12 Chapter 12 – Secrets in Chains
He didn’t take it.
*Then why stay?* he signed back.
Varek frowned. “Your dreams are getting specific.”
He stared at the matching handwriting-an old royal ledger tucked deep inside the restricted archives.
“I’m *protecting* you.”
Instead, she knelt.
And he-Cyr-had unknowingly helped cover the only survivor’s escape.
–
She rose.
Eileen didn’t fight when the guards arrived to move her things.
Her lips parted-not for a spell, not for power-but for breath.
She stilled.
She signed: *I did.*
“And now that I know the truth…” He paused. “I can’t let you go.”
“I just do.”
Cyr’s voice dropped. “Maybe… she was waiting for the right moment to kill me.”
The melody played, warbled but intact.
Cyr closed the book slowly. “This wasn’t just memory. It was *remorse.*”
She only watched silently as her attic cot was stripped and folded.
Another scroll lay unrolled nearby-signed orders from General Ulmir, *his own father*, sealing off the Starshade Wing one day before the palace fire.
176
Her hands moved slower this time.
Varek slammed a map onto the table. “Then lock her down. *Protect* her. Because if you don’t, they’ll take her.”
Walked past him.
Paused.
“That’s a gilded cage.”
That night, he couldn’t sleep.
When they led her to the chamber beside Cyr’s, she glanced at the door―runed,
armored.
The man who supposedly died defending the palace.
planned purge.
“I’m not hiding you,” he said.
“Then why stay?” Varek asked.
She didn’t speak. Just walked forward and offered him fresh gauze for his hand.
“Presumed dead,” he murmured. “But she wasn’t. She survived. And hid.”
He *feared* that he did.
Still nothing.
He looked at the portrait above the fireplace-King Halric Ulmir. His father.
Because of *her.*
He looked up.
And then circled a chamber beside his own.
A child’s lullaby.
He loved her.
But now… Cyr wasn’t sure.
He swallowed hard. “And now?”
“I trust her more than I trust my own blood.”
And if the empire ever discovered what she was truly capable of…
*Because you were broken too.*
How it shook the world.
She looked away.
Varek didn’t deny it.
“No,” Cyr said. “But she’ll understand.”
Eileen Starshade.
“I need time,” he admitted. “To sort through what this means”
*Eileen.*
“Starshade,” Cyr said softly, fingertips brushing the edge of the old census record.
This time, he took them.
“I’ve seen it before. In a dream.”
And left him standing alone.
“Then she served me in silence,” Cyr continued. “Watched me. Helped me heal. While carrying *that*”
“I do.”
Not because of fear.
They’d never stop hunting her.
Then wrote: *Now I don’t know anymore.*
She hesitated.
A prison in the shape of comfort.
He kept hearing her voice-the echo of that single whispered spell.
A promise he’d failed.
The same name that vanished from the registry sixteen years ago.
“You never told me.”
The door creaked.
“Everything I have,” he said, voice raw, “is because of you.”
Her.
Silence.
“I know who you are.”
He exhaled sharply. “My family killed hers.”
“You know what she is now.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s safer than the grave.”
He remembered the fire again-her hand in his, soot on her cheek, the promise he made to protect her.
“And you still trust her?”
Cyr stared at the fortress layout.
She stepped in-bandages fresh on her neck, cloak drawn tight.
“You should hate me.”
Emotion.
And shook *him*.
Varek’s hand moved to his blade.
He held up the census page. “Starshade. You were the last.”
Captain Varek stood behind him, arms folded. “You knew her name?”
*Her* lullaby.
“Move her here. Post guards. She doesn’t leave this level without me.”
Then signed, without turning: *Don’t lock me away because you’re afraid of what I am.”
Her eyes shimmered-but she didn’t move.
By dusk, Cyr sat alone in the council chamber, the music box turning slowly in his lap.
But no words came.
He flinched.
Cyr stood-legs trembling in their braces, but upright.
When Cyr entered, she was already seated by the window.
The ink had faded, but the name burned brighter than fire.
And offered the bandages again.
Inside: a proper bed, bookshelves, soft lighting.
“No,” Cyr said quickly. “She won’t.”
And touched her fingers longer than necessary.
That broke the silence.
Later that night, Varek confronted Cyr in the war room.
Varek hesitated. “Will she agree?”
He stepped toward her.
