Arion was in his room. The humid steam mingled with the metallic smell of dried blood. A wooden tub, half full, received him as he washed himself in parts, sitting on a low stool. The battered breastplate of his armor rested carefully at the foot of the tub, as if it still held something sacred.

  Sweat-matted hair fell across his forehead. He had bruises along his side and chest, exactly where that thing had struck him. The water was stained, murky, like his thoughts. They drifted from Hyura to his own past, and guilt gnawed at his chest. He had stopped Dharion... but if he hadn’t intervened, that boy would have died.

  The creak of the door made him tense. He didn’t need to look to know who was entering. Precisely for that reason, tension ran through him immediately.

  “Is the girl all right?” he asked, his voice tired.

  “She won’t be able to fly for a while,” Daoan replied, advancing slowly. “And she’ll have difficulties afterward... as always. But yes, she’s fine, all things considered. I left her with him. She insisted on seeing him, and after what he did for him... I suppose she deserves it.”

  Arion bowed his head.

  “All right. I don’t think he’ll lose control again, not while he’s with her.”

  Daoan watched him in silence for a few seconds before speaking.

  “How did you know?”

  He blinked, puzzled.

  “Know what?”

  “That he would stop if she asked him to.”

  A short sigh escaped Arion.

  “During the trials I saw it. It wasn’t Dharion who held him. It was that girl, with a scream. Whatever was inside him lost strength at once. If she hadn’t intervened, I doubt Dharion could have rendered him unconscious. And after what happened today, I wasn’t wrong.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  “It’s clearly connected to the fallen god,” Arion said, clenching his fists over his knees, “but I don’t know how it’s influencing him. We found no object, nothing to give us a clue.”

  “And now what are we going to do?”

  The question hit him like reproach. He turned with a bitter grimace.

  “We? Until a moment ago you seemed like you didn’t want anything to do with me.”

  Daoan did not defend himself at once. The shadow of an old wound crossed his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was low, almost broken.

  “I didn’t understand that you would break the promise you made us...”

  Arion turned fully, drenching the floor with the drops sliding from his body.

  “It wasn’t my intention. But if I hadn’t intervened... that boy would have died.”

  She lowered her gaze and nodded, resigned.

  “I know. I understand. But you’ll have to speak with the others, especially Dharion.”

  Then she moved to him. She knelt at his side and wrapped her arms around him. The breastplate fell with a hollow thud to the floor.

  “I love you,” Daoan whispered.

  Arion, always so stoic, closed his eyes. Tears he had held back for years slipped down his face, mixing with the water on his skin.

  Dharion sat on the sand of the training field, legs crossed, his gaze fixed on a sky turning leaden. He murmured a prayer to Aetherios; the words were precise, measured, like everything in him. Since the incident he hadn’t set foot inside the house. He was afraid of losing control. The path of light did not pass through this, he told himself, and yet he could not bear the idea of that being staying with them.

  Thoughts of Arion burned in his throat. That man, so upright in duty, had always followed the god’s designs—how had he made that decision? He clicked his tongue, bitter. A cold breeze ruffled the nape of his neck; the air already warned of night. He rose with measured movements, as if even raising an arm were part of a ritual.

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  He retrieved the sword stuck in the sand and stood before one of the training dummies. He began to strike it with short, controlled rhythms; each cut grew deeper, each thrust more precise. The metal sang through the air and the impacts echoed across the yard, a dry drum marking his mounting inner storm.

  At first he seemed in control. His breathing matched the measures of the prayer still repeating in his head. But the fury did not abate: it rose, restrained but relentless. In an instant he lost his composure. The next series of blows was a sheer release; the dummy splintered, the wood exploding into shards that scattered across the earth. Dharion stood motionless, the sword still raised, his eyes empty.

  Inside him raged a debate as sharp as a blade. One part whispered that he should go to the boy’s room and end it before it hurt others again. Another voice, older and bitter, reminded him of the girl—the one who had screamed—and how she had contained everything. He clicked his tongue again, the gesture of someone scolding an invisible enemy.

  He lifted his gaze to the sky, seeking an answer in the falling light. He found no comfort. The cold seeped into his bones. He let the sword drop until the pommel thudded on the ground and remained there, holding it without deciding whether to sheath it or bring the edge down once more.

  His restraint was as thin as ice: it could break with any of those choices. But for now there was only silence, the crackle of broken wood and the echo of his own breath.

  Artan stood on the house balcony. Curtains whipped violently in the night wind. He paced back and forth, unable to stay still. The question devoured him: what had happened? Why had Arion acted that way? That almost killed them all.

  He struck the wall with his bare fists. Pain ran through his knuckles, but he didn’t care.

  “What’s wrong with you?!” he shouted, his voice split between fury and despair. “You promised never to bend our will! Never!”

  He spat a curse at the Guardian’s bond. Rage made him tremble, mixed with a fear he refused to admit. The wings unfurled in an instinctive impulse. He needed air, to escape those walls closing in on him. He leapt into the void and took flight, beating hard, seeking to lose himself in the vastness of the sky. Maybe he’d find a tavern, drown the memory in cheap wine until the world stopped spinning.

  As he flew away, a murmur laden with rage and sorrow escaped his lips:

  “Arion... what’s wrong with you? Why are you acting like this?”

  Hyura sat on Artan’s bed, eyes lost. He couldn’t form words. After the conversation with Lord Arion, he had been left alone, and his mind wandered between the vision of the fallen god and what had just happened in the house.

  The door slammed open. Vaenia rushed in and hugged him tightly.

  Hyura remained still at first, as if he didn’t know how to respond. A long moment passed before he finally returned the embrace.

  “Are you okay?” she asked between sobs.

  “Me?” Hyura looked at her, bewildered. She was the one who had almost lost a wing because of him, and yet she worried about him. Gently, he pushed her aside.

  “Vaenia... I’m a danger. Look what happened to you for being near me. I don’t want that.”

  Vaenia held his gaze, and in her eyes there was more than sorrow: there were years of accumulated silence.

  “When they brought you home,” she began, her voice broken, “I was just a child. Suddenly Mom and Dad stopped looking at me the same way, and I... I hated you. I hated you because you were different, because I didn’t understand. And because I was afraid they’d forget me.”

  A bitter laugh escaped her, choked by tears.

  “At first I rejected you because it was easy. Because you were quiet, because you never complained. But you kept coming back. Always coming back, as if you didn’t know how to give up. And I... I didn’t see that all you wanted was to belong.”

  The memory pierced her like a knife. She closed her eyes and spoke more slowly.

  “The day Mom told me you were alone in the world, that you had no parents, I felt ashamed of myself. I wanted to apologize, but when I went to do it, you smiled. That sad, broken smile... and yet so kind. That was the first time I hugged you, do you remember? I was shaking. You were too. But in that instant I knew I could never leave you.”

  Vaenia took his hands and squeezed them hard, as if her life depended on it.

  “All these years you’ve been my guardian. My refuge. You pushed yourself twice, three times as hard, just so you wouldn’t fall behind, just so you wouldn’t be a burden. Do you know what I thought the first time I saw you train until you bled? That I didn’t want to pass the trials if the price was seeing you destroy yourself.”

  Tears flowed without shame.

  “So don’t ask me to leave you now. I won’t. Even if I crawl, even if I fall, I’ll go with you to the end. If the world dares to condemn you, then condemn me too.”

  Hyura lowered his gaze, unable to hold so much certainty. The shadow of guilt grazed him: what would Thoiran and Elara think to see their daughter wounded because of me? The weight of that thought darkened his face. He stepped back, trying to distance himself, but Vaenia held him fast, one firm hand trembling with emotion.

  He raised his eyes. There they were: hers—full of tenderness, but also of steel.

  “Everything will be all right, Hyura,” she whispered. “I’ll take care of it.”

  We’ve seen Arion burdened by guilt, Daoan torn between love and duty, Dharion struggling with his fury, Artan with his doubts, and Hyura and Vaenia sharing one of their most heartfelt moments yet. Each thread is pulling tighter, and the bonds between them are being tested more than ever.

  Lybendol: The Floating City!