"What do you an?"
Lucian frowned at Auren across the room, his patience already wearing thin.
Auren loosened his grip around the glowing marble sphere, careful, almost afraid to put pressure on it. Faint cracks ran across its surface like a web of thin glass veins.
"I an exactly what I said," Auren replied quietly. "The sphere is damaged. The seal is unstable. Celeste’s soul is still inside, but it’s not... whole. It’s stuck between holding together and falling apart, and I can’t drag her out like this without risking losing her forever."
Lucian’s jaw tightened, "But you told you could pull her out before."
Auren looked up at him, tired and frustrated.
"I could... when she was anchored sowhere stable. When Elyndra was still inside Seraphina, Celeste’s soul had a point of attachnt. But now, the marble that holds her is barely holding itself together."
Auren exhaled slowly, shoulders sinking under a weight that had nothing to do with exhaustion.
"Right now, she’s just... suspended. Like smoke in a jar with a cracked lid. One wrong move and she won’t just escape. She’ll scatter."
Lucian dragged a hand through his hair, jaw tightening.
"So what do you need?"
Auren hesitated, then lifted his eyes to et him.
"I need sothing that belongs to her. Sothing that still rembers her. A bond strong enough to tell her soul where to go."
Lucian froze.
For a long mont, he didn’t speak, his mind already racing through every possibility and finding too few that ended well.
"Call Vaylen," he finally said, his voice low but absolute. "Right now."
Thorne straightened at once. "At once, my lord."
"And tell him," Lucian added, eyes hardening, "to bring anything that still belongs to her. Anything she touched. Anything she loved. I don’t care how small it is. If it still rembers her... I want it here."
Thorne bowed sharply before turning and hurrying from the study.
Silence fell again, thick and heavy.
Auren shifted slightly. "This won’t be easy," he said quietly. "If the anchor wavers, even for a second—"
Lucian didn’t let him finish.
"Then we don’t allow it to waver."
Lucian lifted his gaze, sothing fierce burning beneath the calm in his eyes.
"Seraphina trusted to bring her back," he said quietly. "So whatever it takes... we will bring her out. Safely. And in one piece."
The room seed to hold its breath with him.
Auren studied Lucian for a long mont before nodding once, slow and resolute.
"Then I’ll hold the line on my end," he said. "But once we begin, there’s no stopping halfway. If the bond breaks... she could scatter."
Lucian drew in a quiet breath. "Are you confident?"
Auren t his gaze, honest and steady. "This isn’t really my field," he admitted. "But for both of you..." His lips curved into a faint, determined smile. "I’ll do everything I can."
The waiting stretched thin.
Fifteen minutes passed like a slow torture. The cracked marble sphere hovered between Auren’s hands, its dim glow weakening, the fracture crawling faintly wider with every pulse.
Lucian stood beside him, unmoving.
Then hurried footsteps stord down the corridor.
The doors flew open.
Vaylen rushed in, chest rising and falling sharply, one hand gripping sothing wrapped tightly in a dark cloth.
"I—I brought what she keeps closest," he said hoarsely. "I don’t know if this will help... but if anything rembers her... it’s this."
He stepped forward and unfolded the cloth.
Sothing light slipped into the air.
A feather.
But unlike any Lucian had ever seen.
It wasn’t silver like Auren’s.
It wasn’t white.
It was soft blue, the pale blue of dawn and faint lines of pearl-colored light glimred through the filants like heartbeat threads.
Auren froze.
The world seed to drop out from under his feet. His breath caught hard in his chest. "No," he muttered.
Lucian turned sharply. "What is it?"
Auren didn’t answer right away.
He stepped closer, eyes locked on the feather as though it were sothing alive.
"Where did you get this?" he asked Vaylen, his voice unnaturally quiet.
Vaylen swallowed. "From Celeste. She’s had it since she was a child. She said it was a gift from soone. She never let anyone touch it. Not even ."
Auren’s fingers trembled as he lifted his hand toward it. He hesitated just short of the feather, as if an unseen barrier lay between them. For a mont, he only stared, his jaw tightening, his eyes dark with sothing far too raw to be surprised alone.
"That feather was never ant to be given away," he murmured, so quietly it almost didn’t sound real.
Lucian’s gaze sharpened. "aning?"
Auren swallowed before answering, voice low and uneven. "Pegasus feathers don’t fall. We don’t shed them. We don’t lose them by accident." His eyes never left the soft blue plu. "When one leaves us... it’s because it’s been given."
The air around the feather shifted again, subtle and strange, like a long-held breath finally being released.
Auren reached out at last and touched it.
"Wait..." Lucian said quietly. "That feather... it belonged to your mother, didn’t it?"
Auren nodded faintly, his gaze never leaving the pale blue plu in his hand.
"Yes." He drew a slow breath, the mory unraveling in his voice.
"Back then, there was a little girl by the lake. So small I almost mistook her for a reflection on the water." His thumb brushed over the feather unconsciously. "She was crying like everything inside her hurt. She kept saying she was sick... that it never stopped hurting."
Lucian’s brow furrowed. "When?"
Auren lifted his eyes to him. "Rember... the first ti I fell from the sky? It was that day."
His voice tightened just slightly, "When I reached the ground, she was there. Sitting by the water. Crying like she had been alone for a very long ti."
Lucian’s chest grew heavy. "Celeste...?"
Auren nodded again.
"She asked if pain ever ends." His jaw clenched. "I didn’t know how to answer a child, you know since we were young too at that ti."
Looking at the feather, he continued, "So I gave her this," he said quietly, lifting the feather just a little. "The only feather my mother ever left behind."
His fingers trembled slightly as they closed around it.
"I could see she was in pain at that ti," Auren continued, his voice low. "Not the kind you can point to and treat. Not a wound. Not a sickness you could na. It was like her fla itself was tearing her apart from the inside, like she was burning in a body too weak to hold her."
Lucian looked at him in silence.
Auren swallowed.
"She kept gripping her chest like she was afraid it might break open, and every ti she breathed, it sounded like it hurt. But she didn’t cry loudly." His eyes darkened. "She cried quietly. Like she didn’t want anyone to bother saving her."
He lowered his voice even more.
"So I told her... if she held this feather, she wouldn’t be alone. That no matter how bad it hurts, soone would one day co for her. Soone strong enough to pull her out of the pain."
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