Auther woke still tied to the chair.
Not tightly.Not cruelly.Just enough to remind him that someone had decided he wasn't safe to trust yet.
Morning light crept in through the tall windows, pale and unsure, touching the edges of the room without committing to it. Dust hung in the air. The study smelled faintly of herbs and old ink. His wrists ached where fabric bit into skin, but the ache was dull now, familiar in the way a bruise becomes familiar when you stop flinching from it.
Viola stood by the far window, her back to him.
She hadn't slept.
He could tell by the way she stood—weight evenly distributed, shoulders locked, like she'd been braced for hours against something that hadn't arrived yet. Her sword rested against the wall, close enough to reach without looking.
"Viola," he said.
His voice sounded smaller than he meant it to.
She didn't turn.
"You're calm," she said instead.
"I ran out of breath screaming."
That earned him a reaction. Not a look—just the faint tightening of her shoulders.
"I'm not mad anymore," he added, softer. "If that helps."
She exhaled through her nose, slow and controlled, the way she did before sparring.
"You accused her of being a god's handler," she said. "You demanded answers from the air. You tried to shake her."
"I know."
"You scared her."
"I know that too."
Silence stretched. Not hostile. Heavy.
Auther leaned back as far as the chair allowed and stared at the ceiling beams. Old wood. Cracks filled with resin. Human craftsmanship. Imperfect. Real.
"I'm not broken," he said finally. "I just… saw a pattern and panicked."
Viola turned then.
Her expression wasn't anger. That was the worst part.
It was doubt.
"You don't get to decide that," she said. "Not when people get hurt."
"I didn't—"
"You could have."
The words landed harder than a shout.
She crossed the room, stopped in front of him, and crouched so they were eye level. For a moment she just studied his face, like she was memorizing something she was afraid would change shape if she blinked.
"You're dangerous right now," she said quietly.
The honesty of it stunned him.
Something inside him recoiled—not because she was wrong, but because part of him had already wondered the same thing.
"I didn't ask to be," he said.
"I know."
That was worse.
She straightened abruptly, like she'd stayed too long, then turned away before he could say anything else.
"I'll be outside," she said. "Think."
The door closed behind her with a soft, final sound.
Auther stared at it long after she was gone.
Lana hadn't slept either.
She sat in the small storage alcove she'd claimed as hers, knees pulled to her chest, notebook open but untouched in her lap. The room was barely wider than her outstretched arms. No windows. Just stone and quiet and the faint hum of magic moving somewhere deeper in the palace.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it again.
Two soul cores.
Not fractured.Not layered.Coexisting.
She pressed her fingers to her temple, as if she could rub the thought away.
It's not fair, a small, ugly voice whispered.
She hated that voice.
She'd spent her whole life suffocating it—burying it under precision, under obedience, under being useful enough that no one could justify throwing her away. But it crawled back now, insistent, because for the first time she'd seen proof that the world really did favor some people more than others.
What if that was it?
What if the reason he awakened such a class, such a grade, wasn't destiny or effort or luck—but capacity?
A body that could hold more.
A soul that wasn't alone.
The thought twisted in her chest—not greed exactly, but something adjacent to it. Hunger mixed with shame.
If I understand it, she thought, maybe I won't be lesser anymore.
The realization made her stomach turn.
She shut the notebook with a soft snap.
When she stood, her legs trembled—not from fear, but from the decision she'd already made.
Auther heard the door before he saw her.
He looked up, surprised, as Lana stepped inside his study, hands clasped tightly in front of her like she was afraid they might wander without permission.
"Oh," he said. "You're… back."
She nodded, eyes flicking briefly to the bindings, then away.
"I wanted to check something," she said. Too quickly. "If that's alright."
"Measurements?"
"Yes."
He tilted his head, studying her. The same shy posture. The same careful distance. But something in her was misaligned, like a piece shifted just enough to throw the whole picture off.
"You don't need to lie," he said gently.
She froze.
"I'm not—"
"You are," he said. "But badly. On purpose."
Her fingers clenched.
He smiled, not teasing this time. Tired. Understanding.
"Let me guess," he said. "You told yourself this was about me. About safety. About preventing another episode."
She swallowed.
"And it's not?"
"It is," he said. "Just not only that."
She looked down.
The words came out halting, fragile.
"I keep thinking about it," she admitted. "Your soul. The way it… fits. I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't. You're not a reagent."
She laughed softly, humorless.
"But if I don't understand it, then maybe I really am just… replaceable."
Auther was quiet for a long moment.
Then he said, "It would be selfish of me to ask you not to be."
She looked up sharply.
"I mean it," he continued. "You're allowed to want things. Even from me. Especially from me."
Her eyes stung. She scrubbed at them with the heel of her hand, embarrassed.
"I don't want to use you," she said. "I just don't want to stay small forever."
"I know," he said.
They sat with that. Imperfect. Unresolved. Honest.
Viola watched them from the doorway.
Not spying.Just… witnessing.
Something in her chest twisted—not jealousy, not anger—but recognition.
She remembered the chair.
How fast she'd moved.How easily she'd justified it.
For his own good.
The words tasted bitter now.
She stepped inside.
"Lana," she said. "I owe you an apology."
Lana startled. Auther didn't speak.
"I accused you because it was easier than admitting I was scared," Viola continued. "Not of you. Of him."
Her gaze flicked to Auther, then away again.
"I tied him down because I wanted him to stay where I could understand him."
The admission felt like tearing fabric.
She exhaled shakily.
"If he keeps growing," she said, quieter now, "what am I supposed to be?"
Auther didn't answer right away.
Instead, he asked, "What are you now?"
She frowned.
"You're not allowed to dodge."
"I'm not," he said. "I'm asking."
She hesitated. The question unsettled her more than any future ever had.
"A guard," she said finally.
"And?"
She opened her mouth. Closed it.
The silence stretched—not empty, but full of possibility she hadn't named yet.
Auther smiled, not gently, not cruelly—present.
"Then maybe," he said, "we figure out the rest together. Without tying anyone down."
Viola laughed softly. It surprised all three of them.
"Next time," she said, reaching for his bindings, "just panic less."
"No promises," he said.
She untied him anyway.
Night settled slowly, not like a curtain falling but like a hand easing down over the palace, softening its edges.
Auther sat alone on the bed, the chair pushed aside, his wrists free but still faintly marked where cloth had pressed into skin. The room was quiet in a way that felt earned rather than imposed. No guards outside the door. No voices in the corridor. Just the distant, human sounds of a place that never truly slept.
He replayed the day in pieces.
Not the panic. Not the screaming.Those felt thin now, like echoes that didn't belong to him anymore.
Instead, he remembered Viola's hesitation before she untied him. The way her hand had hovered for a fraction of a second, not because she doubted him, but because she doubted herself.
He remembered Lana's confession—how her voice had shaken not with fear of him, but with fear of remaining small. How she hadn't asked permission to want more, only admitted that she did.
Those weren't the movements of pieces.
Chess pieces didn't hesitate.They didn't feel guilt.They didn't apologize, or want, or doubt themselves at the cost of sleep.
He lay back and stared at the ceiling again, but this time the beams didn't look like a board. They looked like wood. Old. Uneven. Real.
If this is a game, he thought, then it's a messy one.
Because games didn't allow for this kind of resistance.
Even if someone had arranged the board—even if fate, gods, demons, or something worse had nudged the pieces into place—it didn't change what happened after the move. Viola chose to stay when she could have walked away. Lana chose honesty when it might have cost her safety. And he had chosen, for the first time, not to run from the fear by trying to dominate it.
They weren't tools handed to him.
They were agreements.
He gave trust.They gave restraint.He gave space.They gave truth.
A partnership wasn't freedom from the game, he realized.
It was refusing to play alone.
Auther closed his eyes, the tension in his chest finally loosening, and let the thought settle—not as certainty, but as something steadier.
Even if I'm standing on someone else's board, he thought, I don't have to follow their rules.
And for the first time since the paranoia had taken hold, the world didn't feel like it was watching him.
It felt like it was waiting