After the Chamber — Bones Still Shaking
Lira didn't remember walking back to Dorm Nine.
Her body did.
Her bones did.
Her soul did.
Her mind was too busy replaying the moment the walls had bent.
The internal pressure.
The feeling of being peeled out of her own skin.
The way her thoughts had started to slide—not sideways, not down—just away.
Like she was being tugged out of the world by a hook in her chest.
And then—
The bond.
Caelum.
Her.
She'd grabbed onto him—not physically, not literally—but through the thread between them.
And somehow, impossibly…
She'd held.
Her hands were still shaking.
She opened and closed them slowly as she sat on her bed, her body heavy with exhaustion and nerves.
Marenne perched in the chair opposite, scribbling notes in frantic, beautiful chaos.
"Conceptual pressure," Marenne muttered. "Not just gravity, not just sigil load—actual boundary flex. Caelum was a stabilizer, but she was the anchor. She held the internal threshold."
"Talking about me like I'm a math problem isn't helping," Lira said weakly.
Marenne paused.
"Right. Sorry." She adjusted her glasses. "You okay?"
Lira laughed once, sharp and too high.
"No," she said. "But I'm not broken. So… that's an upgrade."
Marenne's lips twitched.
Jalen groaned from the other bed, face buried in a pillow.
"I saw God," he croaked. "Or at least something pretending to be one. It told me to stop signing up for elective practicals."
"You didn't sign up," Marenne said. "You were dragged."
"That sounds like something a dead person would say," he muttered.
Lira inhaled.
Her chest still ached.
Not from damage.
From strain.
From growth.
Like a muscle pushed too far, but not torn.
She pressed a hand over her heart.
The bond hummed softly under her fingers.
Not loud.
Not overwhelming.
Just… aware.
It pulsed once.
Are you stable?
The thought wasn't in words.
She knew it wasn't Caelum speaking.
It wasn't the entity.
It was the connection itself.
Her.
Him.
A line between.
"I'm here," she whispered.
The quiet hum steadied.
Marenne's pen slowed.
"You're… different," Marenne said suddenly.
Lira blinked.
"What?"
"Your resonance," Marenne said. "Last week, you were just… Lira. Now, when anomalies shake, you shake with them, but you don't break apart."
Lira swallowed.
"That sounds terrifying."
"It is," Marenne said, entirely too cheerful about it. "But it's also rare. Anchors don't usually grow stronger this fast."
Lira stared at the floor.
"Is that… good?"
"For Caelum?" Marenne asked. "Absolutely."
"And for me?"
Marenne's voice softened.
"For you, it means you're going to survive things you absolutely shouldn't."
Lira exhaled.
Then flinched as a chime rang through the dorm.
Not bells.
Not alarms.
Summons.
"Strategy Hall," Jalen groaned into his pillow. "Of course. Because nothing says 'you almost died from conceptual pressure' like going to sit in a room and be told you're all still underperforming."
Marenne snapped her notebook shut.
"Come on," she said. "They're going to brief us."
"On what?" Lira asked.
Marenne's eyes gleamed.
"On how they're planning to throw you into the forest without technically calling it that."
Briefing — The Game Board Revealed
The Strategy Hall felt different when Caelum was there first.
He stood near the front of the room, in front of a massive sigil-map that stretched across the wall.
Lines of light traced the academy walls, the Weeping Forest border, and a series of carved channels leading to an underground mark glowing faintly red.
Lira entered with Marenne and Jalen and immediately felt the ambient tension spike.
Heirs, commoners, support track students—everyone reacted the same way.
Eyes flicked to Caelum.
Then quickly away.
Valen stood beside him, arms folded, gaze sharp.
"Take your seats," he said.
The room quieted.
Lira slipped into her usual spot.
Caelum didn't look directly at her, but the bond pulsed gently in acknowledgement.
The trembling in her fingers eased.
Valen tapped the map.
"As of dawn," he said, "the Weeping Forest began a series of harmonic tremors aligned with a known sealed ritual site beneath its roots."
Murmurs.
Heirs leaned forward.
Support students paled.
Valen let the noise live for two seconds.
Then extinguished it with a look.
"We are not currently dealing with a full breach," he continued. "But we are dealing with a pre-breach instability. The kind that—if left unattended—turns into the sort of catastrophe they name eras after."
A noble in the second row cleared his throat.
"Sir, isn't the Dominion responsible for this kind of anomaly suppression? Why involve students?"
Valen's smile didn't reach his eyes.
"Because the Dominion is a bureaucracy, and bureaucracy is slow," he said. "The forest is not."
Soft laughter.
Uneasy.
Valen gestured toward the board.
"Three days from now, an official assignment will be conducted in this zone," he said. "On paper, it is a combined Strategy/Forbidden Division strength evaluation."
He looked at Caelum.
"Off paper," he added, "it is an experiment."
Heirs shifted.
Lira swallowed.
Valen continued:
"The Headmaster has authorized the use of a new stabilizing vector."
He pointed at Caelum.
"Veylor."
Not "Caelum".
Not "Mr. Veylor".
Just "Veylor" like he was a piece on the board.
Caelum stepped forward.
He didn't flinch.
"The Proto-Sigil anomaly we all heard about?" Valen said. "He is it."
Soft gasps.
A few students flinched back in their seats.
"This anomaly," Valen went on, "will be taken directly into the Weeping Forest to sit on the ritual wound until we learn whether it can hold—or if it accelerates collapse."
The room held a collective breath.
Lira's heart stopped for two beats.
Valen's gaze slid to her.
"His anchor," he said calmly, "will be there as well."
This time, the gasps had her name in them.
"Lira Ainsworth—?"
"That's the Dorm Nine girl—"
"She synchronized with him—"
"She survived the ravine—"
"We're just letting them wander into anomalies now?"
Lira sank slightly in her seat.
The bond hummed warm in her chest.
She straightened.
Valen continued unfazed.
"You will not all be going," he said. "This is not a field trip."
Disappointed murmurs from battle-obsessed idiots.
"What you will be doing," Valen said, "is learning how we keep them alive."
The room went still.
He pointed at the map again.
"Divide into four groups," he said. "One—predict anomaly behavior. Two—build hypothetical support formations. Three—model failure scenarios. Four—come up with strategies for extracting the Threadbearer if the anchor fails."
Lira stiffened.
Valen's tone sharpened.
"Do not pretend anchors can't fail," he said. "They do. Often."
Her stomach knotted.
"The scenario is not a story," Valen added. "You will not be graded on happy endings. You will be graded on accuracy."
The heirs immediately began moving, clumping around the map.
Marenne grabbed Lira's wrist.
"We're group two," she said. "Support formations."
"Why?" Lira asked.
"Because if you're going to stand next to the anomaly, I'm going to stand next to you."
Lira looked at Jalen.
"You?"
He swallowed.
"I—I'll join failure scenarios," he said miserably. "I'm good at imagining how everything goes wrong."
"That is, unfortunately, accurate," Marenne muttered.
Caelum moved to the edge of the room.
He wasn't assigned a group.
He was the subject.
Valen stepped beside him.
"Try not to terrify them more than necessary," Valen murmured.
"I haven't done anything yet," Caelum replied.
"Exactly."
Lira — Learning How They Expect Her to Die
They huddled around a projected cross-section of the forest boundary.
Marenne spoke quickly, hands moving.
"Here," she pointed, "is the sealed ritual chamber underground. Here's the tree-root cluster. Here are the boundary pylons. Here's the vector path Caelum already mapped."
Lira blinked.
"He mapped it before they showed us this?"
"Of course he did," Marenne said. "He's Caelum."
A support-track boy beside them frowned nervously.
"So we're… like, building shield formations?"
"No," Marenne said. "We're building stability webs."
He blinked.
"Difference?"
"Shields block," Marenne said. "Webs distribute."
Lira listened, mind turning faster than her fear.
"Which do we need?" she asked quietly.
Marenne's eyes gleamed.
"Webs," she said. "Caelum isn't going to block the anomaly. He's going to engage with it. If we build shields, we'll fight him and the forest at the same time. If we build webs…"
Lira swallowed.
"We support his… stitching."
"Exactly."
The words felt too big.
But they fit.
Lira traced the map with a shaking finger.
"If he stands here—where the ritual lines intersect—"
"Then you stand here," Marenne said, tapping a point slightly offset.
"Why there?" Lira asked.
Marenne smirked.
"Because that's where you can feel the maximum conceptual pressure without being physically swallowed," she said. "You'll be his tether. You can't be on top of the wound. You'll sink. You need to be… just off-center."
"Is that safer?"
"No."
"Then—"
"It's necessary."
Lira's throat bobbed.
She suddenly wanted to know what Jalen's group was saying.
She didn't have to wonder long.
Across the hall, Jalen's voice cracked, louder than intended.
"…and if the anchor fails—"
Lira's stomach dropped.
She tried not to listen.
She listened anyway.
"—then Caelum becomes unbounded," a noble in Jalen's circle said clinically. "The Proto-Sigil progresses without limit. Best case? He burns out and dies. Worst case?"
"Worst case," Jalen said weakly, "he takes the forest, the academy, and half the empire with him when he rips free."
Silence.
Valen didn't correct them.
He didn't say they were wrong.
Lira's heartbeat hurt.
Marenne squeezed her wrist hard.
"Do you understand now," Marenne murmured, "why they're willing to risk you?"
"Yes," Lira whispered.
"Good," Marenne said. "Now use it."
Caelum — Watching Them Plan His Failure
Caelum listened.
He didn't need to move.
He didn't need to lean in.
Every group's conclusions drifted through the room in fragmented sentences, speculative models, fearful jokes.
"…if the Proto-Sigil destabilizes—"
"…her cognitive load will crack—"
"…the forest will try to overwrite their patterns—"
"…extraction impossible if the anomaly fully blooms—"
They were efficient.
Reasonably accurate.
Unpleasantly comfortable discussing his theoretical death.
Useful, Caelum thought.
Fear made people honest.
Valen glanced at him.
"Uncomfortable?" Valen asked.
"No."
"Liar."
Caelum tilted his head.
"I am aware of the cost," he said. "Listening to projections doesn't alter it."
Valen studied him for a moment.
"You remind me of someone," he murmured.
"Who?" Caelum asked.
"A dead man," Valen said blandly. "Don't imitate him too closely. It ended poorly."
Caelum returned his gaze to the map.
"I don't intend to die in the forest," he said.
"No one ever does," Valen said.
"But your case," he added, "is more interesting if you don't."
Dorm Nine — Between Preparation and Panic
After strategy session, after formations and diagrams and worst-case models, Dorm Nine was strangely quiet.
The other students huddled in their own pockets of anxiety.
They knew there was an anomaly mission coming.
They knew Caelum and Lira were at the center of it.
They also knew there wasn't a single instructor in the academy who could promise it would end cleanly.
Lira sat on her bed again, staring at the swirling sigil sketches Marenne had drawn.
"Here," Marenne muttered, pointing, "and here. These are your anchor positions. If the forest shifts, you move with it. Don't stand still."
"Moving in an anomaly sounds like a great way to die," Jalen said miserably from the floor.
"Standing still in an anomaly is a better way to die," Marenne replied.
Jalen sighed.
"I miss the days when 'studying' meant reading boring books and not 'learning to survive conceptual collapse.'"
Lira pressed her hand to her chest.
Her heartbeat wasn't calm.
But it wasn't wild either.
The bond hummed at a steady pace.
"You're quiet," Marenne said.
Lira shrugged.
"I keep thinking about one sentence."
"Whose?"
"Jalen's group," she said. "What happens if the anchor fails."
The room cooled.
Jalen covered his face.
"Sorry."
Lira shook her head.
"No. It's… it's important," she said quietly. "I have to think about it. Because they are. Because the Dominion is. Because the Headmaster is. Because…"
"Because Caelum probably is too," Marenne finished.
Lira swallowed.
"Yes."
"And what's your conclusion?" Marenne asked.
Lira looked at her own reflection in the small mirror on the wall.
The girl staring back didn't look like an anchor.
She looked like someone who got pushed around by circumstances.
Who had spent most of her life trying not to stand out.
Who had been terrified of failing exams, not of failing reality.
"I don't want to be the weak point," she whispered.
Marenne's expression softened.
"Good," she said. "Then don't be."
"That's not helpful advice."
"It's the only kind that matters," Marenne said. "You can't control the entity. You can't control Caelum. You can't control the forest. But you can control how you hold."
Lira stared at her.
"I don't… even know what that means yet."
Marenne smiled faintly.
"You're learning."
She closed her notebook.
"And you've already done more than most full Dominion anchors ever do."
Lira blinked.
"I have?"
"You stabilized a Proto-Sigil evolution in direct contact with a sealed entity," Marenne said. "They train people for years to attempt that and still fail. You did it the first time by screaming his name."
Lira's face burned.
"Don't say it like that," she mumbled. "It sounds—"
"True?" Marenne said.
—
Caelum — Talking to the Head of Chains
Caelum did not return immediately to Dorm Nine.
He went down.
Lower.
Past the main floors.
Past the instructor wings.
Past the sealed staircases marked with Dominion sigils.
Few students went this deep.
Fewer knew how.
Caelum had already memorized the path.
Artheon the Bound waited in the Half-Seal Chamber, chains coiled around his arms, his eyes distant and glassy from watching things mortals shouldn't watch.
"You came," Artheon rasped as Caelum entered.
"You expected me," Caelum replied.
Artheon's lips peeled in something half-smile, half-snarl.
"When the forest woke early, you didn't flinch," Artheon said. "You looked… interested."
Caelum didn't deny it.
"The ritual site," he said. "What do you know?"
Artheon's chains trembled.
"It was built before Syldros unified the region," Artheon said. "Back when people still thought they could bargain directly with the Silent Ones."
"The Seven," Caelum said.
"Yes." Artheon's eyes gleamed. "One in particular. The one beneath the forest."
Caelum tilted his head.
"Which aspect?"
Artheon smiled wider.
"Secrets."
Threads stirred under Caelum's skin.
"Of course," he murmured.
Artheon's voice dropped.
"They cut roots in that place," he said. "Not just trees. Human roots. Lineage. Memory. They wanted to erase entire bloodlines from the weave of reality."
"Did it work?" Caelum asked.
"Temporarily," Artheon said. "The Stitching always tries to heal. But you can't cut that deeply without leaving scars."
Caelum's eyes narrowed.
"The scar is the ritual site."
"Yes."
"And the forest remembers."
"Yes."
Silence settled.
Artheon leaned forward.
"The forest will not just test your power," he said. "It will test your line."
Caelum's jaw tightened.
"My line is irrelevant," he said.
"No line is irrelevant to the Silent One of Secrets," Artheon hissed. "They hoard them. They will want to see what you're hiding under that Proto-Sigil. They will want to see why your soul is wrong."
He laughed softly.
"And they will notice your anchor."
Caelum's fingers curled.
"How?"
"You are reality-adjacent," Artheon said. "She is reality-locked. You are the needle. She is the cloth. The forest adores cloth it can bleed into."
The chains around him tightened like living things.
Caelum's mind moved quickly.
Faster.
New variables.
New threats.
"The Headmaster knows," he said.
"Of course he knows," Artheon croaked. "He wants to see which one you disappoint first: the entity under his feet, or the forest around his academy."
"And you?" Caelum asked.
"I want to see if you disappoint both," Artheon said, grinning. "And still walk out."
Caelum considered that.
"I won't let the forest take her," he said quietly.
Artheon's grin faded just a fraction.
"Careful," he whispered. "Words like that sound like vows. Vows twist nicely when forests listen."
"I'm aware," Caelum said.
He turned to leave.
Artheon called after him.
"Threadbearer."
Caelum paused.
"You are not the only one the forest remembers," Artheon murmured.
"What do you mean?"
Artheon's eyes gleamed with secrets and old madness.
"Ask your House," he said. "If they dare to answer."
Back at Dorm Nine — The Fear Lingers
Lira stepped out into the corridor for air and nearly collided with Caelum.
Her hand flew to her chest.
"Caelum!"
He steadied her by the shoulder.
His touch was brief.
The bond steadied longer.
"You're trembling again," he observed.
"Stop noticing that," she muttered.
"I can't."
She fumbled for composure.
"How… was your talk?"
"With Artheon?" Caelum asked.
She blinked.
"You went to see him?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"He knows old scars," Caelum said.
Lira's stomach twisted.
"And?"
"Tomorrow," Caelum said calmly, "the forest won't just react to the anomaly."
"What else will it react to?" she whispered.
"To us," he said. "To what we are. To what we shouldn't be."
Her pulse spiked.
"That sounds like the worst possible situation."
"Yes," Caelum said.
"Then why do you sound like you expected it?"
"Because deep wounds rarely stay quiet when Threadbearers walk over them."
He watched her face.
Her fear rose.
Then leveled.
She inhaled slowly.
"Caelum."
"Yes?"
"Are you…" She hesitated. "Are you ready for this?"
"Yes."
The answer came too easily.
She narrowed her eyes.
"Truthfully."
He paused.
His gaze shifted, threads moving faintly behind his eyes.
"No," he said.
Lira's breath caught.
"But," he added, "we will not be more ready than now."
She swallowed.
"And me?"
His voice softened.
"You are more ready than you think," he said.
"That doesn't feel true."
"It rarely does," he said. "Until after."
She looked up at him.
He looked down at her.
The bond thrummed between them—
not wild, not unstable—
but drawn taut like a bowstring.
"Three days," she whispered.
"Less now," he said.
She wanted to say something else.
She didn't know what.
So she said the only thing that felt solid in her mouth.
"I won't run," she whispered.
His eyes cooled.
Not in rejection.
In focus.
"Good," he murmured. "Because I intend to walk directly into the wound."
Her heart hammered.
"Then I'll walk next to you," she said.
The bond flared warm.
Strong.
Certain.
Far away, in the Weeping Forest, a tree split down the middle with a sound like a scream.
Roots shifted.
Sap bled.
The earth drank it.
The ritual site pulsed once, white-hot under the soil.
The forest whispered:
"…come, little bearer…
bring your anchor…
we remember what was cut…"
And beneath the academy, the entity smiled.
For once—
it wasn't the only thing hungry.