Kion’s POV

  Room 203, Binding Post Inn, Brandholt City

  Returning to the surface after slipping down from the Hall of Accordance’s reach into the Shadows was... something he wouldn’t wish on an enemy.

  The corridors folded in on themselves. Same doors, same walls, stairwells that seemed to shift every time he blinked.

  Every turn was wrong.

  Every exit wasn’t an exit.

  And every vent—

  He refused to think about the vent.

  All the while, the tether hummed at the back of his skull, urging him to stay, pulling him backward, trying to make him return.

  An impossible request.

  It felt worse knowing he’d been cut off just before Writ carried out her task.

  Executing the three she’d interrogated.

  The first two? She’d manage.

  But the third, Junior? How could she do it?

  She’d even asked him to help rehearse her report beforehand, voice brittle, pacing under the weight of guilt he didn’t know how to soothe.

  She wanted to protect him. Wanted her story to hold so she could keep him safe.

  And they still told her to kill the boy with her own hands.

  The thought made his throat close. Tears blurred his vision until the corridors doubled, trebled.

  At one point he staggered sideways, nearly slamming into a wall as a sudden stabbing pain cut through the tether.

  Sharp enough to slice even through the muffling mask of Silent Writ.

  He couldn’t remember how he reached the exit. He barely remembered crossing Accord building at all.

  He only knew he somehow made it back to the inn.

  Somehow survived getting out twice.

  Somehow escaped even though they had noticed him.

  Caustic, to be exact.

  No one else ever had.

  Only Caustic.

  Kion had no idea how Caustic sensed him.

  His barrier was flawless. Three layers of illusion, environment-mirrored.

  No shimmer. No displaced air. No signature.

  Not even a breath out of place.

  Unless Caustic possessed some form of sight that cut through invisibility entirely.

  Clairvoyant perception?

  Predatory intuition?

  Kion didn’t even know abilities like that were supposed to exist.

  He’d made a rule for himself.

  Avoid Caustic. Always.

  For Writ’s sake as much as his own.

  And that resolve was immediately tested.

  His tears hadn’t even dried yet. His eyes still puffy, burning.

  The door handle clicked.

  Writ entered.

  And Caustic stepped in behind her.

  Kion’s pulse dropped out. He launched himself toward the vent, cloaking fully, body flattening against open air as he slipped through the slit outside the room.

  Hovering, nearly breathless. Only his eyes angled back inside, tracking them.

  Caustic looked around. Sweeping. Searching every corner, including the upper walls.

  Kion jerked his head down just in time to avoid the line of sight.

  He listened.

  “Do you need help packing?” Caustic asked, voice low, intent.

  “No,” Writ answered, curt.

  “Will you be okay being left alone here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. Stop acting like you care.”

  The tether pulsed, faint but sharp. Annoyance, stress, the frayed edges of exhaustion bleeding through her.

  Kion risked a glance inside.

  Writ glared at Caustic while folding clothes into a neat stack on the bed, satchel open beside it.

  “I do, actually,” Caustic said.

  He leaned against the door frame, crossing his arms.

  “That’s why I’m here. No one ordered me to escort you.”

  Writ froze for half a breath. A shirt suspended between her hands.

  “I don’t need your pity.”

  A soft thrum of something unpleasant ran through her tether.

  Fear, quick and thin as wire.

  Fear? Of Caustic? Why?

  What had he done?

  Caustic only shrugged. “Alright.”

  But he didn’t leave.

  He walked to her desk instead. Brows lowered. As if scanning for something.

  His eyes sifted through the items. Books, stack of notes, loose paper, until he reached the pen holder.

  He lifted a metal pen.

  Kion’s stomach dropped.

  “Can I have this?” Caustic asked.

  Writ flicked her gaze over. Then back to her bag. “Sure. Why?”

  Kion never saw the movement.

  Just a flash.

  A sting of displaced air.

  And the violent hiss of something tearing past his hair.

  The pen shot through the vent, skimming right over him before vanishing into open air.

  Kion snapped backward, panic flooding his ribs.

  He scrambled from the slit, pressing himself flat against the wall beside the window, illusions tight, breath scattered.

  He didn’t dare peek. Only listened.

  Caustic was bad news.

  Very, very bad news.

  “What are you doing?” Writ demanded. Sharper now, her tone cut tighter, fear sharpening the edge.

  “Just testing my hunch,” Caustic replied.

  “What hunch?”

  Silence.

  Kion pressed both hands to the wall, forcing himself not to look, not to breathe too loudly, not to—

  Finally Caustic said, “Well. Since you don’t need any help, I’ll leave, then.”

  The door creaked open.

  “You know,” he added, stepping into the hallway. “You can always reach out to us if anything happens. Just knock. Anyone inside would contact me if you visit.”

  “Noted,” Writ answered. Too fast. Too reflexive. Too defensive.

  “Be careful,” Caustic murmured. “Bye bye.”

  The door shut.

  Only then did Kion dare creep past the vent again.

  His illusions unraveling instinctively now that the danger was gone.

  Threads fraying, shimmer breaking, his shape returning unevenly as exhaustion finally hit him like a wave.

  Writ’s eyes found him instantly.

  She lifted a finger to her lips.

  He slapped both hands over his mouth. Floated in place.

  Silent.

  The room felt too loud.

  Every rustle of fabric from Writ’s bag sounded like a shout.

  They waited.

  A minute. Two. More.

  Finally, faint footsteps passed the door.

  Kion barely heard them at all. Just the suggestion of weight shifting on wood.

  Writ whispered, “Window. Check if he left.”

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  Kion nodded and slipped into the curtain, hushspell tight.

  He peered down through the glass.

  Caustic emerged from the inn and headed toward the Hall of Accordance.

  Kion kept watching.

  Too long.

  Caustic slowed.

  Then stopped.

  Kion held his breath as Caustic turned.

  Not searching, not scanning, but looking straight at the window.

  Then he crouched.

  Picked up a pebble.

  Turned it once in his fingers.

  Tossed it lightly in his palm.

  A silent warning.

  A promise.

  Kion recoiled so fast the curtain swayed sharply.

  Writ hissed, “Why?”

  “He— he’s about to throw a pebble at me—”

  “You just confirmed your location.”

  Her tone sliced.

  Sharper than before.

  She rushed to the curtain to make the sway look like hers.

  “Sorry,” he whispered.

  The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind.

  She peered outside. Kion hovered behind her shoulder.

  Caustic spotted Writ instead of him. His fist closed around the pebble.

  He lifted his empty hand and waved once before turning away.

  They didn’t move.

  Not until his steps bled into the clatter of the noon crowd.

  Not until the milling bodies swept around him and carried his silhouette out of sight.

  Only then did Kion release a long, dying exhale and drop to the floor.

  “Haaaah... he’s going to be the end of me.”

  Writ returned to packing, sliding gear into the larger bag.

  “He could sense you cloaked?”

  “Seems so. His guesses get weirdly accurate. Too many times.”

  “Don’t ever get close to him.”

  “I won’t. I’d rather not be a dried fairy pinned to a wall. Thanks.”

  That startled a short, tired laugh out of her.

  He echoed it, softer.

  He shifted into his taller glamor, lifting items from the wardrobe and setting them on the bed for her.

  “You’re moving?”

  “Yeah. Tiran will come in thirty minutes. Maybe less.”

  “Where to?”

  “I don’t know. They didn’t tell.”

  “I see.”

  Writ disappeared into the bathroom and returned with her toiletries, dropping them into the bed.

  Kion passed her the items in quick succession, and she packed them fast. No hesitation, no wasted motion.

  A rhythm born from necessity, not thought.

  “How’s today?” he finally asked.

  “Hell,” Writ murmured. “Packing first. Then we talk.”

  “Roger that.”

  They moved together. Quiet, tired, automatic.

  Kion fetching things from shelves and drawers.

  Writ tucking them neatly into the bag.

  Both shaken.

  Both pretending they weren’t.

  Both waiting for whatever came next.

  It didn’t take long for her to pack everything.

  She didn’t have much to begin with. And she moved efficiently, too efficiently.

  Folding shirts with mechanical precision, sliding items into place as if she’d already memorized where they belonged in the next room, the next facility, the next temporary life.

  Like this was just another of countless relocations she’d had to do.

  It probably was. She’d switched places far too many times in the previous month before finally settling in Brandholt.

  Kion never really checked, but he felt every time the tether jerked in a new direction.

  South, then farther west, then abruptly somewhere close.

  A restless pattern of movement he never questioned because she never offered the reason.

  Now, though, the signs were there in her movement.

  The faint tremor in her fingers each time she fastened a clasp, the uneven fold on a shirt she normally would have aligned by instinct, the small hitch in her breath when she lifted the final bag.

  Exhaustion lived under her skin like a second pulse.

  She fastened the last clasp—

  And then threw herself at him.

  No warning. No hesitation.

  Just the thud of her weight against his chest and the press of her face into his shirt. Her arms locked around him with a force that knocked him a half-step back.

  He caught her instantly, smiling without meaning to, feeling her cold front melt entirely.

  The tether opened like a floodgate, her emotions unbuffered, unfiltered.

  It felt like rain after a long drought. Her warmth seeped into him, her arms looping around his waist with desperate familiarity.

  He let himself relax into it. Just a fraction.

  Because he dread what would come next.

  She lifted her head, her gaze locking on his. “Why did you cry?”

  His stomach dropped.

  Shit.

  He shifted into glamour out of pure panic. Bare projection, no adjustment, no smoothing over.

  Of course she saw the puffy eyes. He hadn’t given himself even a second to fix it.

  “I’m just...” She held his stare, unblinking. Waiting. “Afraid what they’d do to you today.”

  His throat tightened. He curled his arm more firmly around her back.

  “Tell me what happened?”

  She lowered her head again, resting her forehead on his chest.

  He stroked her hair gently, coaxing his breath to steady.

  Then hesitantly, barely audible, she whispered, “I killed them.”

  The tether bled that confession straight into him, sharp and immediate. Pain stabbed into his ribs like her grief had claws.

  He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, forcing the tears to retreat before they could surface.

  “That... must be hard,” he murmured against her crown.

  He wasn’t sure he could look her in the eye right now. He had no idea how to comfort someone who had been forced to make that call.

  Her pain sat inside him like swallowed glass, but he’d never stood where she had stood.

  He couldn’t pretend anything he said would lighten that weight.

  She nodded. Her fingers curled into the fabric on his back.

  Her voice cracked. “I failed to keep him safe.”

  “It’s not your fault. I know he knew it too.”

  He gritted his teeth, hoping it wouldn’t sound like the empty reassurance it resembled.

  “Junior would—”

  “Don’t.”

  Both her hands slammed against his chest, shoving him back a pace. Her glare snapped up at him, sharp and immediate.

  “Don’t say that name.”

  He bit his lip hard.

  They hadn’t even spoken ten minutes, and he’d already stepped on a landmine.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded, jaw tight.

  The push lingered.

  Her palms still tingling where they’d touched him, drawing her gaze downward, slowly, reluctantly... to her own hands.

  To the dark mark circling her wrist.

  His stomach clenched. He braced.

  He knew exactly what she’d ask. And he wished he could evaporate before she did.

  She flipped her hands palm-up, studying the mark.

  Then the question came, quiet but unwavering.

  “What happened last night, Kion?”

  She didn’t look at him.

  Her eyes stayed on her wrists as though the truth lived there, not on his face. As though she was afraid of whatever she’d see if she met his gaze.

  Just like he was.

  Kion couldn’t answer.

  His lips trembled. His arms hung rigid at his sides.

  “I only remember Caedern choked me,” she said. “Did he do something else? You saw it. You must’ve known.”

  His mouth opened. “I—”

  Then closed again.

  The tether pulsed with her bracing. Her fear, her dread, her need for an answer clawing through the connection.

  He managed to speak, voice thin.

  “He pinned you on the bed and choked you. That shouldn’t have been allowed.”

  Her head lifted sharply.

  He saw the exact moment she registered his deflection. Her fear sharpened into terror.

  Of course she’d notice. Of course she’d dread the worst.

  She repeated, firmer, “Did he do anything else?”

  He stared at the floor. “He... didn’t.”

  “Then what caused this, Kion?”

  She circled one wrist with her other hand, squeezed hard, yet never flinched.

  “It’s all over me. Bruises I didn’t know. Welts I didn’t feel. I don’t remember what caused any of them.”

  He clenched his teeth. His hands shook, and he tried to hide the tremor by pressing his palms into his thigh.

  She stepped into his space, forcing herself under his lowered gaze until he had no choice but to meet her eyes.

  “Answer me.”

  The tether surged. Loud, demanding. Slamming against his ribs.

  He couldn’t lie. Not about this. Not when she was asking like that.

  Her silence hit harder than any shout.

  The tether tightened, then shifted, then thinned, as if she were pulling away, shutting him out.

  And suddenly he was back in the ruins, swallowed by that same helpless dread that struck every time she turned from him.

  He dropped. His legs folded under him without warning.

  He ended up kneeling in front of her.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  It was the only thing that made it out.

  She froze.

  Fully, completely.

  As if even breathing would shatter something fragile around her.

  A single beat echoed between them.

  The faint, irregular thud of her pulse brushing the tether, then stuttering.

  “You... did this.”

  Kion’s mouth opened, closed.

  His lips pressed tight.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Before he forced them apart.

  “Yes.”

  His voice was barely air.

  He lifted his hands halfway toward her, stopped mid-reach, let them hover uselessly above his knees.

  “I... should’ve talked to you. I shouldn’t have done this.”

  She took a step back.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I thought... they’d go easy on you... if they knew...” His throat closed around the words. “...That he abused you.”

  The rest came as a rasp. “I thought I was helping.”

  Click.

  Her voice trembled. Not with fear, but with the fragile thread holding her together.

  “How?”

  “Magic,” he whispered. “They’re not real wounds. That’s why you feel no pain.”

  Click. Click.

  He forced himself to look at her.

  He expected confusion. Shock. Something human.

  Instead, her face was blank.

  No.

  "Oh," she said, cold as winter stone, “I see.”

  No. No, no.

  The tether shifted. Compressed. Muffled.

  He didn’t understand how she did it, only that something in her snapped shut.

  Instinctive. Automatic. A wall slamming up between them before he could reach her.

  She barricaded herself.

  He reached for her, voice cracking.

  “Lunlun, I—”

  A knock struck the door.

  Tiran’s voice cut through the air.

  “It’s me.”

  “Coming.”

  Writ moved immediately. She didn’t spare Kion a single glance.

  She opened the door and tore into the doorwatch glyph, fully dismantling it with practiced, ruthless efficiency.

  Kion didn’t need to be told to drop the glamour.

  His human shape dissolved, cloaking folding over him like a second shadow, hiding him from Tiran’s sight, but not from hers.

  Tiran stepped in.

  His gaze flicked to the packed bags. “Ready?”

  Writ nodded.

  Tiran picked up her bigger bag. She grabbed the smaller one.

  They walked out.

  Kion followed, hovering behind them.

  But just as she passed the doorway, she turned.

  Her gaze sliced through him, through every spell he wrapped around himself.

  Her voice was flat, stripped of warmth, stripped of him.

  “Don’t follow me.”

  He stalled mid-air. The tether constricted like a fist around his ribs.

  Tiran’s stride faltered.

  “Who are you talking to?”

  Confusion edged his voice, but his face stayed perfectly unreadable.

  Writ didn’t look away from Kion. Her eyes were empty.

  “Ghost in the room.”

  A ghost.

  Not a name.

  Not a person.

  Not a mistake to address. Just something to ignore.

  Tiran paused, then.

  “Good. Leave it here. You don’t need that.”

  “Yes.”

  The door slammed shut.

  Second time today.

  The lock turned.

  Slow, deliberate, cruel in its finality.

  Click.

  A tiny sound.

  Far too loud.

  Louder than the tether unraveling inside him.

  Louder than the silence she’d buried him under.

  Louder than every moment he’d tried to stay by her side, only to be erased in a single breath.

  It ate through him.

  It hollowed him.

  It left him suspended in the empty room she abandoned. Alone, unseen, and stripped of the one truth he had left.

  He knew she couldn’t say his name. Not with Tiran there.

  He knew that.

  But she’d still chosen to speak to him only to tell him to keep his distance.

  Nothing else. Nothing for him. Nothing that recognized he was anything but a problem in her way.

  And he could do nothing.

  Not follow.

  Not reach her.

  Not matter.

  Only hover in the silence she left behind.

  A ghost, just as she called him.

  Already forgotten.

  Here's the end of Volume 4. I hope you enjoy the dive just as much as I do. As much as I complained writing this whole hell, it's been fun. I enjoyed the research (you don't want to see my search history, trust me), the headache, and the multiple failed attempts to steal time to write, as real life bulldozed everything. I'm glad I survived this intact.

  If you've read this far, I'd be interested to hear what parts stayed with you.

  I’ll be taking a one-week break to decompress before stepping back into the land.

  See you in Volume 5 of Wings Between Silence.

  Then Kion.

  Then Caedern.

  Then Fenwick, Veska, Pia... even Drenna.

  (Caedern already did. Please stop. Writ alone is more than enough.)