was unsettled, but because she was.
And something else was wrong too.
The wind.
Outside her window, it hissed through the courtyard bushes in uneven bursts. Like something exhaling. Like the forest was breathing.
She hugged her legs tighter.
The Weeping Forest wasn't alive.
Everyone said it wasn't alive.
But stories said otherwise.
The trees bleed.
The ground listens.
The deeper paths remember walkers who never returned.
Lira shivered.
A soft knock rattled her door.
Her breath caught.
"Lira?" a voice murmured.
Not Caelum's.
Marenne's.
Lira slid off the bed, opened the door a crack.
Marenne held two cups of tea, steam curling in ghostly ribbons.
"You're awake," Marenne said softly.
Lira took the cup.
"Barely."
Marenne walked inside and sat beside her.
"You're scared," she said simply.
Lira looked down at her tea.
"I wish I wasn't."
"That would make you insane," Marenne replied dryly. "Or Caelum."
Despite everything, Lira snorted.
She cupped the warm mug.
"I'm not scared of the forest," she admitted.
"I'm scared of messing up. Of pulling him down with me. Or… or breaking what I don't understand."
Marenne sighed, pushing her glasses up.
"Listen," she said. "I'm going to say something honest."
"That sounds dangerous."
"It will be."
Marenne turned fully toward her.
"You don't have to understand the bond."
Lira blinked.
"Everyone keeps insisting I do."
"Everyone who is stupid," Marenne said bluntly. "Caelum's entire existence breaks half the rules of sigil theory and laughs at the rest. Understanding him is impossible."
Lira bit her lip.
"But I have to help him. I'm his anchor."
"Yes," Marenne said. "You are. But anchors don't need to understand the storm."
Lira looked up.
"What do they need?"
Marenne touched her wrist gently.
"They need to hold."
Her breath stuttered.
Marenne continued:
"No one else can do what you did in the ravine. Not even the Dominion. You kept him here. You grounded him. You steadied him when his mind and soul were being eaten from the inside."
"That was… luck," Lira whispered.
"No. That was resonance."
Lira felt heat crawl up her neck.
Marenne leaned back.
"Caelum won't say it, but you stabilized something no student has ever stabilized. That's not something you should fear. That's something you should build on."
Lira exhaled shakily.
"So you think I'll survive tomorrow?"
Marenne smirked.
"You better. I put too much academic interest into you."
Lira laughed.
Then froze.
Her chest tightened.
The bond pulsed—
once
twice
like a soft knock against her sternum.
Marenne noticed.
"Caelum?"
"He's… close," Lira murmured.
A heartbeat later—
Another knock.
But this one wasn't soft.
It was quiet, deliberate, the kind of knock that didn't ask to enter—
it announced that he already had.
Lira's breath hitched.
Marenne exhaled dramatically and stood.
"I'll leave," she said. "If I stay, he'll just stare at me until I evaporate."
Lira opened the door.
Caelum stood there in his academy uniform, sleeves rolled up, hair slightly tousled, threads humming faintly around him like quiet lightning.
He looked at Lira.
Then at Marenne.
Then at the tea.
Then back at Lira.
"Are you unwell?"
Lira nearly spilled her tea.
"No! Just… talking."
Marenne passed him on her way out.
"If she dies tomorrow, I'm haunting you," she said.
"That's impossible," Caelum replied.
"Try me."
She left.
Silence settled.
Caelum stepped inside.
The door closed soundlessly behind him.
The Threadbearer Plans
"You didn't sleep," Caelum said.
It wasn't a question.
"No," Lira admitted.
"Because of the assignment?"
"…Yes."
His eyes narrowed slightly, analyzing her face, her posture, her pulse, her breathing, the trembling of her hands around the tea cup.
"You are afraid."
"Yes."
"Good."
Lira blinked.
"Good?"
"Yes," Caelum said calmly. "Fear improves reaction time."
Lira groaned.
"Can't you just say something comforting for once?"
"I did."
"…That was comforting?"
He considered.
"Yes."
She rubbed her face.
He continued walking toward her desk and stopped in front of it.
His presence filled the small room, reshaping the air.
"Sit," he said.
She sat automatically.
He placed something on the table.
A small folded paper, marked with triangular sigils.
"What is this?" she asked.
"The path I expect the anomaly to manifest along."
Lira blinked rapidly.
"You already… mapped it? Before the mission briefing?"
"Yes."
"But how?!"
"The forest woke early."
Her breath caught.
"You can sense it?"
"The entity is aware of it," he said softly. "Therefore, so am I."
That was somehow absolutely not reassuring.
Caelum continued:
"You are not entering blind. I will direct the formation. You will maintain the thread-stability around me. Marenne will handle sigil analysis. Jalen will provide auditory alerts."
"Jalen isn't good at not screaming," Lira muttered.
"Correct," Caelum said. "That is why his screams will be useful."
She choked.
He turned away slightly, scanning her room with quiet precision.
"You still don't trust yourself," he said.
Lira stiffened.
"I'm trying."
"Try less," he said. "Rely more."
She looked up at him.
"That sounds like something dangerous people say."
Caelum didn't blink.
"I am dangerous people."
She wanted to laugh, but her throat tightened.
He approached her again.
Close.
Too close.
Not touching.
But near enough that the bond became a warm, steady hum.
"Lira," he said quietly. "Your fear is not a liability."
She swallowed.
"It feels like one."
"Only because you think you must fight it," he said. "You don't."
Her lips parted.
"What do I do then?"
He leaned down slightly.
Her heart tripped.
"You anchor it."
Lira stopped breathing.
"Show me," she whispered before she could stop herself.
Caelum's eyes flickered—
not with amusement.
Not with superiority.
But with interest.
The kind of interest that made her pulse stumble.
"Very well," he said.
He lifted a hand.
Threads stirred.
But softly.
Gently.
Not like when he was unraveling—
more like silk moving in water.
"Close your eyes," he instructed.
She closed them.
"Feel the bond."
She did.
It pulsed.
Warm.
Present.
Familiar.
"Now," Caelum murmured, "focus on your fear."
Her breath hitched.
"Why?"
"Because anchors hold," he said. "They don't run."
She inhaled shakily.
Fear rose in her chest.
Fear of the forest.
Fear of failing him.
Fear of losing him.
Fear of becoming something she didn't understand.
It swelled—
and the bond reacted.
Caelum's fingers brushed her wrist.
"Good," he whispered. "Now hold it."
Her legs trembled.
"I—I can't—"
"You already are."
His voice wasn't cold.
It wasn't soft.
It wasn't commanding.
It was steady.
Like a door braced open.
"Fear is not the wave," he said. "It is the undertow. You do not stop it. You brace against it."
She tried.
Her breathing shook.
But the fear didn't swallow her.
It didn't break her.
Because she felt him.
Through the bond.
A quiet, unwavering line of light.
She opened her eyes slowly.
Caelum was still holding her wrist, barely touching.
His expression unreadable.
But something in his stance had softened—
not visibly, but conceptually.
Like a thread unwinding before tightening again.
"You see?" he said.
Lira exhaled.
"I did it."
"Yes."
Her heart fluttered.
Then her face burned.
"Did I… do it right?"
"Yes," he said.
Then paused.
"Your execution was inefficient, but correct."
Lira covered her face.
"That was almost a compliment until the last part."
"I don't compliment."
"I noticed."
Caelum straightened.
"We train again in the morning."
"What time?"
"When the forest wakes."
"That's not a time!"
"It is now."
He turned toward the door.
But before he left, he paused.
Looked back.
The bond pulsed once.
Warm.
Certain.
"You will not die tomorrow," he said.
Lira blinked.
"That's… comforting?"
"No," Caelum said. "That is a prediction."
And he walked out.
Caelum — Predictions and Threats
He didn't return to his room.
He walked past Dorm Nine, past the courtyard, past the lantern-lit paths that bent wrong in the dark.
He stood at the edge of the academy grounds.
Wind hissed from the direction of the Weeping Forest.
Trees swayed, creaking unnaturally, leaves whispering in a language older than war.
The entity stirred beneath the earth.
Whispers crawled through Caelum's mind like threads unraveling.
"she anchors weakly…"
"the forest will test her…"
"you will break…"
"you will choose…"
Caelum's eyes cooled.
"No."
The whispers stuttered.
"I will not break."
The ground vibrated faintly.
"And she will not fail."
The forest rustled—
a laugh
or a threat
or both.
Caelum watched the treeline until the wind shifted.
Then he turned back toward the academy.
His expression calm.
His threads steady.
His plan crystallizing.
Three days from now, the forest would open its mouth and swallow the academy's weakest.
Three days from now, the Dominion would measure him again.
Three days from now, the seals under Ashthorne would tremble.
Three days from now—
the Threadbearer would walk into the oldest anomaly on campus.
And he would not walk alone.