✧ Chapter Thirty-Two ✧
Sigils and Fiances?
fromHave You Someone to Protect?
©Amer
Three quiet days passed since Lhady, Caelum, and Elias emerged from the hidden tunnel beneath the bookshop. The bruises had faded. The worst of the exhaustion had lifted. And though none of them spoke openly about what they'd seen down there, a quiet understanding had settled between them.
On the third afternoon, the doorbell chimed.
Mira came in first—arms full of sweetbread, dried citrus, and a small pouch of lavender salts. "For healing," she declared, setting it down like a peace offering. "Also, because you scared us."
Sian followed with a bundle of new parchment. "And because you haven't written in days. We thought maybe you were dead."
Alen entered last, carrying a vase of yellow flowers and looking sheepish. "They made me bring the cheerful ones."
Lhady, who had just started organizing the front desk again, blinked at the sudden burst of company. "I… missed you too?"
"You better have," Mira said, wrapping her in a tight hug. "You were asleep for two whole days, Lhady. That's not normal. Even for you."
Sian narrowed her eyes. "You look... different."
"Healthier?" Alen offered.
"Or suspiciously radiant," Sian added.
"I'm fine," Lhady said. "Really."
"Sure," Mira said, tilting her head. "Except we were told you were 'tending to secret matters of the heart.' And also that you couldn't be disturbed because you were healing under a starlit vow."
Lhady groaned. "Elias."
"Tall, smug, possibly immortal?" Sian said. "Yes. That one."
Alen scratched his neck. "Okay but—real talk. Did you actually wake up because someone kissed you?"
The bookshop went completely silent.
Lhady blinked. "What?"
"You know," he said quickly. "Like in stories. Sleeping girl, mysterious protector. Ancient magic. Smooch. Boom. Awake."
Mira gasped. "Wait. Did someone kiss you?"
"No!" Lhady said, a little too fast. "No one kissed me."
"Not even a little?" Sian raised a brow.
"No lips touched me in my unconscious state!" Lhady snapped.
"Now that's a sentence I didn't think I'd hear today," Mira muttered.
The teasing only intensified from there.
"You didn't tell us you had a fiancé," Sian said next, mock-hurt. "We find out from him?"
"I don't," Lhady said again.
"That's not what he told us," Mira said, pointing toward the hallway.
Alen chimed in, "Quote: 'I may or may not be her betrothed. Some destinies are best unraveled slowly.'"
Mira added, "Then he gave us cookies. Really good ones."
"You should have led with that," Lhady muttered. "I might've believed the engagement if you said he poisoned them."
"Oh no," Elias's voice drifted from the hallway, syrup-smooth and delighted, "those were made with love."
He emerged casually, hands behind his back, smile annoyingly pleased.
Before Lhady could protest, Elias strolled right up to her, positioning himself just slightly too close—like he was proving a point. His arm brushed hers. His tone dropped to something warm, teasing, just enough to be overheard.
"Still recovering?" he asked. "I could make you the dreamroot tea again. Or read something soft until you fall asleep."
Lhady narrowed her eyes. "I'm not eight."
"Ah," he said, leaning closer, "but I am charming."
As if to confirm all the rumors her friends had tossed around, Elias lifted a hand—slowly, meaningfully—as though about to rest it on her shoulder.
A low, deliberate thud echoed through the room.
Not loud—but felt.
All eyes turned.
At the far end of the shop, Caelum stood with a stack of newly delivered tomes, one of which now lay flat on the floor where he had just dropped it. His expression was unreadable, but his gaze—steady, unblinking—was fixed on Elias's hand.
Elias let it hover for a breath longer, then dropped it with a soft chuckle. "Jealousy looks very knightly on him, doesn't it?"
Caelum said nothing. He turned away and began stacking the books with careful precision, his jaw tight.
Mira looked between them, eyebrows raised. Sian leaned in toward Lhady and whispered under her breath.
"…And what about him?"
Lhady opened her mouth.
And for once, she had no words.
Her eyes flicked between Elias—still too close, still smug—and Caelum, across the room, his silence louder than any confession.
She had no answer.
After the girls left—smiling, waving, full of whispers and looks they thought he didn't notice—Caelum remained by the windows, arms folded, watching their laughter drift into the evening. Mira had winked at Elias. Sian had glanced back at him—at Caelum—with a look he couldn't quite name. He wasn't used to being watched like that. Not since the war.
Now, as dusk painted the bookshop in violet, rose, and fading gold, silence returned. It suited him better.
Lhady stood near the counter, the four-pointed sigil hovering just above her palm. Caelum's eyes remained on it—on her. The way her shoulders squared beneath the light, the way her breath had steadied since it appeared. It pulsed in time with her heartbeat. And maybe, he thought with a quiet unease, in time with his too.
"So… this is the real one?" she asked.
He nodded. "It formed the moment our fragments came close. As if it had been waiting."
And it had. That's what unsettled him most—not the sigil, but its recognition of them. Like it had always known this would happen.
Elias stepped forward, sleeves neat again, his voice annoyingly smooth. "There was a theory," he said, "that the Sigil of Veritas couldn't be made—only revealed. That it needed something more than pieces. It needed will."
Lhady frowned slightly. "Will?"
"Yours," Elias said, gesturing at her. "And his." A nod toward Caelum. He didn't react. "Together. Balance. Intention."
Lhady looked down at the sigil, cradling it near her chest like it had become part of her. Caelum saw her expression shift—fear giving way to awe.
"It settled my magic," she whispered. "When I touched it… it felt like the full moon wouldn't swallow me."
Caelum let the words settle before responding, voice low and steady. "That's because it won't. Not with that. Not now."
He hoped he was right.
Elias grinned, bowing with dramatic flair. "Twenty days early, too. You're welcome."
Lhady rolled her eyes. "I thought you didn't do anything."
"I didn't," Elias said, beaming. "Which makes the results even more impressive."
She almost smiled. Caelum noticed. Noticed, too, that she always smiled more around Elias—light, teasing, unguarded. He didn't resent it. He just noticed.
"We'll still need to test its strength," he said, reining the moment back to the ground. "The next moon will come quickly."
And then came her jab, directed at Elias: "And stop telling my friends you're my long-lost fiancé."
Elias raised his hands. "I said I might be."
"Are you?" she asked, half-amused.
Elias leaned close to her, too close. "What fun would it be if I told you now?"
Caelum didn't flinch, but his jaw ticked.
He heard Lhady sigh. "Please don't let people think you were the one who woke me up."
"Oh come now," Elias said. "If I were your fiancé, I'd be obligated to do far more than that. Help you wield ancient sigils. Read your moods. Look devastatingly good doing it. Bake."
"Bake?" Lhady asked.
"She's asking follow-up questions," Elias said smugly. "We're halfway to a proposal."
Caelum shifted his stance slightly, just enough for the floorboards to creak. He wasn't glaring. He was simply…watching.
If Elias noticed, he didn't show it.
Lhady shook her head, her voice dry. "You're unbearable."
"You're radiant."
"Stop flirting."
"I'm not flirting," Elias said.
Caelum's voice cut in, flat and firm. "We'll need to test its strength soon. The moon's moving faster than we think."
That silenced them.
Lhady nodded, the weight of it all returning to her expression. "Right. The sigil might be stable, but we don't know what the full moon will do to it—or me."
"Then we'll learn," Caelum said. "Before it's too late."
She trusted him. He felt it in her voice. That was dangerous.
He looked at the sigil again. It pulsed between them—whole, steady. A truth made from two halves that were never supposed to meet.
Outside, night draped itself slowly over Solara.
Inside, the sigil glowed like a vow not yet spoken.
They still didn't know why it had waited.
But the moon would rise soon.
And unseen beyond the window glass, something stirred.
The sigil's light had reached farther than they knew.