The memory of my mother's death arrived with the scent of lemon and the sound of shattering crystal.
I didn't summon it. My mind is a vault with shattered locks, and the ghosts stroll out as they please. One moment I was staring at the silk canopy of my bed, the next I was seven, my small hands covered in powdered sugar, watching the man in the Concordat commander's uniform smile. His smile was a knife wrapped in velvet. Then the smell of smoke, the deafening silence after the scream. Always the silence.
I jerked upright, a gasp tearing from my throat. The phantom scents vanished, replaced by the oppressive fragrance of night-blooming jasmine and polished mahogany that filled my chambers. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird in a gilded cage. I pressed my gloved hands—sleek black leather with delicate gold claw accents over the fingertips—against my eyes until stars burst in the darkness.
You are Elara de Lys, daughter of a disgraced line. You are twenty-four. You are in your suite. The memory is past. It is past.
A lie, of course. For a Mnemosensitive, the past is never past. It is a second skin, ill-fitting and drenched in sorrow.
I rose, the heavy silk of my nightgown whispering against the marble floor. In the vast, gold-framed mirror, a stranger stared back. A young woman with hair the colour of a deep, midnight ocean, a violent cascade of navy blue against the pallor of her skin. Eyes like fresh blood, or rubies held to a flame—crimson and sharp. The face of a porcelain doll, etched with a fatigue no amount of sleep could cure. I was the portrait of a noble scion, and every detail was a carefully maintained lie.
The attire I was forced into was my armour and my chain. My maid, a silent, wary woman, helped me into the dress. It was a masterpiece of oppressive beauty: a high-collared gown of purest black, so dark it seemed to swallow the light. It was embroidered with labyrinthine patterns in gold thread, tiny rubies sewn at the intersections like drops of blood. It was heavy. It was cold. It was worth more than the lives of everyone in the tenement I was truly born in. It was the uniform of the "rehabilitated" daughter, a living testament to the Concordat's "mercy." They had killed my family for heresy, and then dressed their sole surviving heir in the spoils.
The walk to the Royal Archives was a performance. I moved through the too-clean streets of the Scriptorium district, my head held at the exact angle mandated for a woman of my station—not too proud, not too meek. Citizens in their muted greys and browns averted their eyes. The noble daughter with the tragic past and the frightening eyes. The gilded ghost.
The Archives was a mountain of white stone, a tomb for truth. The giant doors carved with the quill-and-sword seal swung open. Inside, the air was corpse-dry. Master Tolland, a man made of dust and ledgers, didn't look up.
"Lady de Lys. You are expected in the Sub-level Atrium. A special classification project."
The title was a slap. "Lady." I was a specimen under glass. "What is the nature of the project, Master Tolland?"
He finally glanced at me, his watery eyes devoid of respect. "Your particular… sensitivity is required for a volatile resonance subject. That is all. Do not keep Minister Hale waiting."
Volatile resonance. Beastman echoes. Dread, cold and slick, coiled in my stomach. My work was usually historical—verifying land deeds from memory-crystals, authenticating lineages. Safe, sterile echoes. Beastman memories were different. They were primal, emotional, and punishing. They tasted of blood and storm and raw earth.
The descent into the sub-levels was a journey into a different world. The clean white stone gave way to black basalt. The light grew dim, tinged green. The air hummed with a frequency that vibrated in my molars. This was where they kept the monsters the Concordat couldn't classify or conquer.
Minister Hale waited in the circular chamber, a statue of ambition hewn from ice. Her gaze swept over me, noting the perfect hair, the impeccable dress, seeing only the tool, not the wielder.
"Elara," she said, dispensing with the title in private. "We have an asset. A unique one." She gestured to the far wall, to a metal door covered in pulsing, sickly-green containment runes. "A Kitsune Archivist. The last of his kind. His memory archive is damaged. Inaccessible. We need you to navigate it and retrieve a specific historical echo: the final hours of the Beast King's betrayal."
A Kitsune. A creature from pre-Silencing myth. A living, breathing violation of the Concordat's official history. My heart thudded against my ribs. "And if I cannot?"
"You are the best Mnemosensitive of your generation, despite your… affliction," she said, her voice bland. "You will succeed. Your continued comfort depends on it."
The threat was elegant. My beautiful prison, my 'comfort,' was contingent on my utility. I was a prized dog on a very short, very gilded leash.
She left me alone with the throbbing door. I went through my mental rituals, building walls of silent white marble in my mind. A futile exercise. When the runes dimmed and the door slid open, I stepped into the darkness.
It was absolute. It smelled of old parchment, ozone, and a wild, spicy scent like amber and pine. And beneath it, the copper-tang of old blood.
Then, light. Two points of pale lavender light ignited in the deep black.
"Another one," a voice sighed. It was young, melodious, and held an ancient, bottomless weariness. It was not the dusty voice I'd expected from a millennia-old myth. "Another pretty bird sent to peck at my locks. Do you sing, little bird? Or just scream?"
I straightened my spine, the stiff collar of my dress digging into my throat. "I am Elara. I am here to establish a resonance link."
The lavender eyes floated closer. "A link. How diplomatic." The light grew, a soft, foxfire glow emanating from him, and he stepped into view.
My carefully constructed composure almost cracked.
He was beautiful. Not handsome in a human way, but aesthetically perfect in a way that was utterly alien. He stood with an easy, predatory grace. His hair was a breathtaking waterfall of silken, candy-pink, tied high in a ponytail that spilled over his shoulder. Two large, fluffy fox ears of the same impossible colour twitched atop his head. His eyes, now clearly visible, were a deep, knowing red, accentuated by sharp crimson eyeliner. He wore a simple, pristine white yukata patterned with falling cherry blossoms, a stark contrast to the grim cell. His hands were elegant, with long, sharp red nails. And behind him, resting on the floor, were nine magnificent, fluffy tails the colour of spun sugar and dawn.
But they were wrong.
The tails were not vibrant. Their fur was matted in places, tangled with invisible knots. Some hung limp, others twitched sporadically as if in pain. The beautiful pink was dull, almost grey in patches. This was the archive. This stunning, wounded creature.
"You are K-7," I stated, my voice barely a whisper.
He tilted his head, a flash of irritation crossing his vulpine features. "I am Kaito. K-7 is the number they gave the corpse they expected to find." His red eyes raked over me, from my navy hair to the rubies on my gown. "You are not the usual scribe. You dress like a conqueror. You smell like grief and gilded cages."
His perception was a physical blow. He saw through the dress, the title, the performance. "The memory," I insisted, clinging to my purpose. "The Beast King's final hours. I must access it."
"Must," he echoed, and a playful, bitter smile touched his lips. He held up a single finger, the long red nail catching the foxfire light. "That word is a chain, little bird. The memory you seek is not a story. It is a death cry. It is a poison that rots the vessel that holds it. Will your pretty cage protect you from that?"
"I have my defences."
"Mmm." He drifted closer, and I caught the scent of cherry blossoms and something sharper, like lightning. He circled me, his tails brushing the floor with a soft, sad sound. "You have walls. I can hear them. White, cold, brittle things. The memory you seek is an earthquake." He stopped before me. "Why do you serve them? The ones who put you in the cage?"
The question, asked with genuine curiosity, was more disarming than any command. The truth, the raw, shameful truth, slipped out before I could cage it. "Because the cage is all I have left."
He studied me, his head tilted, ears swiveling slightly. The playful glint faded, leaving something like pity. "A tragic answer." He sighed and gracefully sank to the floor, his tails pooling around him like a sorrowful cloud. "Very well, caged bird. If you must sing this dreadful song, I will not stop you. But you must find the key yourself. And you will carry the tune for the rest of your days."
He gestured to the space before him. "Sit. And take off your glove. The metal tips will… interfere."
My hand went to the gold claw on my index finger. This was it. I removed the sleek black glove, revealing pale, slender fingers. I sat, the heavy skirts of my dress billowing around me.
"Look. Listen. And try not to drown," he said softly, and closed his luminous red eyes.
The foxfire glow dimmed, concentrating around him. His tails began to stir, the tangled masses shifting. A low hum filled the room, a vibration that seeped into my bones. I took one last, shaky breath, dismantled my pathetic white walls, and opened the vault of my mind.
I reached out and placed my bare palm on the silken fur of the nearest tail.
The world dissolved into sensation.
It was not a memory yet. It was being. The exhilarating rush of wind through pine needles as I ran on four legs. The satisfying crunch of a ripe berry. The warm, solid comfort of a brother's shoulder under my head. The heart-aching, glorious notes of a song sung under a double moon. It was joy, pure and primal. It flooded me, a tidal wave of alien happiness so intense it was painful. I gasped, my back arching, but my hand was fused, a conduit.
Focus! I screamed into the storm. Find the thread! Find the end!
I pushed past the overwhelming joy, diving deeper into the labyrinth of his soul. I saw flashes: a grand hall of woven living wood, laughter echoing. A towering figure with antlers like a crown and eyes of warm earth—Aethelred, the Beast King—smiling, handing a young Kaito a scroll with a playful tug on his ear. Then, dissonance. The smell of foreign perfumes. The clink of human goblets. A creeping sense of wrongness.
The memories were a tangled tapestry. I was lost in a forest of feeling. I felt a tail—no, I was a tail—being seared by magical frost, a phantom pain lancing through me. I felt the profound melancholy of watching a century pass from a solitary cliff.
The final hours! I was a diver in a sunken city, searching for a black pearl.
I fought the current, seeking a memory that tasted of ending. The grief here was a deep, background chord, but one knot in the psychic tapestry felt different. It was a void. A silence so absolute it screamed. The sealed memory.
I swam towards it. As I neared the black, dense knot, a spectral form of Kaito materialized, his foxfire glow weak. He looked younger, only five tails waving behind him.
You cannot, his thought-voice echoed, sweet and sorrowful. This door is sealed with blood and regret.
I have no choice! My mental voice was desperate.
There is always a choice, little bird. Even in a cage. He looked at the knot with fear. This will break your wings.
I reached for it anyway. My spectral fingers brushed the cold, dark silence.
The memory was not a narrative. It was an autopsy of a soul.
It was the taste of Duskbell—cloying and wrong—on a king's lips. It was the horrifying moment of fracture, watching a god's mind be violently rewritten. The roar of betrayal was not angry; it was the sound of a universe realizing it was alone. I felt the geomancy, Aethelred's power, lash out not in rage, but in a spasming, heartbroken reflex against phantoms only he could see. "Stop me!" he wept, even as the earth shattered.
And I saw him. The architect. Not a soldier, but a man in finely tailored robes. Sharp features. Eyes the colour of aged whisky behind the glint of round lenses. An observer with a hungry, clinical stillness. He watched the deicide with the focus of a scholar taking notes. Then his gaze shifted—past the dying king, past the chaos—and landed on young Kaito. His expression was one of pure, acquisitive triumph.
The device in his hands was not a weapon. It was a vacuum for souls. I felt its pull. I felt Kaito's tails—his childhood, his bond, his very essence—being ripped from him. The agony was beyond pain. It was un-being.
The last thing imprinted on me was Aethelred's final, clear-eyed look at his little brother. An apology as vast as the sky. And then a choice—a king choosing to shatter his own heart to stop the puppet strings.
The ensuing Silence was the loudest sound I had ever heard.
I was violently ejected. I slammed back into my own body, convulsing on the cold stone. I was not weeping. I was beyond tears. I was making a thin, wretched sound, the sound of a soul scraping empty. The memories were inside me now—the taste of Duskbell, the psychic scream of severance, the world-ending sorrow in a king's eyes. And woven through it, the face of the Concordat architect with the amber eyes and glasses. A face I knew from somewhere deeper than memory. A face that lived in the same dark room of my soul as the man who killed my mother.
My gloved hands scrabbled against the stone. I rolled onto my side, retching, but there was nothing in my stomach. There was only the truth, and it was a black hole, swallowing the lies my life was built upon.
A shadow fell over me. I flinched, curling tighter.
Kaito stood above me, his foxfire glow guttering. He looked drained, one of his beautiful pink tails lying dull and lifeless where I'd touched it. He had paid for the journey, too.
He didn't speak. He just looked down, his red eyes holding a knowledge that was now ours to share. There was no 'I told you so.' Only a profound, shared ruin. He saw the recognition in my eyes—the moment I connected his tragedy to my own.
"You see," he whispered, his voice the rustle of dead leaves. "The cage-maker has a face. And he builds all the cages the same way."
A thunderous CLANG echoed through the chamber, so forceful it felt like a physical blow to the chest. The metal door shuddered in its frame. The sickly-green containment runes flared into a blinding, violent emerald, casting stark, jumping shadows.
Kaito's head snapped toward the door, his ears flattening against his pink hair. All weariness vanished from his posture, replaced by a lethal, coiled tension. "They felt it," he said, his voice now sharp as a shard of glass. "The psychic shockwave from breaking the seal. It would have lit up their monitors like a beacon."
Another deafening crash. A visible dent appeared in the centre of the metal door.
"They're coming," he stated, his gaze swinging back to me. The pity was gone, replaced by an urgent, calculating intensity. "And they will not let a witness to the truth walk out of here. You are now a flawed tool, little bird. And flawed tools are… disposed of."
The final word hung in the air as the third impact came. This time, accompanied by the shriek of tearing metal. A seam of blinding white light from the outer chamber sliced through the darkness of the cell, illuminating the dancing dust and the despair on my face.
My cage had just become a death trap. The gilded walls were closing in. And the only other soul who knew the monstrous truth of what lay beyond them was the beautiful, broken fox they'd locked inside with me.
His red eyes met mine in the stark, slicing light. "Can you fly?" he asked, and for the first time, I heard it—not just ancient weariness, but a spark of defiant, mischievous fire. "Or are you content to die in a cage?"
The door groaned, buckling inward. Shapes moved in the light behind it. Time was up.
I pushed myself up on trembling arms. I looked from the breaking door to Kaito's waiting, fierce expression. I thought of the man with the amber eyes, the architect of all this silence.
"No," I rasped, the word scraping my raw throat. I shoved myself to my feet, my heavy, ridiculous dress feeling like a suit of stone. "I am not content."
A ghost of a smile, sharp and approving, touched Kaito's lips. "Good."
The door exploded inward.