The days after Lyros's visit passed in a deceptive calm, the kind that sits heavy on a battlefield between salvos. The court buzzed with the news of the contained breach, the "Scar-Singer Queen" now a fixture of both awe and whispered debate. Lord Theron's public appearances were curt and venomous, his Hunt conspicuously active along borders far from the Wither. Lady Sylvyre retreated to her Star-Chapel, her followers speaking in hushed tones of "unquiet miracles" and "waiting for the stars' verdict."
Kaelen used the political capital ruthlessly. He reassigned key border garrison commanders loyal to Theron, replacing them with officers from families aligned with Caelan's Greenwardens or his own Shade-Walkers. It was a quiet, surgical strike against Theron's power base.
Elara, meanwhile, found her time divided. Publicly, she played the gracious queen, receiving petitioners (screened by Kaelen) who sought her "mending touch" for minor magical ailments. Each healing was a careful performance, a blend of genuine compassion and practiced misdirection. She never used the same "method" twice, sometimes appearing to use herbs, sometimes a whispered suggestion, sometimes a simple touch that seemed to encourage the body's own magic. She was building a public persona of benevolent, inscrutable power.
Privately, in the study, her focus was twofold. First, mastering the connection to the sealed breach. She found she could, with deep concentration, feel its dormant state—a silent, scarred eye in the west. She practiced sending tiny pulses of her transformed energy into it, not to change it, but to reinforce the "truce" she had brokered, to keep the sleeping hunger within it pacified.
Second, and more perilously, she studied the gifts from Lyros.
The map was just a map, albeit exquisitely detailed. The scrying lens she refused to even touch, instructing a servant to place it in a locked chest in a disused storeroom. But the Heartstone fragment… it called to her.
She waited until Kaelen was occupied with a military briefing, then retrieved the small white chest. Opening it, the green-gold glow filled her study nook. The fragment was about the size of her thumb, warm and humming with a deep, potent life-force. It was the polar opposite of the blight—concentrated, benevolent creation.
Her Siphon nature didn't hunger for it with rapaciousness. Instead, it… yearned. This was the magic of unbroken growth, of pure "yes." She could feel its pattern, a complex, beautiful song of photosynthesis and symbiotic joy. Touching it with her senses was like listening to a forest's heartbeat.
This is what he wants, she realized. Lyros, the cold logician, had given her a sample of the most potent life-magic in the realm. Was it a taunt? A test to see if her "dialogue" worked only on sickness? Or was it a more insidious trap—to see if the Siphon would be tempted to consume something so pure, and in doing so, reveal her true, monstrous nature?
She didn't take its power. She simply studied its pattern, adding the "song of life" to her growing internal lexicon. It was a reference point, a counterpart to the screams of the gem and the hunger of the bowl.
It was during one of these study sessions, three days after Lyros's visit, that the second move was made.
Not by Theron. Not by Sylvyre.
By the quietest of the Scribes who had accompanied Lyros.
Elara was walking alone in a lesser-used garden of phosphorescent ferns, seeking a moment's respite from the court's gaze. A figure stepped from behind a towering, pulsating mushroom. It was one of Lyros's Scribes, the one with ink stains like constellations on his fingers. He moved with a librarian's silence.
"My queen," he murmured, bowing. "A thousand apologies for the intrusion. I was sent to retrieve a rare spore-sample for the Athenaeum's botanical archives." He held up a small, crystal vial as proof. His eyes, a softer blue than Lyros's, darted around nervously.
"Proceed with your work," Elara said, making to move past him. Her shield was up, a smooth, passive barrier.
"My queen, wait." His voice dropped to a thread. "Please. A moment of your mercy."
She paused, wary.
The Scribe's calm scholarly demeanor cracked. Fear shone in his eyes. "I… I have served Keeper Lyros for a century. He is a great mind. But his mind… it has gone down a dark path. Since the first signs of the blight appeared, he has been… obsessed. Not with curing it. With understanding its potential." The words tumbled out now, hushed and frantic. "He has a private workshop. Deep in the Athenaeum's lower vaults. I've seen things… crystals that hold screams. Maps with points marked not for observation, but for… for detonation."
Elara's blood ran cold. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because he watches you!" the Scribe whispered. "He calls you 'The Anomaly.' 'The Unbound Variable.' He believes your power is the key to… to refining the blight. To making it not a wasteful sickness, but a surgical tool. A scalpel of unmaking." The Scribe clutched his vial. "He plans to test you. Soon. He will create a controlled… incident. To measure your response, to see the limits of your 'dialogue.' He believes if he can understand you, he can replicate you. Or weaponize you."
This was it. The traitor's plan, laid bare by a conscience-stricken subordinate. Lyros wasn't just trying to create chaos; he was trying to engineer a new magical paradigm, with Elara as the blueprint and the blight as his raw material.
"What kind of incident? Where?" Elara demanded.
"I don't know! He doesn't share that with Scribes. But it will be soon. And it will be somewhere that will force your hand, that will make you reveal everything." The Scribe looked over his shoulder, trembling. "I must go. If he knows I spoke…"
"What is your name?" Elara asked.
"Felwin," he breathed. And then he was gone, vanishing into the grove of ferns like a ghost.
Elara stood frozen, the hum of the garden feeling suddenly sinister. She had to tell Kaelen. Now.
She found him in the strategy room, reviewing troop deployments with Nylas. At her urgent expression, he dismissed the captain.
She told him everything, the words rushing out. Kaelen listened, his face hardening into a mask of grim fury.
"A scalpel of unmaking," he repeated, the phrase vile on his tongue. "He sees my kingdom as a patient to be dissected." He slammed a fist on the table. "We have to move. We have to get into the Athenaeum, find his workshop, get proof."
"Felwin said it's in the lower vaults," Elara said. "Guarded, no doubt."
"Guarded by wards and constructs, not soldiers," Kaelen said, his mind racing. "Wards you might be able to… persuade. And constructs you might be able to… reprogram." He looked at her, the storm in his eyes lit by a desperate plan. "We go tonight. Not as King and Queen. As thieves. We use the pact, we use your new lexicon. We find his evidence, and we bring down the Keeper of Knowledge with his own records."
It was a plan of breathtaking risk. Infiltrating the most secure repository of magic in the realm.
"What about Felwin?" Elara asked. "If Lyros suspects…"
"We can't protect him without alerting Lyros," Kaelen said, though it clearly pained him. "He took his own risk. Our best protection for him is success. Once Lyros is exposed, his followers will scatter."
As they finalized their frantic plans—using the postern door, avoiding the main passages, the spells of silence and shadow-walking Kaelen would employ—a servant arrived with a message.
It was for Elara. A single, high-quality parchment, sealed with the wax sigil of the Crystal Athenaeum.
Her hands were steady as she broke the seal. The handwriting within was precise, beautiful, and utterly chilling.
My Queen,
My research into the stabilized anomaly at the Wither site has yielded fascinating harmonic readings. It appears the containment field resonates with a unique frequency, one that seems to calm disruptive magical waveforms.
In the interest of further study—and for the continued security of the realm—I have taken the liberty of calibrating a minor, contained magical instability here at the Athenaeum to match that frequency. A small test, in a controlled environment, to see if the principle can be replicated.
You are, of course, cordially invited to observe. Tomorrow, at high moon. Your… empathetic perspective… would be invaluable.
Yours in the pursuit of knowledge,
Lyros, Keeper of the Crystal Athenaeum
P.S. I have taken young Felwin into my personal custody for advanced scribal duties. He sends his regards.
The note fell from Elara's fingers. Lyros wasn't waiting. He was inviting them into the trap. He knew Felwin had talked. And he had the Scribe.
The "controlled incident" was tomorrow. At his stronghold. And he was using Felwin as both bait and a message.
Kaelen read the note over her shoulder, his face turning to stone. "He's not hiding anymore. He's declaring his experiment. Daring us to stop it."
The quiet war was over.
Lyros had just declared open season.