Three days passed.
Wei visited each morning. She wore the ribbon in her hair and watched his face soften every time he saw it. She let him hold her hand. Let him talk about the escape. Let him believe nothing had changed.
Kaelan said almost nothing during these visits. Just watched. She felt his attention like a weight on the back of her skull
On the fourth day, Wei brought her a book.
"Poetry," he said, pressing it into her hands. "I know you like the old verses. This one has that piece about the moon and the wanderer — you mentioned it once, remember?"
She didn't remember. Maybe the old her had said something like that. Maybe she'd been trying to seem cultured, interesting, worthy of his attention.
"Thank you."
He beamed. Lingered. His thumb traced her wrist where her pulse beat steady and slow.
"You seem different lately," he said.
Her heart didn't skip. She'd practiced this.
"Different how?"
"Calmer. More... settled." He tilted his head, studying her. "Did something happen?"
"I've been sleeping better."
"That's good. That's really good." He lifted her hand, pressed his lips to her knuckles. "I worry about you. Alone in here all day. I wish I could be with you more."
"You're here now."
"Not enough. Never enough." He glanced at the door, then back at her. "Soon, though. A few more weeks and we'll have every day together. Every night. No more locked doors between us."
She smiled. It felt like cracking plaster.
"I can't wait."
He left happy. She stood by the window and watched the courtyard until she was certain he was gone.
"Sentimental fool," Kaelan said. First words in hours.
She didn't respond.
"You're learning. You barely flinched when he touched you this time."
"Practice."
"Mm." A pause. Then: "The book is useless. Burn it."
"It might have information—"
"It's poetry. Sentimental drivel about moons and longing. Unless you plan to bore your enemies to death, it serves no purpose."
She set the book on the table. Didn't burn it. Small rebellions.
"What now?"
"Now you stop wasting my time with questions and start being useful."
He drove her harder than before.
Shadow-sensing wasn't enough anymore. He wanted her to move through them — not physically, not yet, but with her consciousness. Stretching herself thin, spreading into the cold spaces between light.
It hurt. Not pain exactly, but a wrongness. Like her mind was being pulled in directions it wasn't designed to go.
"Again."
She pushed. Felt herself slip into the shadow by the corner. For a moment, she was elsewhere — suspended in darkness, surrounded by cold, seeing her own body slumped against the wall like an abandoned doll.
Then she snapped back. Gasped. Her nose was bleeding.
"Pathetic." No sympathy. No concern. "A child could hold longer than that."
"I'm not a child of the Void."
"Obviously. If you were, you'd be useful."
She wiped the blood on her sleeve. Her hands were shaking. Her vision swam.
"I need to rest."
"You need to be stronger. Rest is what got you killed last time."
The cruelty landed like a slap.
"You're supposed to be helping me."
"I am helping you. Pain is an excellent teacher." Something shifted in his tone — darker, almost amused. "Did you think I would coddle you? Hold your hand and whisper encouragements while you stumble through the basics? I waited millennia for a vessel. I'm not going to waste her on gentleness."
She forced herself upright. Her legs trembled. The room tilted.
"Again," he said.
She pushed into the shadow. Held for three seconds longer before her consciousness shattered back into her body. This time she didn't just bleed — she vomited, bile and porridge splattering on the stone floor.
"Better."
She laughed. It came out wet and broken.
"You're a bastard."
"I'm something far older and worse than that." A pause. "Clean yourself up. You have a visitor coming."
She barely had time to wipe her face before the knock came.
Not Wei this time.
A Keeper. Young, nervous, clutching a wooden case to his chest like a shield.
"Routine examination," he said without meeting her eyes. "Please sit."
She sat. He opened the case, revealing instruments she didn't recognize — metal tools, glass vials, something that looked like a compass but wasn't.
"Your arm."
She extended it. He wrapped a cord around her wrist, tight enough to hurt, and watched the way her veins pulsed beneath the pressure.
"Heartbeat is strong." He made a note on a small tablet. "Have you experienced any unusual symptoms? Dizziness? Bleeding?"
The blood was still drying on her sleeve. She'd angled her body so he couldn't see.
"No."
"Dreams? Visions? Voices?"
She felt Kaelan's attention sharpen.
"No."
The Keeper nodded, still not looking at her. He reached for one of the glass vials, uncorked it, held it beneath her nose.
"Breathe in."
She did. Something floral, cloying. Her head went fuzzy for a moment, then cleared.
"Good." He made another note. "The preparations are proceeding well. You should feel honored — the Century Alignment is a sacred event. Your contribution will sustain the empire for another hundred years."
Contribution.Like she was donating to a temple fund. Like her death was a minor inconvenience for a greater good.
"I'm grateful," she said.
The lie tasted like the floral scent — sweet and suffocating.
The Keeper packed his instruments. Stood. Still didn't meet her eyes.
"I'll return next month for another examination. Maintain your health. Eat well. Exercise if you're able." He paused at the door. "You're... an important resource. Try to remember that."
He left.
She sat in the silence, the cord marks still visible on her wrist, and thought about what it meant to be a resource.
"He was checking your purity," Kaelan said.
"What?"
"The instruments. The tests. He was making sure your vessel is clean — no foreign energies, no contamination. The ritual requires an untouched Void-born. Empty,if they knew what you're carrying, they'd cut you open and study what remains."
"Would they find you? If they looked closely enough?"
"Eventually. The Keepers have methods. But they're not looking for me — they don't believe anything like me could exist inside a vessel. Their arrogance is useful."
"And if that changes?"
"Then you die. We die. And my kind remains sealed forever." No emotion in his voice. Just fact. "So don't let it change."
She wrapped her arms around herself. The room felt colder.
"You could have told me this before."
"I'm telling you now."
"Why? Because you want to help me, or because you want to make sure I understand how disposable I am if I fail?"
Silence. Long enough that she thought he wouldn't answer.
Then: "Both."
She laughed again. It still sounded broken.
"At least you're honest."
"I'm always honest. It's one of my few virtues."
"You should be. The alternative is being discarded."
She stood. Crossed to the window. The courtyard was empty in the afternoon light.
"The other Void-borns," she said. "Talin and Nessa. What did the Keeper mean about preparations proceeding well? Is he examining them too?"
"Likely. You're not the only vessel they're preparing. The ritual requires significant power — one Void-born isn't enough for a full Century Alignment."
"How many?"
"Three, typically. Sometimes more, if the vessels are weak."
Three. She'd counted two others in the Quiet Wing. A boy. A girl.
Children.
"If I escape alone, they die."
"Yes."
"And if I try to save them, my chances drop."
"Significantly."
She pressed her palm against the cold glass.
"I'm taking them with me."
"That's foolish."
"I know."
"You'll likely fail."
"I know."
"And when you fail, everything ends. Not just for you — for me. For any chance of breaking the seal. For the Void-borns who come after. Your sentimentality will cost more than your life."
She turned from the window. Faced the shadow in the corner.
"I watched them disappear," she said. "In my first life. Other Void-borns. They were here, and then they weren't. I told myself it wasn't my problem. I told myself I couldn't do anything. I told myself—" Her voice cracked. She forced it steady. "I told myself a lot of things to make the guilt bearable. It never worked."
"Guilt is weakness."
"Then I'm weak." She held her ground. "I'm taking them with me. Find a way to make it work or find another vessel."
Silence. The temperature in the room dropped several degrees.
"You can't threaten me," Kaelan said. Low. Dangerous. "You have no leverage. No power. You exist because I allow it. Don't forget that."
"I'm not forgetting anything. I'm telling you what I'm willing to do and what I'm not." She didn't look away from the shadow. "You chose me because I refused to dissolve. Because I screamed instead of fading. Did you think that stubbornness only applied to dying?"
Nothing. The cold pressed against her skin, sinking into her bones.
Then:
"You'll need to move faster. Train harder. Push through limits that will break most mortals." The temperature eased slightly. "If you die because of this foolishness, I'll make sure you feel every moment of it."
"Is that a yes?"
"It's an acknowledgment that arguing with you wastes time I don't have."
Close enough.
Night came. She lay in bed, too exhausted to sleep, too wired to rest.
Kaelan had pushed her four more times after the confrontation. Each attempt at shadow-walking left her weaker than the last. By the final try, she couldn't stand. Just lay on the floor, blood and bile mixing on the stones, while he watched in silence.
He didn't praise her for pushing through. Didn't comfort her when she cried. Just waited until she could move again, then told her to clean herself up before the servants came.
She stared at the ceiling.
"Why me?"
She didn't expect an answer. She'd asked before and he'd deflected.
"You already know why."
"Because I was angry."
"Because you wanted to live more than you wanted to be at peace." A pause. "Do you know how rare that is? Most mortals, when they die, they let go. They accept. They fade into whatever comes next. Even the ones who rage — it burns out quickly. It's flash, not fire."
"And me?"
"You were still burning when I found you. Days later. Maybe weeks — time moves differently there. You should have dissolved a thousand times over. You didn't. You refused."
She thought about that. About clinging to existence with nothing but spite and grief.
"I was waiting," she said slowly. "I didn't know for what. But I couldn't leave yet. There was something I hadn't done."
"What?"
She considered lying. What was the point?
"I don't know. But I think I'm starting to figure it out."
He didn't ask what she meant. Maybe he already knew.
The silence stretched. She felt herself drifting, exhaustion finally winning.
"The children," she murmured. "Their names. Talin and Nessa. I don't know their real names. No one does. We're all nameless here."
She closed her eyes.l
"If I die during training," she said, "don't let them use my body for the ritual. Destroy it first. Can you do that?"
"Yes."
"Promise me."
"I don't make promises."
"Then lie to me. Tell me you'll do it."
Another silence. Longer this time.
"I'll do it."
She smiled.
"Was that so hard?"
He didn't answer.