Chapter Text
Katolis, two years after the Year of Two Harvests
Lyra looks up from her current work station in the library to see Lord Viren walking by, or, more accurately, a disproportionate stack of books waddling past with what appears to be the high mage somewhere behind the tomes. She sighs and catches up with him in a few strides, taking some of the books from the top of the stack. “Sir, you are aware that there are servants like myself specifically working in the library for tasks such as these, yes? You’ll break your back trying to carry all these books yourself.
The high mage chuckles good-naturedly. “Well, I was intending for this to be a short errand of obtaining two or three books.”
“I have noticed you seem to have a habit of letting your research get out of hand, my lord,” Lyra responds with a chuckle, taking a look at the book on the top of the pile. “And what sort of research has you looking into unicorns?” She frowns as she reads the subtitle. “All the unicorns have long since disappeared, what good would knowing what spells you can cast with them have?”
“Claudia has taken an interest, actually, and you would be surprised what the review of long defunct spells can do for one’s inspiration.” Viren adjusts his grip on the books to better carry them, resting his chin atop the stack. “We’ll be heading to my office, by the way.”
“Of course, Lord Viren,” Lyra nods. “Speaking of Claudia, I hope you’ve enlightened her on proper etiquette regarding books since the peanut butter incident? The head librarian might be willing to allow her back into the library by month’s end, and I want to ensure he has no reason to bar her access again.”
Viren smiles sheepishly. “She has the highest respect for books, I assure you, but as a very bright child I am afraid she can be prone to… distraction. A trait she comes by honestly.”
Lyra smirks. “I’m familiar with the plight of the scholarly inclined. I’ve missed seeing her in the library. She asks the most interesting questions, but I’m sure she’s been finding other outlets for her curiosity.” She doesn’t mention how the eldest prince’s reading preferences have shifted ever since Claudia was barred entry into the library. Lyra suspects he’s smuggling books out for her, and despite how adorable it is, is determined to take their secret to the grave.
“Yes, yes, now that she no longer has you and the other librarians to ask questions of, I have been on the receiving end of an endless stream of ‘why’s.” He sighs, but there is a distinct look of pride on his face even so. “How long before I can divert some of that your way again?”
“Not long, though I hope you’re not using the librarians as mere babysitters. They’re scholars in their own right, you know.”
“And what is it that you study, then?” Viren asks with a raised brow.
Lyra swallows, taking a moment to decide how to answer. “I’m an assistant in the library, Lord Viren, I’m not a librarian myself, yet.”
“‘Yet’ being the operative word. Did I mention that roughly a quarter of Claudia’s questions have involved you, in some manner? ‘Miss Lyra told me that we get our calendar from the moon, why the moon and not the sun or the stars or any of the other primal sources?’ ‘When can I see Miss Lyra again she helps me with my arithmetic’, ‘Miss Lyra was telling me that different metals burn different colors and you can tell what something is made out of by what color it burns, so I was just testing to make sure the table was made completely out of wood!’” Viren elaborates, mimicking Claudia’s childish tone.
The last example elicits a gasp out of Lyra. “Was anyone hurt? I swear on my life I told her such thermochemical experiments were only performed in controlled environments!”
“No one was harmed, but I did have to trim the singed bits off my beard. I think she was just looking for an excuse to practice a few fire spells, honestly. Nevertheless, she has painted quite the picture of you as an all-knowing mentor. Which is it, then, astronomy, mathematics, chemistry?”
“Astronomy, the mathematics and chemistry are merely incidental to my studies. I was hoping to determine the physical properties of the stars by observing how they burned in the next star shower, but predicting such an event to properly prepare has proven… difficult. You wouldn’t happen to know a spell that would accomplish such a goal, would you?”
Viren shakes his head. “Were such spells within our grasp we would have gotten the upper hand on Xadia ages ago. Looking into the future, predictions, that’s the domain of the stars themselves, and there are only four creatures that possess star magic.”
Lyra nods to the top book, “unicorns are one, I recall. I have always been fascinated by them myself.”
The mage nods in agreement. “Elanor flowers, exceedingly rare, likely harvested to extinction, star weavers, a large arachnid that kept highly guarded on the other side of the border, and star-touch elves. Of all of those, the elf would be your best chance, but not a single one has been seen nor heard from in centuries. The prevailing theory is that they ventured into the cosmos, leaving the earth itself behind forever.”
“Well, I doubt they’d be very inclined to share their secrets with a human, anyway. Oh well, just because magic isn’t an option doesn’t mean I cannot find answers. I’ll go the long way round. The stars follow patterns in the sky, after all, perhaps their showers do as well, I have just yet to find it.”
Viren shrugs as he fishes his office key from his robe pocket. Lyra rushes forward to help steady the stack of books that wavers precariously in his remaining arm. “I wish you the best of luck, then.”
“And I you with… whatever it is you’re studying.”
That evening, Lyra assumes startouch elves must be on her mind as she charts the stars. As if behind her eyes she pictures what one might look like. Hair as light as the stars themselves and sparkles adorning their cheeks like constellations. She can picture it so vividly it is as if she knows in her heart how one would look, but surely it is just her imagination. She has seen so many illustrations of elves in various books, details on what they look like and how they take on attributes of their primal source.
She is not sure why her mind would choose gold for the eyes, perhaps as a mirror to the sun, the way the stars are like miniature suns dotted across the sky.
Something about that feels right, Lyra thinks, comparing the stars to the sun. She makes a note to investigate it further, see if anyone else has had a similar theory. What a quaint thought, that there are a hundred thousand suns out in the sky, lighting it the way the distant torches and candlelight of a city does from miles away.
When Claudia turns 13, Lyra realizes how the time flies. The sweet little girl she unofficially babysat so many times is a teenager with a repertoire of dark magic spells at her disposal. When Lyra goes out that night to look at the stars, she thinks of how they have not changed at all in that time. Do the stars never change, or are they so long-lived that many years are mere moments to them? Lyra thinks it must be the latter, as she has read writings on the death of a star. Such events paint the sky with their light, a powerful death blast.
It would be easy to think this time means nothing, and perhaps it does in the great scheme of the cosmos. The stars care not for the passing years, the births and deaths of humans, gone in less than a century.
And yet, Lyra thinks, that one could look upon the tapestry of a hundred thousand stars and think that a single star would not be missed. The night sky is so much more than any individual star, so much broader and more complex. Yet each star belongs to a cluster, a constellation. It has its dance and its part to play on the cosmic stage.
And the death of even a single star is felt across the sky in waves.
It has been nearly eight years since Lyra first took a job in the castle when she is at her wits end trying to chart these stars. No matter what mathematical formulas she applies, no matter what model she creates to approximate the cosmos, the wanderers make no sense. Why would five stars vary so wildly when all the other stars move neatly in their circles like painted dots upon a spinning dome? Lyra scribbles out her latest attempt and rips the pages in her frustration. She throws her papers into the air as she falls onto her back in the grass.
Lyra feels like these wandering stars, out of step with the rest of the dance, moving backwards or sideways when everyone else is moving in the same direction. She does not know why she is so out of place. She can make conversation and get along with others just fine, but there is a distance somewhere within her, as if she is merely an observer, a distant spectator to the world around her.
But even the wanderers in the sky are not alone. They may be few, but where the other stars never touch, the wanderers glide through many constellations, and sometimes nearly brush each other, gliding into each other’s spheres. Perhaps there is someone else like Lyra, just waiting for their paths to cross in the sky.
Lyra has the faintest image of a mirror cross her mind, a picture that dances across her mind’s eye for an instant. She wonders where that came from, as it felt distinctly outside herself. A sign, perhaps, that the only one she would meet like herself would be in the mirror?
She lays there for a while, comforted by the presence of the stars, her constant companions, until she falls asleep in the embrace of the summer night air.
It is a cold winter’s night when Lyra receives her first proper vision.
At first, she thinks she must be going mad. She has received some terrible ailment going out in the cold every night to study the stars, and now she has progressed to terrible hallucinations. She does not know if it is customary for one to have their wits about them as much as she feels she does, well enough to know that what she is seeing is an illusion.
It feels as real as reliving a memory does, the way painful memories can leave imprints upon the heart and mind. She sees a blue and silver dragon, mountainous in size with a voice that rends the sky with lightning. Two humans stand before him as… as he falls. He crashes into the ground as flesh is transmuted to stone, his wings cracking from the weight.
The rest of the images come in flashes. Bloodied blades glinting in the moonlight, banners lifted into the sky by a cheering army, limbs cracking at unnatural angles as a once human mouth spits up liquid fire.
War , terrible, bloody, devastating war.
Lyra looks up at the sky, and the stars seem brighter somehow. It feels like a lifetime ago that she asked the high mage about predictions, and he told her it was the domain of the stars. For whatever reason, the stars have seen fit to bestow her with a vision, perhaps to prevent this tragedy.
She saw the high mage before the dragon. Somehow, he has a way to kill Thunder. If he goes through with this, it will bring about war with Xadia. She has to stop this, plead with him, perhaps. If she tells him how she knows of the plans, perhaps he will believe her when she tells him what the cost will be. She just has to show him, and surely he will see reason.
Lord Viren does not, in fact, see reason.
Lyra remembers a kind man, eager for knowledge and curious about the world. She remembers a loving father who made jokes with her as she helped him compile his research notes. When did things change? How did she not notice?
The man she encounters is jaded and paranoid. “You should not have knowledge of that plan. It is a closely guarded secret only myself and King Harrow know! The only way you could know it is if you were deliberately spying.”
“I know because of the visions! And I know what I saw. Is this not proof enough that my word is true? Lord Viren, you know me, you know what kind of person I am.”
“What I know is that you are clever, and that you love so dearly to answer questions about anything but yourself. Both perfect qualities for a viper in our midst. How long have you been a traitor? Since you first stepped into the castle? Or has someone else corrupted you from afar since you took a job here?”
“I am no traitor!”
“I was blinded by how kind you were to Claudia, all part of your little plot, I assume. Care for Claudia and Callum and you have a link to the two most powerful individuals in Katolis.”
Lyra is outraged that he would regard her genuine care for the children to be a farce. “For such an intelligent man, is your imagination so lacking that the only outcome you could see is my treachery instead of an earnest attempt at stopping you from making a terrible mistake?”
“Thunder murdered our queen, and the queens of Duren! He viciously guards the border and shows no mercy to humans. You defend a monster over your own kind!”
“This will bring war. I have seen it in my visions! Thousands of people will die, I have seen it as clearly as I see you before me now.”
“The only way you could have such knowledge of the future would be to cast star spells,” Viren argues. “You expect me to believe a human with no training cast one of the rarest and most difficult magics in existence?” He shakes his head. “If that’s somehow true, then you can prove it, after we have freed humanity from Thunder’s tyranny.” He raises his hand. “Until then, I cannot allow you to stand in our way, not when the fate of humanity is at stake.”
When he chants words that Lyra does not understand, she looks around wildly for something to defend herself with, but she is a scholar, not a fighter. As metal snakes lunge for her, she manages to deflect one with a nearby candlestick, but the other latches around her wrists, then her arms and midsection, until she is thrown to the ground by the chains constricting around her body.
“It is because I care for humanity that I beg of you not to do this!” Lyra makes one final plea before the chain snakes around her mouth to gag her.
The high mage leaves her there, she assumes to get guards to take her to the dungeon. There’s a small puddle of tears pooling on the stone underneath her head when he returns with his son, the crownguard. His hair is mussed and he rubs his eyes wearily, as if he’s been roused from sleep, but he still has his armor on, albeit hastily donned, it would seem. He frowns when their eyes meet. “Dad, isn’t that the librarian Claudia likes?” Soren asks. “She… doesn’t really look like a threat.”
“And neither would I, or your sister, at first glance. Looks can be deceiving, and magical prowess does not show outwardly.”
Soren shrugs before hauling Lyra over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and she winces as his pauldron cuts into her abdomen. “Sorry about this Miss Lyra, well, not sorry if you actually are a threat, but if you’re not I’m sure we’ll get this cleared up soon!”
Instead of leaving the mage’s office, however, Viren opens a secret door hidden behind a portrait of a girl and a lamb. Lyra cannot see Soren’s face from her position, but his silence in response to the opening of a secret passage suggests to her that this is no surprise. An icy cold dread fills her veins as she realizes the depth of her predicament.
No one knew she went to speak with the High Mage.
Does anyone else know about this passage besides Viren and those closest to him?
If he took her to the standard dungeon, she could plead her case to the King, people would see her there and know what had transpired, but this… she could just disappear, and no one would know where to look.
Despite the futility, Lyra’s survival instincts take over and she struggles violently in Soren’s grip, flopping like a fish caught in a net. “Hey hey! Woah! Quit that or I’ll drop you!”
Lyra supposes that’s the best outcome she could hope for, and it doesn’t dissuade her from continuing to squirm as Soren carries her down the dark cavernous steps.
“Get her under control, son,” Viren sighs impatiently.
Soren plops her on a step just above him and grabs her by the shoulders. She continues to struggle and cry out through the gag until Soren shakes her hard enough to startle her from her panic. “Claudia likes you, and I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to. If I drop you then you might hit your head on the stone or something! And that’s not good for anybody so just… cut it out!”
Lyra’s eyes water. He really is such a good kid, but he clearly will not disobey his father, not to help Lyra. She nods in acquiescence, and the rest of the journey to the secret dungeon passes in silence. The chains and gag are only removed once her wrists have been shackled to the wall. She doesn’t say anything, however, not seeing any point in further pleading now.
“The king and I are departing on an urgent errand early in the morning. We will be gone for a few days, see to it that she does not die in that time. I have questions for her once we return.”
Lyra looks up, realizing that Soren does not know, and begins to speak. “Soren please, you have to believe me, your father plans to-”
“Laets eht ecoiv,” Viren cuts her off, and her voice fails her as a wispy green light is yanked from her throat into Viren’s palm. Lyra tries to force the words out, but all the comes out is the slight wheeze of air. The sight of it seems to make Soren uncomfortable, but he says nothing.
“It’s probably best if you disregard anything she says to you. Claudia and I will determine how much is true and how much is false when I return.”
The pair leave her, and her voice is only returned when their footsteps have faded into silence.
Soren is usually the one to bring her meals, and his ears are closed to any pleading she makes. It only takes one night of the aching silence and loneliness to make her resort to asking him about his day, about the goings on in the castle, begging him not to leave her just yet.
Of course, as crownguard, he is reticent to answer any questions about his day or the other guards, just in case she’s looking for a weakness in their defenses, but she eventually pries details from him about the rest of the castle. Barius made the jelly tarts with raspberry jelly that morning, Prince Callum managed to block a single swing from his sword, which, given how he hadn’t even been able to swing the training swords before, is a vast improvement, and the skies have been cloudy, like snow is on the way.
Claudia, however, seems more willing to believe her, but Lyra isn’t entirely sure that’s a good thing. The guilt and worry on the sweet girl’s face fades into fascination as she considers what Lyra tells her about her visions. “Maybe, maybe you’re just a victim in this. Like, a moonshadow spy saw that you studied the stars, so they thought to trick you and make you think you had star visions, but really it was moon illusions! And they’re going to use that to throw us off course!”
“It felt entirely internal, though,” Lyra points out. “Are illusions not external experiences, a trickery of the senses?”
Claudia considers this, and it looks like she may be considering attempting a new type of spell. “Maybe you’ve got a special talent. I wonder what sort of tests we can run to find out what’s going on inside your head.”
That makes it sound like Lyra is to spend the rest of her days being a dark magic lab rat. All of the potential outcomes of her situation are looking equally undesirable.
Viren cuts an imposing figure, silhouetted in the light of the doorway. “We were successful, but I suppose you already knew that, given your ‘visions of the future’.” His tone is still doubtful, but less so since they last spoke. Perhaps their success has eased his paranoia. “Let’s try a classic. How many fingers am I holding up?” he asks, moving his hand behind his back.
Lyra scoffs. “I’m not some cheap sideshow act. How am I supposed to know that?”
“If you can wield star magic, this should be simple.”
“I never claimed I could use star magic, you did. I just told you what I saw.”
“I see a few days down here hasn’t made you less combative on that front. You’re far too bright a mind to have not realized just how wise it is to cooperate.”
“I’m still combative because I’m telling the truth .”
“Then indulge me in this experiment.”
Lyra rolls her eyes. “Fine uh… four, I suppose.”
“And now?”
“Seriously?”
Viren only responds by raising his brows.
“Two?”
He hums softly and pulls a piece of paper from his robes. With a wave of his hand, Viren lights a nearby torch so there is more light to see, then pulls up a chair to sit in front of Lyra, holding out the paper so she can see what is written on it. “These runes, do they mean anything to you?”
They are transcribed in the shape of an oval, but Lyra cannot even tell which rune is supposed to be the first in the sequence. “I’ve never seen this language before.”
“Focus on them, tell me what you see. You said you had visions after all. Can you control them? Direct the subject?”
“The vision I saw of Thunder was the first one I ever had! I thought I was going mad! You yourself said I had no training, yet you expect me to simply conjure up visions of the future at will?”
“A scholar like yourself, unwilling to attempt an experiment?” Viren remarks snidely. His challenge does the job of motivating her, though, and she considers the markings again.
“If you’re right, and this does involve the stars somehow… would it not make sense to attempt this somewhere… not here? There is not exactly an abundance of stars this deep under the earth.”
“Then we’ll call this a control sample.”
“That is not how the scientific method functions but… fine.” Lyra sighs and focuses on the runes, pictures them as if they are a part of her star charts, constellations aligning in the night sky.
There’s a flash of an image, then another. Neither of them make any sense, but she voices them regardless. “I see… a mirror? And… a caterpillar. I think it’s a caterpillar anyway, a little purple worm with legs.”
Viren’s brow raises up nearly to his hairline. “And the mirror, what did it look like?”
“It had the runes written around it, I think. But it was just a mirror, propped up against some stone wall with a little stand holding it up.”
Viren stands so abruptly that the chair legs groan against the stone floor. “Fascinating… That will be all for today. I need to do some more research first…” He rushes out of the room, leaving Lyra stunned and confused.
Lyra sighs, sagging against the cold stone wall. She is afforded only a few breaths of silence before she hears a deep voice murmuring in her ear. “Well… aren’t you a delightful curiosity?”