The city came into view late in the afternoon. The walls of Windstadt rose warm in the dusk, and from a distance, the windows had already begun to catch the first reflections of sunset. The air was clean, gentler than the cold dampness of Ulvenwood, and although Valir’s body could still feel the exhaustion of the past few days, the sight of his city brought him a quiet, almost imperceptible relief.

He did not slow his pace, nor did he truly relax. But it was enough.

He had returned home.

The gates opened as soon as the guards recognized them, and their small group passed into the city streets, the sound of their footsteps and armor breaking through the usual rhythm of the evening.

There were more people outside than there would have been in the morning. Vendors were packing up their stalls, children were still running through the narrow streets before their mothers called them back, and craftsmen were returning home with their clothes dusty from the day. As soon as they saw the knights enter, their eyes turned toward them almost at once.

Some greeted them. Others watched more carefully.

Valir noticed it without changing his expression.

The first glances fell, naturally, on the injured knight. On his bandaged hand, on the restrained posture of his body, on the way he still held his shoulder a little tighter than he should have. Then came the others.

Toward Lyra.

The recognition differed from face to face. An elderly woman outside the bakery looked at all of them, and when her eyes reached Lyra, they lingered on her a little longer, with an expression that seemed almost grateful. Two young men at the edge of the road exchanged a low comment, looking at her with open curiosity. A man farther away, who had seen her a few times at the Headquarters, nodded to her with visible relief.

Others, however, did not hide their distrust. It was not hostile. Not openly. But there was still that tight, measured look of people who had not yet decided whether the foreign doctor who had appeared out of nowhere was a blessing or a problem that had not revealed itself yet.

Lyra did not react to any of it. She walked beside them with a steady step, quieter than usual, but she did not look weak. She did not lower her shoulders or seem to shrink beneath the stares. She kept walking.

Valir turned his gaze toward her for a moment.

Her face was calm.

Almost too calm.

She had not spoken much throughout the journey home.

He lifted his hand slightly without stopping.

“To the Cathedral,” he told Morris and Amara, who were walking beside him. “Go straight there.”

“Yes, Grand Master.”

The group split at once.

The pair of instructors took the road toward the Cathedral, so the healers and sisters could examine them again before nightfall.

Karl and Roland stayed behind with Valir and Lyra, following the road toward the Headquarters.

Valir caught himself glancing at Lyra again, almost before he realized it.

Since she had appeared in Windstadt, his attention toward her had passed through more stages than he would easily admit. At first, he had been cautious. Then curiosity came, and after that respect. For her work in the infirmary, for the steadiness of her hands, for the way she stood before other people’s pain without bending beneath it.

And now something had begun to change.

He remembered her in the forest, the first to shout a warning about the danger. He remembered her facing the wolves; she was not fearless, because no sensible person would have been, but she was composed. Clear in her thinking. Useful when others could have lost theirs.

And above all, he remembered her by the river.

The color had drained completely from her face. Her hands had struck against him in panic, without even knowing who stood in front of her, only trying to get away from whatever she had seen.

And he had not simply stood there to restrain her.

He had pulled her against him.

Held her closer than necessary. Turned her face away from the riverbank, almost protectively, as if he could hide from her whatever had frightened her.

He would protect any of his people. There was no question about that.

But not like that.

The thought cut through him before he could push it away.

Valir turned his gaze forward. He did not know what to do with that admission. Perhaps it had been the moment. The exhaustion. The darkness. Her terror.

Or perhaps it was simply because it was Lyra.

And that was what unsettled him most.

Beside him, she continued walking with her eyes fixed ahead. He had noticed her casting sideways glances, only to turn her gaze forward again almost immediately. The silence between them was not uncomfortable, but it was not entirely indifferent either. It seemed to carry something of the forest still, something of the night by the river.

At the hunters’ shelter, he had tried to reach her. To make her open up about what she had seen.

That had not gone well.

“You don’t know me,” she had told him.

He knew she was right.

But it still bothered him.

The Headquarters appeared before them a little while later, bathed in the soft, low light of the hour. The stones still held a little of the day’s warmth, but the shadows had already begun to lengthen across the courtyard.

Valir drew in a slow breath.

He knew work would be waiting for him inside again. Reports. Papers. All the things he avoided as much as he could, only for them to always end up waiting for him.

Then Lyra spoke first.

“Sir.”

Valir turned slightly toward her.

“I’ll return to the Headquarters later. I’ll stop by the Guild first to see Alfry.”

“Now?”

The question came fast, without much thought. Lyra lifted her shoulders faintly.

“Yes. I told her I would stop by when we returned.”

He nodded once.

“Of course. I have to stop by my office too. The report cannot wait much longer.”

Lyra let out a small, almost soundless smile.

The first smile she had given since the incident.

“You won’t even let one day pass.”

Valir exhaled almost imperceptibly.

“No. By tomorrow, everyone will remember a much more heroic version.”

He said it calmly, without trying very hard to sound amusing. Even so, Lyra turned and looked at him, and for a moment, something in her face relaxed. A small breath of laughter escaped her lips.

Very small.

But real.

Valir glanced at her.

He saw it.

He held on to it for a moment longer than he should have.

Lyra turned and walked away, and for a heartbeat, he remained there, watching her walk away.

At least she no longer seemed upset.

“Grand Μaster?” Karl pulled him abruptly from his thoughts. He had blocked their way toward the stairs. As if, for a few seconds, he had forgotten they were with him.

“Yes. Go on,” he told them.

When they entered the Headquarters, he turned straight toward his office. He took a slow breath. Reports were waiting for him inside. Work. All the simple and familiar things that usually helped his mind find order again.

With a low exhale, he placed his hand on the handle and opened the door to his office.

And froze.

“No.”

The word left him before he could even think.

The woman sitting comfortably on the sofa in his office lifted her gaze from the book in her hands. One leg was crossed over the other, her posture so relaxed it was as though she were in her own private sitting room and not in the office of the Commander of the Knights of Ventus.

“What a warm welcome,” Seris said, not appearing the least bit offended. “And to think I traveled all the way here purely out of love for your company.”

Valir slowly closed the door behind him.

He was not happy to see her.

Seris, the head of Veiranthes Spire, looked as though she had settled into his space like a shadow that had decided it belonged there. Her dark coat fell around her in heavy, elegant lines, covered with small details and embroidery that resembled stars and symbols. The monocle over one eye caught the light faintly, and her smile held that irritatingly self-satisfied calm of a person who knew exactly how infuriating she could be.

Valir looked at her for a moment without speaking.

Then he slowly set his gloves down on the desk.

“If I wanted company, I would certainly not choose you.”

Seris smiled wider. “Aw, this is so moving.”

Valir let out a short breath through his nose, something between a scoff and a stifled laugh.

“Why are you here, mage?”

Seris closed the book she had taken from his shelves without even looking at the title, as if it were perfectly reasonable to browse through his things while waiting for him.

“Straight to the point. A shame. I had hoped for some tea first, perhaps an unsuccessful attempt at humor on your part.”

Valir ignored her and moved toward his desk. Maps, reports, and two half-open notebooks waited for him exactly as he had left them. The sofa behind Seris, where he had slept more times than he cared to count on nights when paperwork nearly buried him, suddenly seemed farther away than ever.

“Seris.”

The warning in her name was enough to make her raise her hands in almost innocent surrender.

“All right, all right. I will spare you the drama of waiting.” She rose slowly from the sofa. “I am here because something serious is happening.”

Valir went still.

The lightness had left her voice.

Not entirely. Seris never fully lost that sharp playfulness. But something heavier now stood beneath it.

“At the Spire, as you know, we watch the lines of fate. Usually, they are boringly predictable. They tangle, bend, join again, but they rarely shift all at once, as if someone had violently thrown a stone into still water.”

Her gaze fell on him.

“This time, there was an unusual disturbance.”

Valir crossed his arms over his chest.

“Speak clearly.”

Seris smiled faintly.

“What did you fail to understand?”

“Seris.”

“Something disrupted the flow. Three months ago. And it still has not settled.”

The phrase landed heavily between them.

Three months ago.

Something inside him tightened.

“And?”

“And then... I heard about a foreign woman who appeared out of nowhere in Windstadt. I also heard, a few days ago, about unusual activity in Ulvenwood. Something has begun to move. So, here I am.”

Valir did not answer immediately.

His gaze dropped for a moment to the maps on his desk, but he was not seeing them. He saw a dark river. Another night. Hazy fog. And Lyra turned against him in panic, striking him without noticing who stood before her, only trying to escape whatever she had seen.

“We do not know whether they are connected.”

He knew. But he did not want to accept it.

Seris slowly raised one eyebrow.

“Really now?” Her voice had an arrogant sweetness.

“How surprising. You are usually better at connecting things.”

Valir lifted his gaze back to her.

“I usually prefer evidence.”

“And I prefer good wine and intelligent men, but the world does not always give us what we want.”

He placed his palms on the edge of the desk and leaned slightly forward.

“What exactly do you know?”

Seris looked at him for a moment without speaking.

Then she stepped closer as well, but not too close. Only enough to lower her voice.

“I know something foreign touched this land.”

The word foreign remained in the air like a shadow.

“And I know the Void reacts to such things.” Her gaze stayed on him.

“The question is whether what we have here is simply a coincidence, or whether the foreign woman... well, you know.”

Valir remained silent.

The muscle in his jaw tightened slightly.

Seris noticed.

Valir frowned, straightened his shoulders, and ran a hand over the back of his neck, visibly irritated. He was tired, still dirty from the road, and the prospect of spending the next hour decoding the mage’s half-spoken riddles was not exactly his ideal kind of night.

“If you came here to speak in riddles, the door is behind you.”

Seris looked at him for a moment. Then, for the first time since he had entered, she truly lowered her sarcasm.

“I came because, if there is a conflict, Valir, then your city may be in danger. The Void will not take long to find it.”

The silence that followed was heavy. The kind that filled a room better than any scream.

Valir did not move.

Neither did Seris.

In the end, he was the first to speak.

“I want a clear answer.” His voice was calm now. He sounded far more dangerous that way. “Do you truly believe Lyra is connected to this?”

Seris tilted her head slightly to the side.

“I believe,” she said slowly, “that none of this would have moved if she had not appeared.”

Valir’s chest tightened almost imperceptibly.

Not from surprise.

From something else.

Seris noticed that too. Her eyes gleamed, not with mockery this time, but with the silent observation of someone collecting pieces.

“You are more worried than you show,” she said at last.

Valir looked at her without moving.

“She is my responsibility.”

“Of course she is.” Her smile returned, small and sharp. “I simply wonder if that is all.”

He did not answer.

Seris released a very quiet, almost pleased breath.

His momentary silence was the strongest answer he could have given her.

“Seris.”

“All right, all right.” She raised one hand in false surrender. “For now, I want access to the library, the reports from the latest patrols, and anything recorded about Ulvenwood over the past month.”

Valir looked at her silently for a moment.

Then he nodded once.

“You will have it.”

“Wonderful.” Her gaze drifted for a moment toward the sofa in his office. “And I suggest, if you can manage, it would be better to sleep in a real bed tonight instead of that miserable thing.”

Valir followed her gaze and scoffed.

“Get out of my office now.”

Seris smiled triumphantly.

“There he is. That is the man I know.”

She moved toward the door, but before leaving, she stopped with her hand on the handle. Without looking at him, she spoke more quietly.

“Watch over her.”

Valir remained still.

Only then did Seris turn her head slightly. Her smile had vanished.

“If she truly touched the lines of fate the way I think she did, then she is not the only one in danger.”

And before he could demand an explanation, she had already stepped out.

The door closed softly behind her.

Valir remained alone in his office.

For a few seconds, he did not move at all. His gaze stayed fixed on the closed door.

Then he let out a heavy breath and ran a hand over his face.

The paperwork on his desk was still waiting for him.

All the things that usually gave him the illusion that the world could fit into lines, numbers, probabilities, and plans. But tonight, for the first time in a long while, none of it seemed enough.

His gaze turned instinctively toward the wall that separated his office from Lyra’s infirmary.

And before he could stop the thought, it filled his mind clearly.

If something had frightened her that badly, and if Seris was right, then this was not over.