Chapter 5 Twilight on Marble
city of Solenya had grown quieter under the twilight, its pulse slowed to something softer and more secretive. The markets, once vibrant with color and shouts and scent, had folded into shadows. Stalls were shuttered, fabrics bundled away, and spice jars clicked shut with tired fingers. Only the occasional lantern-seller or musician lingered on the corners now, their presence more ghost than human, cast in the glow of firelight and memory.
Kirin guided the carriage through winding streets paved in pale stone, the wheels sighing with each turn. His gloved hands were steady on the reins, his eyes forward, though Auren could feel the alertness in him the tension of a man returning to a place that asked for formality, not comfort.
Auren sat quietly, hands folded in his lap. The rhythmic clop of the horse's hooves echoed against the ivy-laced walls, where torches flickered in crystal sconces. The flamelight was strange here captured and softened by the sconces in a way that made it shimmer, not burn. It danced across the stone like gold scattered in water, and Auren found himself watching the patterns it made, mesmerized.
There was a hush to this part of the city, but it wasn't lifeless. Rather, it felt like the breath before a song expectant, suspended. The air was different too: no longer thick with smoke or livestock or sweat, but cool and clean, tinged with the faintest trace of salt from the sea beyond the hills. Somewhere far off, a bell tolled not the brassy clang of a town square, but a deeper, more resonant note, like the chime of a temple.
And then, ahead of them, the palace emerged not suddenly, but as if it had always been there, waiting just beyond the curve of the road.
Luminous Keep.
Auren had heard the name before, though always whispered or sung never spoken plainly. Seeing it now, he understood why. The palace did not look built so much as summoned. It rose from the hill like it had grown there, carved from white-veined stone that seemed to hold its own inner light. The towers were tall but elegant, their spires reaching skyward like fingers tracing the stars. Balconies clung to the walls like outstretched wings, trailing flowering vines that spilled down in cascades of pale lavender and sapphire blue. Each blossom glowed faintly, catching the last of the sun's touch and holding it like a secret.
The great doors at the palace's front stood tall and still, a pair of silvered arches inlaid with runes that pulsed faintly, alive with a light that moved beneath the surface like moonlit ink. They were flanked by guards in mirrored armor, their capes the deep blue of dusk, their faces unreadable behind helm-shadows. Between them, the path widened into a courtyard of soft stone tiles, where lanterns floated freely in the air, untethered, spinning lazily like stars unsure of gravity.
Auren felt small. Not just in stature though he'd never been tall but in presence. In being. This place was meant for those who had been carved into the world with purpose, with names that echoed through marble halls and were etched into books too old to gather dust. Not for him. Not for a boy with dirt on his sleeves and a history made mostly of silence.
He shifted in his seat, suddenly conscious of how he looked the scuffs on his boots, the smudge of ash on his coat. His fingers, callused and uneven, tightened around the edge of the carriage bench. There was no hiding what he was, not here. And yet, the carriage rolled forward, as if he had permission to arrive.
Kirin's voice broke the spell. "We're close," he said softly, his tone not unkind. "I'll speak with the guards. It's late… if she's resting, I'll get you and Virelle a room nearby."
Auren opened his mouth, unsure of what he meant to say to thank him, perhaps, or to ask what came next but the words never left. Before he could speak, Virelle had already moved. The carriage creaked as she stood and stepped lightly down, her cloak swirling around her ankles like a shadow with purpose.
Her gaze swept the courtyard with all the grace of a queen and none of the trust.
She turned sharply and caught Kirin's sleeve, tugging him a few steps away from the carriage. Her voice dropped low, but Auren could still hear the edges of it brittle, precise.
"This isn't right," she said. "We should've waited."
Kirin didn't look back at Auren. "We couldn't. The envoy leaves tomorrow, and if she doesn't see him first "
"She hasn't summoned him," Virelle cut in, voice taut. "You know the rules. You know what she is."
Kirin's jaw flexed. "I know she'll want to meet him. If not tonight, then tomorrow at first light."
"She'll want to question him," Virelle hissed. "There's a difference."
Auren looked away then, pretending not to hear, pretending the vines climbing the palace walls were more interesting than the growing tension in their voices. The vines were beautiful, he supposed. Some were flowering, others bearing little crystal-like fruits that glowed faintly in the dark as if the palace itself had learned how to grow light.
The breeze shifted. He could smell the high gardens above now jasmine and lemongrass, maybe even a trace of old parchment from some open window. The scents mingled strangely with the distant hint of horse sweat and road dust, still clinging to him like a memory that refused to fade.
He didn't belong here.
But he was here.
And sometimes, that was the only thing that mattered.
"You can't just walk a stranger into the palace," Virelle snapped under her breath, dragging Kirin a few paces from the carriage and into the shadow of a flowering stone archway. Her grip on his sleeve was firm, the kind of grip soldiers used before a blade was drawn. Her eyes flicked toward the towering gates, where the guards stood motionless as statues, but her voice stayed low sharp and coiled.
"Especially that palace. The Princess is inside. Do you even know who he is? Where he came from?"
Kirin's boots crunched softly over the gravel as he turned to face her. His face remained steady, the kind of calm worn by men who'd seen too much to startle easily. Still, a flicker of weariness showed at the edge of his mouth, and a tension behind his brow betrayed more than he meant to show.
"He's not dangerous, Virelle."
"You don't know that," she shot back. "Gods, Kirin, you can't know that. He could be lying. Could've led something here without even knowing it."
"I don't think he's lying."
Virelle's nostrils flared. "You don't think? Is that how we do things now bring in nameless boys from ash-covered woods because we think they aren't liars?"
Her tone was clipped, precise, each word cutting like ice. The wind stirred the folds of her cloak and tossed strands of dark hair across her cheek, but she didn't brush them away. She leaned closer instead, the edge of her voice lowering but sharpening.
"We found him half-dead," she said. "Bleeding. Bruised. Burnt. No name. No explanation. No proof of anything except a half-told story and eyes that look too empty for a boy his age. I don't care if he cries in his sleep so do half the men who've killed for coin. You know that."
Kirin glanced over his shoulder.
The boy still sat in the carriage, back straight, hands folded in his lap like he was afraid even his breath would offend the architecture. His silhouette was still, unmoving, save for the way his eyes followed the floating lanterns as if he didn't quite believe in them.
Kirin's voice softened. "Because that boy hasn't lied once since we found him. You can tell when someone's faking grief. The pauses. The over-explanations. The way they look at your hands instead of your eyes. But him?" He shook his head. "He's hollow, Virelle. You can feel it. Whatever happened to him, it carved something out."
Virelle's expression didn't change, but her silence deepened. She folded her arms across her chest, fingers tapping slowly against the fabric of her sleeve.
"That doesn't make him safe."
"No," Kirin agreed, voice quiet. "But it makes him real."
The breeze shifted around them, carrying the faint scent of crushed lavender and something colder beneath it iron, perhaps, or the ozone of old magic. From somewhere within the Keep, a distant song rose the chiming of stringed instruments played slowly, formally, as if the building itself demanded reverence. The sound floated down like mist curling through the arches and steps.
Kirin looked back at her. "If what he said is true if the village really is gone then something worse is moving out there. Something quiet. Old. He may be the only one who saw it and lived."
She frowned, her eyes narrowing. "You believe him that much?"
"I believe the way he flinches when he hears crackling wood," Kirin said. "I believe the way he checks every corner of a room before he lets himself sleep. And I believe the way he doesn't beg to stay, even when he's scared. That boy doesn't want sanctuary. He wants answers."
Virelle's weight shifted from one foot to the other. It was subtle, but Kirin caught it. Her balance had always betrayed her thoughts.
"So you want to put him under the same roof as the Princess because he survived something terrifying?"
"No," Kirin said, "I want to put him behind wards, behind stone and sigil and a dozen eyes on every hall. Because if something's coming for him, it might not stop at the gates. And we need him alive long enough to know what he saw."
A gust of wind carried silence between them.
The torches lining the palace walls flickered, their flames bending toward the east toward the woods Auren had come from. For a moment, it was as if the entire palace leaned in to listen.
Virelle turned her gaze toward the high towers, the silver doors, the guards standing like marble. Her lips pressed into a line.
"One night," she said finally. "That's all I'll vouch for. We keep him under watch. He doesn't wander. He doesn't speak to her unless summoned. And if he so much as breathes strange near her "
"I know," Kirin said.
She didn't blink. "I mean it."
"I know," he repeated, and this time his voice held steel. "You'll end it."
She gave a sharp nod. "Exactly."
A beat passed.
Kirin's mouth pulled into the faintest curve of a smile. "Glad we understand each other."
Virelle didn't smile back.
But she didn't stop him either.
Above them, the floating lanterns spun slowly in the air, their lights shifting with the breeze. The guards remained still, the runes along the palace gates pulsing faintly alive with unseen knowledge. Somewhere behind those doors, the Princess was likely preparing for ceremony or council, her mind wrapped in matters of court and prophecy, unaware that a boy marked by ash and silence had arrived just outside her walls.
And inside the carriage, Auren waited, hands cold in his lap, unaware that in a few minutes, his life would change again not with fire this time, but with doors opening.
They passed through the outer gates beneath a stone archway etched in silver, the intricate filigree glinting under the touch of moonlight. Auren craned his neck upward, catching glimpses of carved symbols stars, roots, wings all flowing into one another like the verses of an unspoken prayer. The air shifted as they crossed the threshold, cool and weightless, like stepping through a memory not quite their own.
The guards said nothing. Clad in flowing robes of pale blue and gold, they moved with an eerie grace, each one bearing a sword sheathed in silverwood. They bowed slightly to Kirin not deeply, but with a subtle tilt that spoke of old allegiance, or old debts. No questions, no glances cast toward Auren. Only the sound of their footsteps, soft against stone, and the hush of something ancient watching.
Behind them, the carriage was already turning. One of the guards had taken the reins, and the horses moved without being urged, as if they too had been trained to obey the stillness of this place. The wheels whispered over gravel, then silence swallowed it whole.
Auren stepped forward.
It felt like walking into a cathedral carved from a dream. The palace didn't announce its grandeur it unfolded in stillness, like something that didn't need to prove itself. Lanterns hovered along the walls, floating inches above carved sconces, glowing with gentle blue-gold light that left no shadows. Their flickering did not disturb the air.
Within, the scent changed lavender and warm resin, blended with something colder, cleaner, like snow that had never touched earth. The music was faint but constant, distant as breath behind a veil. It wasn't from an instrument, not exactly more like threads of sound woven into the very architecture, as though the walls had learned to sing over time.
The corridor stretched forward in a long, tapering line, with vaulted ceilings that seemed to arc into infinity. High above, constellations had been painted in lacquered silver, the stars themselves glowing faintly not reflections of real constellations, Auren realized, but arrangements he didn't recognize. Some moved slowly, as if tracking something unseen across the sky.
He paused near one of the walls, brushing his fingers over the pale stone. Smooth, cool, but beneath it was something humming not a sound exactly, but a presence. Like the feeling just before lightning strikes. His heartbeat quickened.
Kirin's voice came quiet beside him. "This place is older than the city," he said, eyes forward. "It was built around the Fields of Luminis. The Seers say the roots of the world run beneath it."
Auren turned his head. "The roots of the world?"
Kirin nodded. "The veins of what came before. Things deeper than history."
Auren swallowed. The knot in his throat had returned. "It doesn't feel real."
"It isn't," Kirin replied, and something like sadness crossed his features. "Not entirely."
They passed under a second arch, this one shaped like an open iris an eye or a sun, Auren couldn't be sure. The hallway beyond curved gently to the left, the walls transitioning from stone to something smooth and dark, like onyx warmed by sun. Murals lined the passage painted not on the surface, but within it, shifting slowly as if caught mid-dream. In one, a field of women knelt with hands in the soil, their hair long as rivers. In another, a figure stood before a mirror of fire that did not reflect him.
Auren found himself breathing slower, quieter. He couldn't explain it only that the farther they walked, the more his thoughts dulled. Not in fear, or confusion. It was like the palace wrapped around his mind, calming the nerves that had screamed since the fire, since the blood, since the forest.
He didn't feel safe. But he felt… stilled.
They reached a great inner chamber with a domed ceiling made entirely of glass, or something like it. The night sky stretched above them, but here the stars were wrong again closer, brighter, vast. As if the heavens had been peeled back, and something beyond the sky had leaned in to look.
Kirin placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Stay close," he said. "This wing is old magic. It listens."
Auren nodded.
He didn't ask what it listened for.
The chamber narrowed into a stairway carved from pale green stone, the steps so shallow and wide they felt ceremonial. As they climbed, Auren noticed figures in the distance some robed, some armored passing through upper balconies with the reverence of those walking through a sanctuary. No one looked at them. Yet Auren couldn't shake the feeling of being watched not by eyes, but by the very shape of the hallways.
They reached a tall door set into the wall like a secret. No handles, no hinges just runes circling its surface like frost. Kirin raised his hand, pressing his palm to the center.
A breath of light shivered across the stone, and the door melted open without sound.
Inside was a chamber far simpler than Auren expected not cold, not gilded, but warm and quiet. Cream walls lined with pale shelves, cushions set beside wide windows that overlooked a still garden. There was a low bed, a basin for water, a woven tapestry hanging opposite the door. A single lantern hovered in the corner, pulsing with slow, gentle rhythm.
"This is yours," Kirin said softly. "For now."
Auren stepped inside, cautious, unsure if he belonged. The room welcomed him all the same. The floor was warm beneath his feet. The silence didn't feel empty. It felt held.
Kirin lingered at the door. "Rest. Eat, if you can. There's fruit in the bowl it's safe. Someone will bring more soon."
Auren turned, hesitant. "You're leaving?"
"I won't be far. Just down the hall."
"Will… will she be here? The Princess?"
Kirin's mouth tugged at the edge. "Not tonight. She won't know you've arrived until morning. And by then," he added with a glance to the ceiling, "Virelle will have made sure half the palace knows your shoe size and blood type."
Auren blinked. "She doesn't like me."
"She doesn't trust anything," Kirin said. "That's her job."
He gave a nod, then stepped back into the corridor.
The door sealed behind him like mist.
Auren was alone.
He walked to the window. Outside, the garden glowed softly not from lanterns, but from the flowers themselves, which bloomed with a pale green shimmer, like frost on moonlit glass. Moths drifted lazily through the air, wings painted with strange sigils. And at the center of the garden, a tree stood tall and leafless, its branches laced with tiny white lights that didn't blink or flicker. They simply… existed.
Auren sat on the edge of the bed. He didn't know if he could sleep. Or if sleep would find him, even here.
But he let himself lie back.
And for the first time in weeks, the darkness that found him wasn't filled with fire.
The room was quiet, but not silent.
Auren stood in the middle of it, listening to the hush. There was no hum of city traffic, no creaking pipes, no murmured arguments from the apartment downstairs. Just the distant, crystalline sound of water running through unseen channels in the walls a pulse, almost, like the place breathed.
It was bigger than he expected. Not gaudy, not cold. Just... big.
The walls were a warm ivory, textured with hand-plastered swirls that caught the lantern light in soft strokes. The floors were smooth stone veined faintly with amber, and the air held the faintest scent of sun-warmed fig and pressed linen. A large bowl of fruit sat on a low table near the window apples, something like pears but shaped like hearts, a cluster of deep violet berries that looked dusted in frost. A pitcher of water, sweating with coolness, rested beside a stack of silver-rimmed cups. Everything arranged with care, as if someone had asked, what would make a stranger feel safe?
Auren touched the edge of the table, just to prove it was real.
He drifted to the far wall, where a closet stood not a door, but an alcove veiled by a curtain of sheer, sea-colored fabric. Inside, folded garments lay on low shelves, all simple: tunics in quiet greys, loose trousers in soft, earthy shades, a single deep blue robe that shimmered slightly in the light. He ran his fingers along the fabric. Fine, but not flashy. No seams out of place. It was like everything here not designed to impress, but to last.
Still, it wasn't his.
Not his room.
Auren turned back toward the bed. Large, low to the floor, and piled with pale cushions and a comforter that looked stuffed with clouds. But it wasn't the narrow cot he'd grown up with. There were no posters here no faded band flyers, no magazine cutouts tacked above the headboard, curling at the corners from heat. No glow-in-the-dark stars peeling off the ceiling. No corner where he'd once hidden drawings of dragons and winged girls with knives, afraid someone might laugh.
And it was too quiet. He hadn't realized how much of himself had been tied to the noise the subtle, chaotic rhythm of home.
He missed the muffled cartoons from the other room.
He missed the clatter of dishes, the little barking cough Lio made when he got excited, like a baby wolf trying to speak.
He missed Cassian's lopsided whistle, the one he used when he pretended to be sneaky but couldn't help showing off.
And Mom her footsteps were unmistakable. Always barefoot, somehow faster than anyone else, carrying laundry, plates, questions, and warnings in the same breath. Her perfume was a constant blend of cheap rose oil and whatever she'd cooked that night garlic, cinnamon, cloves.
Auren sat on the edge of the bed, his back straight.
He didn't cry. He didn't want to cry. Crying felt like a thing from before something he'd used up when the fire started, when the screaming had blurred, when Kirin had pulled him from the alley and told him not to look back.
But now, in this room carved from silence and softness, there was nothing left to fight.
He lay back, slowly, arms over his chest. The bed dipped beneath him like a wave. The ceiling curved above, unadorned, pale as paper. He stared at it until his eyes ached.
He remembered Lio's breath against his neck, warm and damp, the way the baby's little hands would tug at his shirt like he was a flagpole or a comfort blanket. He remembered the heavy-lidded blink Lio gave when he was just about to fall asleep not quite there, not quite trusting the world to hold him.
Cassian had sworn he'd take care of him. Even when things got loud, even when the world tilted Cassian had planted himself in front of Lio like a shield, like a knight in threadbare pajamas.
And then the smoke.
And then the running.
Auren covered his face with one arm.
He hadn't thought about them properly until now. Not with all the movement
The escort, the weight of Kirin's silence. Not until this room gave him back his stillness and made him feel.
He didn't know what came next.
He didn't want to be a puzzle piece in someone else's story.
He just wanted his brothers back. His mom. His ugly little room with the flickering lamp. The weight of his baby brother against his chest. The sound of Cassian saying his name with a grin, like it was some kind of joke they were in on together.
He curled onto his side.
The blanket was warm, impossibly soft.
He wished it scratched a little, or smelled like old detergent, or carried the weight of home.
But it didn't.
So he closed his eyes and tried to remember the sound of Lio's laugh.
It had only come once, weeks before the fire a bubbling giggle at Cassian pulling faces during dinner. It was short and high-pitched and impossible.
Auren clutched it like a thread, something fragile and real.
Outside the window, the light from the garden dimmed with the hour, casting long, green-tinged shadows across the room. The lantern in the corner pulsed slower. Somewhere far above, he thought he heard chimes not music, but the sound of something gentle and distant, passing.
And for a moment not long, but long enough Auren drifted. Not into dreams. But into memory.
Where the room was small.
And warm.
And full of voices that knew his name.