Chapter 43
Elis
…
"Pfft… haha—"
The laugh escaped without her permission.
The girl brought a hand to her mouth, trying to contain herself, but the scene before her was too much.
Eilor was still on the floor, his hair slightly disheveled, his eyes still wide open, and a mix of confusion and fright painted on his face.
The contrast was irresistible.
"I'm… I'm sorry," she whispered between hushed tones, straining not to let out another peal of laughter. "I didn't mean to scare you."
Her voice was soft, tremulous from the laughter she was trying to suppress.
She leaned slightly towards him, still careful not to make any noise that would wake the others.
The objects began to slowly descend, returning to their places on the table one by one, with a faint, barely audible clinking.
Eilor, still sitting on the floor, took a deep breath, trying to pull himself together.
The shock was slowly turning into embarrassment, and her suppressed laughter wasn't helping.
He looked at her, unsure whether to be angry or simply accept the ridiculousness of the moment.
"You…?" he started to say, but his own voice came out hoarse, and that only made the girl press her lips together again, holding back laughter.
When she finally managed to calm down, the girl let out a long sigh, wiping the small tears that had gathered on her lashes with the back of her hand.
"Ah… alright, alright," she whispered to herself, trying to regain her composure as a tired smile trembled on her lips.
In front of her, the objects still floated, slowly rotating in the air, as if waiting for instructions.
The girl raised both hands and began moving her fingers with a calm precision. Each small gesture of hers made the things obey: the blanket folded itself and returned to its place, the pen spun gently until it rested on the paper, the inkwell straightened, and the sheets aligned with an almost choreographed smoothness.
Eilor watched in silence.
The dim light of the room made the edges of the objects gleam as they gradually descended, each one settling right where it should, without a single sound.
When the last piece of paper touched the table, the girl lowered her hands and exhaled again, satisfied.
"That's better," the girl murmured.
The girl took a step back, observing the now tidy table. Then she raised an eyebrow, thoughtful, and with a slight movement of her right hand, she drew a nearby chair towards her.
The chair slid across the floor without a single squeak, floating slightly before settling right behind her.
She sat down naturally, as if that kind of thing were the most ordinary in the world.
"Phew…" she murmured, letting out a bit of the air still left in her from the laughter. "Now then."
Then, with her other hand, she extended a finger to the side.
Another chair responded to the gesture, moving softly until it placed itself in front of her.
She pushed it lightly with a touch of the same invisible energy, inviting Eilor to sit down.
Eilor, still on the floor, followed her with his gaze.
The silence between them was thick, but not uncomfortable; rather, it was charged with a curious expectation.
The chair stopped right in front of him.
For a moment he hesitated, looking at the wood as if it were a challenge, then the girl arched an eyebrow, amused.
"Come on," she whispered softly, "before you get the idea to knock over another table."
Eilor took a deep breath. The mocking, yet kind, tone pulled him completely out of his previous spiral.
He stood up slowly, still somewhat clumsy, and pulled the chair a little closer to him, dragging it slightly to reduce the distance between them.
The movement was instinctive, almost as if he wanted to regain a firmer position after the earlier disaster.
But as soon as the chair legs scraped the floor, he remembered how he had ended up on the ground just seconds before.
He stopped, frowned, and, with a slight push of his foot, moved the chair a few centimeters away again.
The gesture was small, but it betrayed his discomfort.
He inhaled deeply, trying to relax.
He still felt the heat in his eyes, the unshed tears that had wanted to come out earlier; he masked them under a more neutral expression.
He forced a smile.
One of those that don't reach the eyes, silent, barely a slight stretch of the face.
A smile that pretended to say "it's all good" without uttering a single word.
The girl noticed, though she said nothing.
She just rested her elbows on the table and looked at him with curiosity, her head slightly tilted, as if she were trying to read between the gestures what he refused to say aloud.
The atmosphere calmed a little, but tension still floated, soft, latent, between the two of them.
Now they were both sitting face to face, with the table between them.
The silence surrounding them had settled, dense but not hostile.
The girl watched him for a few more seconds, playing absently with the end of a strand of her hair, until she broke the stillness with a low, almost amused voice.
"What were you so focused on that you didn't even notice me behind you?" she asked, tilting her head a little.
Eilor barely looked up. The question caught him halfway between the embarrassment of the stumble and the confusion that still lingered.
The girl kept speaking before he could respond.
"That's odd, coming from you," she added, leaving a brief silence before finishing— "Marked."
She pronounced the nickname with a light intonation, but each syllable fell like an icy drop upon the air.
Eilor blinked.
Her smile was small, almost innocent, but her eyes weren't.
She seemed to be measuring his reaction, attentive to every minute gesture on his face.
Eilor raised an eyebrow.
The natural way she had said "marked" struck him; the way she had pronounced it, with familiarity.
And it wasn't the first time.
He had already felt it in her tone when she first spoke to him, that slight closeness that didn't quite fit with the interaction of two people who barely knew each other.
Now, however, it was impossible to ignore.
The naturalness with which she named him… the pause after.
Something of that must have shown on his face, because the girl in front of him immediately changed her expression.
Her smile tightened. The right corner of her mouth twitched downward in a slight, almost involuntary grimace, as if she had just realized she had said something she shouldn't have.
She averted her gaze for a moment, clearing her throat softly, trying to regain her composure.
The air between them thickened again, more silent, more measured.
Eilor said nothing, but his eyebrow remained raised and his eyes fixed on her, waiting for an explanation that didn't come.
Eilor cleared his throat softly, trying to clear his throat and, in the process, the knot that had formed in it.
He wasn't entirely sure, but the doubt had been itching for a while.
His voice came out somewhat low, laden with hesitation:
"Eli…?"
As soon as he uttered the name, the girl reacted as if the air had been yanked from her.
Her eyes opened wide, bright, and the previous small grimace vanished instantly.
The silence became denser, heavier, barely sustained by the sound of their breathing.
Eilor watched her cautiously, his heart speeding up without knowing why.
She, on the other hand, went still.
The fingers that had been playing absently on the table tensed, gripping the edge of the wood as if she needed something physical to hold onto.
Her gaze met his, fixed, as if evaluating the exact moment he had arrived at that name.
For an instant, neither of them dared to say anything.
"Was it okay to say it?"
The question flashed through his mind.
Eilor didn't move, but inside, everything was churning. His breathing slowed, forcibly controlled, while his thoughts tumbled over one another.
"If it's her…
If she really is the girl from my memory from when I was a child…"
The memory came like a gust.
"It can't be… can it?"
He swallowed, trying to keep his face neutral.
He hoped — yearned for — some reaction, a word, a sign that would confirm or deny what his mind was already beginning to believe.
But she remained motionless.
Neither affirming nor denying. She just looked at him with those wide eyes, as if calculating every possible response before letting it out.
Eilor held her gaze for a few more seconds, his heart racing, not knowing whether to speak or wait.
"Hmm… did you really call me that?" she said finally, tilting her head slightly.
Her voice sounded light, almost mocking, but there was a dry edge to her tone, as if the words had passed through a filter of ice before leaving her lips.
"You must have hit yourself really hard earlier," she added, accompanying the phrase with a cold, distant smile, more a reflex than an emotion.
For a moment, that expression froze the air between them.
It wasn the easy laughter from a few minutes ago, nor the curiosity from before. It was an empty, controlled smile.
Eilor watched her in silence.
Something in that reaction confirmed more to him than any direct answer could have.
Then, her smile changed.
As if realizing how cutting she had sounded, she softened her expression, lowered her gaze slightly, and adopted a more neutral, seemingly more understanding expression.
"I'm sorry," she said, her voice lower, though the tone remained measured, cautious. "I didn't mean to sound… like that."
The change was so quick that Eilor didn't know whether to believe her or if he had just witnessed someone who, just like him, was trying to hide what they truly felt.
For a moment, without understanding why, Eilor looked at her in silence.
The way her expression softened, the dim light falling on her face, the contrast between the coldness of a second ago and this sudden calm… something about it all disarmed him.
"How… pretty," he thought without realizing.
The thought came to him as quickly as the reflex of a blink, without permission, without a filter.
And as soon as he had it, he realized what he had just thought.
A slight warmth rose to his face. He coughed, trying to hide it, lowering his gaze to the table as if suddenly the wood grain were the most interesting thing in the world.
She, oblivious — or perhaps not entirely — kept observing him with that neutral expression, her fingers toying with a strand of her hair.
Eilor blinked a couple of times, trying to regain his composure, but the thought remained there, floating in some corner of his mind, more persistent than he would have wanted to admit.
"—!!"
The thought hit him again a second later, and a startle almost escaped him.
"Phew… good thing I didn't say it out loud," he repeated mentally, trying to keep his face neutral.
He felt a drop of sweat trickle down his temple as he did his utmost not to make eye contact with her.
He disguised it by scratching his cheek, with a clumsy naturalness that only made him seem more uncomfortable.
"Breathe. Normal. Just… act normal," he told himself, forcing a slow exhalation.
She, meanwhile, raised an eyebrow, intrigued by his sudden silence.
She looked at him for a few more seconds, tilting her head slightly, as if trying to decipher what was going through his mind.
Eilor noticed and coughed again, pretending to clear his throat.
"Ahem…" he let out, his voice louder than necessary. "So… uh… How long have you been awake?"
She closed her eyes, ignoring the question. Then she opened them slowly.
"It's been years since you called me that…" Eli interrupted suddenly, her voice much lower, almost a whisper.
Eilor froze.
The air seemed to grow thick between them. The way she said it — without hesitation, without stumbling over the words — erased any possibility of confusion.
She lowered her gaze slightly, but her eyes didn't lose their firmness.
"So…" she continued, raising them towards him again, "how much have you remembered?"
The question fell heavily.
There was caution in her voice, but also a faint, contained anxiety, as if she both feared the answer and needed it at the same time.
Eilor watched her, his heart lurching.
For a moment he didn't know whether to answer, but it was too late. Her tone, the exact choice of words… confirmed everything.
Silence returned, dense, while images crowded his mind: the academy and several others, the girl from the memory.
"Eli… it was her."
Eilor opened his mouth to respond… but the words didn't come out.
Something in his mind tensed.
The image of the cold smile she had given him earlier flashed through his thoughts, and with it returned that uncomfortable sensation: a silent alert.
He lowered his gaze for an instant.
He could remember if he wanted to… he knew he could force the memories, open that space and let everything flow again. But something was stopping him, an almost instinctive resistance, as if his own body was trying to protect him from something he wasn't ready to face yet.
"Why don't I want to remember the rest?" he thought, frowning. "What is it that I'm missing… or don't I want to remember at all?"
He looked up again, meeting Eli's eyes.
She was still watching him, serene in appearance, but there was something tense in the way her fingers interlaced on the table.
Eilor took a deep breath, feeling the impulse to answer dissolve into a mix of doubt and caution.
"The day my eyes changed color," he said at last, his voice low, almost monotone.
"The introduction at Takran Academy… and the number one, Allion."
His tone was calculatedly ambiguous. He wasn't lying, but he wasn't opening any door he didn't want to open either.
Eli watched him in silence, without blinking. The mention of those events seemed to awaken something in her, a slight contraction in her brow, imperceptible but enough for Eilor to notice.
"I see…" she murmured, narrowing her eyes. "That's quite specific."
He shrugged slightly.
"They're the clearest memories," he replied, avoiding her gaze, pretending to look for something on the table.
For a few seconds, neither spoke.
Eli leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms, as if weighing the weight of his words.
"So you haven't reached further back yet," she said, more to herself than to him, in a tone that sounded like relief.
Eilor felt a small spark of distrust ignite within him.
"Further back…" he repeated mentally. "What lies further back that makes her so uncomfortable?"
But he didn't show it.
He just nodded with a slight smile, containing the tension running through his chest.
"Hmm… I see," murmured Eli, leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed.
Her eyes drifted to a point on the ceiling.
"What date was that…?" she wondered aloud, though her tone held more confirmation than doubt.
A second later, she snapped her fingers softly.
"Right… your birthday. The tenth of September," she said, looking at him out of the corner of her eye with a faint, nostalgic smile.