Sleep didn't come easy that night.
The outpost was still, wrapped in the hush of a forest holding its breath. The fire had burned low. Only embers now. Glowing faintly in the stone hearth like watching eyes. The ward glyphs hummed quiet warnings through the cold stone, barely perceptible beneath the silence.
Kaelen sat by the narrow window, back to the wall, eyes fixed on the slivered moon. He hadn't moved in hours.
Something itched in his chest—not pain, exactly. More like pressure. Like something old trying to wake inside him.
Behind him, a soft rustle of fabric.
He turned.
Selene.
She was wrapped in a thin travel cloak, hair still unbound from earlier. Her steps were slow, quiet. Careful. But her presence filled the space like moonlight seeping into the cracks.
She didn't say anything. Just came to sit beside him.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
And that silence… it wasn't awkward.
Just heavy. Shared.
Finally, Selene broke it. Her voice barely above a whisper.
"I can't stop hearing her voice."
Kaelen turned slightly, but didn't interrupt.
"I hated her for so long," she continued, "and now I don't even know if that hate belonged to the right person."
"She didn't seem like a monster," Kaelen said quietly. "But she didn't feel like a mother either."
Selene smiled bitterly. "She felt like a shadow wearing a mask."
Another silence.
Then she looked at him. Really looked.
"Do you ever wonder," she asked, "if all of this was set in motion long before we were born?"
Kaelen's eyes didn't leave hers. "Every day."
Selene let out a breath, shaky and small. "I'm tired, Kaelen. Not just from running. I'm tired of trying to hold myself together like my entire identity is just threads tied to someone else's expectations."
Kaelen reached over.
Not quickly. Not impulsively.
Just enough that when his hand closed gently over hers, she didn't flinch.
"You don't have to be her daughter," he said. "Or anyone else's legacy. You're just… you. And that's enough."
Selene's fingers curled around his slowly.
"Even if I break?" she whispered.
Kaelen's gaze softened. "Then I'll help you put the pieces back."
Something shifted between them. Fragile. Intimate. Like a door left slightly ajar.
She leaned her head against his shoulder. And this time, she didn't pull away.
The fire flickered low. The glyphs pulsed in rhythm with their breathing.
Outside, the fractured moon began to fade into dawnlight.
Across the ridge, something stirred in the deeper dark.
A pair of sigil hunters crouched in the branches of an overgrown cliffside, their eyes glinting like polished iron. One held a shard of obsidian etched with sigil traces—pulsing faintly in Kaelen's direction.
"Confirmed," one of them said. "The Veritas line is active."
The other one hissed softly, almost reverently.
"Do we wait for the Herald?"
A long silence.
Then: "No. The Envoy's orders were clear. Mark the location. Don't engage. Not yet."
They faded into the trees without a sound.
And just like that, the Tower's eye tightened its gaze.
Morning broke gently.
The group stirred, Mira first. Then Seraphine, who stretched like a cat beneath her cloak and blinked away the last remnants of dream-sweat. She saw Kaelen and Selene near the wall and said nothing.
But she looked.
And lingered on Kaelen's hand still resting near Selene's.
She turned away before anyone could read her expression.
An hour later, they were on the move again.
The trail north wound through scattered ruins and steep ridges, half-buried under frost-rimed trees. Mira led the way, with Seraphine hovering protectively around the levitating Arkyn, whose pulse had stabilized but whose glyph was still glowing faintly.
Selene walked beside Kaelen again.
Not close enough to draw attention.
But not far either.
"So…" Mira glanced back, breaking the silence. "What's the plan? We've got an unconscious prodigy, a half-crazy professor's daughter, a wanted glyph mage with a Veritas sigil, and the literal daughter of the Tower's Eye. We going to knock politely on the Capital's gates or…?"
Kaelen smirked. "Not quite."
"We head west," Selene said. "There's a Convergence Stone near Caldrith's Basin. The older ones were made before the Tower's locks. If we can activate it—"
"We'll open a path," Kaelen finished.
Mira frowned. "To what?"
"To the Wellspring," Selene said quietly.
Seraphine's steps slowed.
"You're insane."
Kaelen met her gaze. "It's the only way. We can't keep running."
"And what? You think some forgotten glyph tomb will protect you?"
"No," Kaelen said. "But I think it might tell me who I am."
Later that night, as the group settled at another waystation ruin, Kaelen stood watch.
The stars were sharp above. And the glyphlines in his palm glowed faintly—resonating with something on the horizon.
He wasn't sure what scared him more.
That the Tower might find him.
Or that when they did… he wouldn't run.