Series Content Advisory
Scriptures of Nokternum is a dark fantasy story involving grief, trauma, violence, death, coercive control, forced experimentation, and bodily alteration. Some chapters address past suicide, abuse, blood, severe injury, and psychological manipulation. Additional chapter-specific warnings are provided when necessary.
Additional Chapter Warning
This chapter contains intense grief, trauma-related distress, and passive suicidal imagery involving a cliff.
Chapter 7: “Somewhere to Go”
Event Date: May 22nd, 2010 - 8:59 PM EDT, Earth
Pennsylvania did not know what to do with him. Kaostar decided that made the feeling mutual.
The threshold opened above a dark sweep of spring forest west of Philadelphia where the city’s glow had thinned into a distant bruise behind the trees and the sky held more stars than Los Angeles had bothered to remember. Cool air struck his face. Not ocean cold. Not rooftop wind warmed by neon and engines.
This was older. Stone cold. Bark cold. The kind of cold that entered through the nose and made every breath feel like it had edges.
Kaostar emerged high above a ridgeline and let the threshold close behind him. No battlefield followed. No tea shop. No panther pretending not to watch.
No quiet tigercoon sitting with his back to a wall, repairing what Kaostar had cracked. No warm square among thousands. Only trees, cliff rock, distant water, and the moon caught between slow clouds.
His black-and-rust dimensional wings unfolded behind him, shaped out of pressure and absence rather than flesh. They carried him down through the dark without sound. Branches shifted beneath the wind. Rain had not fallen, but dew had begun to gather in pale seams along stone and old leaves.
He landed near the edge of a cliff overlooking a deep ravine. Somewhere below, water moved over rock. Not a creek. Not his creek.
Too loud. Too far. Too anonymous.
Good.
Kaostar folded the wings back into nothing and stood still until the forest accepted that he was not leaving. The cliff stretched out before him in rough shelves of stone, uneven and dark, with roots twisting through cracks like old fingers refusing burial. Bare trees leaned toward the drop.
Across the ravine, a narrow waterfall caught moonlight in broken white ribbons before vanishing into shadow below. It was not beautiful enough to forgive. It was quiet enough to use. Kaostar walked to the edge and sat.
His boots scraped stone. His heavy tail settled behind him, rust-red underside hidden against the rock. His long coat shifted in the wind. The scar across his palm remained closed, though violet light flickered beneath it once when he opened his hand.
He looked at the blackened route burned through his skin. Old access. Old ownership. Old proof that an offered hand could become a lock.
His fingers closed. Not mine to touch. Kaostar’s jaw tightened.
“Shut up.”
The forest did not obey. That was becoming a theme. He looked out over the ravine. Two weeks had passed since Moonleaf.
Not that he had counted. Counting implied a desire to know how long something had lasted. Counting made absence measurable. Counting made return possible.
So he had not counted. He had only noticed that fourteen nights had happened, one after another; each failing to remove the shape of a corner booth from memory. Silas Veyr had not chased him. Silas’s refusal to chase him left Kaostar with nothing to resist.
If Silas had followed, Kaostar could have called him invasive. If Silas had begged, Kaostar could have called him weak. If Silas had demanded explanation, Kaostar could have called him another person mistaking familiarity for permission. But Silas had stayed at the table.
Silas had let him leave. Silas had said goodbye without reaching for the word.
No.
Kaostar corrected the thought sharply. He had not said goodbye. Kaostar had said it. Admitting that he had said goodbye hurt more.
The wind moved through the trees below. Kaostar stared at the waterfall until the white threads blurred.
“I’m not going back,” he said.
The lie sounded thin against the ravine. His ears turned without instruction. Behind him, the forest remained empty. Left side: trees.
Right side: narrow path through brush. Behind: rock shelf, two boulders large enough to use as cover, one old trail marker on a post. Forward: cliff drop. Bad exit.
Excellent ending. He counted again. Then realized he had counted. His claws scraped against stone.
“Fuck.”
The word vanished into the ravine. He had checked every exit in Moonleaf. Twice. More than twice.
Silas had noticed. Silas had said nothing. A correction would have faded. Silas’s silence had not.
Kaostar leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees, scarred hand hanging loose between them.
“What are you doing?” he asked himself.
The ravine gave him water and wind, nothing else. He hated that more than an answer. He had done terrible things with certainty. He had torn through worlds because purpose, even ugly purpose; held still long enough to bite.
Now questions had begun moving inside him like small animals in the walls. Why did he return? Why did he stay? Why did he say goodbye?
Why had the temple blade never fallen? Why had the thunder above Los Angeles sounded real? The memory of it returned so sharply his claws extended. Clear sky.
No clouds. One distant mutter of thunder. A trace of rain that had not fallen. His breath slowed.
“No.”
No signal. No proof. No Lightstorm.
No answer.
Memory. Memory had always been cruel. Memory was already strange enough. Kaostar looked up.
The Pennsylvania sky was partly clouded, thin gray sheets sliding across the moon. No storm gathered. No thunder came. Still, the air smelled briefly of rain.
Not the cold mineral damp of the cliff. Not wet leaves. Rain. Clean and impossible.
The kind of smell that belonged to the second before weather became visible. Kaostar went still. His ears lifted. The scent vanished.
His scarred hand closed hard enough for claws to bite fur.
“Metatronas,” he whispered.
The name entered the open air like a contaminant. He turned it over in his mind. A provocation. A route.
A delayed mechanism. A cruelty left inside him years ago and only now learning to bloom.
Yes.
Suspicion made more sense than hope or a dead voice pressing through weather. Lightstorm being alive still made no sense at all. He held onto the suspicion because suspicion had handles. Hope did not.
Below, the waterfall kept falling. Kaostar sat at the cliff’s edge and tried to think. Thinking was worse than war. War had direction.
War had bodies. War gave pain somewhere to go. Thought circled. Thought returned.
Thought noticed things. He thought of Harrow in the cave, refusing to call him irredeemable. He thought of Xevonon’s clan pieces spilling into forest dirt. He thought of Darkskarr promising revenge with grief still raw enough to shape.
He thought of Silas saying that cruelty chosen could not be buried under cruelty suffered. He thought of a ceramic cup remaining whole. The memory made his throat tighten. He bared his teeth at the ravine.
“Absurd.”
The word came out weaker than intended. His right ear turned toward the tree line. Kaostar froze. Nothing moved.
Only branches. Only frost. Only the narrow path through brush where nothing stood. His ear remained angled toward it for three full breaths before he forced it forward again.
A branch snapped behind him. Kaostar moved before the sound finished. He was on his feet in less than a breath, body turned, knees bent, shoulders low, and claws extended. A dark orb formed above his scarred palm, dense and hungry, folding moonlight inward until the surrounding shadows leaned toward it.
His wings flared half-formed behind him. The cliff wind broke around him.
“Who are you?” he snarled. “And what the fuck do you want from me?”
Something yipped. The figure between the trees jumped back so fast one boot slid on frosted leaves. Not a soldier. Not Silas.
Not Harrow. Not Metatronas. A fox.
No.
A kitsune. He stood frozen at the edge of the path, broad-bodied but still diminished beneath Kaostar’s height with black pressure gathering behind him. Layered traveler’s clothing caught the moonlight in strips of cream, navy, violet, and gold. His primary fur was deep charcoal-black, darkest along his limbs, back, and the upper planes of his foxlike face. Thick silver-white fur covered his muzzle, cheeks, throat, chest, stomach, and the underside of a large tail that had curled close to his body in alarm.
Violet marked him in vivid fragments: inner ears, hands, feet, tail patterns, and the arcane splash of color near his markings. His eyes were luminous violet and far too honest for survival. Several charms and cords hung around his waist and chest. Turquoise tassels shifted when he trembled. A yellow flower fastened near one shoulder looked offensively cheerful under the circumstances.
His ears were lowered. His tail had gone stiff. His hands were raised, palms open, and though one still held what appeared to be a paper map. Paper.
Not a phone. Interesting detail. Terrible time to notice.
“I’m sorry,” the kitsune said quickly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. I was trying not to step on the loud branches which apparently made me much worse at walking.”
Kaostar stared. The dark orb tightened. The kitsune swallowed.
“That was not an excuse. More of a confession.”
Kaostar’s eyes narrowed.
“Name.”
The kitsune blinked, startled by the demand and apparently relieved to have been given a question with an answer.
“Arcana. Arcana Samuel Kage.”
“Why are you here?”
“I come here sometimes.”
“Not good enough.”
Arcana’s ears lowered further.
“It’s quiet. Usually.”
Kaostar’s muzzle pulled back.
“Usually.”
Arcana glanced at the dark orb. Then his gaze climbed past Kaostar’s chest to his face, very carefully.
“I didn’t know anyone else was here.”
“Then leave.”
“I was going to.”
“Do it faster.”
Arcana looked toward the path. His body wanted to obey. Arcana’s claw kept tapping his knee. He was frightened and making no effort to disguise it.
His tail betrayed him. His eyes betrayed him. Even the charms at his waist clicked softly because his hands shook enough to move the cords.
Good.
Fear made sense. Fear had manners. Arcana took one step back. Then stopped.
Kaostar’s voice went lower.
“That was almost intelligent.”
Arcana looked miserable.
“I know.”
“Problem?”
“Yes.”
Kaostar waited. Arcana took a breath. His ears lifted a fraction, then lowered again.
“I felt something.”
The dark orb pulsed once.
“Wrong answer.”
Arcana flinched.
“I know that sounds bad.”
“It sounds like a reason to remove you from the cliff.”
“It probably does, yes.”
“You agreeing with me is not helping you.”
“I’m not good at pretending when terrified.”
Kaostar almost laughed.
Almost.
Arcana noticed the almost and seemed confused by it. The kitsune clutched the paper map closer to his chest, then looked down at it as if surprised it had survived the conversation.
“I feel things,” Arcana said. “Too much, usually. I don’t always know where they come from.”
Kaostar’s expression hardened.
“Feelings.”
“Not mine. Sometimes mine. It gets… blurry.”
Arcana’s voice steadied slightly as he found the shape of the truth.
“I felt something hurting out here. I didn’t know what it was. Then I found you.”
For a moment, only the waterfall moved. Kaostar did not move. The dark orb continued folding light into itself. Arcana’s violet eyes widened slightly, as if he realized the danger of the sentence after releasing it.
“I didn’t mean that as an accusation,” he added quickly. “Or a diagnosis. Or whatever the version is where strangers say something personal and expect you to be grateful.”
Kaostar’s ears angled back.
“You have practiced that clarification.”
“A little.”
“With who?”
“Several bad first impressions.”
Kaostar looked him over. Broad build. Traveler’s robes. Layered cords.
No visible weapon worth respecting. No electronic devices. Warmth in the posture even while frightened. A creature whose first instinct upon sensing danger was apparently to apologize to it.
“You walked toward pain because it was pain,” Kaostar said.
Arcana winced.
“When you say it like that, it sounds less reasonable.”
“It is the dumbest survival instinct I have ever heard.”
Arcana’s mouth twitched despite himself.
“Probably.”
Kaostar’s eyes narrowed.
“You and Silas would get along.”
Arcana tilted his head.
“Who’s Silas?”
“No one.”
Arcana very wisely did not believe him. Kaostar closed his scarred hand. The orb collapsed into threads of black flame and vanished. Arcana exhaled so carefully that he clearly hoped Kaostar would not notice.
Kaostar noticed. He turned back toward the cliff edge.
“Sanctuary’s yours. I was leaving anyway.”
He was not. This did not matter. He took one step toward open space. Arcana spoke before wisdom could stop him.
“You don’t have to.”
Kaostar’s head turned slowly. Arcana stiffened.
“I mean...you can. Obviously. You can do whatever you want. I’m not claiming the cliff. I just meant there’s enough room if you don’t want to leave because I made noise with a branch.”
Kaostar stared. Arcana’s ears pressed back.
“I should stop speaking.”
“You should have done that three sentences ago.”
“Yes.”
Kaostar looked toward the cliff drop. Then the path. Then the trees. Then the boulders.
Then Arcana. Arcana saw the scan. His expression changed, not with understanding exactly, but with sympathy he was too honest to hide. Kaostar’s voice went cold.
“Do not.”
Arcana blinked.
“Do not what?”
“Look at me like that.”
Arcana’s ears lowered.
“I’m sorry.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I keep meaning it.”
“Stop meaning things near me.”
Arcana looked genuinely pained by the impossibility of the instruction. Kaostar’s claws pressed into his palm before the thought finished. He turned away and sat back on the cliff edge. Deliberately.
A dare. A dismissal. A refusal to be moved from a place he had not wanted anyone else to witness. Arcana remained standing near the trees.
Good.
Distance. Respect. Fear. Then the kitsune slowly lowered himself to sit on a flat rock several yards away, not near enough to touch, and not far enough to pretend he had left.
Kaostar did not look at him.
“You are still here.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Arcana folded the paper map carefully in his lap.
“I’m deciding whether leaving would help you or only make me feel less afraid.”
Kaostar’s claws scraped stone.
“Everyone has become philosophical lately. It’s irritating.”
Arcana looked down.
“I can be quiet.”
“Can you?”
“I can try.”
“Try better than walking.”
Arcana gave a tiny, helpless laugh and immediately covered it with one hand. Kaostar looked at him. The kitsune lowered his hand.
“Sorry.”
Kaostar’s stare sharpened. Arcana corrected himself.
“I mean… understood.”
“Understood” was worse, and somehow better.
Annoying. The wind moved through the trees. For several minutes, neither of them spoke. The silence was not like Silas’s.
Silas’s silence had been built. Measured. A room with doors left visible. Arcana’s silence trembled.
It felt inhabited by everything he was trying not to say. His ears twitched toward every shift in Kaostar’s breathing. His tail curled and uncurled. His fingers moved over the edges of his paper map as though they needed something fragile to protect from being folded wrong.
Arcana was not reaching. But he was feeling. Kaostar could practically hear it. He looked toward the waterfall.
“You said this place is usually quiet.”
Arcana’s ears lifted.
“Yes.”
“Why here?”
Arcana glanced across the ravine.
“The water helps.”
“With what?”
“Everything.”
Kaostar snorted. Arcana accepted the ridicule with a small nod.
“I know that sounds vague.”
“It sounds useless.”
“It is vague. Not useless.”
Kaostar looked at him. Arcana’s violet eyes stayed on the waterfall.
“When I’m around too many people, I feel too many things at once. Fear, worry, anger, grief, and little pieces of old arguments people are still carrying. Sometimes happiness too, but even that can be loud if there’s enough of it.”
His fingers tightened around the folded map.
“Here, the water gives everything somewhere to go for a while.”
Kaostar did not answer. The waterfall continued its distant white fall. Somewhere to go. War had given Kaostar’s pain somewhere to go.
The water did it without bodies. He trusted bodies more. He kept the thought to himself. Arcana’s gaze slid toward him, then away.
“I didn’t mean to follow yours.”
“You did.”
“I know.”
“Silas said something similar.”
Arcana’s mouth opened, then closed. Kaostar almost smiled.
“Learning.”
“I am trying very hard.”
“That will make your death funnier.”
Arcana winced.
“That was almost a joke.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“It felt slightly joke-shaped.”
Kaostar looked at him. Arcana wisely looked at the waterfall. Kaostar leaned back on one hand. The stone was cold beneath his palm.
“I do not need another person telling me I’m in pain.”
Arcana nodded.
“I believe you.”
“That does not mean you understand.”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I don’t think understanding is always required to care.”
Kaostar’s jaw tightened.
“There it is.”
Arcana looked at him.
“What?”
“The thing people say before making themselves insufferable.”
Arcana’s expression softened in spite of fear. Kaostar’s first instinct was to make the softness ugly enough to survive.
“I’m not trying to fix you,” Arcana said.
“People who say that usually are.”
“I know.”
“And?”
“I’m trying not to.”
The honesty of the answer disarmed him. Kaostar looked away. Below them, water struck stone with endless patience. A cloud slid across the moon.
For a while, the cliff went dim. Kaostar’s thoughts returned without permission. Silas saying goodbye without reaching. Harrow saying he would not help him make exile true.
Lightstorm saying weather with blood in his fur.
No.
No.
The rain smell returned. Brief. Impossible. A thread of clean storm air crossing a dry spring cliff.
Kaostar’s ears snapped up. Arcana reacted at the same time. Not to the scent. To him.
The kitsune’s tail fluffed slightly.
“What was that?”
Kaostar turned on him.
“What was what?”
Arcana’s eyes widened.
“I don’t know. You—something changed.”
“Nothing changed.”
Arcana held very still.
“Okay.”
The word was gentle. Too gentle. Kaostar stood. Arcana did not.
Good.
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Letting lies sit there like wounded animals.”
Arcana looked genuinely stricken.
“I don’t mean to.”
“Then what do you mean?”
Arcana’s ears lowered.
“Sometimes if I push, people break. Sometimes if I don’t, they break alone. I’m not always sure which mistake I’m making.”
That cut too precisely for someone who had not meant it as a blade. Kaostar looked toward the waterfall.
“You do this often? Wander toward whatever hurts and hope it doesn’t kill you?”
“Less than it sounds like.”
“Still more than never.”
Arcana sighed.
“Yes.”
“Stupid.”
“Yes.”
“You are all admitting that too quickly lately.”
Arcana’s mouth twitched.
“All?”
Kaostar’s expression closed. Arcana did not ask.
Good.
The kitsune looked down at his paper map. Moonlight caught the inked lines. Old roads. Trails.
Water routes. Handwritten notes near the margins. No glowing screen. No device.
Kaostar glanced at it.
“You don’t use a phone?”
Arcana looked embarrassed immediately.
“Ah.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I try not to.”
“Why?”
Arcana rubbed the back of his neck.
“The last one screamed.”
Kaostar slowly turned his head.
“The phone.”
“Yes.”
“Screamed.”
“The speaker howled, the battery swelled, and the clerk asked me to leave before the display tablets joined in.”
Kaostar blinked once.
“That happened once?”
Arcana looked down.
“That happened most recently.”
For the first time that night, Kaostar laughed. Not sharp. Not cruel. Brief and startled, as if the sound had tripped over something inside him and fallen out before he could stop it.
Arcana looked up. His large tail gave one traitorous sway, purple-and-white tip catching moonlight before he forced it still. Kaostar pointed at him.
“No.”
Arcana froze.
“No what?”
“Do not look happy about that.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You absolutely were.”
“I was relieved.”
“Worse.”
Arcana pressed his lips together with heroic failure. Kaostar turned away, but the edge of his mouth moved before he could kill it. He killed it late. Arcana saw.
Of course he did. The kitsune looked down at the map and gave Kaostar the mercy of pretending otherwise. Strange. That word again.
Mercy. Kaostar sat back down. The distance between them remained. Arcana did not move closer.
Good.
Better than good. Safer.
No.
Not safe. Never safe. Just not stupid in the exact way Kaostar had expected. Arcana smoothed the map across his knees.
“I prefer paper,” he said. “Mechanical clocks. Printed books. Face-to-face conversations. Things that don’t die dramatically because I tried to help.”
“Everything dies dramatically eventually.”
“I’m hoping not everything.”
“You will be disappointed.”
“Probably.”
Arcana’s voice softened.
“But not always.”
Kaostar looked at him. Arcana’s eyes were too open. Too worried. Too ready to feel the answer before Kaostar gave it.
Kaostar looked away first. His ear turned again. Same direction as before. Toward the narrow route through the trees.
Arcana followed the motion this time and found only frost, bark, and the path he had used to arrive. Kaostar’s ear remained fixed. Then flattened. He looked away.
Arcana looked at the empty trees once more. Then stopped checking. Whatever Kaostar expected, it was not meant for Arcana’s eyes. The waterfall kept speaking for both of them.
After a while, Arcana asked “Were you thinking about someone?” Kaostar’s claws slid out. Arcana immediately looked down.
“I’m sorry. That was too much.”
Kaostar’s voice came low.
“Yes.”
Arcana nodded. Silence. The right kind this time. Kaostar hated that it worked.
A minute passed. Then another. The moon came out from behind the cloud. Kaostar’s shadow stretched long across the cliff.
“I had someone,” he said.
The words arrived without permission. Arcana did not move. Not even his ears. Kaostar almost respected him for that.
Almost.
“Past tense?” Arcana asked carefully.
Kaostar’s throat tightened. The cliff seemed smaller. The waterfall too loud. The air too clean.
“Yes.”
Arcana’s hands folded over the map.
“I’m sorry.”
Kaostar looked at him sharply. Arcana did not take it back. He only lowered his voice.
“I know you told me to stop saying that. I still mean it.”
The anger reached for something to strike and found no grip. Kaostar looked away.
“He would’ve hated that.”
“What?”
“People being sorry like it helped.”
Arcana considered.
“Maybe it doesn’t help.”
“No.”
“Maybe it still tells the truth.”
Kaostar closed his eyes. A creek moved somewhere memory could still reach.
“Stormy hated lies.”
Arcana’s voice was almost a whisper.
“Stormy?”
Kaostar opened his eyes. For a moment, killing the question seemed easier than answering it. Arcana must have felt the shift, because he looked down quickly.
“You don’t have to explain.”
Kaostar laughed once under his breath.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Do they?”
“Recently.”
“Do you believe them?”
“No.”
Arcana nodded as though that made sense. Kaostar’s scarred palm flexed.
“He asked for weather once.”
Kaostar stopped. His ears lifted. The forest had not changed. The waterfall still fell.
The wind still moved through the bare trees. But for one breath, his face did not look like he had remembered a voice. It looked like he had almost heard one. Arcana held still.
Even his tail stopped moving. Kaostar’s expression closed.
“Memory,” he said, though no one had asked.
Arcana did not answer.
Good.
The old sentence sat between them like a small dead thing neither of them wanted to step on. Kaostar’s voice lowered.
“I keep hearing it wrong.”
Arcana’s ears tilted toward him, but he did not look directly at him.
“Wrong how?”
Kaostar shook his head.
“Like memory has started learning tricks.”
Arcana’s expression tightened. Not fear. Concern.
“Is that why the air changed?”
Kaostar went still. Arcana immediately regretted speaking.
“I’m not asking to know,” he said quickly. “I just… felt something pass through you. Grief, maybe. Suspicion. Fear. I don’t know. It was there and gone.”
Kaostar’s pale eyes sharpened.
“You feel everything and still know nothing.”
Arcana winced.
“Yes.”
The answer was so simple it almost disarmed the insult.
Almost.
Kaostar looked up at the sky. No thunder. No rain. Only thin cloud and moon.
“I think someone may be provoking old wounds.”
Arcana’s voice changed. Gentler. More careful.
“Someone specific?”
Kaostar’s jaw worked once.
“Metatronas.”
The cliff seemed to recoil from the name. Arcana did not recognize it. He recognized Kaostar’s reaction to it. His ears lowered.
“That name hurts differently.”
Kaostar’s head turned. Arcana swallowed.
“I did not mean to touch it.”
“You didn’t.”
“I know. I meant—”
Kaostar interrupted. “I know what you meant.”
Arcana went quiet. Kaostar looked away again.
“He was a scientist,” Kaostar said.
The word tasted wrong.
“Or a butcher with better vocabulary. Or a god with instruments instead of worshippers. He found what grief left of me and made it useful.”
Arcana’s eyes shone with something that looked dangerously close to tears. Kaostar’s voice turned sharp.
“Do not cry for me.”
Arcana blinked quickly.
“I’m trying not to.”
“Try harder.”
“I am.”
Kaostar stared. Arcana pressed the heel of one hand against his own eye and gave a miserable little laugh.
“I told you. I feel too much.”
“That is not my problem.”
“No.”
Arcana lowered his hand.
“But right now it is near me.”
Kaostar stood again. This time slower. Arcana did not rise.
Good.
The kitsune’s body tensed, ready to bolt if needed, but he stayed seated on his rock with his map across his knees and his ridiculous yellow flower pinned near his shoulder. Kaostar walked toward him. Arcana’s ears lowered flat. Kaostar stopped several steps away.
Not close enough to touch. Close enough that Arcana had to tip his muzzle back to keep Kaostar’s face in view.
“You are not my anchor,” Kaostar said.
Arcana nodded quickly.
“I know.”
“You are not my conscience.”
“I know.”
“You are not here to turn me toward light.”
Arcana looked confused despite his fear.
“I don’t think people work like lamps.”
Kaostar stared. Arcana swallowed.
“I mean... no. I’m not.”
“Then what are you doing?”
Arcana looked up at him. Violet eyes. Honest. Terrified.
Compassionate anyway.
“Sitting near someone who felt like he might disappear if nobody stayed close enough to notice.”
Kaostar did not breathe for a moment. The wind moved between them. The waterfall continued below. Somewhere in the forest, an owl called once.
Kaostar’s voice came out low.
“You think sitting fixes that?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I think leaving would have been easier.”
Kaostar’s claws flexed. Arcana continued, barely above a whisper. “And I don’t always trust easy.” The sentence entered Kaostar softly and found something unguarded.
He stepped back. Arcana did not follow. Silas would have stayed at a table. Harrow would have left food on a flat stone.
Arcana sat on a rock with a paper map and felt too much from several yards away. Different. Dangerous in different directions. Kaostar turned toward the cliff edge.
“I should kill you.”
Arcana’s breath caught. Kaostar looked over his shoulder.
“For walking toward me.”
Arcana’s voice shook.
“I would prefer you didn’t.”
“That is generally how that works.”
“I know.”
“You afraid?”
“Yes.”
“Leaving?”
Arcana looked toward the path. Then the waterfall. Then Kaostar.
“No.”
Kaostar’s smile was thin.
“Stupid.”
“Yes.”
“Stop agreeing.”
“I’m trying.”
“No, you’re not.”
Arcana’s tail twitched despite fear.
“No.”
Kaostar almost laughed again. He hated that. He walked back to the cliff edge and stood facing the ravine. The urge to open a threshold came.
Moonleaf. War. Cave. Anywhere.
Elsewhere had always been obedient. Distance had always pretended to be an answer. Arcana spoke behind him.
“I can go, if being alone would help.”
Kaostar closed his eyes. There it was. Choice. Not pursuit.
Not demand. Not touch. Arcana’s version of halfway. Kaostar hated how quickly he recognized the shape.
No.
Not hated. That was too simple. His first instinct was to make the recognition ugly enough to survive.
“No,” he said.
The answer escaped before he could reconsider. Arcana’s breath caught softly. Kaostar kept his back turned.
“Stay over there.”
“I can do that.”
“Quietly.”
“I can try.”
“Try better than walking.”
This time, Arcana’s laugh came out before he could bury it. Small. Warm. Terrified of itself.
Kaostar let it exist. The cliff did not collapse. The waterfall did not stop. No storm arrived.
For a while, they stayed like that. Kaostar at the edge. Arcana on the rock. Several yards of
cold air between them.
A sanctuary borrowed by one person who needed quiet and another who had become too loud for quiet to hold alone. Kaostar looked out across the ravine. His ear turned once more toward the same route through the trees.
Nothing.
No figure. No breath. No step. Only the path, empty beneath frost.
Kaostar forced his gaze forward. He thought of Silas. He thought of Harrow. He thought of Lightstorm.
He thought of Metatronas and the possibility that every strange scent of rain, every clear-sky thunder, every memory that had begun moving differently might be another hand reaching through a lock he had not found yet. His scarred palm twitched. He opened it. No violet light came.
Only the black route. Only the old line. Only his hand. For now.
Behind him, Arcana carefully unfolded his paper map though he did not seem to be reading it. Kaostar glanced back once. The kitsune was looking at the waterfall. Not at him.
His tail remained curled close. His ears were still lowered. His fear remained present. So did he.
Kaostar faced the ravine again.
“Arcana.”
The kitsune looked over immediately.
“Yes?”
Kaostar stared into the dark below.
“If you tell me this is going to be okay, I will throw you off the cliff.”
Arcana’s eyes widened. Then his expression softened with terrible, sincere understanding.
“I wasn’t going to.”
Kaostar waited. Arcana continued quietly. “I don’t know if it will be okay.” Neither of them moved.
Kaostar’s shoulders loosened by a fraction so small only someone cursed with too much empathy would notice. Arcana noticed. He did not say so.
Good.
The waterfall kept moving. The moon slid behind cloud again. No thunder followed. No rain fell.
Kaostar remained at the edge. Arcana remained behind him. Neither called it friendship. Neither called it trust.
For once, no one tried to name the thing before it survived the night.
~ To be continued ~
