Arin woke to sunlight the color of old honey filtering through the apartment window. His body felt heavy, muscles aching like he'd been carrying stones all night. The training crystal sat on the bedside table where he'd left it, dark and silent.
He lay there longer than he should have, staring at the ceiling. The memory of last night—the disturbance, Lira's blood-stained uniform, the weight of three deaths he might have prevented—pressed down like a physical thing.
Eventually he rose. Dressed. Found Lira in the kitchen already awake, though she looked like she'd slept about as well as he had. Dark circles under her eyes. Hair still loose from sleep. She was attempting to make tea and doing a mediocre job of it.
"Morning," she said without turning.
"Morning."
They stood in companionable silence while the kettle heated. Arin reached for the training crystal in his pocket out of habit, then stopped. Let his hand fall.
"I was thinking," Lira said, pouring water that was probably not quite hot enough over tea leaves. "We should take a break today."
Arin frowned. "From training?"
"From everything." She turned to face him, teacup in both hands. "One day. Just one. Something normal."
"We don't have time for—"
"Arin." Her voice was gentle but firm. "You're exhausted. I'm exhausted. Another day of pushing won't help either of us."
He wanted to argue. Wanted to say they had less than two weeks until the assessment, that every hour mattered, that he couldn't afford to waste time on normal when everything was so far from normal.
But he looked at her face—really looked—and saw how tired she was. How much toll last night had taken on her.
"Alright," he said quietly. "What did you have in mind?"
She smiled. "The nothern market. It's the weekend. We'll go, buy vegetables, eat something that isn't homemade. Walk around like people do."
"Like people do," Arin repeated.
"Exactly."
*******
The northern market sprawled across three dozen platforms in the Lantern District, each one tethered to the district's edge by resonance anchors that hummed with steady power. The platforms drifted in lazy circles, connected by rope bridges that swayed with foot traffic. Lanterns hung from every post and awning, swinging gently in the morning breeze even though it was still daylight.
Arin had been here once before, years ago, but he'd forgotten how alive it felt. How full of color and noise and the particular chaos that came from hundreds of people trying to buy, sell, and exist in the same cramped space all at once.
They crossed the first bridge—wood planks worn smooth by countless feet, rope rails that smelled like salt and tar—and stepped onto the market proper.
The scent hit first. Spices sharp enough to make his eyes water mixing with the sweeter smell of baked bread and the earthy tang of vegetables piled high on carts. A tinker's stall to the left filled the air with the smell of hot metal and machine oil. To the right, a fabric vendor had laid out bolts of cloth in colors that didn't quite exist in nature—blues that glowed faint silver, reds that shifted to orange depending on the angle.
People moved between stalls with the practiced ease of long habit. A woman with a child on her hip haggled over fish. Two men argued good-naturedly about the price of lamp oil. A vendor called out in a voice that carried across three platforms, advertising fresh honey from the eastern hives.
"Come on," Lira said, already moving toward a vegetable stall.
Arin followed, weaving between bodies, careful not to bump into anyone. The training crystal pulsed once in his pocket. He was closing off too much, retreating into old habits. He adjusted, finding that balance point Bram had drilled into him, and let his awareness expand just enough to sense the immediate area without being overwhelmed.
Better.
Lira stopped at a stall piled high with root vegetables and leafy greens, most of which Arin couldn't name. The vendor was a broad woman with flour in her hair and shrewd eyes.
"How much for the winter radishes?" Lira asked.
The woman quoted a price that had Lira making a face. "That's robbery. I can get them for half that at the southern market."
"Then go to the southern market," the woman said cheerfully. "But you won't find any this fresh. Pulled them this morning."
Lira picked up a radish, examined it with exaggerated suspicion, then set it back down. "Half your asking price and I'll take three bundles."
"Three bundles?" The woman laughed. "Girl, I have a business to run. Two-thirds my price and that's generous."
They went back and forth like that for another minute—Lira pointing out imaginary flaws, the vendor defending her produce with increasing amusement—until they settled on a price somewhere in the middle. Lira paid, looking satisfied. The vendor wrapped the radishes in brown paper with the air of someone who'd enjoyed the negotiation as much as the sale.
"You're good at that," Arin said as they moved to the next stall.
"Practice." Lira tucked the radishes into the bag she'd brought. "My mother used to drag me to markets when I was young. Made me haggle for everything. Said it built character."
"Did it?"
"Built something." She paused at a stall selling dried herbs, examining bundles of sage and thyme. "Mostly taught me that everyone's negotiating all the time. Prices, duties, relationships. It's all just different versions of the same conversation."
Arin thought about that while Lira bought herbs. Around them, the market continued its steady hum. A child ran past, clutching something sticky and bright red—candied fruit, probably. An elderly man played a stringed instrument near one of the bridges, the case at his feet open for coins. The music was off-key but earnest, and people dropped coppers as they passed.
They moved from stall to stall. Lira bought foodstuffs with a skill Arin often forgot she possessed. He mostly stayed quiet, watching her work, keeping his awareness carefully controlled. The training crystal pulsed occasionally but less frequently than yesterday. He was learning. Slowly.
At a trinket stall, Lira paused. The vendor sold clockwork mechanisms—small toys and decorations that moved on their own. A brass bird that flapped its wings. A dancer that spun in place. A miniature ship whose sails turned in an invisible wind.
Lira picked up the bird, studying it with what Arin recognized as professional interest. "Resonance-powered?" she asked the vendor.
"Spring-wound," the man said. He was old, with careful hands and a magnifying lens hanging from his neck. "I don't trust resonance for the delicate work. Too unpredictable."
"Smart." Lira wound the bird's key, watching it flap. Then she set it down gently and moved on.
They stopped for lunch at a small tavern built across two platforms. The structure swayed subtly with foot traffic, enough to notice but not enough to be concerning. Inside, the air was warm and smelled of frying oil and spices too numerous to name.
They ordered at the counter—fried root vegetables, noodles in dark sauce, berry tea that came in clay cups—and found seats near a window that overlooked the lower platforms. Through the glass, Arin could see more market stalls, more people, the endless movement of a city that never quite stopped.
The food came quickly. Arin ate without thinking about it, too focused on the view. Lira ate slower, methodically working through her noodles like she approached everything else—with purpose.
"You're staring," she said without looking up.
"Thinking."
"About?"
Arin gestured vaguely at the window. "How normal this is. Everyone out here just... living. Buying vegetables. Eating lunch. Like yesterday didn't happen."
Lira set down her fork. "Yesterday happened. But life continues anyway. That's how it works."
"Doesn't that bother you?"
"Sometimes." She looked out the window. "But what's the alternative? Stop living because terrible things happen? That's just letting the terrible things win."
Outside, a street performer had set up on one of the lower platforms. Arin couldn't see them clearly from this angle, but he could hear the sound—a low, resonant hum that made the air vibrate.
"Come on," Lira said, standing. "Let's go watch."
They paid and left, following the sound down a rope bridge to the lower platform. A crowd had gathered in a rough circle around the performer—a woman with silver hair and hands that moved in precise, practiced patterns.
She was working with water.
Not carrying it or pouring it—pulling it from the air itself in thin streams that coiled around her fingers like living things. As Arin and Lira found a spot in the crowd, the woman brought her hands together and the streams merged, forming a sphere that hung suspended between her palms.
The sphere began to spin.
Slowly at first, then faster, throwing off droplets that caught the light and dissolved before hitting the ground. The woman's expression was one of deep concentration. She wasn't channeling massive amounts of Weave—nothing like what the Wardens did—but what she did channel was perfectly controlled. Each movement deliberate. Each thread of resonance placed exactly where it needed to be.
The sphere split into three smaller spheres. Then six. Then a dozen, all orbiting each other in complex patterns that looked random but were too methodical to be so. Arin could feel the structure beneath—the careful weaving that kept each sphere distinct, the balance that prevented them from merging or flying apart.
It was beautiful.
The woman brought her hands apart in a sharp motion and the spheres burst, becoming mist that drifted across the crowd in a cool, gentle wave. People applauded. Coins clinked into the bowl at her feet.
"You're analyzing it," Lira said quietly, amusement in her voice.
"It's impressive." Arin watched the woman begin another pattern, this time pulling light as well as water, weaving them together into something that glowed. "The precision. The control."
"She's been doing this for a long time, probably. Practice makes it look easy."
"I don't think I could do that even with practice."
"Different skills." Lira dropped a coin into the bowl as they moved away. "She controls small amounts perfectly. You control large amounts... less perfectly."
"That's charitable."
"I'm full of charity today."
They walked, following no particular route, just moving through the market's steady flow. Arin kept his awareness carefully controlled, but it was getting easier. The position Bram had taught him was becoming more natural—less something he had to force and more something his body remembered on its own.
At a stall selling candied nuts, an elderly man tried to sell them three bags when they'd asked for one. He had a performer's patter, talking continuously about quality and flavor and special recipes passed down through generations. Lira let him talk, smiling, then bought two bags instead of three. The man looked satisfied.
They ate the nuts as they walked, the sugar coating sticky on Arin's fingers. The taste was good—sweet with an underlying bitterness from the nuts themselves.
Eventually they found themselves at the market's edge, where the platforms gave way to a railing that overlooked the lower districts. They stood there, leaning against worn wood, looking out over rooftops that glinted with morning dew and streets that wound like rivers between buildings.
The city spread below them in layers—districts piled on districts, bridges connecting everything in a web too complex to fully map. Somewhere down there was the Archives where Arin worked and the greenhouse where Bram lived. Somewhere down there was the Eastern Candle District where three people had died last night while Arin sat and did nothing.
He pushed the thought away. Not today. Today was normal.
I apologize for the confusion. Let me show you the updated section more clearly. Here's what the conversation looks like now in the artifact (the section that appears after they eat candied nuts and look over the city):
"Remember when we used to climb up here as kids?" Arin asked. "Before they put the railings up."
Lira's mouth quirked. "Your mother nearly had my head when she found out. Said I was a bad influence."
"You were a bad influence."
"Still am." She leaned forward on the railing. "You cried the first time. Thought you were going to fall."
"I was six. And it was high."
"It was maybe twenty feet." But her tone was fond. "I had to hold your hand the whole way back down."
Arin remembered. The way his legs had shaken. The way Lira had pretended it was normal, that she wasn't scared either even though she probably was. "You told me if I looked at the buildings instead of the drop, it wouldn't feel so high."
"Did it work?"
"Eventually."
They stood quiet for a moment, both looking at those same buildings. Older now. Both of them older.
"Do you ever think about it?" Lira asked. "What we thought would happen. Back then."
"Sometimes." Arin ate another candied nut. "You were so sure you'd join your father's squad. Kept practicing with that wooden sword until your hands blistered."
"And you were going to map the entire western territories." She smiled. "Drew practice maps on every scrap of paper you could find. Your mother used to get so annoyed when she'd reach for her shopping list and find it covered in your terrible renderings of the market district."
"They weren't terrible."
"They were pretty terrible." But there was warmth in the words. "You drew the fountain with six sides instead of eight. And you spelled 'archives' wrong."
Arin winced. "I was still so young, remember?."
"You were twelve. I remember because it was right before—" She stopped. The humor drained from her voice.
Right before Arin's father disappeared. Right before everything changed.
"Yeah," Arin said quietly.
Lira's hand found his on the railing. Squeezed once. They didn't need to say the rest. They'd lived through it together—Lira showing up at his door day after day in those first awful weeks, not saying much, just being there. Bringing him outside when his mother couldn't.
"I'm glad you didn't leave," Lira said. "Go map the western territories."
"Where would you be without me?"
"Probably less stressed." But her fingers tightened on his. "Definitely more bored."
They stood there until the light changed, until afternoon edged toward evening. Then they gathered their purchases—vegetables and herbs and one bag of candied nuts they'd somehow not finished—and began the walk home.
The route back was quieter than the market had been. Fewer people on the streets. The city settling into its evening rhythm. Arin practiced as he walked, keeping partial openness, letting the training crystal pulse its reminders but needing them less frequently.
"I'm glad we did this," Lira said as they crossed a bridge. "Today. The market."
"Me too."
"We should do it more often. Once this is all over."
"Yeah," Arin said. "We should."
When this was all over. The phrase hung between them, full of implications neither wanted to examine too closely.
They reached their apartment as the lamps were being lit along the street. The courtyard's lumipool cast pale light across walls. Inside, the rooms were cool and dark. Lira lit a lamp while Arin set their purchases on the kitchen counter.
"Help me with these," Lira said, unwrapping vegetables.
They worked in comfortable silence. Lira chopped radishes while Arin dealt with greens, rinsing them in the basin. They'd done this before—this small domestic dance of preparing food together—but tonight it felt different. More deliberate.
Lira made soup. Nothing fancy—just vegetables and broth and herbs, seasoned with things Arin still couldn't remember the names of, but trusted her to use correctly. The scent filled their small kitchen, warm and earthy.
They ate at the table, the same table where they'd sat last night with blood on Lira's sleeves and grief thick in the air. Tonight was different. Quieter. The training crystal in Arin's pocket pulsed occasionally. His control held steady.
"Thank you," Arin said.
"For soup?"
"For today. For helping me relax properly for the first time in weeks."
Lira smiled, "You needed it. We both did."
They finished eating. Cleaned the dishes together. Arin found himself practicing without thinking about it—holding partial openness, sensing Lira moving beside him, the apartment steady around them, the city humming beyond their walls. Not overwhelming. Just present.
Normal.
The lamp burned low as evening deepened into night. Outside, the city continued its endless rhythm. Inside, two people sat together in the warm light, and for one day at least, the weight of everything else didn't press quite so hard.