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.
Chapter 8: “Path Remained Empty”
Event Date: May 22nd, 2010 - 10:17 PM EDT, Earth
Arcana stayed over there. Kaostar should have preferred the distance.
Several yards of cold air remained between him and Kaostar. Stone. Dew. Wind. The low, constant rush of the waterfall below. Enough distance that no one could mistake stillness for trust. Enough distance that Kaostar could kill him before the kitsune got close enough to learn whether mercy had reflexes.
Arcana seemed to understand this. He sat on the flat rock with the paper map unfolded across his lap, though his eyes had stopped reading the ink some time ago. His charcoal-black ears remained lowered, violet inner fur catching scraps of moonlight whenever the clouds shifted. His large tail curled close around one side of his body, the purple-and-white markings near its tip occasionally twitching before he forced them still.
Fear remained in him. Kaostar approved of that. Fear told the truth. Arcana had every reason to leave.
He did not. What bothered him was that Arcana stayed. Kaostar stood at the cliff edge, facing the ravine. His back stayed turned to the kitsune, but his ears tracked him anyway: breath, clothing, charms, map paper, one claw tapping softly against his own knee whenever he forgot to restrain it.
The sound should have irritated Kaostar. It did. Not enough. Below, the waterfall kept falling.
The water gave everything somewhere to go. Arcana had said that. Kaostar had been trying not to think about it for almost an hour.
War had always given his pain somewhere to go. Bodies made excellent containers for things that could not be spoken. Cities broke more cleanly than memories. Enemies gave shape to a rage otherwise too large to hold.
The water below required no enemy. It simply moved. Kaostar disliked that kind of efficiency. His right ear turned toward the narrow route through the trees.
Again.
Nothing.
Only dew, bark, and the dark path Arcana had used to arrive. He forced his gaze forward. Arcana did not comment. Of course he noticed.
Of course he did not comment. Everyone lately had become infuriatingly skilled at not grabbing. Kaostar’s claws slid halfway out.
“Stop doing that,” he said.
Arcana tipped his face up from the lower rock.
“Doing what?”
“Not asking.”
Arcana blinked.
“I thought not asking was better.”
“It is.”
“Then I’m confused.”
“Good.”
Arcana looked down at the map.
“That makes two of us.”
Kaostar glanced back despite himself. Arcana’s mouth had curved slightly, but not with confidence. The expression was small and worried and trying to survive being humor. Kaostar turned forward again.
“You should leave before you get good at that.”
“At what?”
“Being tolerable.”
The map paper rustled. Arcana’s voice softened.
“I’m not sure whether that was a warning or a compliment.”
“It was a threat.”
“Oh.”
A pause.
“Thank you?”
Kaostar closed his eyes. The cliff did not have the decency to collapse. Arcana’s charms clicked softly as he shifted.
“I can still leave,” the kitsune said. “You said stay over here. I did. But if over here is still too near, I can go farther.”
Kaostar’s eyes opened. Arcana kept making doors out of pauses. Kaostar kept recognizing them too late.
“No,” Kaostar said.
Arcana held still. Kaostar’s voice roughened. “I said stay.”
“I know.”
“Then why offer?”
“Because staying means less if you don’t still have a way to change your mind.”
Kaostar’s hand flexed at his side. Old route. Old access. Old handclasp.
Metatronas had asked once, then behaved as though the answer belonged to him forever. Arcana had no idea what line he had stepped near. Or maybe he felt the shape of it without knowing the name. The possibility that Arcana understood without being told unsettled him more.
Kaostar looked back. Arcana had stopped breathing quite so loudly.
“Careful,” Kaostar said.
Arcana nodded once.
“I’m trying.”
“You say that often.”
“I need the practice.”
Kaostar looked away before Arcana could see what almost crossed his face. The wind came up from the ravine, carrying cold water smell and leaves and stone. For one second, underneath it, rain. Clean.
Impossible. Too near. Kaostar’s entire body went still. Arcana’s ears lifted.
Not because he smelled it. Because Kaostar did. The kitsune’s eyes widened slightly.
“There,” he whispered.
Kaostar turned his head.
“What?”
Arcana swallowed.
“Something changed again.”
“Nothing changed.”
Arcana glanced at the dry stone. At the bare trees. At the clear patches of sky between clouds. Then back to him.
“Not out here.”
Kaostar’s pale eyes brightened. The rust-red bands around his forearms glowed once beneath his sleeves. Arcana lowered his gaze immediately. Smart.
“Do not make a ritual out of noticing me,” Kaostar said.
Arcana’s tail curled tighter.
“I’m not trying to.”
“I don’t care what you’re trying.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
Arcana went quiet. The rain scent vanished as cleanly as it had arrived. Kaostar stared into the ravine until his eyes hurt. Memory.
Metatronas. Some delayed stimulus tied to the creek stone. Some leftover pressure from the archive prism. Some wound remembering itself badly.
Anything except what his body wanted to name. Anything except Lightstorm. Arcana’s voice came carefully from behind him.
“You said someone might be provoking old wounds.”
Kaostar’s claws pressed into his palm.
“Yes.”
“Metatronas.”
The name sounded wrong in Arcana’s mouth. Too soft. Too mortal. Too unqualified for what it meant.
Kaostar turned. Arcana’s ears lowered as soon as he saw his face.
“Do not say that name like you know its weight.”
“I don’t.”
“Then don’t say it.”
Arcana nodded.
“I won’t.”
“Good.”
A beat.
“I was going to ask whether that person could do something like this.”
Kaostar stared at him. Arcana continued quickly, “I’m not saying he is. I’m asking because you seem certain enough to be angry and uncertain enough to keep checking the trees.” Kaostar’s wings flared behind him.
Not fully. A black-and-rust pressure-shape opening like a warning around his shoulders. Arcana went pale beneath his dark fur but did not rise.
“You noticed.”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
Arcana looked toward the path.
“Four before I stopped checking with you.”
Kaostar’s jaw tightened.
“Why stop?”
“Because whatever you expected, I wasn’t going to see it first.”
The wings flickered. Kaostar’s right ear turned toward the path again. There was nothing there. There had been nothing there.
Each time. Still, the same route kept pulling at his attention. His attention kept returning to one route. If it had been all exits, he could have blamed habit.
Lightstorm’s habit. His habit now. Borrowed. Inherited.
Stolen by grief and kept because it worked. But this was one route. The same break in the trees. The same dark gap between two crooked trunks.
The path Arcana had used to arrive. The path something else had not. Kaostar’s voice lowered.
“There is nothing there.”
Arcana did not look.
“Okay.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Believe you?”
“Leave room for the lie.”
Arcana’s expression changed. Not pity. Recognition of a different kind.
“I’m leaving room for not knowing.”
Kaostar’s wings collapsed back into nothing. For a while, the only sound was water. Then something metal clicked behind Arcana. Both of them looked.
Near the old trail marker, a small emergency beacon sat half-buried in leaves. Kaostar had noticed it earlier and dismissed it as dead park equipment. A plastic casing, cracked at one corner. A tiny solar panel, clouded with grime. A dark bulb above a faded arrow sign pointing back toward the trail.
The bulb flickered. Once. Twice. Then it glowed weak amber.
Arcana stared at it in horror.
“Oh no.”
Kaostar’s ears lifted. The beacon buzzed. Arcana slowly raised both hands.
“I did not touch it.”
The bulb brightened. The buzz became a strained electronic whine. Kaostar’s eyes narrowed. The timing was offensive.
The rain scent. The empty path. The old suspicion. Now failing electronics near the kitsune who had already admitted phones screamed around him.
Arcana began edging away from the beacon while remaining seated, which looked even more ridiculous than it sounded.
“I really did not touch it.”
The beacon clicked rapidly. Then the bulb flashed violet-white and produced a noise somewhere between a cough, a howl, and a dying insect. Smoke curled from the casing. Arcana winced as if personally wounded.
The beacon went dark. A final puff of smoke drifted upward. Kaostar stared. Arcana covered his face with both hands.
“I’m sorry.”
Kaostar looked from the dead beacon to Arcana.
“That was you.”
“Probably.”
“Probably.”
“I have learned not to overstate certainty around machinery.”
Kaostar kept staring. Arcana lowered his hands enough to reveal one violet eye.
“It happens.”
“To trail markers.”
“To many things.”
“It turned on first.”
“That is new.”
Kaostar’s expression sharpened. Arcana froze. The waterfall continued below. The beacon smoke thinned in the cold air.
Kaostar stepped toward it. Arcana shifted forward.
“Careful.”
Kaostar stopped. Slowly turned. Arcana swallowed.
“I mean. It might still be hot.”
Kaostar looked back at the smoking beacon. Then at Arcana.
“You warned me about a dead light.”
Arcana’s ears lowered.
“Yes.”
Kaostar’s face went unreadable. Dead flashlight. New batteries. Same dark.
Final light spent in a cave that had learned how to scream. He looked at the broken beacon again. The bulb was dark. No signal.
No proof. Only failed electronics. Only Arcana. Probably.
Kaostar crouched beside it and waved one claw through the smoke. No dimensional residue. No foreign pressure. No seam.
No Metatronas signature he could feel.
Nothing.
The ordinary stupidity of an electronic device dying near an apologetic kitsune. His mouth twitched. Arcana saw the twitch and looked alarmed.
“Please don’t laugh if it’s going to be cruel.”
Kaostar’s expression flattened.
“You are making rules for my laughter now?”
“No. I’m making a request for the emotional well-being of innocent equipment.”
Kaostar stared. Arcana looked at the beacon.
“It had a difficult night.”
The laugh came again. Brief. Startled. Not gentle, exactly.
But not cruel. Arcana’s tail swayed once before he grabbed it with one hand and held it still. Kaostar pointed at him.
“I saw that.”
Arcana looked down at his captive tail.
“No, you didn’t.”
“You are worse at lying than Silas.”
“I still don’t know who that is.”
“Continue not knowing.”
Arcana’s mouth tightened, fighting another smile. Kaostar stood and walked back toward the cliff edge. The dead beacon behind him smelled faintly of scorched wire. The smell layered under the impossible rain in his memory.
Rain. Scorched air. Dead light. His humor faded.
Arcana felt it happen. He did not ask. Progress. Or cowardice.
Kaostar could not decide which answer annoyed him less. Arcana’s voice came after a while.
“I don’t think the beacon was your person.”
Kaostar turned sharply. Arcana’s ears dropped.
“I’m sorry. That sounded ridiculous.”
“It sounded suicidal.”
“Yes.”
“Try again never.”
Arcana nodded quickly. Then, because apparently wisdom had limited jurisdiction over him, he continued. “I mean I don’t think every strange thing near you tonight has the same cause.” Kaostar’s eyes narrowed.
“You have a theory.”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I have a feeling.”
“Worse.”
Arcana folded the map with excessive care.
“Some of it feels like you. Some of it feels like what you’re afraid of. Some of it feels like what you’re afraid to hope.”
Kaostar’s voice went cold.
“Stop.”
Arcana did. Immediately. No argument. No explanation.
No apology. That was the only reason Kaostar did not make the cliff remember violence. The kitsune held still on his rock, eyes lowered, hands folded over the map. Kaostar breathed through his teeth.
“I do not hope.”
Arcana said nothing. “I search. I measure. I test. I suspect. I survive. I do not hope.”
Arcana remained quiet. Kaostar’s scarred hand shook once.
“I hoped once.”
The words came out before he could kill them. Arcana’s eyes lifted, then stopped halfway, hovering near Kaostar’s shoulder instead of his face. Safe angle. Learned quickly.
Dangerous trait. Kaostar looked toward the empty tree route.
Nothing.
“I hoped enough to let a monster build me.”
Arcana’s expression twisted with pain. Kaostar turned on him.
“I said do not cry for me.”
Arcana blinked hard.
“I know.”
“Then stop.”
“I am trying.”
“Try better.”
Arcana pressed both hands to his map until the paper bent. His voice came thin but steady.
“I don’t think hope made you wrong.”
Kaostar went still. The air tightened. Arcana’s ears flattened completely. He looked terrified.
He continued anyway. “I think someone used it against you.” The cliff seemed to lose temperature. Kaostar’s eyes brightened.
Arcana gripped the map harder.
“I’m not saying that makes what you did after okay. I’m not saying it fixes anything. I just—”
“Stop.”
Arcana stopped. Kaostar stared at him. The thought moved through him like a knife finding a place no armor covered. Hope had not made him wrong.
Someone used it.
No.
Too easy. Too clean. Hope had opened the door. Metatronas had walked through.
Kaostar had chosen the hand. No one is forcing my paw. That does not make you innocent. I did not ask for innocence.
He remembered saying it. He remembered meaning it. He remembered believing that consent could coexist with blame and not cancel either. Arcana was still looking down.
His hands trembled against the map. Kaostar said, “You are very bad at self-preservation.”
“Yes.”
“You were supposed to stop agreeing.”
“I forgot.”
Kaostar forced the breath through his nose instead of giving it a shape Arcana might recognize as amusement. Arcana’s tail moved despite his grip. Kaostar ignored it this time. The waterfall went on spending itself into darkness.
The night deepened. Clouds pulled apart enough to show more stars. Kaostar looked up. No thunder.
No rain. His right ear turned. The tree route.
Again.
This time there was a sound. Small. Not branch. Not footstep.
Not animal. Two soft taps. Not loud enough to be certain. Too familiar to dismiss.
Kaostar’s body locked. Arcana felt the change so hard he inhaled sharply.
“What—”
“Quiet.”
The word cut. Arcana obeyed. Kaostar stared at the break in the trees. Nothing stood there.
No one breathed. The frost-dark brush remained empty. His heart struck once against the unreadable stone. Then again.
No.
No.
The sound had been water. Rock shift. A dying beacon. Arcana’s cursed electronics settling.
Anything. The rhythm did not repeat. Kaostar’s claws extended. His wings half-formed.
Arcana remained absolutely still. Even the charms at his waist quieted. For several breaths, the cliff became a held note. Then the waterfall filled the silence again.
Kaostar’s wings faded. He did not realize he had stepped toward the trees until frost cracked under his boot. Arcana’s voice came very softly.
“You heard something.”
Kaostar turned. Arcana looked as if he regretted being alive enough to have said it, but he did not take it back. Kaostar’s voice was almost calm.
“No.”
Arcana nodded once.
“Okay.”
The word almost broke him. Kaostar looked away. His chest hurt around the stone. Not the same ache as injury.
Older. Worse. Hope did not have handles. Suspicion did.
He grabbed suspicion. Metatronas. It had to be Metatronas. Some delayed route through the palm scar.
Some echo left in the archive prism. Some laboratory joke with a long fuse. Metatronas had once used Lightstorm’s face without knowing him. Metatronas had once tested voice and gesture and memory until imitation wore beloved skin.
This could be that. This could be another hand reaching. This could be bait. That was better.
Bait could be bitten. Bait could be measured. Bait could be destroyed. Kaostar looked toward Arcana.
The kitsune had tears in his eyes again but had not let them fall. A ridiculous act of discipline. Kaostar almost respected it.
“Do you still feel it?” Kaostar asked.
Arcana blinked.
“What?”
“Whatever hurting thing dragged you here.”
Arcana went very still. He closed his eyes. Kaostar watched with predatory focus. Arcana’s ears shifted.
His tail curled tighter. His hands opened over the paper map.
“I feel you,” Arcana said.
“Obviously.”
Arcana winced but continued. “I feel fear. Anger. Something like grief sharpened until it has teeth. Suspicion. A lot of suspicion.”
Kaostar waited. Arcana’s brow furrowed.
“And… something else.”
The ravine seemed to quiet. Kaostar’s voice lowered.
“Describe it.”
Arcana swallowed.
“I don’t know if it’s yours.”
Kaostar took one step closer. Arcana did not move.
“Describe it.”
Arcana opened his eyes.
“I can’t. It’s not clear. It’s like… standing outside a room where someone left a candle burning, but the door is shut and the house is underwater.”
Arcana looked embarrassed by the image. Kaostar did not laugh.
“It fit.”
Arcana looked frightened by that. Kaostar turned toward the trees again. Candle. Door. Underwater. Light. Storm.
No.
No.
He was not doing this. He was not turning a frightened kitsune’s metaphor into proof because proof had teeth and this had nothing. Nothing but rain scent. Clear-sky thunder.
An empty path. Two taps he did not hear. A dead beacon. A feeling Arcana could not name.
Nothing.
Nothing could still become a trap. Kaostar looked back at Arcana.
“If that feeling changes, you tell me.”
Arcana nodded.
“Yes.”
“If you lie, I will know.”
“I’m bad at lying.”
“Good.”
“I also don’t want to.”
“Better.”
Arcana’s expression softened. Kaostar pointed one claw at him.
“Do not be pleased by earning conditional usefulness.”
Arcana’s mouth closed. Then opened. Then closed again. Kaostar stared.
Arcana said, very carefully, “Understood.”
“Better.” The kitsune looked down quickly, but not before Kaostar caught the faintest smile. He allowed it to survive.
Against policy. Against instinct. Against several perfectly reasonable arguments for cruelty. The night moved on.
The air grew colder. Arcana eventually unfolded the map again and weighed one corner with a small stone. Kaostar remained standing near the cliff edge, though his attention kept slipping toward the tree route. Once.
Twice. No more taps. No figure. No rain.
No thunder. Only the waterfall. Only Arcana’s breathing. Only his own refusal to decide whether the night had changed or whether he had.
Arcana spoke after a long time.
“You don’t have to tell me who Stormy was.”
Kaostar did not look at him.
“Was?”
Arcana’s ears lowered.
“Is?”
The correction struck harder than the original. Kaostar closed his eyes.
“You don’t know which is true.”
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
Arcana’s breath caught softly. Kaostar opened his eyes before any gentleness could settle too long.
“That does not leave this cliff.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“I don’t care about anyone.”
Arcana tilted his head.
“Then who are you warning me from?”
Kaostar turned his head slowly. Arcana’s eyes widened.
“I heard it after I said it.”
“You are determined to die.”
“I am determined to understand sentence structure too late.”
Kaostar stared. Arcana’s tail twitched. The absurdity did not erase the danger. It did something stranger.
It let the danger stand beside something else. Kaostar looked away first.
“Silas would like you,” he said.
Arcana became very still. Kaostar regretted the sentence immediately. Arcana, demonstrating a survival instinct that had finally reported for duty, did not ask who Silas was again. Instead he said, “I hope so.”
Kaostar looked at him. Arcana lowered his gaze.
“I mean. If he matters enough for you to keep saying his name like it slipped.”
Kaostar’s eyes narrowed. Arcana held up one hand.
“Stopping.”
“Wise.”
“I found some.”
“Don’t celebrate.”
“I won’t.”
The yellow flower near Arcana’s shoulder trembled in the wind. Ridiculous thing. Bright thing. Alive thing pinned against layers of dark cloth.
Kaostar stared at it for a moment.
“You look absurd.”
Arcana blinked.
“Oh.”
“The flower.”
Arcana touched it lightly. His expression softened.
“It was given to me.”
“By someone with terrible taste?”
“By a child with excellent taste.”
Kaostar’s mouth closed. Xevonon’s small crown-shaped clan marker polished by careful hands flashed in memory.
No.
Not small. Young adult. Still preserved by peace enough to offer help before knowing danger. Peace didn’t save you.
Kaostar’s scarred hand shook once. Arcana saw. Did not ask.
Good.
Kaostar turned back to the ravine.
“You collect promises,” he said.
Arcana looked at the cords, charms, beads, tassels, and flower layered across his clothing.
“I suppose I do.”
“Dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“You keep saying yes.”
“I keep finding it accurate.”
Kaostar exhaled through his nose. Arcana smiled faintly at the map. The cliff remained. The night remained.
They remained. That was not friendship. That was not trust. It was not even safety.
It was a fox-shaped problem sitting several yards away, feeling too much and saying too little only after being threatened. It was a dead beacon cooling near the trail marker. It was the smell of rain that had not fallen. It was a path through trees that refused to become empty just because Kaostar found nothing there.
It was a question with no handle. Arcana eventually leaned back against the rock and looked toward the waterfall.
“I understand why you come to edges,” he said.
Kaostar did not answer. Arcana’s eyes remained on the ravine.
“They don’t ask you to choose the middle.”
Kaostar looked at him despite himself. Arcana’s ears lowered.
“That sounded better before it left my mouth.”
“No.”
Arcana looked surprised. Kaostar looked away.
“It sounded exactly as irritating as intended.”
Arcana’s mouth twitched.
“I’ll accept that.”
“You accept too much.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybe.”
Arcana nodded.
“No maybe.”
Kaostar stood silent for a while longer. Then he opened a small threshold near the cliff edge. Arcana immediately looked down at his map. Not at the door.
Not at him. Learning. Kaostar’s voice came low.
“You are not coming.”
Arcana nodded.
“I know.”
“You are not following.”
“I know.”
“You are not waiting.”
Arcana hesitated. Kaostar turned. The kitsune’s tail curled tight. Arcana chose the truth anyway.
“I might come back here.”
“That is not what I said.”
“I know.”
“You know what I meant.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Arcana folded the map carefully.
“If I come back, it won’t be to trap you into returning.”
Kaostar studied him. Arcana looked frightened. Honest.
Still.
“I like this place,” Arcana said. “It was mine before tonight.”
That answer saved him from several consequences. Kaostar faced the threshold.
“Good.”
Arcana’s voice came quietly.
“Kaostar.”
The name sounded different from him. Too soft. Too concerned. Too careful not to own itself.
Kaostar did not turn.
“What?”
Arcana paused. The waterfall filled the gap.
“If you hear it again…”
Kaostar’s claws extended. Arcana adjusted.
“…whatever it is. You don’t have to decide what it means immediately.”
Kaostar’s wings flickered. Arcana added, almost too fast, “That is not advice. It is just—something I am saying from over here.” For several seconds, Kaostar did not move.
Then his claws slowly withdrew.
“Over here suits you.”
Arcana’s breath escaped in a small, shaky laugh.
“I’ll remember that.”
Kaostar stepped into the threshold. For one instant, the cold folded around him. The tree route lay beyond Arcana. Empty.
Still empty. His ear turned toward it one last time.
Nothing.
Then, from somewhere beneath the waterfall’s voice, or behind it, or inside memory badly pretending to be sound— Two taps. Kaostar froze halfway through the door. Arcana’s head lifted. He had not heard it.
But he felt Kaostar hear something. The kitsune said nothing.
Good.
Kaostar’s chest tightened around the unreadable stone. His voice came out barely above the wind.
“Metatronas.”
It sounded less certain than before. The threshold closed around him. Arcana remained on the cliff with his map, his dead beacon, his frightened tail, and a feeling he could not name. He looked toward the empty path.
His tail curled tighter. He did not call after him. The waterfall gave everything somewhere to go. Some things did not go.
~ To be continued ~
