✧ Chapter Thirty-Three ✧
Orbiting Stars
fromHave You Someone to Protect?
©Amer
The bookshop was quieter than usual that afternoon. Sunlight spilled softly across the wooden floors, catching the lingering scent of lavender and old paper. Outside, the hum of Solara dulled to a lull, the kind that wrapped itself gently around the edges of a moment that wasn't meant to last.
Lhady sat in the sunroom, where the violets had bloomed again. They always did this time of year—delicate and persistent, much like the girl who tended them. In her hands floated the real sigil now, whole and alive, hovering just above her fingers. It pulsed not brightly, but deeply, like a second heartbeat she was only just beginning to understand.
She hadn't heard the front door open. Or the measured footsteps. But she felt him.
Caelum entered like he always did—quiet, without need for presence, yet grounding the room just by being in it. His gaze moved first to the sigil in her hands, then to her.
"You shouldn't hold it too long," he said, voice low, steady.
Lhady didn't look up. "It doesn't burn like before. It hums. Almost like it's thinking."
Caelum moved closer, the sunlight catching in the edge of his dark coat. "Still, I worry."
She let the silence hold for a breath, then looked up at him with a faint smile. "You should save the worrying for yourself. You were the one bitten by a cobra."
He exhaled a short laugh, not quite amused. "I've survived worse."
"You didn't tell me you collapsed afterward." Her tone wasn't accusatory, just...tired. "Elias did. Casually. Over tea."
Caelum shrugged, shifting to sit across from her. "I knew you'd be angry."
"I'm not angry." She traced a finger beneath the sigil's edge. "Just... I don't want anyone else to be hurt. Not again."
His eyes lingered on her hand, on the way the sigil seemed to orbit her skin like a planet drawn to its star. "You've grown stronger. That much is clear."
"I don't know what to do with that strength," she admitted, more to herself than to him. "I'm afraid it might slip again. That next time... it won't just be masked men or cobras or tunnels."
She looked at him then, fully. Her fingers tightened reflexively around the edge of the chair cushion, grounding herself in the reality of what she was about to say.
"Would it be wrong," she asked, "to ask Elias to help me? To teach me—how to contain it? Use it, maybe?"
There was a pause.
Caelum's jaw shifted. She could see the answer forming before he gave it words. The reluctance. The trust.
"No," he said. "It's not wrong."
Her eyes widened slightly.
"He understands the sigil better than either of us," Caelum went on, slowly, like the words tasted strange in his mouth. "If anyone can help you manage what's coming... it's him."
Unseen to either of them, Elias stood inside the hallway—part shadow, part stillness. His gaze fixed on their silhouettes bathed in violet light. He made no move to interrupt.
Instead, softly, almost like a thought spoken to the air, he murmured:
"Two stars in orbit, burning in opposite directions. Not meant to collide, yet always on course to do so."
His eyes lingered on Lhady. "It's not impossible. Just... tragic. Because the closer they come, the more the world will resist."
Then, as quietly as he'd arrived, he stepped back into the dim corridor. Let them have their moment. For now.
—
Morning arrived soft and gray—the kind of overcast hush that matched the slower pace of the bookshop's off-day. The streets were quieter, the bells less hurried. Lhady found Elias in the reading room, already skimming something ancient with pages that threatened to crumble if handled unkindly.
"Elias?" she asked.
He glanced up, brows raised. "Ah. Come to ask for magical enlightenment, or to accuse me of flirting again?"
"I'm serious," she said.
"So am I. It's very important you know how devastatingly handsome your tutor is before we begin."
Lhady sighed, but the corners of her mouth tugged upward. She walked a few steps in and paused beside the old velvet armchair, fingers brushing the worn fabric. Her voice, when it came again, was softer. "Will you help me?"
Elias tilted his head, setting the book aside. "Are you asking if I can, or if I will?"
"Both."
He pretended to think for a moment. "Well, that depends. Has your brooding knight given his blessing? It's going to require... lots of proximity. Hand over hand, breath over shoulder. Magical sparks. A bit of sweat. Potentially some fainting."
Lhady opened her mouth to retort—
—but the door creaked.
Caelum entered, hair damp, sleeves rolled, a pale sloshing in each hand from the morning well-run. He didn't speak. Just arched a brow.
Elias grinned, utterly unbothered. "Perfect timing. We were just discussing hands-on education."
Caelum looked between them. Then at Lhady.
She cleared her throat. "I was asking him to help me. With the sigil. Magic containment."
Caelum simply nodded. "Good."
Elias clutched his chest in mock agony. "He agrees? Where's the possessiveness? The dramatic pacing? The threats?"
"I'll help you build the training space," Caelum said, setting the buckets down. "But no fainting."
"On either side," Lhady added dryly.
"Tragic," Elias muttered.
But he agreed.
—
Elsewhere, a different morning stirred to life.
Not grandiose. Not secret. But strange, nonetheless.
A figure stepped off the slow-travel carriage just beyond the town's eastern ridge. He wore simple clothes, wind-worn and travel-dusted, but moved with the ease of someone who belonged. Who remembered every stone in the path.
Solara had changed a little. But he knew the smell of it. Knew the tilt of the roofs, the warmth in the air. The taste of waiting.
His first stop was a quiet house near the square. One that smelled of cotton, thread, and perfume oils aged in wooden drawers.
Lady Calvera opened the door.
She gasped, hand flying to her chest. "You—oh, heavens, you've returned."
Silas smiled, brushing wind-tangled hair from his brow. "Only for a little while," he said. "Thought I'd let the town breathe again."
Her eyes shimmered. "Does she know?"
He didn't answer. Just looked toward the heart of Solara.
Where the violets grew.
Where the weight of the past still breathed beside her.
Where every step forward might be mistaken for intrusion.
Where every word might be too late.
He touched the back of his neck, unsure if it was nerves or hope clawing at his throat.
"I came to see if there's still room in her world," he said at last. "Even if I'm only allowed to stand on the edges of it."
And in the quiet that followed, with the wind catching the edge of his coat and the ache in his chest louder than reason, he thought—
How do I let her know... and still be allowed to stay near her?