- In the Dust Hides the Darkness
- The Quiet Chase
- The Slow Kill – Part 1
- The Slow Kill – Part 2
- Echoes of Light – Eva’s Journal Entry
- The Golden Vein
- The Ones We Bury – Part 1
- The Ones We Bury – Part 2
- Echoes of Light – Eva’s Journal Entry
In the Dust Hides the Darkness
The morning air still clung to the last breath of night, crisp and dry. Eva was up before the others, moving with quiet intensity. She packed the skimmer in silence, her hands purposeful but sharp with tension.
Sylas stirred, eyes following her movements. He could feel her unease like a pressure system, heavy and looming.
“Eva,” he said gently. “Something’s bothering you—I can see it all over your face.”
She didn’t stop moving. “It’s Tom. Something’s wrong. We need to find a comms station. I can feel him. He’s hurt.”
Sylas sat up straighter, concern furrowing his brow. “Are you sure? Eva, we’re miles from the nearest station. It could set us back a day. Can’t you use… something else? A spell? I’ve seen you do it before.”
“I need Od strong. That kind of spell would drain me. I wouldn’t recover in time if something went wrong. I have to reach him another way.” Her voice was flat, but her gaze never left the horizon. “I won’t risk being too weak to help.”
Lou stepped beside her, placing a weathered hand on her shoulder. “What did you see, child?”
Eva’s jaw clenched. “Broken glass. Tom on the floor, his side bleeding. I heard him, barely. And I saw—” she paused, swallowing. “I saw him. The man who took Seren.”
Sylas went cold. He knew who she meant. A monster wrapped in skin, all brute force and false charm. A man whose name most wouldn’t dare say out loud. If he was back in play, they had a far bigger problem.
Before anyone could respond, a scream shattered the silence.
Callaia’s eyes flew open—blank, silver, unseeing. Her mouth moved, but the voice that came wasn’t hers.
“The blood of the innocent spills.
It colors the river red.
The cradle is empty. The hollow weeps.
In the dust hides the darkness.”
She blinked once, twice—then stiffened, as if the words had bound her completely.
Sylas moved instinctively, rushing to steady her, but Eva caught his arm mid-step.
“Don’t,” she said sharply. “She’s still in it.”
With a breath like a spell, Eva turned to Od. The shadow-creature stood at her heel, smoke trailing from its form, already shifting—already knowing.
“Go,” she whispered in the old tongue. “Find it. Bring it to me.”
The dog-like shape unraveled, limbs curling in on themselves as its body narrowed and lengthened, forming a sleek, obsidian serpent. Its red eyes glowed dimly as it slithered across the stone floor, smooth as ink, silent as breath.
Od climbed Callaia’s legs, wound up her side, and paused at her open mouth. Then it entered—effortless, unhurried—disappearing into her, not with malice, but purpose. Callaia didn’t flinch. Her body softened as though in a trance, her breath evening out as Eva placed a hand over her heart and whispered a calming spell.
A moment passed. Then another.
Od returned, slipping out through her nostril in a slow curl of smoke. It flicked its tongue once and coiled around Eva’s neck like a collar, humming with hidden energy. Eva closed her eyes, absorbing what the creature had brought her—the scent of memory, the shape of the hunters, the echo of a scream that hadn’t yet happened.
She opened her eyes and spoke again.
“One more task,” she murmured to Od, who was already listening.
The smoke flared, unwinding from her shoulders as its form stretched, limbs reforming—this time into a massive bird-like creature, somewhere between crow and nightmare. Its feathers looked scorched at the edges, and when it spread its wings, the air bent around them. The red glow in its eyes burned brighter now—hungry, alert.
Eva crouched low and whispered into the creature’s ear.
“Track them. Use what you’ve seen. Follow the memory.”
Od took off in a rush of wind and ash, vanishing into the sky as Callaia fell peacefully back to sleep.
The nearest comms station was hours away, near the lake’s outer rim. Lou took the wheel, grumbling about directions and fools who couldn’t stay out of trouble. Tension prickled through the air—an invisible presence, as if they were being watched.
The station looked abandoned. Stripped wires hung loose, panels missing.
“I can fix it,” Lou muttered. “Give me a shot of whiskey—” she turned toward Sylas with a wink, “—and twenty minutes.”
Sylas raised a brow, but said nothing. Lou tore into the skimmer like a badger in a henhouse, pulling parts from hidden compartments. Within the hour, the system flickered to life—unstable, but working.
Eva contacted the only person left in town she trusted: Big Red. Pirate, protector, wildcard. He wasn’t big, but his name carried weight—and his mustache could be seen across a tavern.
An hour later, his report came in: the bar was wrecked. Tom was alive, barely. Drugged, beaten, bleeding. They knew everything. And worse—they were tracking Callaia.
“They had five, maybe six screens,” Red said. “All tracking the same person. Different signals. They’ve got eyes everywhere.”
Eva’s breath caught. Lou didn’t wait—she pulled her into the trees for a quiet word.
Meanwhile, Sylas stepped away and tapped his comm. “Saige. I need a favor. No questions. Just trust me.”
By the time Eva returned, Sylas had the new plan ready.
“The bar will be shielded—layered security, unbreakable. We’re heading for the Crawler, underground hover rail. No clear signal paths. From there, a StarCraft hauling produce will get Callaia off-world. She’ll be safe.”
Eva studied him for a long moment. “You move fast.”
“I have to,” Sylas said. “So do we.”
The Quiet Chase
They left the comms station with urgency, skimming low across the rocky flats in silence. The road twisted southeast, cutting between weathered hills and long-dead trees that stood like bones against the coming storm.
By midday, they reached a mining outpost clinging to the edge of a ravine—nothing more than a sprawl of iron shacks and metal scaffolding held together with rust and luck. They needed a charge. The Crawler’s next station was still half a day away, and the skimmer was beginning to sputter.
They pulled into the dusty yard beside the terminal. Old wires, yellowed signs, and scorched earth greeted them. Eva stayed behind with Callaia while Lou stretched her legs, striking up idle talk with a railworker smoking beneath a busted awning. Sylas headed toward the payment console to swipe the charge credit.
That’s when he saw it.
A figure, leaning too casually against the supply crates near the loading track—dark cloak, boots polished despite the dust. Something about the stillness of him. Watching, but pretending not to.
Sylas narrowed his eyes. His gaze dropped to the man’s belt—standard desert wear, but a small device blinked faintly near the buckle.
A tracker.
Not civilian.
Not local.
Sylas turned fast, walking calmly but deliberately back to the skimmer.
“Don’t look up,” he said, low enough for only Eva and Lou to hear. “We’ve got one of them watching from the far stack—cloak, crates, right side. Armed. Tagged.”
Lou’s smile didn’t falter as she nodded. “That son of a bitch. Thought I smelled rotted brass.”
Eva’s hand slid to her cloak pocket.
“No magic,” Sylas warned. “Too many eyes. We leave now.”
They didn’t wait for a full charge—just enough to make the next stretch. As the platform lights blinked back to green, Sylas guided them out of the station and back onto the open road, the storm already clawing at the horizon. Sky City—and the Crawler—were still hours away, but the chase had begun.
Hours later, after a tense stretch through dust-clogged roads and flickering air gaps, Lou swore she caught sight of a tracker skimming the ridgeline behind them. They all knew they were being followed—had known since the charge station—but what unsettled them more was the distance the hunters kept. It didn’t make sense. They’d been sitting ducks at the charger, vulnerable and exposed, yet no one made a move. It was out of character—too quiet, too measured—for the kind of men Eva and Sylas had come to know.
They reached the edge of the transport bay with barely a moment to spare. The skimmer was secured in the freight hold, and they hurried up the boarding ramp just as the final loading alarm sounded.
The hum of the Crawler grew louder as it prepared for departure—tall, sleek, with an angular undercarriage that hovered inches above the rail line, ready to vanish into the deep canyons and tunnel veins stretching toward Sky City.
Lou and Callaia moved ahead with the crowd.
Eva lingered just long enough to feel it—a flicker in the air, like breath before a scream. She didn’t need to see the trader again. She could sense his presence. But he wouldn’t follow. Not here. Not yet.
They boarded with the rest of the crowd and took their seats.
The Crawler hummed with a low, steady rhythm beneath her boots, its hover engines gliding over magnetic rails buried deep in the crust. The storm raged just outside the tunnel’s walls, winds howling like ghosts denied a proper burial. The air was tight with tension, the kind that pulled at muscle and mind alike.
Eva sat motionless, hands clasped, hood drawn low, the heavy cloak wrapping her like armor. Od’s red eyes had flared before the last tunnel’s mouth, signaling danger before it ever appeared. Now the creature was gone—vanished into the wind with a single command. She had sent him hunting.
Callaia stirred lightly on the cot beside her, still caught in sleep. Aunt Lou snored in the front, slouched comically across a stack of supplies. Sylas had moved to sit across from her, restless, half-watching the storm streak the window with veins of red dust.
Eva closed her eyes and pulled in her breath.
“Find them,” she whispered into the threads of energy laced beneath her skin. “Track the ones who come for us. Use the girl’s memory as your scent.”
In the space behind her eyelids, the veil shimmered.
A flicker. A scent. Then sight. Od’s vision.
Wind tore across a clearing—a hidden road beyond the Black Forest. A tanker crawled along its edge, metal scarred and smoking, dragging shadows behind it. Inside: girls. Blindfolded. Small bodies stacked together in makeshift beds. Some stirred, most didn’t.
The tanker passed a ridge and reached a distant camp. There were buildings—square, squat, built in haste—and tents spread out like sickness across the land. A fire flickered in the distance.
Then she saw it.
A hog.
It lumbered between tents, snorting and snarling. Its flesh looked wrong—waxy, reptilian—and from its mouth jutted jagged, yellowed tusks. Coarse hair sprouted from its back in tufts. Its eyes glowed the sickly yellow of rot. And then the sound—that sound—ripped through the air. A mechanical scream, like a machine trying to mimic pain. It reached inside her and clamped around her lungs.
Od drifted upward, wings unfurling, giving Eva a clearer view of the perimeter. A map lay on a table beneath a half-dismantled tent. Two areas circled in blood-red ink.
She leaned closer, trying to make them out—
A jolt knocked the Crawler sideways, metal groaning in protest. The train’s stabilizers fought to realign with the magnetic line. Eva’s balance shifted—
And a hand shot out.
Sylas.
His fingers brushed her shoulder—skin to skin—and everything cracked open.
They stood together now. Not on the train, but in the space between. Where sound became vibration and time unraveled like thread.
Eva’s voice came to him like an echo through mist. “Come with me.”
Sylas couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. She turned to him, hand extended, eyes silver in the half-light of the liminal realm.
When he took her hand, the vision deepened.
Together, they saw the camp again. The girls. The hog. The map.
The second circle pulsed faintly.
“Two sites,” Eva whispered. “Two branches of the same root.”
Sylas opened his mouth to speak, but before the words could form, he was ripped backward.
The vision snapped.
He was back on the Crawler, breath shallow, fingers still tingling from where they’d touched her. Eva hadn’t moved, but her eyes were open now—stormy, locked onto his.
“You saw it,” she said quietly.
Sylas nodded. “What was that thing?”
“A hog,” she answered. “One of their hounds. Not born…made.”
She turned back to the window.
“They know a war is coming.”
The Slow Kill – Part 1
Callaia stared out the glass roof of their cabin, her eyes tracing the stars that flickered between long stretches of tunnel darkness. Every few minutes, the sky returned—brief and brilliant—before vanishing again behind stone. Eva caught the edge of something raw in her face. Not fear exactly. Grief, maybe. Something heavier.
“I know this has been a lot,” Eva said gently, sliding onto the bunk beside her. She reached up and wiped a tear from Callaia’s cheek. “But you’re not alone anymore. I’m taking you to Haven. There are others there—Elari, like you. It’s not the end, little one. It’s the beginning.”
Callaia’s lip quivered. She dropped her head, the sobs rising too quickly to suppress.
“I didn’t want to leave,” she whispered. “They made me. They said they’d hurt the babies.”
Eva blinked. “The babies?”
Callaia nodded, breaking. “The babies…” She couldn’t finish. Her voice fell apart. “They take them away.”
Eva took her hands, warm and trembling. “And your family?”
“I don’t know,” Callaia whispered. “I don’t know which one is my mother. I’ve always just been with the other girls.”
Eva pulled her into an embrace, arms steady even as her heart cracked. The girl felt impossibly small in her arms—smaller than she’d remembered, somehow.
The door slid open behind them. Sylas and Lou stepped in carrying metal trays.
“The dinner car’s shutting down,” Lou said, doing her best to keep her tone light. “Figured you’d need something hearty after all that sneakin’ around.”
She handed Callaia a tray and gave her a little wink. Eva offered a faint smile in return. But the air was already shifting.
“We need to go over the plan for tomorrow,” Sylas said, setting his tray down. “The trackers know we’re here. We can’t afford another misstep.”
Lou plopped onto the edge of the bench and stabbed a potato with her fork. “I’ve half a mind to walk right up to one of those bastards and ask what the hell they want,” she muttered through a mouthful.
“They’re watching us,” Sylas said, glancing at Eva. “But not engaging. That’s not like them.”
Eva nodded once. Her eyes hadn’t left Callaia. “No. It isn’t.”
The Crawler rumbled gently beneath them, shifting into a deeper stretch of tunnel. Outside, the last of the starlight vanished behind a thick wall of stone. The ceiling panels above flickered as the emergency sensors adjusted, casting the cabin in a soft, sterile blue.
Callaia swayed forward.
Her tray clattered to the floor.
She let out a cry—sharp, animal, unnatural—and then her whole body seized. The bunk rattled beneath her as she collapsed, limbs jerking, eyes wide with terror.
“Callaia!” Eva reached her first, catching the girl before she struck the metal floor. Her skin had gone cold, her pupils blown wide, lips trembling and darkening.
Sylas was already at her side. “What’s happening—?”
A thick black liquid spilled from the corner of Callaia’s mouth.
It wasn’t blood. It was something else—dense, inky, and viscous, like oil bled from shadow. It seeped from her lips, from her nose, from the edges of her eyes. Her veins turned black beneath her skin, sharp lines crawling up her neck, down her fingers. The color spread like frost.
Lou gasped and backed into the wall, the tray falling from her hands with a dull clang.
Eva froze, her hands slick with ink. Her breath caught in her chest.
“No,” she whispered. “No, this isn’t real.”
But it was.
Callaia’s mouth opened in a final, trembling attempt at speech. No sound came. Just a slow, bubbling exhale of black. Her eyes locked on Eva’s—panicked, pleading—and then slowly dulled, like light draining from a dying star.
The only sound was the low hum of the engine and the quiet, aching grief settling into the silence.
Eva cradled her still, her face pale, her jaw clenched against the scream building in her throat.
She had seen this before.
The black.
The silence.
The ink that stole life like a curse written into the veins.
“Mourna,” she said, the word trembling from her lips like a prayer—or a curse. “It’s Mourna.”
Lou slid to the floor, covering her face. Her sobs came thick and fast. “She was just a girl… we were supposed to save her…”
Sylas sat back, stunned. “They watched us take her. They didn’t chase because they didn’t have to.”
Eva’s voice was hollow. “She was never meant to be saved.”
Sylas looked at the black smears on Eva’s hands. “They’re testing something. This was… this was planned.”
“She was the proof,” Eva said, her voice cracking. “They let her go so we’d carry her across the line. So we’d witness it. So we’d understand.”
Sylas met her eyes. “What did they want us to understand?”
Eva’s gaze dropped to Callaia’s body, the ink still glistening on her lips. “That they can still reach us. Even when we run.”
The Slow Kill – Part 2
Eva gently wrapped Callaia’s body in a blanket from the empty bunk as Lou sobbed quietly beside her. Her own face was still—cold, laced with pain and something deeper that Sylas couldn’t quite name. Grief, yes, but locked behind too many doors.
From the shadows, Od emerged in silence. He shifted into the form of a ferret and climbed onto Callaia’s chest, resting his small head on his front paws, the tip of his nose nearly brushing hers.
Eva stroked his sleek fur, her voice low and tender. “Od, we need to take her home.”
The ferret looked up, then circled once. His form unraveled into a thin, silvery ribbon of smoke that slipped into Callaia’s nostrils and vanished within her.
“Lou, it’s time. Sylas, watch the door. Make sure no one sees.”
Her tone was soft but absolute—steel wrapped in mourning.
Sylas nodded and turned away, bracing himself against the wall. He hadn’t cried since Seren. But this—this was different. Watching Eva bend beneath the weight of another girl lost, watching her carry pain like ritual—something cracked. Tears didn’t fall, but they gathered, glassing over his dark eyes, burning at the corners. Enough to be felt. Enough to remind him he was still capable of feeling.
Behind him, a lullaby rose into the air—light and sorrowful, sung in a language Sylas didn’t know but somehow understood. It pulled at his bones, ancient and aching, like a forgotten memory of home. Eva’s eyes had gone pale and misted as she sang. She placed one hand gently over Callaia’s chest, the other to her forehead. Then she leaned in, whispered something soft and private, kissed the hand that lay upon the girl’s brow, and pressed her palm once more before withdrawing.
Smoke began to rise from the edges of Callaia’s face—soft, silver, curling from her nose, ears, and eyes. It did not fall but danced upward, wrapping around her body like mist called to moonlight.
Then light.
A soft glow sparked beneath the blanket, peeking through the knit in streaks of quiet brilliance—iridescent, otherworldly. Her skin took on a glasslike sheen, smooth and glowing from within. The blanket slowly sagged as her body began to dissolve—feet first, then legs, and up through her chest as the light dimmed.
Her face was the last to fade.
The glassy skin turned to a fine, shimmering powder that scattered into the air like stars breaking apart.
A final flare of light. Then stillness.
Eva and Lou stood in silence, tears trailing down their cheeks as the blanket collapsed into itself. Lou folded it gently and tucked it into a waiting pack.
She turned toward Sylas, her expression blank but her eyes heavy with meaning. He stepped aside, saying nothing.
Lou moved with practiced hands, wiping down every surface, erasing every trace of the Mourna—and of the girl it claimed.
Echoes of Light – Eva’s Journal Entry
First Quarter Moon of Ash – Season of Wind
When we return, I will speak to Sylas.
I don’t know what I’ll say yet. But the time for waiting in shadow has passed. I see the way he carries guilt, like a rope he won’t cut loose. The way he looked at Callaia’s body—the way he didn’t cry, but unraveled—I know that kind of silence. I’ve lived inside it.
We are no longer children. We cannot keep pretending the past is dead.
There are poisons in this world that exist only to erase.
The Mourna does not kill quickly. It is not merciful. It waits.
I had nearly forgotten the way it begins—how it makes the body tremble, how it stains the blood, how it forces light out through the cracks. I had forgotten because I made myself forget. That is how we survived. But memory has its own kind of poison, and today, it returned.
I watched the Mourna take Callaia. It slipped into her blood like shadow into a dream—slow, precise, cruel. I saw her veins blacken beneath her skin. I saw her lips go dark and her breath come in rattled gasps. The smoke began to pour from her mouth and nose as if her soul were leaking out of her.
It was the same.
The same as the night they came for us.
I was only a child then. But even children listen when the grown ones whisper.
They said the Mourna was real.
Said it was a trade secret. Said it was developed for control. For silence. Said it was so rare that only a few had ever seen it and lived to tell the tale—and those who did were left hollowed out, like trees struck by fire.
The village healers used to lower their voices when they spoke of it. They never called it by name, only the ink, or the hush. One said it carried the weight of every soul it had taken. Another claimed it wasn’t made, but summoned. A curse from an old god sold to greedy men.
No one believed it would reach us.
But the wells were poisoned three days after the rumors arrived. Only the elders were allowed at the well—to drink its waters.
My mother was one of the first to fall. Her hands went cold and black within minutes. I remember her breath turning shallow, her lips cracked and bleeding ink. I remember the way she cradled me even as the smoke began to rise from her mouth. I remember how hard she fought to stay alive—how tightly she held me. Her last act was to wrap her arms around my body and hide my face in her shoulder.
I was torn from her arms by a trader who reeked of iron and sweat.
I screamed until I couldn’t make sound anymore. Seren clung to our mother, begging her not to leave her behind. She didn’t speak a word. A trader handed her off to another man like she was nothing.
I was taken in a transport box, shoved between crates of cloth and firewood. I never saw my mother again. I never saw the village again.
But I saw the Mourna again. Today.
Callaia didn’t know what was inside her. She thought she was escaping. She thought she was free. That was the worst part—they gave her just enough time to believe in freedom.
That’s what the Mourna does.
It waits until you’ve begun to hope, until you’ve said the words you’re safe now, and then it begins its work.
They knew I would take her. They knew I would love her. That I would try to protect her. That I would carry her away. And they let me. Not because they were afraid—but because they wanted to test it.
They watched us run.
They watched her die.
I buried her the only way I knew. I sent her to the smoke. I sent her home.
But my hands are still stained.
I keep thinking about the dream she had—about the babies. About the sound of them crying. About the way she said I don’t know which one is my mother. She never had a name to call out to. Never had anyone left to bury her.
They took that from her.
And I will take something from them.
Let this be remembered.
The Mourna is not just poison. It is a signal. A brand. A promise.
They wanted us to see.
And I did.
And I remember.
By the bones of the forest and the blood of my mother—I remember everything.
Callaia, little one—
you were not born of smoke, but you returned to it like starlight to sky.
Your name is known. Your story is mine to carry.
I will remember you until the winds stop singing.
And when the moonflowers bloom, I will think of you—how you opened in the dark and gave your light anyway.
-Eva
The Golden Vein
The morning came quickly. The Crawler slowed with a deep mechanical groan as it reached the edge of Sky City. Pale gold light filtered through the windows, casting long shadows across tired faces. Grief hung in the cabin like smoke. No one spoke. No one needed to.
Sylas slipped quietly from the room. Their best chance at disappearing again was to stay on the Crawler for its return trip. No one would expect them to loop back so soon.
He still had connections. His father’s position as headmaster of a girls’ school was never the true source of his wealth. That was just the cover. The real power came from the properties, the unmarked contracts, the girls moved from one place to another like freight. At one time, it felt like his father owned half of Pelnar.
Sylas was the only son, and he’d spent his childhood glued to the man’s side—watching, learning, surviving. Through his father’s behavior, he learned to read people, bend rules, get what he needed. Charm was just another tool.
It took only minutes to arrange their return plan. The Crawler’s passenger cabins were fully booked, but Sylas managed to secure permission for them to remain onboard by relocating to the lower cargo hold—the section typically used for transporting large freight and private skimmers. Their skimmer would remain untouched, tucked in the corner of the vast, echoing deck. No passengers would come looking there.
The girl at the ticket counter blushed furiously under his attention, brushing her hand across his arm as she laughed at something he barely said. He hated using it—that part of himself—but it was effective. He had only ever used it willingly for Seren. The memory struck him like a shard to the chest.
When he returned, he passed Lou on her way to the breakfast car and caught Eva just as she was pulling the door closed behind her.
“The Crawler’s booked solid,” he said, catching her eye. “I worked it out so we can stay onboard, but we’ll have to give up this room. We’ve got clearance to ride in the lower cargo deck—with the skimmer.”
He tried a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Not luxury, but it’s quiet down there. No one will bother us.”
Eva didn’t answer at first. Her eyes flicked toward the door, then back to him.
“She was just a girl,” she whispered. “I know there was nothing we could’ve done, not with Mourna, but…”
The sentence faded.
She opened the door with slow precision. “Go eat with Lou. I’ll get our things moved.”
He hesitated. Part of him wanted to stay, to push past the wall between them. But another part—the part that understood her better than she knew—recognized the dismissal for what it was. When a woman like Eva asked for space, you gave it.
Lou was already halfway through a plate of food when Sylas joined her. Rolls peeked out of her shirt collar, and a half-eaten sausage dangled from her fingers. A young Delfin child stared at her with all four of its blinking eyes, watching in awe as she piled more potatoes on her tray.
“Sylas, my friend,” Lou said, muffled around a mouthful. “It’s good to see a face not wrapped in sorrow. Sit down. Eat. They’re closing soon. And if not for you, grab me another helping of those potatoes—I love the stuff.”
He sat across from her, grateful for the absurdity.
Lou didn’t mention the night before. She told stories instead. An hour passed in nonsense and nervous laughter, most of it about how to decompress a skimmer using only a hairpin, string, and a broken prayer.
Eventually, he interrupted her.
“Lou, I’d love to hear about the many hidden gifts of a skimmer, but the kitchen closed half an hour ago and we need to get to the transport deck before someone asks for a room ticket.”
Meanwhile, Eva had spent the morning reorganizing the supplies in the skimmer. She worked without thought—muscle memory folding blankets, rearranging crates, sealing compartments. She lifted Sylas’s cloak from one of the hidden cots and paused. She’d never seen him without it. It was heavier than she expected, the inner lining stitched with secret pockets.
A folded slip of paper fluttered to the floor.
Ink had bled through the corner, dense and dark. Her name was scrawled across the outside.
Eva stared. She never read things that weren’t meant for her. But this… this was meant.
Her fingers trembled as she unfolded the letter.
“You were gone by then. I watched you slip through the back door like a ghost, small enough to disappear between shadows. Seren looked at me and smiled. It wasn’t relief, it was goodbye.
I was supposed to follow you, Eva. I almost did. But when the guards grabbed Seren and dragged her back toward the parlor, she didn’t scream. She just looked at me with knowing eyes. And I couldn’t move.”
She didn’t cry.
The rage came slowly.
Her veins began to burn beneath her skin—not just heat, but light. Crimson glowed under the pale surface of her arms, crawling like molten threads. The air around her shimmered with pressure.
When Sylas returned, he barely had time to register the shift.
She was already standing on the edge of the loading bay, wind pulling at her coat, her shadow pet growling low at her feet.
“You lied to me,” she said. No scream. No theatrics. Just words that landed like stone.
“I didn’t lie,” he said carefully. “I just… didn’t say it.”
Her eyes narrowed. Her breath caught in her throat, but she said nothing.
Instead, the red in her veins flared brighter. The glow spread into her fingers, her throat, the tips of her hair. She exhaled, and ash scattered from her skin like snow. Od backed away.
Then, without a sound, Eva broke apart—embers lifting into the wind, rising and drifting like fireflies swallowed by dusk. The last flicker of her light disappeared over the edge of the cargo hold.
Sylas stood frozen.
The only thing left behind was the letter.
And the scent of smoke.
The Ones We Bury – Part 1
The room was dim when Lou stepped inside, and Sylas didn’t hear her at first. His eyes were still on the freight hold door, still hoping for some trace of Eva, a shadow, a breath—anything.
“She’s gone, isn’t she?” Lou’s voice was quiet but not soft. She already knew.
Sylas turned, startled. “Lou—”
Before he could finish, she crossed the room, snatched the letter from his hand. Her eyes scanned it in silence.
Then, a gasp.
“Oh, Sylas.” Her voice cracked. “The betrayal. I can’t
believe it. She must feel so broken…”
Sylas opened his mouth, then closed it again. His throat clenched.
“She waited all this time,” Lou said, her tone shifting—no longer mournful, but sharp as a blade. “Do you have any idea what it meant to her? To stand there, in that place? To speak the old words and light a flame,
knowing her sister might return during the moon when the veil thins? And you—” She took a step toward him. “You were here that night, weren’t you?”
He swallowed. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Mean to what? Hide? Leave her wondering all these years? She could’ve been in her sister’s presence. You stole that from her.”
Sylas bowed his head, the words catching like gravel in his throat. “She was already gone when I found her. The guards…I had to move
fast.”
He sank onto the bench against the wall. “I wrapped Seren in one of the tapestry sheets from the brothel. The one with the silver thread she always liked. I took her out through the back door… past the orchard. Buried her under moonlight by the old iron fence. The guards saw me. They knew me.”
Lou didn’t interrupt.
“I was just a boy, Lou. I didn’t know what I was doing. They knew me, the guards. They would’ve told my father. So I ran. I didn’t take anything. No plan. Just fear.”
Lou started again before Sylas had a chance to continue, “She waited years for this. This week, Sylas. Do you even know what just passed?”
He looked up, confused.
“The Festival of Return. It’s the only night they’re allowed to cross over—if the soul is ready.”
Sylas’s throat tightened. “I didn’t know.”
“No, you didn’t.” Her tone was sharp. Then softer. “She told me once that the veil only opens for the Elari. That if the dead want to come, they need to be called in the old language—with someone who remembers their true name.”
“She thinks Seren could still come back?”
“She knows it,” Lou said. “That’s the difference.”
“You know,” she said slowly, “on Myrravell, they don’t bury their dead unless the dying asks for it. They burn them, send them into the wind or water, so they return to the cycle. But for the ones taken too young… for the ones not yet named… they bury them under stone until the moon calls them back.”
Sylas blinked. “The moon calls them back?”
She nodded. “Once a year, during the Season of Wind, when the breath of the world is soft enough to carry their names, the veil opens. Just for one night. They gather. They chant the name they never got to carry
long enough. If the soul is ready, they come.”
Sylas felt the air shift. He could almost see Eva—standing barefoot in moonlight, calling to the wind, waiting for a sister who never answered.
“She believed Seren would return?”
“She still does,” Lou whispered. “That’s why she stayed. Why she painted the sigil over that floor and never moved the rug. That’s why she watches the sky each spring, hoping for the wind to change.”
Sylas’s chest ached.
“I buried her,” he said again, quieter now. “I didn’t know.”
“You did what you could,” Lou said gently. “But Eva’s people remember differently. They mourn in echoes, not endings. They believe grief must be given its place, its rituals. That the dead are never truly gone unless forgotten.”
A long silence stretched between them.
Then Lou added, “You didn’t just leave Eva behind, Sylas. You left a whole people. A whole way of being. You never asked what she needed—you just assumed she’d heal like you did. In motion. But she doesn’t
run. She roots.”
He exhaled, the words cutting clean.
“And that’s the beauty of her,” Lou continued, her voice
softening into something tender. “She holds the old ways inside her. Even after all she’s lost, she still prays in the tongue of Myrravell. She still sings to the moon. She still believes the land remembers.”
Sylas sat in the hush that followed, aching with the weight of memory and the knowledge that he’d never understood the depth of what she carried.
“Where is Myrravell?” he asked finally.
Lou gave a sad smile. “You can’t find it on a map. You find it by remembering. That’s the only way any of them ever get back there.”
Silence lingered between them until Lou sat beside him, her voice gentler now.
“You know I’m not Elari,” she said. “They’d never let me set foot on Myrravell, not even as a guest. But I’ve sat at Eva’s side for a decade, hearing stories. Watching the way she sings to the wind or presses her hand to the soil like it’s speaking back.”
“She misses it?”
“She aches for it. Every breath she takes here, on
this planet, is a wound that never closes. But she stays. Because she made a vow to the dead, Sylas. Not just Seren—but every girl like her. Every child who was stolen.”
Lou leaned forward, elbows on her knees.
“She told me once that on Myrravell, the land remembers. That every Elari is born with a memory of their ancestors’ voices—songs sung before their own births. They don’t pray for the dead. They become them. They remember them into being. That’s the kind of grief she carries.”
Sylas said nothing.
“She told me the only thing worse than forgetting… is
being the one who could’ve remembered—but didn’t try.”
He covered his face with both hands. “I didn’t know. I
thought I was protecting her.”
“She didn’t need protection. She needed to know. And
you took that from her.”
Outside, the wind picked up. Somewhere in the trees, a bird cried once, then fell silent.
“Do you know where she went?” he asked.
Lou stood. “Back to memory. Back to where she knows her sister still lingers.”
A pause.
“She’s gone to remember, Sylas. And I don’t know if she’ll ever let you follow.”
The Ones We Bury – Part 2
Lou shifted and rested a hand on Sylas’ shoulder to steady herself.
“And you?” Lou questioned, pulling her hand. “What’s your real story?”
Sylas hesitated, then began.
“I was there the night Seren died. I knew them as children. My father was the headmaster of the boarding house. I wanted to help them escape, to have a life of freedom and beauty, and maybe even find their home planet.”
Lou said nothing.
“I ran. I didn’t even take supplies. I just… vanished. I
spent the first two years moving from planet to planet. Slept in alleys. Got jumped more than once. Ended up in Sky City with a black eye and a broken rib.”
His voice lowered. “I drifted for years. Slept in hangars, under benches. Found my way back to Pelnar. And that’s where I met Paige.”
“Paige?” Lou raised an eyebrow.
He nodded. “No, Lou. She patched me up. Fed me. Offered me work when I couldn’t even look at myself. Helped me rebuild.”
Sylas let out a frustrated sigh. “She found me. Fed me.
Didn’t ask questions. Eventually cleaned me up, taught me how to work tech. I already knew some, but she made me better. We started a business. Cyborg parts.
First legal… then not so much. Siphoned funds from my father’s accounts. Built an underground network.”
Lou raised a brow. “Of mercenaries?”
“Humanitarians,” he said dryly. “Rougher than most, sure. But they protect refugees, defend medical transports. The kind of people who get overlooked when governments pull support.”
“And all this time you watched from the shadows?”
“I kept tabs on Eva. On the bar. On the trade. I needed an angle in. I didn’t want to barge in and ruin everything.”
Lou’s eyes narrowed. “And your father?”
“He’s been hunting me for years. I’ve got people on the inside. They warn me when he gets too close.”
“You sound proud.”
“I’m not.” He stared at the floor. “I built everything just
to survive long enough to stop him. To stop them.”
Lou studied him, searching.
“And Seren?”
He closed his eyes. “I loved her. I never stopped.”
She nodded once. “That’s the first thing you’ve said tonight that sounded true.”
Lou’s gaze lingered on him a moment longer, then she exhaled and turned toward the door.
“I’ll give you some space,” she muttered, and when she rested a hand on his shoulder this time, it was gentler. “But if you want to keep her in your life… start remembering.”
She left before he could respond, her footsteps fading into the quiet hum of the ship. The door clicked shut behind her. Sylas was alone.
The silence didn’t bother him. It never had. In truth, it
was the only thing that ever made sense.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the letter still
lying on the bench beside him. He didn’t touch it. Didn’t need to. Every word was already branded into his mind, burned into his chest like the heat from a
forge that never cooled.
He had thought time would blunt the blade. That the years would dull the sharpness of what happened, of what he did—or failed to do. But time didn’t dull a blade like that. It only buried it deeper.
He let his eyes drift to the floor. The words Lou had spoken rolled back through him like distant thunder
You left a whole people.
That part stuck. That part…
Because she was right.
He had run from more than the brothel. He had run from the rituals, the language, the names whispered into soil and sky. He had run from the possibility that the soul of the girl he loved might have lingered a
little longer if only someone had called her home.
And gods, wasn’t that just like him? To love something too much to stay. To fear what might happen if he reached out and touched what he had lost.
Sylas sat back slowly, head tipped against the wall, letting the cool surface soothe the heat rising in his chest.
He hadn’t cried when Seren died. Not really. He had dug her grave with numb fingers, not tears. Had wrapped her in silk with the same hands he used to steal keys and coin. His grief came in the form of motion—planet to planet, body to body, deal to deal.
And still, none of it ever brought her back.
None of it ever led him home.
He thought of Eva then. The way she moved through rooms like shadow and flame. The way her voice could hollow out a man’s resolve or stitch him back together with a glance. He remembered the soft tremble of her breath as she stood in that attic—waiting for a sign. Waiting for a ghost that never came.
She had stayed. Planted herself in the ruins. Made meaning out of ash.
And he… had floated.
Sylas let out a breath through his nose—half a laugh, half a sigh. “You always were stronger than me,” he murmured, his voice barely more than a whisper.
Outside, the wind shifted again.
He looked toward the porthole window, catching a glimpse of stars veiled in clouds. Somewhere out there, she was remembering. Speaking the name he buried under silence.
And for the first time in years, Sylas wished he knew how to do the same.
Echoes of Light – Eva’s Journal Entry
Waxing Gibbous Moon of Ash – Season of Wind
The lantern stayed lit through the night.
Even when the mist thickened.
Even when the fire around it dimmed.
Even when I stopped hoping.
I carried it in silence like I always do, set it in the grass beside the others, and watched the shadows return to their families. One by one. All of them.
Except her.
Seren never came.
And I know why. I’ve always known. Her bones weren’t buried beneath stone. Her name wasn’t returned to the soil. She was left in the place where girls are forgotten. Buried by a boy who loved her in secret. Lost to me.
But I lit the lantern anyway.
I thought it would make me feel strong, to sit there and wait. It didn’t. It made me feel hollow. Like the world was moving on and I wasn’t allowed to follow.
I cried so hard my teeth ached.
And then this morning, I woke with dirt in my nails and the weight of Sylas’s letter in my hand. I don’t remember getting up. My feet moved without me. They took me behind the old fence, where the field leans into the edge of forgetting.
That’s where I saw them.
Moonflowers.
Frail. Hidden. Blooming in secret under a broken bush, untouched by time.
I fell to my knees. I touched them, and I knew. She had been there all along. Beneath my grief. Beneath the guilt. She had been blooming. Waiting.
I found a bone in the roots. A piece of her. And I carried it to the altar like it was a heartbeat.
I remembered her. I spoke her.
And this time, she came.
Not as a dream. Not as a whisper. But as a presence.
She touched my face. Just once. Like she used to when I had nightmares. Her hand was warm. Her smile… gods, her smile.
And then she was gone.
But this time, not lost.
This time, home.
And I laughed. I laughed like something inside me broke free. I laughed like my ribs were opening for the first time in years.
There’s still grief. But it’s different now. Lighter. Brighter.
Some lanterns are meant to stay lit, not for who’s missing—but for who’s finding their way back.
And Seren found me.
She was always here.
-Eva
The Weight of Silent Things 