Lyra woke to white.

  Not the clean, comforting white of wardlight or healer’s linen, but something flatter — drained of warmth, stripped of depth. Her body ached in layers, each breath tugging against pain she hadn’t yet catalogued. The scent of antiseptic and fractureglass dust clung to the air.

  For a moment, she couldn’t remember why.

  Then the memory surged back — the pantheon, the creature’s hollow gaze, the way death had leaned close enough for her to smell it.

  She inhaled sharply, sounding like a small scream.

  Her fingers twitched.

  Pain flared sharply along her palms. She lifted her hands slowly and hissed as the movement pulled at fresh bandages. Blood had soaked through in places, dried dark against the gauze. Shallow cuts tracked her arms like a map of near-misses.

  Yes, she was alive. But she felt like it was very close to being a different story.

  “You shouldn’t be awake yet.”

  The voice came from the foot of the cot. Lyra turned her head and found an Umbralyn standing there — not her assigned escort, but another, older, his posture relaxed far more than she felt he should have been.

  “What happened?” she asked, her throat raw.

  “You were injured during containment assessment,” he said smoothly. “But you are fortunate intervention was timely. You'll heal.”

  Lyra’s jaw tightened. Intervention. As though they had not been watching her struggle and bleed.

  “Where are the shards?”

  A pause — brief, deliberate.

  “Secured,” he replied. “For evaluation.”

  Of course they were.

  He inclined his head, already withdrawing. “Do not worry, Scribe. You will be briefed once determinations are finalised.”

  The words settled over her like a closing door.

  --

  Of course, they did not brief her.

  Not that day.

  Lyra spent the next hours drifting in and out of shallow sleep, listening to the murmur of voices beyond the ward-curtains. Umbralyns passed frequently — too frequently — their footsteps measured, their tones low. She caught slices of conversation when they thought her asleep.

  “…non-viable without interface—”

  “…confirms previous assumptions—”

  “…Hollow Wraith incident contextualised—”

  Each phrase felt like a blade carefully slid between her ribs.

  To her surprise, Master Orell arrived. She felt almost relieved to see him, usually a hint of pessimism surrounded him and she'd been wary of his attitude towards Umbralyn previously. Now she felt him more sincere and justified than ever.

  "Master Orell," she sighed in relief.

  He stood at the foot of her cot, hands clasped behind his back, his lined face drawn tight with exhaustion rather than cruelty. Relief also flickered briefly across his features when he saw her awake and talking.

  “Lyra,” he said. “You gave us quite a scare.”

  She almost laughed. Us. Was he a part of this, too?

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “You... you approved this,” she said instead.

  His brow furrowed. “Approved further shard assessment, yes. You consented. This was part of your reassignment.”

  “To study further resonance and with a different partner,” she shot back. “Not to be thrown into a slaughter chamber.”

  Something unreadable passed behind his eyes.

  “The Umbralyns have assured me all protocols were followed,” he said carefully. “The outcome, while… unfortunate, has yielded clarity.”

  Clarity.

  He continued, voice carefully measured. “Your actions during the Hollow Wraith incident raised questions. Necessary ones. This assessment confirms that while the shards are reactive to human wielding, they lack sufficient potency against shadow-borne entities without Umbralyn mediation.”

  Lyra stared at him.

  “That’s not what happened,” she said hoarsely. “They escalated it. They isolated me. And they waited and watched. They watched me suffer.”

  Orell hesitated — and in that hesitation, she knew.

  He didn’t fully believe her.

  Or worse — he didn’t want to.

  “Lyra— I, on behalf of the other elders, am sincerely sorry for the pain that this test caused you. But you must understand what we are up against. In fact, I was under the impression that you did."

  She didn't know what to say.

  "And that now, the city cannot afford uncertainty,” he said finally. “Nor can it afford another incident like the one that nearly claimed Julen’s life.”

  Her chest tightened at the name, fury rising in her.

  “As of now,” Orell continued, “all fracture shards will be withdrawn from human circulation. Their use will fall under Umbralyn authority alone. Additionally—”

  The ward-curtains stirred as more figures gathered.

  “—the Umbralyn council has petitioned for the removal of their combat limiters. Emergency measures, they say. To prepare for sealing operations, should the Fracture destabilise further.”

  Lyra felt something cold and heavy settle in her stomach.

  Unchained. All of them.

  “And you believe that. You’re giving them everything,” she whispered. “Power. Control. And no oversight.”

  Orell met her gaze then, and there was something like regret there.

  “I am trying to prevent catastrophe. I thought you, of all people, Lyra, would understand that. You worked so... closely with your previous Umbralyn. I thought you'd be more pleased.”

  "Pleased," she responded, blankly. Dismayed.

  As he turned away, Lyra understood with brutal clarity that the catastrophe had already been misnamed. And that the real catastrophe they were trying to prevent was now the one they were walking straight into.

  --

  They transferred her to the lower healers’ wing that evening.

  And thankfully, that was where she found Julen still recovering.

  He sat propped against a wall of cushions, his side propped up and skin still underneath a gauze, his face still pale and weak beneath the lamplight. His eyes widened when he saw her, then narrowed with anger.

  “Selinne said you were reassigned,” he said. “She didn’t say you were torn apart.”

  She managed a weak smile. “You should see the other—”

  She stopped herself, even being with Julen didn't brighten her spirits enough to make a joke.

  Julen swore softly, looking down before looking back at up at her. He paused. “Lyra... he came looking for you.”

  Her breath caught.

  “Caelith,” Julen continued. “In the early morning, long before anyone knew what had happened. He argued with the healers. With some of the other Umbralyns. I’ve never seen him like that. It was like he knew what had happened before it even happened.”

  Lyra closed her eyes, forcing a tear back.

  "Have you managed to see him yet?" Julen asked.

  “He told me to stay away,” she whispered. “I listened. So I don't know what he expected to see, or to do.”

  Julen’s expression softened. “To be honest with you Lyra, he looked like a man who knew he was too late.”

  The words landed harder than any blow.

  --

  Night settled uneasily over the city.

  From her cot, Lyra felt the Fracture’s pulse — stronger now, unrestrained, humming through the stone like something newly unmoored. The shards embedded throughout the healers’ wing vibrated faintly, restless beneath the wards, as if searching for something that was no longer where it should be.

  Or someone.

  Beyond the wing, Umbralyn patrols moved openly through the streets, limiters gone. Their presence was heavier now, sharper, no longer restrained by pretense or balance. Power walked beside them, unhidden.

  The city was quieter than Lyra had ever known it, but it was not quiet as in peaceful.

  She stared at her bandaged hands, remembering how the shards had answered her fear — and how differently they had sung when Caelith stood beside her. How steady they had been then. How whole.

  I will not let them use you.

  The memory struck with sudden, awful clarity.

  They hadn’t been testing the shards.

  They hadn’t even been testing her.

  They had been testing him.

  Testing the bond. Measuring what happened when it was severed. Proving that whatever had happened with the Hollow Wraith could not have been achieved by a human alone.

  And she had been the instrument that gave them certainty.

  The Fracture pulsed again beneath the city, deeper this time, uneven — not the restless surge of instability, but something sharper. Targeted. As if a pressure point had been struck.

  Lyra’s breath caught.

  Caelith was gone.

  Not absent in the way he had been before — not distant, not restrained — but removed. The shards knew it. She could feel the gap he left behind like a missing note in a chord, the resonance collapsing inward where he should have been.

  A cold, suffocating fear wrapped around her chest.

  Something was happening to him. And she could do nothing to stop it.

  Whatever the Umbralyns were preparing for, it was no longer a matter of if.

  It had already begun.