Mira's POV
-
I don't sleep after Zyrax leaves.
I sit on the moss bed with my back against the wall and my eyes on the arch and I stay awake the whole night because two unconscious guards and a creature that walked through my door in the dark is not something I can just close my eyes on. New guards appear at the arch within minutes of Zyrax leaving - four this time, not two. They stand so still they could be part of the wall.
I watch them watch the corridor.
I think about what I asked Zyrax.
Who in your court knew about me before I walked through that gate?
I think about the way his face changed when I asked it. Not a small change. Not the kind of flicker most people would catch. But my Resonance caught it - a spike of something sharp and complicated that was gone almost before it started. Like a door slamming shut the moment it realized it had opened.
He knows something.
Something big. Something he is not telling me.
And the creature that came into my room in the dark knows it too.
I press my ring around and around my finger and I think about that until the walls shift from deep blue to soft green and something that smells surprisingly good appears at my arch.
-
Guide is carrying a flat stone tray.
I am on my feet before it fully steps through because my body has decided that things entering my room in the dark are threats and my body and my brain are currently in an argument about that. Guide stops immediately when I stand up fast. It holds the tray out slightly - look, food, not a threat - and the feeling coming off it is so genuinely flustered that my Resonance almost makes me laugh.
It was not expecting me to still be awake.
"Good morning," I say.
Guide makes a low sound. I take that as a good morning back.
I look at the tray. There is a round purple fruit that glows faintly at its center. Something flat and dense that might be bread. A cup of liquid that is very slightly luminous and smells like rain.
I sit back down on the moss and pick up the fruit.
"I'm going to eat this," I tell Guide. "And you're going to sit there and tell me everything I need to know about this place."
Guide does not sit. But it does stay. Which is something.
-
The fruit is sweet.
Not normal sweet - deeper than that, like something that goes straight into your blood and tells it to calm down. I eat the whole thing in about four bites because I am hungrier than I realized and being picky about glowing food seems like exactly the kind of problem I cannot afford to have right now.
Guide watches me eat with the focused attention of someone who has never seen this particular thing happen before. Its feelings through my Resonance are clear and layered - professional caution on top, the kind of careful that comes with a job. But underneath that, warming steadily the longer I sit here eating and not dying and not crying, is something simple and honest.
Curiosity.
It is genuinely curious about me.
I finish the bread - dense, slightly warm, tastes like nothing I have a word for but my stomach accepts it happily - and pick up the luminous drink.
"What's your name?" I ask.
Guide makes a sound. Long, multi-toned, completely impossible for my throat to replicate.
"I'm going to call you Guide," I say. "Because that's what you're doing. Is that okay?"
It stares at me.
Then it makes a shorter sound. And the feeling that comes with it is something small and warm and surprised - the feeling of someone who has not been asked if something is okay in a very long time.
"Guide it is," I say.
-
I finish eating and stand up and Guide immediately moves toward the arch. Clearly we are going somewhere. Clearly I am supposed to follow without being told the destination because that is apparently how things work here and I am going to have to get used to operating without a schedule or an explanation.
I follow.
The dungeon in the green morning light is busy. Creatures moving everywhere with purpose. Some of them stop when they see me. Some of them don't bother stopping anymore - like overnight I shifted from shocking to simply present. I keep my head up and look back at the ones who stare and keep moving.
Guide leads me through the main cavern, past the central towers, down a wide path that opens into a space I haven't seen before. It is larger than my sleeping room. Open on one side so I can see the main cavern below. Other creatures are here - sitting, eating, doing things I don't have words for yet.
They all look up when I walk in.
I pick a spot near the open side and sit down.
Guide sits beside me which surprises me enough that I almost say something about it. It doesn't look at me. It looks out at the main cavern like this is totally normal. But the feeling coming off it is so quietly pleased with itself that I have to look away so it doesn't see me almost smile.
Small victory.
-
I am watching the main cavern below when I feel it.
Not Guide. Not the creatures around me. Something from further away - coming from above, from the direction of the throne room corridor. A feeling I recognize immediately because it hit me like a wall the first time and I have not forgotten the shape of it.
Zyrax is awake.
And he is not alone. There are two emotional signals with him - Vrael, who I am starting to recognize by the feeling of careful controlled loyalty that follows him like a shadow - and someone else. Someone whose feelings are locked down so tight that all I can get is the outline of them. Like a box with something heavy inside that is not meant to be opened.
That is strange.
Everyone leaks something. Even my father, who never said a word about how he felt, leaked cold indifference constantly. You cannot be a living thing and feel nothing.
This person feels like a wall.
And then Guide goes rigid beside me.
I look at it. Its whole body has changed - shoulders up, stillness of the wrong kind, the kind that is not peace but the absence of movement because movement might be noticed.
"Guide," I say quietly. "Who is that?"
It doesn't answer. But its feelings do.
Fear. The same deep specific fear as the two guards last night. And underneath the fear - something that destroys me a little.
Grief.
Guide knows this person. And whatever happened between them, it broke something in Guide that never healed.
I look back up toward the throne room corridor.
The locked-down signal is moving.
It is moving away from Zyrax.
It is moving toward me.
And it already knows exactly where I am sitting.