Riko shot awake with a silent, choked gasp, her body drenched in a cold sweat. The world was a chaotic, suffocating storm of white lines, the outlines of the stone blanket and her sleeping friends suddenly sharp and threatening, like the bars of a cage. Her own panicked aura was a violent, flaring nova in her perception. She was back there. The phantom sensations of the nightmareâthe sticky warmth of blood on her hands, the cold, unresponsive flesh, the reek of aleâclung to her, more real than the rooftop she was actually on. Her lungs refused to work, her breath coming in short, ragged hitches.
The sudden, violent movement woke Lyra. Her eyes fluttered open, still heavy with sleep, but they went wide the moment she saw Riko. She had seen this before. Riko was on the verge of a full breakdown, hyperventilating, shaking uncontrollably with silent tears streaming down her face, her hands clenched into fists so tight her knuckles were white.
Instantly, all tiredness vanished from Lyra's expression. She moved with a practiced, gentle quickness, grabbing Riko's ice-cold hands and enveloping them in her own warm, steady grip. "Hey, Riko. Riko, look at me," she said, her voice a calm, firm whisper that cut through the noise of Riko's panic. "Breathe with me. Just like we practiced. In... and out. You're here. You're on a rooftop in Valoria. You're safe. I'm right here." She squeezed Riko's hands with a gentle, rhythmic pressure, a physical anchor in the storm of memory. "You are not like them. Do you hear me? You are not a monster."
It was a line she had used many times before, a mantra born from hushed conversations in the dead of night long ago, a truth she had to constantly reinforce against the lies Riko's trauma told her. Slowly, agonizingly, Riko's ragged breathing began to even out, her focus latching onto Lyra's voice and the solid, real feeling of her hands. After a long moment that felt like an eternity, the violent shaking subsided. With a final, shuddering sob, Riko collapsed forward, hugging Lyra tightly, her face buried in her friend's shoulder.
"Thank you..." she whispered, her voice thick with a profound gratitude and a bone-deep exhaustion.
"Always," Lyra whispered back, holding her tight.
She held her for a moment before gently laying her back down under the stone blanket. She began to hum one of Riko's favorite childhood songs, a simple, gentle melody their mothers had taught them. Her hand calmly stroked Riko's hair until her breathing finally deepened into the steady rhythm of a true, peaceful sleep.
For a long time after, Lyra just watched her, the silver light of the moon tracing the peaceful contours of Riko's face. I have to protect this, Lyra thought, a fierce, quiet resolve hardening her expression. I have to protect her from the world, but more importantly, from herself.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Once she was certain Riko was lost to the world, she carefully slid out from under the stone blanket. Silent as a shadow, she slipped over the edge of the rooftop and dropped into the empty, sleeping streets of Valoria below. The city she had just fled through in a desperate chase now felt like a ghost town, the buildings tall, dark sentinels in the dead of night. She navigated the alleys from memory, her steps sure and silent, until she found what she was looking for: an old, unassuming door in a forgotten, run-down part of town, almost invisible in the gloom. The only thing that marked it was a faint, dark stain on the woodâthe unmistakable, sickening sign of old, dried blood.
"Sorry, Riko," she whispered to the empty air, her hand hesitating just above the doorknob. "I promise, this is the last time. I have to find it. And this is the only place left to look."
She pushed the door open. It groaned on rusted hinges, the sound a scream in the oppressive silence. The smell hit her firstâa stale, coppery tang of old blood and a faint hint of char, the ghosts of a tragedy that had soaked into the very walls and floorboards. It was a house of old death. She stepped inside, her heart pounding. She put her hand up, closing her eyes. "Goddess Nocturna, keeper of what is hidden, grant me a sliver of light to pierce your veil. I cast: Light Flare."
A soft, silver light bloomed from her palm, pushing back the oppressive darkness. The light revealed a scene of frozen, dusty chaos. An overturned chair. A dark, permanent stain on the floor where a rug had once been. A small, faded drawing of a smiling stick-figure family, lying half-hidden under the couch. Lyraâs heart ached. She forced herself to focus, her light sweeping across the room. She was looking for something specific, something she had been told was hidden here. She checked behind a loose brick in the hearth, then carefully lifted a floorboard she knew was loose. Nothing.
Her light then fell on something else. A large object hidden under a rotting canvas sheet in the corner. The smell of decay was overpowering. Steeling herself, she used her foot to nudge the canvas away. It was the small, skeletal remains of what might have been a dog, a family pet left behind in the tragedy. Shaking her head, she forced herself to look away, scanning the rest of the desolate room one last time.
After a few more minutes of fruitless searching, she let out a frustrated, silent sigh. "Welp⦠guess this was a waste of time. It's not here." She lowered her hand, and the silver flare slowly died, plunging the room and its sad secrets back into absolute darkness.
She slipped out of the house, closing the door as quietly as she could, and climbed back onto the rooftop, moving back under the covers so gently that no one stirred. As she settled in, pulling the blanket tight around herself, a cold, bad feeling crept into the back of her mindâa certainty that whatever she was looking for, whatever secret Riko's mother had hidden, she needed to find it, and she needed to find it soon.