Chapter Text
The capital’s pulse was never silent, even at dawn. Merchants shouted half-built prices, chickens fluttered in crates, bakers shoved smoke out of ovens, and children darted barefoot through alleys. To the city, it was ordinary morning chaos.
To Yuno, the leylines beneath it sounded wrong.
Every crossing hummed sharper than the last, as though someone was pulling threads taut. His leg ached in rhythm with the tug, but his stride never faltered. Mimosa caught the stiffness anyway, her eyes flicking every time his boot landed just a fraction too heavy.
The market sanctum lay hidden behind a spice stall. At first glance: cracked shutters, chalk charms smeared across a doorframe. Inside, the air was too thin—not absence, but distortion.
“Light,” Yuno said.
Mimosa’s grimoire lifted, golden veil spilling into corners like sunlight on glass. Klaus followed, steel etching diagnostic lattices across the floor. Alecdora poured sand through seams in the stone, patient and sharp-eyed.
The runes appeared slowly:
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under the prayer shelf, carved where a broom could never reach,
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above the lintel, half-masked by the chalk charm,
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and worst of all—hidden in the grain of a wooden beam, warped when the tree had still been alive.
Mimosa’s breath caught. “This was planted years ago…”
Klaus’s jaw tightened. “Not vandalism. Architecture.”
Alecdora’s lip curled, but his voice was deadly serious. “Whoever did this knows the kingdom’s veins. This is no amateur.”
Yuno pressed his palm to the warped beam. The groove bit at his mana immediately, tugging not toward earth but toward a hollow. He pulled away before it caught him.
“Starve it,” he ordered.
Wind encircled the sanctum. Klaus bound steel across seams. Mimosa’s light layered over the marks, soothing their hunger. Alecdora poured sand like mortar, smothering the script.
The runes fought back. Pressure slammed outward, lantern flames stretching thin, walls groaning. Mimosa hissed as her veil shivered.
Yuno forced the wind tighter, wrenching the pull sideways until Klaus’s steel absorbed it. The pressure buckled, then broke.
The sanctum steadied.
“Containment holds,” Klaus reported, exhaling.
“Three sites confirmed,” Mimosa murmured. “Three anchors. There must be more.”
Yuno shut his grimoire, expression carved from stone. “We move.”
North of the city, frost glazed the riverbank white. Hamon led his team in a steady column, recruits tucked between second-years, his calm presence their anchor. Glass mirrors paved their footing, reflecting a sky gray with morning.
“Remember,” Hamon said, voice low, “when the air pulls wrong, don’t fight. Anchor to the captain’s wind. Then layer spells together.”
The recruits nodded quickly, knuckles pale around their grimoires.
The river bent, water bulging outward with no whirlpool to cause it. Moonlight fractured over the ripple like glass shards.
“There,” a second-year whispered.
Hamon moved first. Glass curved up around emptiness, a cage for what had no body. Frost tightened its edges, vines threaded next. The recruits hesitated, then added trembling spells of light.
The knot strained. An eye blinked through, then a claw that ended in nothing. The recruits gasped. Hamon’s voice steadied them.
“Now.”
The layered magic collapsed inward. A dull clack struck the bank.
A tablet lay in the mud, carved with the same runes. Hamon sealed it inside mirrored glass.
“Coordinates logged. No bare contact,” he said.
One recruit whispered, “How long’s it been here?”
Hamon’s jaw hardened. “Long enough to learn our patrols. Not long enough to escape our notice.”
By noon, both teams reconvened. Klaus laid sketches across the table: sanctum grooves beside river tablets. They aligned too perfectly.
“Same hand,” he said tightly. “Outer flow and inner foundation.”
“Like a drawstring,” Mimosa whispered, tracing the lines with her fingertip.
“Starve or flood the capital at will,” Alecdora added, disdain sharp. “This is no peasant hedge-witch. This is a strategist.”
Yuno’s silence carried more weight than argument. He could see it already—flows around the capital cinched tight, ready to snap.
Klaus pushed his glasses higher, his tone clipped. “Dawn patrols, rotating rest, no exceptions. Especially for you, Captain.”
Alecdora arched a brow. “Even him?”
“Especially him,” Klaus snapped.
Mimosa folded her arms, stubborn. “If he wants to argue, he’ll lose.”
Yuno almost smiled. Almost. “Fine.”
Relief rippled through the hall.
Later, Mimosa cornered him under a hanging banner. “You promised ‘later,’” she said firmly.
He sat, stretching his leg slightly. Her magic pressed deep this time, finding knots beneath the skin.
“You can lead and accept help,” she murmured. “That isn’t weakness—it’s survival.”
He inhaled when she struck a tender place near his knee.
“I felt that,” she said, eyes glinting.
He didn’t answer, but the silence carried more than denial.
Klaus appeared, reporting like clockwork. “Hamon’s team logged two more anchors. Both sealed. No casualties.”
“Good,” Yuno said.
Klaus hesitated, then nodded once at Mimosa. “Lady Vermillion… thank you.”
She blinked, startled—then smiled faintly. “You’re welcome.”
Neither looked again, but the words held like a truce.
That night, Yuno stood at a sanctum window, palm against cold stone. The pull brushed against him again—patient, deliberate, wrong.
He let the wind answer, silent and sharp as a vow.
Whoever’s drawing these threads… I’ll cut them.