Small. Leather-bound. Looks like a journal.
He turns it over in his hands, thumbs brushing the cover with care like it’s something precious. Then, without a word, he leans forward and offers it to me.
I hesitate, but there’s something in his posture that makes me take it. The leather is soft with age, velvet-worn from fingers that turned these pages long before mine.
“When your mother met your father,” he says, softer now, “when she chose to leave this life behind and cross the border… I had hoped she might return someday.”
I’m listening, but my eyes drift to the journal in my hands.It’s heavier than it looks.
“Then I heard about the fire,” he goes on. “I heard about you.” His gaze meets mine, then drops to the journal. “Go on,” he nods. “Open it.”
I hesitate again. Just for a second. Not sure what I’m about to find. Then my fingers move, finding the knot of string at the spine and slowly I start to unbind it.
“When I learned she had passed...” He exhales, low. “I felt so much guilt. Guilt that I hadn’t done more. Guilt that I hadn’t convinced her to stay. To come back.”
The knot in the string comes loose, but the one in my chest tightens. Because the second I open the journal, it hits me. Not the words. Not even the pages. Just… the handwriting.
It’shers.
I’d know it anywhere. Bold strokes, slanted just enough to look like she was always in a hurry. My heart skips a beat.
“This is justone, Lyra, there are more. Ten, to be exact. Turns out your mother was quite the prolific writer.”
“How…?” The word scrapes out as my eyes stay fixed on the page. “Where did you get this?”
“After the fire, I visited. To see what could be… salvaged. You were already gone, but the house—what was left of it, what was still standing... I took what I could.”
“I’ll give it to you straight.” His expression is still warm, uncomfortably so. But his tone shifts, colder now, more direct. “If you try to leave now, they’ll Reassign you. No hearing. No delay. You were caught red-handed at the border, Lyra, and there’s no walking away from that.”
A quiet thrum starts up inside me, but the journal’s weight keeps the panic grounded.
“Or—” he continues, like this is just business now. “You accept my offer, and start as a second-year cadet in service to the Citadel for one month.”
He pauses, eyes lingering like he’s trying to read my reaction—but I don’t flinch. Just keep my face still, spine straight, and give him nothing. So he goes on.
“One month. That’sallI’m asking. You stay. Train. Learn. And if, at the end of it, you decide this life isn’t for you... I’ll let you walk. No questions. No consequences. You go home with all ten journals. Back to the Outerlands, back to whatever life you were building for yourself. If you can call it that.”
My eyes narrow. He’s offering too much. He has every reason to throw me to the dragons, yet he’s giving me a deal? Why? There’s no such thing as generosity without reason, not in places like this. Not unless he’s hiding something. Or hoping I’ll miss what he’s really after.
“I know how you feel about the Innerlands.” He adds. “About this place. It’s justified considering where you’re from. I won’t argue that. But this,” he gestures around the room, the Citadel. “This isnotan offer you want to dismiss.”
His white brows are furrowed, pale blue eyes, cold as ice. But there’s also something else behind them. Not manipulation. Not threat. Something heavier.Sincerity?
“Innerlanders train their whole lives for a chance at what you’re being handed. Most never make it. Many die just trying. The chance to learn their Threads. To listen to them, use them,shape the world with them.” He pauses. “And I know you feel it too. That pull inside you. That magical pressure building. You’ve been surviving it so far. But wouldn’t you rather learn how to control it? Focus it,growit?”
I stare down at the journal, the rhythm in my chest faster now as my fingers trail the edge of the paper. God, I’ve never had this much. Not about her. Not aboutme. For fourteen years, the most I’ve had are fragments—burned memories, whispers, rumours. And now there’sthis. Ten of them. Her thoughts. Her life. Her secrets. All of it, right here.
“One month?” I ask, brows pinched. “What’s in it for you?”
He leans forward, voice dips low. “There are darker things in this world than whispered rumours of rebellion, Lyra. Shadows that don’t care about borders or bloodlines. Things that don’t care where you come from—only what youare.” My breath stills. He doesn’t blink. “I see it in you. The chaos. The power. You think it’s a flaw, something to cage or outrun. But it isn’t. It’s a weapon. And you couldownit. Not just to uphold the peace,” he adds, softer now. “But to protect the ones no one else will. Your people. The ones back home who don’t have Citadel walls or council names. The ones still fighting just tosurvive.”
“But I’m an Outerlander?—”
“Yes, but you were born to an Innerlander who served here for years, and moreover was well respected.” He leans back in his chair, calm and composed, like he’s already won. “Believe it or not, Lyra, you’re one of us. One month, that’s all I’m asking. Stay. Train. And if you walk at the end of it, fine. You walk. No strings, you get the journals and no one follows.”
My chest pulls tight, a sour taste rising in the back of my throat.
I’m not one of them. The Citadel is everything I hate, everything I was raised to despise.
