The ink stuttered as it met the page, frozen at the tip, half-formed like a thought she couldn’t quite commit to truth.

  Maisie Emmalyne Morton frowned and tilted the lantern closer, its flame weak against the evening frost that had crept through the seams of her canvas tent. Her weathered journal, wrapped in leather and scrawled edge-to-edge with diagrams and glyphic reconstructions, lay open to Entry 197-α.2.

  Object of Study: Stellara Sigilic Fragment – Eastern Wall (Stone 5c)

  Observed Inscriptions: Mirrored variant of glyph SD-9.B (primary loop reversed)

  Hypothesis: Linguistic inversion may signify temporal anchoring—destiny as motionless arc vs. flowing sequence.

  Action: Apply harmonic overlay with Blue Rysti Fragment (Ref: BRF#011). Note the temperature flux.

  She exhaled through her nose, fogging the page. Her gentle motion reached for the blue fragment beside her, secured in a silver prong clamp on a padded cloth square. It did not hum. Did not glow.

  Her father’s blue Rysti fragment returned a cold, useless stare.

  Maisie positioned it above the etched plate of a sigil stone lying across her workbench—Stellara’s supposed sigil, recovered from a frost-blasted ruin they hadn’t even bothered to name. She narrowed her eyes and adjusted the angle by half a degree.

  Nothing.

  She adjusted the runes again. Nothing.

  She tapped the sigil’s outer ring with the tip of her stylus, whispered a phoneme reconstructed from nine months of comparative syntax:

  “Shai-thel-en...”

  The Rysti fragment pulsed—no brighter than a twitch—and then dimmed to black.

  She slammed the stylus down, the force echoing inside the tent like a gunshot. Her breath shook, not from cold.

  "Again," she muttered, turning the page.

  Entry 197-α.3.

  Outside, the wind howled across the Stellara-SD-9 Expedition. Her claimed archaeological site.

  Snow hissed against fabric and stone. Beyond the ridge, the faint glow of Frosthold’s tower lights blinked through the whiteout—civilization just close enough to be useless.

  Maisie flexed her fingers, now stiff and red, then reached for her second ink vial. The first had frozen solid.

  She didn’t hear the crunch of footsteps until a warm voice cut through the tent flap:

  “Still chasing stars in the dark?”

  Maisie froze.

  The wind did not halt, but everything inside her came to a standstill.

  Dr. Calren Deylor stepped inside, brushing snow from the sleeves of his expensive deep blue coat. His trimmed beard and soft smile were almost familiar enough to disarm suspicion.

  “I brought you provisions. You forgot your requisition form—again.”

  He gestured to a humming crate—sealed, stamped, and marked with Havenbrook’s labyrinthine preservation wards.

  “You’d be amazed how many signatures it takes to get a few rations these days. Fortunately, I still have a little pull in the right offices.”

  Maisie suppressed a sigh. Everyone at Havenbrook knew it took a minor miracle—and three forms in triplicate—to get anything out of supply. Calren never waited.

  Maisie didn’t answer. She knew Calren had built his career on knowing which rules to bend—and which to bribe with a smile.

  She turned the page. 197-α.4. Her handwriting was starting to blur from moisture.

  “You shouldn’t be out here alone,” Calren continued, stepping closer. “You’ve got promise, Maisie. Always have. But obsession isolates.”

  She didn’t look up, not even when his hand drifted to rest on the edge of her table, too close to the fragment.

  Too close to her.

  “Still no resonance?”

  He feigned sympathy with the click of his tongue..

  “Well... some truths are not discovered by reason alone.”

  She finally met his eyes. They were patient, warm, and knowing.

  She hated them.

  “Thank you for the supplies,” her tone curt, before standing. “But I need to keep working.”

  He didn’t move at first. Then he smiled—wider this time.

  “Of course. I wouldn’t dare interrupt our next big breakthrough. Sigilspire is preparing for my keynote remarks during the Symposium.”

  He turned back again, glancing over her:

  “I’ll expect your updated findings by week’s end. Before the Auroria-Nyxlumina peaks.”

  But before the light faded, he spoke one final thought:

  “You know how hard it is to get approval from the Consulate scribes. A recommendation from me might smooth things over. Perhaps you’d prefer to review your findings together—in person?”

  The tent flap fell as he turned and left.

  And then he was gone.

  Finally, she thought.

  Maisie stood silent, frost gathering in her lungs. Only when the echo of his footsteps vanished did she breathe again.

  She returned to her journal, dipped her stylus into thawed ink.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Entry 197-α.5

  The tent door creaked open again before Maisie could finish annotating the fractured glyph on her tablet.

  “Apologies for the intrusion,” Calren said, his voice smooth and deliberate. “I thought I’d check on your progress. Can’t have our most promising field site freezing over.”

  Maisie didn’t look up. She kept writing.

  “You checked yesterday.”

  He chuckled, unbothered, brushing snow from his shoulders as he stepped fully inside. The tent warmed with his presence, not from heat, but from the sheer density of his command, like a woven mantle of tenure and reputation.

  “And yet here I am again. Dedicated to the craft, you see.”

  He walked the perimeter like he owned it, and she was only borrowing it.

  Maisie tensed. She closed the journal with calm precision and placed her stylus beside it. The gesture was polite. Measured. Defensive.

  “I’ve logged four new entries,” she said evenly. “All glyphs are backed with temporal sequence notes and altitude markers.”

  He picked up a folded page from her workbench—one she hadn’t permitted him to touch.

  “Meticulous, as always. But still no resonance?”

  She said nothing.

  He smiled, just enough to display teeth.

  “You know, scholarly recognition in our profession often requires... collaboration.”

  Maisie’s jaw tightened. She took the paper from his hand, carefully. Deliberately.

  “The Magical Antiquities Directorate approved this digsite under mutual contribution,” she said. “Your collaboration is on file. So is mine.”

  “Of course,” he said. “But field research—especially at this stage—can be such a lonely enterprise. No colleagues. No support. Just long cold nights and slow failure. Isolation isn’t healthy, Maisie. Not for a woman of your potential.”

  He stepped closer.

  “Serenya knows that. She’s done quite well for herself since Havenbrook. Assistant Archivist, now. Knows when to lean in. When to trust experience.”

  His light touch brushed her hand. She pulled back. He didn’t pause, as if the rejection meant nothing.

  He reached forward again, slowly, conversationally, as if adjusting the fabric of her coat.

  But then his palm settled on her thigh.

  “There are faster ways to make progress,” his predatory voice low. “Quieter ones.”

  The world contracted. No wind. No breath. Just his hand, and the heat of violation.

  Maisie’s body reacted before her mind could catch up.

  She slapped his hand away with a crack that echoed inside the tent.

  “Get out.”

  The words were soft. Not a scream. Not a plea. A verdict.

  Calren withdrew his hand, his face unreadable. Not shame. Not guilt.

  Disappointment.

  “If that’s how you prefer to proceed,” his expression colder than the environment outside. “Then I’ll be submitting my own findings under the M.A.D. charter. Your permit expires in two days. And the rysti fragment—well, as you know, it’s on loan.”

  He turned, brushing frost from her journal case on his way out—a reminder that nothing in the tent, not even the record of her work, was truly safe.

  “I’ll send for it in the morning. Your father, rest his soul, was a saint gifting it to the Magical Antiquities Directorate.”

  He parted the tent flap,

  “Without a valid permit, Consulate procedure requires the artifact be returned immediately.”

  As the flap fell, the cold rushed in—sharper than before, final as stone.

  She’d heard the stories at Havenbrook—how a missing form or an expired permit could end a career if the wrong man felt slighted. She just never thought it would be her.

  Maisie sat in the silence, eyes fixed on the extinguished lantern.

  She didn’t move. She didn’t breathe.

  She’d known, deep down, that standing alone came with a price.

  She’d never imagined the cost.

  The silence rang in her ears, sharp as glass.

  Something sacred just shattered.

  And she knew—there was no going back.

  The slap still echoed in her bones.

  Maisie sat at her workbench, unmoving, until the tent’s silence became unbearable. Even the wind outside stilled, as if the whole glacier held its breath.

  She reached for her small, personal notebook—not the official log, but the one she only used when truth couldn’t fit between proper margins. Her hands shook as she grasped the quill.

  "Report him to—"

  She paused. The ink trailed into white space.

  “Who would listen?”

  Her eyes flicked to the blue Rysti fragment, still clamped into its frame. It didn’t pulse. Didn’t flicker.

  “You certainly won’t,” she muttered, voice hoarse.

  For a moment, she hated it. That stupid, inert shard. She had poured hours into it. The sacred language she believed it might still unlock. The legacy it refused to give back.

  Then, a sudden gust of wind howled against the side of the tent.

  She flinched, instinctively reaching to keep the lamp from toppling. The flap rustled hard enough to slap the canvas. A low, steady vibration followed, like the deep groan of something ancient shifting beneath the ice.

  Maisie stood, walked stiffly toward the entrance, and pulled the flap aside.

  The cold bit harder than any memory of Calren.

  Above her, in the southern sky, the Auroria-Borealis shimmered—faint, thin, but unmistakable. Its light crawled across the horizon like spilled ink, and it was moving south.

  Toward the wilds. Toward something forgotten.

  The display shimmered in ribbons across the southern sky.

  But it was the dance of the four moons that pulled at her memory. Almost aligned, as her father once recorded. Almost.

  Maisie narrowed her eyes.

  The cold seeped through her coat, but she didn’t care.

  “You’re wrong, Calren,” she whispered. “I don’t need your permission to matter.”

  She gazed at the stars.

  Then back at the fragment.

  “If the gods are still watching,” she murmured, “they sure picked a convenient time to stay silent.”

  Her breath fogged the air.

  But the wind answered:

  Find someone who listens.