For as long as Lyra could remember, Mira had been her constant.
Her warmth in winter.
Her lullaby in storm.
The arms that held her when no one else dared.
But nothing lasts unchanged. Not even the strongest hands.
It began with a cough.
A quiet thing, buried beneath her smile.
Then it grew sharper. Thicker. Until Mira could no longer stand.
The household physician came and went with grave murmurs and tightly packed herbs. "An old sickness," he said. "Her years were not kind to her bones. Let her rest."
Rest. That awful word.
And so Lyra—still only a child—was left adrift.
The annex grew colder. The food smaller. The shadows longer.
With no Mira to guide her, Lyra began wandering.
At first, the household was uneasy.
But Auren had given no command to restrict her.
And Lady Siora, who had once been silent, now greeted her with a touch of the hair, or a soft, "Don't get your dress dirty."
Even so, Lyra felt the absence of Mira like a hollow in her chest.
She searched for the voice of comfort elsewhere.
And sometimes… she heard something answer.
It started faint.
A whisper in a silent corridor.
A warm pulse in her palms when she walked beneath the ancient trees of the family grove.
Once, while touching a tapestry older than memory, she paused.
The thread prickled her skin.
And for a moment—just a blink—she saw something behind her eyes.
Flashes of a golden hall, firelight flickering, the sound of steel and wind and music she did not know.
When she blinked again, it was gone.
She told no one.
Not even Siora.
One rainy morning, Lyra found herself deep in the west wing.
A corridor unused, dust trailing like lace.
The door at the end was open a crack.
And inside… something called to her.
She stepped into the forgotten chamber.
Dust hung like old memories in the air. The stones beneath her feet felt colder than usual, as though they hadn't been touched in generations. At the center of the room, on a cracked pedestal, rested the relic.
A medallion—dull, half-swallowed by cobwebs.
But it called to her.
She reached out.
The moment her skin brushed the metal, the world shifted.
A golden light burst from its center, pulsing in time with her heartbeat.
The air grew warm, thick with the scent of old metal and moss, like the deep roots of the grove. The silence rang with a low, musical hum only she seemed to hear—like a song buried beneath the skin of the world.
She wasn't afraid.
She was home.
She clutched the glowing medallion and tore through the corridors, heart wild in her chest.
"Father! Father!" she cried joyfully, bursting into the room. "See—it shines!"
Auren turned.
His gaze locked on the relic in her hand. And for a moment—time stopped.
The medallion's light flared brighter.
Lady Siora rose slowly from her chair, her breath caught halfway.
Auren lunged.
He ripped the relic from Lyra's grasp. The glow vanished instantly.
With a growl of panic, he flung it across the room.
It clattered against stone. The sound was like a shattering memory.
"Don't touch anything!" he roared.
Lyra froze, the joy draining from her eyes like color from a wilted flower. Her chin trembled. Then the tears came.
"I—I just wanted to show you…" she whimpered, her voice shaking.
Auren's anger collapsed in on itself.
He dropped to his knees, arms open.
She didn't resist. She fell into him, sobbing. Her small hands gripped his tunic like lifelines.
Lady Siora remained still. Her eyes unreadable, her mouth pressed thin. Without a word, she crossed the room, picked up the relic with reverent care, and quietly left.
That night, Lyra slept in Auren's chambers.
Curled beside him, cheeks streaked with tears, breath soft with exhaustion.
He lay awake.
One hand slowly stroked her hair.
She looked so much like Elira. But it wasn't just her face—it was something in her presence. Something stirring.
Auren whispered, voice cracking under its own weight:
"I couldn't save her. But I will save you."
He kissed her hair.
And in the dark, beneath layers of history and silence, something in the world shifted.
The air held its breath.
The trees stopped their swaying.
And the world—quietly, silently—had begun to watch.