Null didn’t sleep.

  He lay on silk that felt too expensive to be honest and listened to the palace breathe. Nyxthra never truly went quiet—lantern currents shifted, bridges pulsed, distant sentry boots clicked in patterns too deliberate to be casual. Even the jasmine hanging in the air felt scheduled.

  Blitz’s bed stayed made.

  The absence wasn’t dramatic. It was worse. It was clean.

  Eins sat in the shadowed chair by the balcony, arms folded, eyes half-lidded like a forge that never cooled. He didn’t offer comfort. He didn’t offer explanations. He just stayed there, heavy as consequence.

  Null kept seeing the last glance Blitz gave him.

  I’ll become something that can.

  Null hated that the line sounded like a promise.

  He hated more that it sounded like a sentence.

  The door opened without knocking.

  Two attendants slipped in first, heads lowered, hands hidden in sleeves. They didn’t look at Null or Eins. They moved as if the room belonged to someone else.

  Then the sentries stepped through.

  Not the ones from Vaelor’s platform. Palace sentries—obsidian plate, violet eyes, posture sharp as law. Between them—

  Zwei.

  He wasn’t bound.

  He wasn’t bruised.

  He wasn’t smiling.

  In his hand was a sheet of black vellum stamped with violet wax—the spider lily and thorns pressed so deep it looked like the seal had been punched through flesh.

  The sentries peeled away and took positions by the door, silent, symmetrical. A reminder. Not prison. Not freedom. A corridor between.

  Zwei held the contract out like it might bite.

  “I signed,” he said.

  Null didn’t move for a beat.

  Eins grunted from the chair. “Temporary.”

  Zwei’s mouth twitched. “That’s the polite word, yeah.”

  Null finally took the vellum and skimmed it.

  It wasn’t a spell. No glowing runes. No dramatic curses.

  It was worse.

  Legal silk.

  Temporary Oath of Return.

  Duration: One Cycle.

  Failure Condition: Absence beyond allowance, breach of custody terms, violation of Queen’s summons.

  Penalty: Immediate recall under Royal Escort.

  Additional Clauses: No binding rites without Matron approval. No foreign courtship. No “heroic” promises to outsiders.

  Zwei watched Null read like a man waiting for a verdict.

  Null handed it back. “She expects you to come home.”

  Zwei stared at the wax seal. “She expects the moon to show up for roll-call.”

  Null’s eyes flicked to the empty bed again before he could stop himself.

  Zwei followed the look.

  “…Blitz?” he asked.

  Eins answered instead. “With Elder Serath.”

  Zwei’s face shifted—confusion first, then comprehension, then that slow dread of realizing someone else’s drama just became your itinerary.

  “He actually stayed?” Zwei murmured. “He—”

  “He didn’t stay,” Null said, voice flat. “He was kept.”

  Eins’s gaze cut to Null. “Both can be true.”

  Null didn’t like that.

  Zwei rubbed the back of his neck and tried to drag the room back toward comedy like he always did when the air got too heavy.

  “Well,” he said, forcing brightness, “good news. The Queen is ‘kind’ enough to speed us along.”

  Eins snorted. “Kind.”

  Zwei nodded grimly. “Kind. Like a spider is kind to let the fly struggle less.”

  One of the sentries near the door spoke without emotion. “Griffin carriage departs at first bright. You will be ready.”

  Zwei blinked. “First bright… that’s—”

  “Soon,” the sentry finished.

  Null’s jaw tightened. “We’re being escorted out.”

  “You’re being delivered,” Eins corrected, and the word landed like iron.

  The sentry’s eyes slid to Null. Not hostile. Just cold. “The Queen does not permit her guests to wander into stupid death. You will travel through the Shadow Fang passage under Hegemony speed.”

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  “Shadow Fang passage?” Zwei echoed.

  “The tunnel,” the sentry said. “Gloamvein.”

  The name sat in Null’s stomach like a nail.

  A tunnel again.

  A choke point again.

  Zwei must’ve seen the micro-stillness in Null’s posture because he softened his tone, just a fraction. “Hey. It’s fine. We’ve done worse.”

  Null didn’t answer.

  Because the last time they did worse, Blitz was here.

  And now Blitz wasn’t.

  The attendants glided forward, laying out folded travel garments and sealed ration packs on the blackwood table. Everything perfectly arranged. Everything perfectly controlled.

  One attendant held up a set of dark, weatherproof cloaks. Another placed a thin ring of black silk cord beside Zwei’s contract.

  Zwei frowned. “What’s that?”

  The attendant didn’t speak. The sentry did.

  “Return token. It will be checked at border and again at re-entry.”

  Zwei stared at the wax seal as if it were a collar. “Of course it is.”

  The sentries turned as one and left without farewell. The door clicked shut with the finality of an agreement.

  Zwei stood there for a second too long, contract still in hand—like letting go of it would make the terms real.

  Then he exhaled, hard.

  “You know what’s the worst part?” he muttered.

  Null didn’t respond.

  Eins didn’t move.

  Zwei finally looked up, eyes flat. “They made me sign three pages of ‘I will not promise anyone eternal devotion’ in six different legal wordings.”

  Eins’s mouth twitched. “Good.”

  Zwei blinked. “Good?”

  “Aye,” Eins said, deadpan. “Means they’ve met you before.”

  Zwei stared at him, then let out a laugh that sounded more like surrender than humor. He dropped onto the chair like his bones had been replaced with wet rope.

  “…I hate this city,” he said, quieter. Then, almost to himself: “But I’m alive. So. Temporary win.”

  Null didn’t laugh.

  Zwei noticed. “Hey… Gateholder.”

  Null’s eyes lifted.

  Zwei tried again, quieter. “Blitz is choosing this, right?”

  Null’s mouth didn’t want to answer.

  Eins answered for him. “He’s choosing the only option that isn’t slow death. Same as the rest of us.”

  Zwei looked between them, then down at his contract.

  “…Then we don’t waste it,” he said, and for once his voice wasn’t playful. “If he’s staying behind for us, we don’t walk out of here like idiots.”

  Null’s throat tightened. He hated that Zwei’s sincerity landed harder than comfort.

  “Pack,” Eins said. “Rest your eyes if you can. Tomorrow we leave this velvet cage.”

  Zwei made a face. “Temporary cage.”

  Eins’s grin showed teeth for a second. “Aye. Temporary.”

  Night in Nyxthra passed like a slow blade.

  Null tried to sleep and failed.

  He kept replaying Serath’s warning. Keep it hidden.

  He kept hearing Malyssia’s tone: I am trading one anchor for another.

  He kept imagining Blitz in some chamber that smelled less like jasmine and more like ink and old seals, standing in front of something that wanted a hand.

  At some point, Zwei did sleep—curled on his side like a man exhausted from romance-as-combat.

  Eins stayed awake.

  Just before first bright, the Guest Sigil on Null’s wrist gave a faint pulse.

  Not a warning.

  A summons.

  The door opened.

  A sentry stood in the frame, backlit by pale lavender dawn.

  “Move,” the sentry said. “Griffin landing.”

  Outside, Nyxthra was different in false dawn. The violet glow was paler, clinical—like the city had washed its face and found it still looked like a bruise.

  They were escorted through bridges and corridors that made no concessions for human comfort. Every turn was measured. Every pause was timed.

  Null kept waiting for Blitz’s footsteps to catch up.

  They never did.

  The landing platform sat high and open to the canopy, silk-steel woven into a wide circle with railings like black thorns. Massive Shadow-Wing Griffins waited there, feathers ruffling in the wind, eyes too intelligent to be treated like animals.

  An open-air carriage was already hitched.

  Royal transport.

  Borrowed wings.

  Zwei stopped short.

  Because someone else was already there.

  Malyssia.

  She stood near the edge of the platform, white hair moving in slow ribbons, silk dress trailing like a ghost. Two attendants hovered behind her. Sentries flanked her at a respectful distance.

  Not a farewell party.

  A possession check.

  Zwei’s spine went stiff. His mouth opened, then closed again like he wasn’t sure what words were safe.

  Malyssia turned as if she’d felt him arrive before he did.

  Her lavender eyes rested on him.

  Softened.

  Then sharpened again, like she was angry at her own softness.

  “You will return,” she said.

  Zwei swallowed. “Yes, Matron.”

  “Not because of paper,” she added, walking closer. “Because you promised once.”

  Zwei’s lips twitched. “Apparently.”

  Malyssia’s gaze flicked to Null and Eins briefly—acknowledging they existed—then came back to Zwei with full intensity.

  “You will see the East,” she said, voice too calm. “You will do what you think you must. And then you will come back to my canopy before the cycle ends.”

  Zwei nodded once. “I will.”

  Malyssia stared at him for a heartbeat longer than necessary.

  Then she stepped forward and kissed him.

  Not a delicate court kiss.

  A sudden, possessive press to the side of his face that made Zwei freeze like he’d been hit with a stun effect.

  Blitz wasn’t there to laugh.

  So the silence hit harder.

  Null’s eyebrows rose a fraction before he suppressed it.

  Eins’s shoulders shook once—silent, barely contained amusement.

  Zwei stood rigid, eyes wide, cheeks faintly darkening under his pale skin, as if his entire brain had crashed.

  Malyssia leaned back, satisfied.

  “Good,” she said softly, and it sounded like a reward and a warning at the same time. “Go.”

  Zwei made a strangled noise that tried to become a sentence and failed.

  Malyssia’s gaze slid to Null.

  “Gateholder,” she said, and the title still felt like a hook. “Deliver him back.”

  Null didn’t bow. “I will.”

  Malyssia’s mouth curved. Not warmth. Ownership.

  Then she turned away as if the matter were solved.

  Attendants stepped forward. Sentries guided them toward the carriage.

  Null climbed in.

  Eins followed.

  Zwei hesitated, then muttered under his breath, “Love-brain. Absolute love-brain,” and climbed in too.

  The griffin crouched.

  Muscles coiled.

  Runes along the harness flared faintly.

  Then—

  launch.

  The platform dropped away. Wind slammed into them. Nyxthra shrank beneath like a vertical bruise receding into canopy.

  The Shadow Fang range rose ahead—dark ridges like broken teeth, mist clinging to valleys, the air colder as altitude climbed. The griffins didn’t fly like birds.

  They cut.

  Each wingbeat warped the air behind them, making distance feel negotiable.

  Zwei gripped the rail and shouted over the wind, “I hate this part!”

  Eins snorted. “You love everything until it bites you.”

  Zwei shouted back, “That’s not true!”

  Eins’s grin widened. “Aye. That’s why you’re alive.”

  Hours compressed.

  Mountains slid past like pages.

  And then the border platform appeared—an outcropping of silk-steel anchored into stone, guard towers carved into cliff faces, silver ward-lines etched thick as scars.

  The griffins descended.

  As their carriage hit the landing, the border sentries stepped forward in symmetrical lines—obsidian plate, lavender eyes, discipline like a second skin.

  One of them raised a hand.

  “Guest Sigils verified,” the sentry said flatly. His gaze moved to Zwei’s cord and contract. “Return token verified.”

  Zwei muttered, “Of course it is.”

  The sentry didn’t react. “Proceed to Gloamvein.”

  He pointed.

  Ahead, the tunnel mouth yawned between two cliffs—black stone and twisted roots, violet runes carved deep into the arch like old wounds. The air coming out of it smelled like damp earth and something older.

  Not rot.

  Not jasmine.

  Cold.

  Null stared into the mouth.

  Another threshold.

  Another system.

  Another place where walls didn’t stop you—walls decided what came out the other side.

  Zwei drew a breath beside him. “Alright,” he said, trying to sound brave and failing into humor. “New plan. We walk fast. We don’t touch anything that hums. We don’t sign anything else. We—”

  Eins cut him off. “Move.”

  Null stepped forward.

  The border sentries fell in behind them.

  And the tunnel swallowed their footsteps as the borrowed wings faded into distance—leaving only stone, shadow, and the road that didn’t care what they’d lost to get here.

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