Among them sat Marina and Seraph, encircled by the glowing creatures. It had become their customary retreat—to sit by the Mirror Lake and observe the seals in their natural rhythm.
At times, the seals would leap from the glassy surface to frolic in the wake of pink dolphins; at others, they would haul themselves onto the banks to bask contentedly beside the pair. Even at this late hour, the garden behind the infirmary remained as luminous as a summer's day, bathed in their collective glow.
Marina was a girl of slight stature. Though she was Seraph's senior, her height and youthful features made it impossible to see her as such—especially once she had shed her pristine healer's cloak, which left her looking remarkably young and fragile.
At this moment, she sat with her knees drawn to her chest, shrouded in a heavy silence. Her gaze was fixed deep within the Mirror Lake, lost in its sapphire depths. She paid no heed to her friends, the Lumia Seals, even as they nudged her with their small fins, inviting her to play as they did every evening.
"What weighs so heavily upon your spirit?" Seraph inquired, his gaze clouded with quiet suspicion.
Since their return from the arena, through supper and until this very moment, the girl had maintained a resolute silence, regardless of his persistent attempts to draw her into conversation.
"Is it truly your fixed intent... to become a Warlock?" Marina asked, her voice trembling.
"I've been tethered to the demon wars from the beginning," Seraph countered, his lack of comprehension evident. "Is there some impropriety in that?"
"That's patently false!" Marina retorted, her voice rising in sharp defiance. "In all these years, you never once breathed a word of such an ambition! You always maintained that your heart was set on being a Rune Architect—forging golems and researching the failings of the demonic kind!"
"That was because my former frailty forbade me from such dreams," Seraph mused, his eyes drifting toward the abyssal dark of the firmament.
"If you know that path leads only to a nightmare, why must you force yourself toward it?" Marina asked softly.
"Perhaps it's no nightmare... if I can dismantle every last wretch of the Demon Legion, the common folk might reclaim their untroubled slumbers," Seraph envisioned, his words trailing off as he stared into the violet-black sky.
"Even if it requires you to descend into hell in their stead?" Marina turned to him, searching the young man's features for an answer.
For the longest time, Marina had regarded Seraph as nothing more than her small, younger brother. In their earlier years, his growth had been stunted; even at fourteen, he had remained shorter than she, with the distinctions of manhood scarcely discernable. She had been his shield, his constant protectress.
She had failed to mark the moment the child who once sought sanctuary behind her had flourished into the tall, striking young man who stood before her now. In this heartbeat, he felt like a stranger to the boy she once knew. He no longer required her protection; the realisation lanced through her heart with a piercing dread, as if she were on the precipice of losing him forever.
"Marina, you've always been prone to excessive fretfulness—"
"Riri!" Marina interjected, her voice sharp and ringing.
"...?" Seraph turned to her, his features blank with bewilderment.
"You used to call me Riri..." Marina whispered, her head bowed low.
"But... that was when I was a mere lad of six—a soft-headed, innocent child—"
"You're still soft-headed and innocent now! I want you to call me Riri, just as you did then... I want you to call me that always," the girl declared, her cheeks blooming with a vivid roseate hue.
She attempted to bury her face against her knees, stealing a sidelong glance at him. Her heart thundered against her ribs with such violence she feared it might burst; she felt a fleeting gratitude for the abyssal sky and the shimmering stars, which conspired to shroud her face, now as crimson as a ripened apple.
Ordinarily, the world addressed her by her formal name. Yet 'Riri' was a private endearment Seraph had fashioned when he first breached the threshold of Sanctus. As the cycles passed, he had grown too bashful to utter the nickname, eventually adopting the formal address used by the rest of the citadel. He could not recall the exact moment the change had occurred, but today, the prospect of reclaiming that childhood moniker left the young man feeling profoundly ill at ease.
"Very well... Riri. Does that satisfy you?" Seraph uttered, his voice thick with boyish clumsiness.
"Mmm..." Marina offered a small, shy nod.
'In truth, he hasn't altered a jot,' Marina mused, her thoughts a fluttering whirl. 'He remains as delightfully dim-witted as he ever was.'
The silver mists gradually retreated as the full moon cast a brilliant lunar aura upon the earth and the Mirror Lake. The suffocating tension that had anchored itself between them for months vanished in a heartbeat.
Now, there remained only a tranquil, honeyed stillness.
Several months prior, the young man had sensed a lingering shadow within Marina's heart—a persistent anxiety that had taken root since his initial convalescence in the Infirmary Hall.
Though its origins remained opaque to him, she seemed to have found a sudden reprieve of spirit, her mood lightening for reasons he could not fathom. Seraph, loath to disturb this fragile equilibrium, dared not press her further. He had no desire to shatter the reclaimed harmony that now settled between them. They sat in a shared stillness beneath the shifting aurora, as the bloated moon traced its slow, silver arc across the nocturnal firmament.
"If your mind is truly set, I've no power to bar your path," Marina finally uttered. "Though I lack the mettle for the mageia of war... I'll be your constant mending, your eternal healer. I ask only that you don't forsake me... only that you return to our hearth in safety."
"My thanks... Riri," Seraph replied, a faint, tentative smile touching his lips.
For reasons he could not define, the reclamation of that childhood moniker left him feeling perpetually bashful.
The lunar radiance gradually succumbed to the encroaching dawn as the sun began to crest the horizon. The solar deity pursued the lunar goddess as they had throughout every winter's cycle. Even now, they remained enveloped in the soft, roseate glow of the Lumia Seals, which continued to shimmer until the break of day.
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