Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Day 1: Knight/Cleric

In the early summer of that year, Soren finds a tomb.

It's not as groundbreaking as it sounds. People find new things in the ruins of the old castle site all the time and the University of Katolis makes it a point to have a research team there every day of the year so they don't miss anything. It's a lot of hoo-ha for a bunch of old rocks and to be perfectly honest, Soren doesn't care much for archaeology one way or another, but his dad is still the head of the archeology department at U of K, and an easy in is an easy in.

Viren doesn't like him. 

In fairness, Viren doesn't like anyone, but his disdain for his own son is pretty obvious to most people, and Soren only has this job at all because it makes his dad look good. The two of them have an understanding: Soren does the shitty digs, the ones no one else wants because they're hard or dangerous and unlikely to turn anything up, and Viren pays him slightly better than a living wage and leaves him alone. They might find something every now and then, but the credit always goes to Viren, and it's fine, it works, Soren doesn't care—

Until he accidentally knocks over a wall in the catacombs and finds a tomb with two bodies hidden beneath where the chapel used to be.

“Your dad owes you a raise,” says Corvus, tipping his beer at him.

Soren snorts to himself and shovels a handful of peanuts into his mouth. It's late now. They've been at the ruins all day and the first thing Soren had wanted when they clocked off was a drink and a decent burger. He and Corvus and Terry had come straight here from work, their clothes still covered in debris, their faces grey with dust. Crow the Bartender had taken one look at them and snorted and uncapped three bottles of house brew before they’d even asked. “You give my dad too much credit,” he says, taking a swig. “He’s a nightmare on his own, but this? That bastard’s gonna be insufferable for weeks.”

“I don't understand why you let him,” says Terry, picking hungrily at the chips with only marginally more finesse. “It’s your discovery.”

“It's just a bunch of bones,” shrugs Soren. “He can have the credit, I'm just here for a paycheck.”

“No reason you can't still leverage it for a better one. I mean if Academic Integrity found out he wasn't even onsite…”

Soren raises an eyebrow at Terry. Honestly, he’s impressed—he seems like such a sweetheart most days, but if any one of them were capable of being a criminal, it’d be him.

Corvus snorts into his beer. “He’s got a point. If he insists on pretending he found it, you might as well get paid for it.”

Soren shakes his head at them both, amused but touched that they would want him to get credit, and takes another swig of his beer. He dusts dirt off the table and smiles sheepishly at Crow when he brings their food around, but Crow only sets down the tray and looks between the three of them expectantly.

“Well?” he prompts. “You found a damn tomb! Details!”

Soren glances at Corvus and Terry before all three of them guffaw into their fries. “I mean,” he laughs, “we only just found it.”

“Yeah, but a tomb like that would have something interesting in it. You said there were two bodies in there!”

“There are,” admits Soren, “but it's not like we've done any meaningful analysis on it yet. Like. We just found it.”

“Who were they?”

“They could be anyone,” Corvus cuts in. “The castle was three hundred years old before it got burned down and rebuilt the first time. There must be thousands of bodies in there.”

“Okay but you must have some idea.”

“Christ, Crow.”

Terry laughs then and shoves another fry in his mouth. “Look, it's all pretty preliminary but looking at the remains, I’d say one of them was a knight. The other is a little harder because clothes don't survive as well as armour does, but we found a circlet as well, and I think—I think, I dunno what these two make of it yet—that she might have been a cleric.”

Crow raises an eyebrow. “She?”

Terry shrugs. “We need to take a look at those bones. Do, like, a proper autopsy and everything, but from the affects that were in there, I think the second was female and that she was a cleric.”

Crow stares at them. “But I mean,” he says, “historically, weren't clerics…”

Terry nods and pops another fry into his mouth. “That's why I said I think.”

Corvus frowns at him across the table. “You've made some assumptions, I see.”

“I said I think,” says Terry again, flashing a grin at Corvus. “The story is sweet, right? If that's who they were?”

“It's unlikely,” points out Corvus. “You know that clerics never took husbands—”

“Yeah but—”

Soren tunes them out good-naturedly. Terry likes a good story, the romance and the fantasy of one, even when the evidence doesn't quite line up. Corvus, on the other hand, has always preferred to stick to hard facts. They're a fun pair to be around, most days, and they are Soren’s best friends, but it's been a long hot day, and his head is starting to ache.

He excuses himself quietly to go splash some water on his face and clean some of the dirt off his skin, when the world tips sideways and a tray of fries clatters to the ground.

There's a yelp, a shout, a flurry of movement and sound.

Soren blinks and the bar is gone.

The sun is warm. The sky is impossibly blue. Soren blinks again, relishing the peace of the summer and the cool brush of the wind on his face. 

It's quiet today. The castle is close to empty because most of the staff have found excuses to go into town or to the river to make the most of the summer warmth. He, on the other hand, is in the library, by the window seat with a book propped open against his knee.

He stares at the swirling letters, at the gauzy curtains, at the shelves and shelves of books, his mind lost and wandering, when someone appears in his vision and smiles.

“Did you find what you were looking for, Captain?”

Soren can't, for the life of him, remember what he was looking for at all, but he smiles at the speaker anyway and snaps the book shut.

“Sure did,” he says, bowing his head a little in greeting. “Thank you for your help, High Cleric.”

Opeli smiles back, her fingers so very close and yet so very far away. “Of course. Any time.”

Chapter Text

Day 2: Sun/Gold

Soren wakes in a room that is far too bright and far too loud. 

For a moment, he's confused. He has no idea where he is or how he got here, and the last thing he remembers is the smile of a woman he’s never even met, but all of that fades in an instant, when his head pounds and he squints his eyes shut again like it might dull the pain.

He groans.

“Soren!” Corvus, he thinks? “You're awake!”

“You gave us a heck of a scare, mate, are you okay?” 

Soren groans again and rolls onto his side, wincing as something pricks in his arm. “What happened?” he croaks. His throat is so dry he wonders how he managed to ask at all. 

“You tell us,” says Corvus. “We went to the bar after we came back from the ruins. You passed out.”

“The doctor thinks it might have been dehydration,” adds Terry, nodding at the cannula in his arm. “It's hot out there, and we’ve been in the sun all day. I'm guessing the beer doesn’t count as fluids.”

“It does the opposite, I think,” says Corvus drily. “How do you feel?”

“Like shit,” rasps Soren. He sits up slowly and the room only spins a little. 

“You look like it too,” quips Terry unhelpfully. If Soren were more lucid, he might have glared at him, but as it is, he wonders if he can even open his eyes again without hurting himself. “Doc says you should probably take it easy for the next day or two.”

“Awkward timing,” mutters Soren. “The tomb—”

Corvus cuts him off. “The university’s sending a secondary team out tomorrow to help recover the stuff that's in there. You know Callum and Rayla and Ez? They're coming out to help transport it back to our labs in exchange for getting in on the paper.”

“Viren’s just letting them do that, is he?”

“Well.” Corvus purses his lips looking amused. “It was Harrow's decision more than it was his.”

Soren rolls his eyes with what little strength he has and is pleasantly surprised when the action doesn't try to kill him. He dares to squint at his friends. “So what?”

“So take the day off,” says Terry, frowning. “You're not seriously thinking about going back onsite like this, are you?”

“Well, I wasn't going to go out now ,” snarks Soren. “I reckon I’ll be fine tomorrow though.”

“ Don't ,” snaps Corvus. “The university won't cover you if you go back out against a doctor's orders, and in any case, I'm not carrying you if you faint again .”

“Think you can't handle all this muscle?”

“Soren.”

“All right .” He huffs and scowls at the spotted linoleum on the emergency room floor. “You’ll keep me updated?”

“Obviously,” chuckles Terry. “If you need something to do that badly, you can go talk to the Archives. Maybe there are clues in there that might help us identify our two new friends.”

A voice. A smile. The sun like gold in caramel hair.

Soren blinks and he is back in the emergency room. Corvus and Terry are both staring at him expectantly and Soren realises far too late that they're still waiting for an answer.

“Uh. Yeah,” he says stupidly. “I'll do that, I guess.”

The other two frown. 

“Are you sure you're okay?” asks Terry.

Soren blinks and blinks again. The hospital stays put, even if that smile is burned into his mind like an afterimage of the sun. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m good.”

Soren sleeps until ten the following morning, in part because the emergency department doesn't release him until close to midnight, and in part because his slumber is so deep and so heavy that not even his four alarms wake him, and it's only when his bedroom is too bright and too warm that he rouses at all.

He drags himself out of bed, his mind still groggy and heavy with sleep, and stands in the shower for close to an hour, trying to get his head back into gear and the lead out of his limbs. A coffee and a half later, he is at the Archives, savouring the blessed cool of air conditioning and the dim lights in the back rooms, his phone chiming every now and then with images from the ruins while Kazi prattles on about the tomb and who its occupants might be.

“Dr. Clark is furious she has to be away,” they're saying. “Our team lead,” they add belatedly, recognising the look of confusion that passes over Soren’s face. “She's in Duren for a conference and she's the real expert on all the primary documents we store here. I'm just a linguist so I'm not really any help but I can give you a place to start?”

“Whatever's good,” says Soren, shrugging awkwardly at Kazi’s enthusiasm. He cradles his coffee a little closer. 

“It really depends on so many factors,” says Kazi, more to themself than to him. “Once you date the remains, I can give you something a bit more specific, but if one of them was really a knight, you could start there? We’ve got records all the way back to the Mage Wars for knights and their families, and there aren't many who are important enough to be buried in the catacombs with their spouse, because that means their spouse would have to be that important too.”

“Mm,” says Soren, only half listening now because that doesn't narrow it down at all. The castle was almost a thousand years old by the time it burnt down for good, and a thousand years of knights is a handful indeed.

Kazi chuckles sympathetically. “This’ll be easier once you have a rough date,” they say. “Dr. Clark will be back at the end of the week too, she can help you a lot more than I can.”

In spite of himself, Soren smiles. “Right. Thanks Kazi. I can figure it out from here.”

Kazi nods their head. “Call if you need anything. I'll be in the offices.” They smile, and then Soren is alone in the dry air and the mountains of parchment wondering where on earth he should begin.

He is at a wedding, he thinks. The music is bright and there's a lot of dancing and laughter, and it's too high spirited to be anything else. Balls and galas are never so merry, and the mood is infectious: the drums thump in his chest, his cheeks ache from smiling so much, the air is filled with the thrill of celebration, of love.

It's wonderful, but there is something missing. 

Someone .

Soren cranes his neck over the crowd, his smile fading just a little as he spots everyone but the white and red he’s grown so accustomed to seeing by his side. He pushes his way through, muttering apologies at happy dancers and waving off busboys with trays of wine, the heat and crush of bodies just as disorienting as the alcohol coursing through his system. It's so hot, so hard to breathe, and then—

Air. A flash of white. Robes billowing in the evening breeze.

Soren follows it, through the throng, across the dais, towards the balcony overlooking the gardens, his heart tugging him ever forward to a smile he has never seen that belongs to a woman he has never known.

This is a dream, he realises. Or is it a memory? Of something distant. Something forgotten. Of a life lived lifetimes ago.

Soren tumbles out into the evening air, his breath easing with the space, and she is there, her hood drawn over her head, as always, her smile carefully hidden under a facade of practised neutrality. 

“Good evening, Captain.”

“High Cleric,” says Soren, bowing as any gentleman should. “Enjoying the party?”

She chuckles then, the lightest flush in her cheeks. “Perhaps more than I should be,” she confesses. “Moderation in all things, they say, but I… am a little too far gone, I think.”

“I don't think anyone can blame you for having a good time,” laughs Soren, stepping closer. “Heck of a party Ez has got going.”

“The King's wedding was always going to be a heck of a party , as you say.”

“And you?” he says, his heart stuttering for a moment. “Have you thought about what I asked?”

Opeli’s smile fades just a little. “I have,” she says. “I don't have an answer for you, Soren. Not yet.”

Soren chuckles sheepishly. “You don't have to have one at all, I just… I guess I kind of hoped the party might help.”

Opeli ducks her head. “My apologies,” she murmurs. “I wish it were so easy. I do. And I would, if things were different. I just…”

“I know.” Soren shrugs and smiles anyway, drawing her to him until they are standing face to face. “It's a lot to ask,” he says quietly. “I don't mean to pressure you. But my alternative is the same.”

“Would you be happy with the alternative?”

“I'm happy with you.” He kisses her knuckles, a knight greeting a lady with respect and nothing more to the casual onlooker. “Will you dance with me, at least?”

She laughs a little at that. “My answer to that has never changed.”

Soren wakes. There is paper stuck to his face and a pen slack in his hand. His head hurts again.

Kazi is staring at him, hands raised in concern. “Are you okay?”

“What? Yeah.” Soren shakes his head, wincing at the way it throbs with every movement. The ghost of another hand lingers in his. “Sorry.”

“Should you… go home…?”

“No,” says Soren, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “Just… been having some weird dreams lately. It's nothing.”

Kazi frowns at him, and then shakes their head too. “Okay...” they say uncertainly. “Just… take a break, I guess.” They peer over his shoulder, curious to see what he might have found, or if he’s found anything at all. “That’s interesting,” they say. “What’s that doing there?”

Soren blinks at them, and then glances down at his notes. There is a woman there—or rather, there is a photograph of a painting of a woman: a copy of a copy. The painting itself lives in the National Gallery. Soren has only ever seen it in history textbooks, never in person, but he stares at her, at the blue of her eyes and the yellow of her hair, at the sun painted in gold behind her, like she is a saint, or perhaps Lady Justice herself. “Should it not be there?”

"Well, no,” laughs Kazi. “We have a whole other section of primary documents for clerics and the Temple of Justice. You’re looking for the identity of your knight, aren’t you?”

The word yes builds in Soren’s throat but doesn’t leave it. For some reason, he doesn’t think he needs it at all. “Who is she?” he asks instead.

“Just a cleric,” says Kazi. “See the circlet there? The most common interpretation is that she’s a representation of the High Cleric, back when there was one. Surely you’ve seen it. It’s a very famous portrait.”

Soren shrugs. She certainly seems familiar. If he didn’t know better, he thinks he might have known her once.

His phone buzzes. 

He tucks the photo away.

Chapter Text

Day 3: heart/care

Soren returns to the digsite the following morning to find the work is all but done. He supposes having two teams onsite means the work is quicker, but it feels like a shame to have missed it. Fieldwork is an interesting kind of fun: it’s an adventure of sorts, and it’s the only part of archaeology he genuinely enjoys, if only because the dirt and the dust and the excavating make him feel like a real Indiana Jones.

“They’re both at the lab now,” Corvus tells him. “Rayla’s got some friends who can date the remains and then we can start work on finding out what happened to them.”

“Mm,” says Soren. Something about it feels like an invasion of privacy, like they’re prying into someone else’s business without permission. It was easier when all they found were bits of pottery and rusted weapons. These remains were human once, living once, and part of him wonders how they would feel if they knew their bodies were such objects now.

Corvus raises an eyebrow at him. “Something wrong?”

“Ah, no,” says Soren, chuckling sheepishly. “I dunno, I’ve just been feeling kinda out of it recently.”

“We noticed,” says Corvus. “Are you sure you’ve recovered from whatever had you fainting the other day?”

“I’m fine,” insists Soren, waving him off. “Did you find anything else in there?”

“I sent you pictures of everything we found,” pipes Terry. “There was the sword, which was rusted to heck, although we might be able to do a digital reconstruction, and the circlet, of course, but I think what’s more interesting is what’s missing. ”

Corvus rolls his eyes then, already tired of the theory, but Terry presses on eagerly and swipes through his phone for pictures of the undisturbed remains.

“Look,” he says, zooming in to a picture of a skeletal hand. “That’s her left hand. And that’s his. What’s missing?”

Soren eyes him warily. “Skin?”

“ Rings ,” says Terry unperturbed. “Wedding bands have been in use since long before this castle was built. These two weren’t an item, at least not legally.”

“And that’s relevant because…”

“ Because ,” says Terry patiently, “they’re sharing a tomb. ” He grins then, excited, ecstatic, a picture of a scientist on the verge of a breakthrough. “Tomb-mates aren’t a thing unless the people in them have some kind of really intense bond, and it’s usually reserved for spouses who are in the upper class. These guys were so important to each other that they died in each other's arms even though they were never married.”

Corvus sighs tiredly. “This is all conjecture, Terry.”

“Don’t be a spoil sport,” he says, swatting Corvus good-naturedly.

“It is, though,” says Corvus. “Who's to say the rings weren’t just stolen?”

“From a sealed tomb that was undisturbed before we got here?”

Corvus falters a little at that. “I just don’t think you should be jumping to conclusions. You’re supposed to be a scientist.”

“C’mon, Corvus, where’s your sense of romance? It’s a beautiful story. And it makes my theory sound legit.”

“Your theory?” asks Soren.

“That she’s a cleric,” says Terry, zooming back out to the remains of the woman. “Why else would she not be married to the person she’s spending the afterlife with? Because she wasn’t allowed to be . ”

“Yeah, all right,” says Corvus, waving him aside. “Leave the rest of the theorising for when we have more information.”

“If I’m right, you’ll owe me a beer.”

Corvus snorts. “Terry, if you’re right, I’ll buy your beers for the rest of the semester. Let’s head back to campus. The dust is getting to me.”

They head back up towards the light, but Soren lingers for a moment. He thinks of the photograph he found in the archives, of the woman in the painting and the striking blue of her eyes. He has never been much of a romantic, but his chest aches a little at the thought of it: two forbidden lovers, allowed to be together at last when it matters to them the least.

He follows Corvus and Terry back upstairs before he can think about it any more.

Viren is practically crowing with delight. He's had a pretty successful career as an archaeologist, but this is the find of the decade, he boasts, and the papers they could produce on this find alone could pad out his already lengthy resume by pages and pages more.

“They’re taking their time dating,” he says loftily, flipping through the images Terry took, trying to decide on the best one to release to the press. His office is spacious for an academic. Someone (he) might think he was a dean. “They don't need both specimens.”

Soren bristles a little. Specimens is so cold and unfeeling, which is something Soren is used to from his father, but his sympathy for the people those specimens were makes him unreasonably mad about it. “They want both so they can construct some sort of timeline,” he says coolly. “One might have died years after the other, you don't know.”

“No dating method is that precise,” snorts Viren. “When will we get them back?”

“When they're done with them,” says Soren shortly. “They’ll come back sooner or later, no point in being pushy about it.”

Viren pauses. Then he glances over the top of his desktop at his son, his lips turned downwards in his usual disapproving scowl. “Is something wrong, son?” he asks, his voice pointed, dangerous in a way that Soren is well used to. 

“No more than usual,” snarks Soren. “Was there a reason you wanted to speak with me?”

Viren gives him a look down his nose. “Have you identified them?”

Soren scowls back. “It’s been two days,” he snaps. “We don’t even know how old they are. We might not  be able to at all.”

“What can we tell the press?”

Soren almost rolls his eyes. Of course this is about the press. Of course this is about how good he looks. “Exactly what I told you,” he answers. “There was a tomb. There were two bodies. Everything else beyond that is speculation.”

Viren sneers at him, obviously displeased, but says nothing more. A shouting match in his office with his own son doesn’t look good, Soren supposes, but he doubts this will be the last time Viren will try to pressure him for details. “You can go,” he says instead, dismissing Soren with a wave. “Notify me when the specimens have been returned.”

Soren turns on his heel and leaves without another word.

“I never liked him either,” says Opeli.

Soren blinks and he is on a balcony. It’s been years since it was rebuilt, and years more since Sol Regem destroyed it, but Soren still remembers it all like it was yesterday. There was so much fire and ash, so much terror—

Soren blinks again. This is not his father’s office. The memories of dragon fire are not his. And this castle—

Where am I? He wants to ask. What is this?

He chuckles instead and the scene plays on like a record he can’t stop. “My dad was a character, all right,” he says, leaning his elbows against the balustrade. “Sometimes… I don’t know.”

Opeli tilts her head at him curiously. “Do you miss him?”

“No.” Soren huffs and looks out over the rest of the castle, tracing the steps he took that day. The tower. The ramparts. The bailey. The stablehand trapped under the cart. “This is where I saw him last,” he says finally. “Where he made his final stand, I guess. I always wanted him to be better, and when he was…”

“Mm.” Opeli twitches her lips at him and ducks her head, hiding a rueful little smile in the recesses of her hood. “He was always… ambitious,” she says. “Always reaching, always wanting more. I can’t imagine the pressure you were under in those days. Your mother certainly felt it.”

Soren snorts. “Sometimes I worry I’ll be like them,” he admits. “I try so hard to keep all of that… managed , y’know? But I feel it still. The reaching. The wanting more.” He glances at her briefly and then looks away, his heart tugging, ever tugging, towards her.

Opeli laughs, the sound of it clear and bell-like in the afternoon air. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about in that regard.”

“Don’t I?”

“No.” She shakes her head and touches his arm. “You care too much,” she says. “Your heart is too big. Your father wasn’t even half the man you are now.”

“You believe that, do you?”

“Yes,” says Opeli. “I do.”

He laughs and doesn’t argue. “Opeli,” he manages at last, himself now, no longer a spectator in this stranger’s mind. “What’s happening to me? Why am I seeing all this?”

She smiles patiently as the scene around them begins to fade. “You made a promise,” she says, her voice distant. “I’m still waiting.”

“Soren?”

Soren blinks again and Terry is there, frowning at him like he’s moments away from calling an ambulance. There is no castle. He is at his desk at work and his computer screen is glitching on an advertisement from the National Gallery. His head is aching again and his heart is beating heavily in his chest.

It is two fifty-six. He went in to see his father at nine this morning. The day has simply gone, and he can’t remember any of it. All he can remember is—

“Does the name ‘ Opeli ’ mean anything to you?”

Terry stares at him. “No? Should it? Are you okay?”

Soren presses his lips together. “I’m not sure that I am.”

Chapter Text

day 4: right/wrong

The National Gallery is a beautiful building. It’s very old and very grand and it sits rather majestically at the top of a hill overlooking Katolis city-proper. The last time Soren was here, he was on a high school field trip for an exhibition of Durenian classical art. Today, he stares up at its facade and its interior and marvels at his naivete.

“Cool, right?” says Ez. He’s here every other day because his girlfriend manages the restoration rooms, and he’s here today because Corvus had insisted somebody ‘supervise’ Soren on his day off.

(It's not a day off, thinks Soren. It's forced sick leave. Corvus is more concerned than he should be. Soren is fine except for the headaches and the fainting and the memory loss, which… he will admit do sound concerning, but Soren really is fine otherwise. He’s just… looking for something, he thinks. Perhaps someone. It's hard to explain.)

“Yeah,” breathes Soren, staring around the atrium in awe. 

“It used to be a temple to Justice,” says Ez, gesturing vaguely around them. “A lot of sources say it was the Temple to Justice before the city was sacked by The Order of the Fallen Star. I don't think the Clergy ever bounced back after that, at least not in this city. There's another temple in Evrkynd and we think that's where they went after.”

“You sure know a lot about this place,” says Soren, faintly amused.

Ez chuckles. “You like dirt. I like history. Plus it helps when your girlfriend runs the place. Aanya!” He waves, and a woman with dirty blonde hair and gleaming golden eyes waves back from across the atrium. She grins at them both and excuses herself from the mismatched group of tourists examining the shallow pool in the centre.

“Hey,” she greets, pecking Ez lightly on the cheek. 

“Aanya, Soren. Soren, Aanya.” 

“Nice to meet you,” says Soren, shaking Aanya’s hand awkwardly. “You run this place?”

Aanya shoots Ez a playful glare. “I assist the curator,” she says modestly. 

“Ophelia’s on secondment, you are the curator.”

Aanya waves him off, a flattered little flush colouring the apples of her cheeks. “Anyway. What brings you both to the Gallery today?”

“Oh, uh.” Here Soren coughs awkwardly. How to explain. How to pretend this is work related and not because of the weird dreams and visions. “Well, we found something cool in the ruins the other day.”

“Oh, the tomb?” Aanya claps her hands excitedly. “Ez told me all about it. You must thrilled!”

“My dad definitely is,” snorts Soren. “We're looking into the details now but the question everyone wants answered is… well. Who were they? What's the story, y’know?”

“You thought you’d find answers at the Gallery?”

Soren presses his lips together. Then he beckons for them both to come closer. “We’re pretty certain one’s a knight,” he tells them quietly, glancing around the atrium for eavesdroppers. “But Terry’s got this theory that the other might be a cleric.”

Aanya stares at him. “But clerics aren't allowed—”

“Mmhmm.” Soren shushes them both. “I’ve been to the archives already but… I dunno, it felt right to check here too.”

Aanya hums thoughtfully. Then she clicks her tongue and motions for Soren and Ez to follow as she strides purposefully towards the back of the atrium. “Most of the Clergy stuff went to Evrkynd centuries ago, but there's still stuff here, especially from before The Order of the Fallen Star. It's not usually for the public but… we can call it university business, I think.” She taps her badge against a scanner and the Staff Only doors open with a futuristic whoosh . “Come on through. I'll show you what we've got.”

Admittedly, it isn't a lot. There're some old robes and some prayer books with beautifully illuminated texts that look more like they should belong in the archives (“They do,” Aanya tells them with an amused smile. “My boss—or my old boss, I guess—brings them over sometimes. She prefers our preservation rooms.”) but the thing that draws Soren’s eyes is the far wall.

The portrait is bigger than he thought it would be. If he were any less lucid, it would be like she was standing in the same room.

“Oh, The High Cleric ,” says Aanya, following his gaze. “Different seeing it in person, right?”

“Mm,” says Soren. “She's beautiful.”

“Yeah,” chuckles Aanya. “I think everyone forgets that sometimes. That clerics were people. Women. That they had interests and hobbies and favourite colours and favourite foods. Everyone's seen this one, of course, but there's another one you should see. Come this way.” She leads him over to a journal, propped open on a display stand. 

“Goes without saying, but don't touch, yeah?” She grins, tugging on a pair of cotton gloves before flipping through the yellowed pages to a sketch, much less grand, and much more personal. “This journal belonged to a High Mage once, we think. There are old spells and runes all over it, but there are also heaps of these little sketches which is just so… real , y'know? Anyway, people think the woman in that painting is just supposed to be a representation of all High Clerics but I think she was an actual person that this High Mage knew. Here.”

She turns the book to Soren, and Soren’s stomach drops through the floor.

She is there, a perfect likeness of the woman in his dreams, her hood drawn, the curve of her smile hidden behind a teacup while her companion chatters away beside her. Her eyes are soft. Her gaze is fond. Her knuckles are close enough to her companion’s to brush but far enough away not to—but it's the knowledge that comes with it that scares him.

He looks at the sketch and knows it's the early morning. He knows that, when the tea is done, she will bid him goodbye with a hand against his arm before she will walk to this very temple to greet the Sun as it rises in the east. He knows that the tea is too cold to be enjoyable now, but they are drinking it anyway because it's an excuse to stay just a little longer. He knows the jelly tarts between them are pomegranate flavoured because they're her favourite and he likes to see her smile.

“That guy kinda looks like you actually,” says Aanya, glancing between him and the sketch. 

“Does he?” says Soren stiffly, pretending not to see the likeness, pretending he's not reeling and on the verge of a mental collapse. “I thought I was better looking. Who was is he?”

Aanya shrugs. “No one knows. He's in this a few times though, so I think he and the High Mage knew each other well. His armour is a bit more… custom, so if I had to guess, I’d say he was probably Crownguard.”

A knight , thinks Soren. And a cleric . 

No. Impossible .

“Did that help?”

“A little,” he answers hoarsely. “Do you—uh—do you mind if I take some photos?”

“Knock yourself out,” says Aanya. “No flash, and no touching, that's all.”

Soren nods, his throat tight. The sketch looks clear and bright on his phone screen, but it's clearer and brighter in his mind. 

It’s not just a sketch. Not to him.

It's a memory.

He leaves the gallery twenty minutes later, confused, terrified, barely able to think or breathe because something is happening and it doesn't make any sense. This is wrong. It's all wrong. How can he remember it? How can he know it all with such certainty? 

How can those bones possibly be—

“Soren! Wait up!”

Soren stumbles on the steps and almost falls face first into the footpath, narrowly missing a cyclist who swears at him as he swerves past. 

“Soren!”

“I—uh—” Soren winces, the pounding in his head worsening with every step. When had that come back? Has he had a headache the whole time? “Sorry, Ez,” he manages, his vision clearing enough to see a statue behind Ezran that he knows isn't there. The city blurs in the distance, coming in and out of focus, the architecture glitching from stone houses to high-rises and back again. “What the hell—”

Ez catches up to him as his knees start to buckle, and Ez yelps and slings Soren’s arm over his shoulder before he collapses entirely. “Soren, what's happening? Do you need me to call an ambulance?”

“No, I uh—” The pain in his head flares, and when Soren looks up again, the Ez in front of him isn't the Ez that he knows. He's glitching too, a postdoc one moment, and a king the next. “I need to get back to campus.”

“What? No, we need to get you help—”

“I know who they are,” he grunts, trying to focus.

“What are you talking about?”

Soren squeezes his eyes shut, his ears ringing, his head throbbing so painfully that it feels like he might throw up. He tries to breathe through it, tries to settle enough to at least find a park bench, and slowly, slowly, the pain subsides.

He lets out a breath.

And then he opens his eyes and the Ez he knows is gone.

“You okay?” asks Ezran, the King, the crown on his brow glinting in the sunshine.

Soren breathes in as his head clears, armour clinking as he straightens.

“Yeah,” he says. “I'm good.”

Chapter Text

day 5: poetry/practicality

The meeting is worrying. 

Terry and Corvus have come back with the news of Aaravos’ followers gathering in shady taverns all over the kingdom, and there is some concern that they are rallying for his impending return. 

“They're not happy,” says Corvus grimly. “A lot of them are from here. Our own countrymen who are concerned we’ve spent too much time making allies with Xadia instead of looking after them.”

Ez groans at the end of the table. “We’ve sent them aid and supplies. Our borders are clear and we’ve been at peace with Xadia for years. What more could they want?”

“If I may, Your Majesty,” says Opeli quietly, “I can understand their frustration. When our home was attacked, we put off our own recovery to aid New Aurea and to build Evrkynd. Our people, particularly those in rural areas, want to be prioritised.”

A pause settles over the council. Callum levels a glare at Opeli.

“What are you saying, exactly?” he says dangerously. “Are you implying that Ez hasn't been doing his job?”

“I'm saying that we should, perhaps, focus more of our efforts on the people who live here ,” says Opeli coolly, meeting his glare with one of her own. “I acknowledge that ending the war and making peace with Xadia was a priority for a while, but the war has been over for years. Our people should take priority now .”

“It's not over, though,” snaps Callum. “Aaravos is coming back. He was always going to come back. All we did last time was stall him, and when he does return—” He falters and looks away. “They have to understand that farming can't be a priority when we know he's coming and the archdragons are gone.”

“They don't,” says Opeli shortly. “They are not mages or soldiers who understand the complexity and the implications of his return. They are farmers and peasants who can only see that our priorities are not them.”

“We are prioritising them,” says Ez. “We’re just… spread thin right now.”

“Do we have to be?”

“What do you mean?”

Opeli breathes in. “Do we need our people in Evrkynd right now? Do we need people in New Aurea? Is it necessary to keep sending supplies to Evrkynd when we could be rebuilding our own stocks?”

“Well—yes,” says Ez. “They're not self sufficient yet, they don't have the same agricultural means that we do and we need to make sure the people there can manage—”

“There are people here , Ezran. Your people.”

Callum scowls at her. “So you do think Ez isn't doing his job.” 

“ Hey ,” snaps Soren before he can stop himself, his hand drifting absently to the pommel of his sword. “Back off.”

“I'm saying,” intercedes Opeli, eyeing them both sharply, “that he can't continue to focus on Evrkynd at the detriment of his own people.”

“Guys.” Ezran groans and rubs his hands over his face. “She's right. It doesn't matter what we're doing if the people here think they're not being taken care of. I’ll… hold court tomorrow and find out what they need. Maybe we can calm some of this down if we can address what they want. Meeting adjourned.”

The council breathes a collective tired sigh as they get up one by one, chairs scraping against flagstones, parchment fluttering as it's all piled together. Soren lingers by the door until everyone has left but Opeli, who waits by Ezran’s side until he looks up.

“Is there something else?” he asks. It comes out bordering on meek; like he’s a child waiting to be scolded.

“No, Your Majesty,” says Opeli, bowing her head. “I wanted to apologise. I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t doing your best.”

Ez snorts a little despite himself. “Don’t worry about it. Callum’s always been like that, and I didn’t ask you guys to be on my council so you could smile and nod. If I’m doing something wrong or if you think I could be doing something better, I want to know.”

“All the same,” says Opeli. “I’m sorry. In truth, I’m… worried. That something might happen here when we least expect it because we’re so focussed on Aaravos and Evrkynd.”

“I hear you,” says Ez. “Thank you.”

Opeli bows once more and takes her leave. She is not surprised to see Soren waiting for her by the council room doors.

“How very chivalrous of you.”

“I’m a knight, aren’t I?” says Soren. “It’s my job.” 

She twitches her lips at him. “I’ve had worse arguments in council meetings before.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to stop being chivalrous.” He grins at her and offers his arm. “Care to go for a walk, my lady?”

She laughs, and Soren’s grin grows a little more genuine. She’s always so stone-faced, so guarded with her emotions. It’s gratifying to see her smile. “I would be honoured, sir. Thank you.”

How can he explain it? Where should he begin?

Opeli has been a presence in Soren’s life for years. She is older than him by at least a decade but it's never mattered, and she has played a significant role in everyone's lives at the very least since Ez became king. She is a constant here, an ever fixed point who has never bent or shifted, and she is there every moment as surely as the sun rises every day. 

The others forget that sometimes. It’s so easy to think of her as just a cleric or a parental figure and they're so wrapped up in their own lives that they forget that she has more to do than manage them. She is kind and patient and loyal to her king; she works too hard and does too little for herself; she has been friend and counsel and therapist and teacher and guardian to everyone for years and has never once asked any of them for anything in return.

Soren admires her for those things alone. He doesn’t know when all… this started to happen. It just did. And now…

Well. It’s too far gone to help now. He goes so out of his way just to make her laugh these days, just to see the light in her eyes and the dimple in her cheek when she smiles. She makes him tea every morning before they go out and attend to their separate duties, and he brings her tea at night, where she lets him let down his walls and he can be tired and sad and afraid without the mask of a comedian. He gets letters from suitors, men and women both, who have noticed his lack of a spouse and think they can slip right in, but he burns every invitation before he ever reads them because he knows what he wants.

He just can’t have it.

And that’s fine. It works for them. Opeli keeps her own affections subtle, her smiles hidden behind teacups or within her hood. She lets him treat her like nobility because it’s an easy facade, and neither of them can be faulted for it. He kisses her knuckles as any gentleman should but it is the closest he will ever come to kissing her lips.

He asks her something one day. They are in the gardens. Callum and Rayla have been married for years, and Ezran’s own wedding to Queen Aanya looms on the horizon—not just a marriage for love and convenience, but for the united front they can present when Aaravos inevitably returns. 

“Would you get married? If you could?”

She hums, examining the gardenias growing in the patch by the well. “If I could. To the right person. Yes.”

“What kind of  person is the right person?”

She smiles then, that secretive little one he’s grown so fond of. “Someone good. Someone kind. A knight perhaps, if there was one who would want to marry someone like me.”

Soren tilts his lips and glances at her out of the corner of his eye. “Would you step down so you could?”

She stops then, and it dawns on her, perhaps a little late, what this is all about. “What are you asking me, Soren?”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” he says lightly, like it’s another joke, another metaphor that exists only between them. “Would you?”

“Step down? Or marry you?”

The truth of it is so heavy. This is the first time they have ever addressed it so openly, and Opeli looks as if she can’t decide between shock and a kind of happiness she has never let herself have.

“Step down to marry me,” he says.

Opeli blinks. And then she looks away.

He doesn't blame her. He’d known, after all, what her answer would be. But he’d still hoped.

“I don't know,” she says at last, and Soren catches it: the hint of longing in her eyes, the look of someone trapped by circumstance and duty. “What would you do? If I said no.”

Soren shrugs, pleasantly surprised she would even entertain it. “Stay,” he says. “If you’ll have me.”

“Surely there are other people. Better people than me.”

“There's no one better than you. Not for me.” He catches her hand then, casting a furtive glance around the gardens to make sure they're alone before he lifts it to press his lips against her fingers. “I’d rather be unmarried and around you forever than be married to someone I don't love.”

The truth sits between them, warm and volatile like her fingers on his skin.

“I can't ask you to do that, Soren,” she whispers.

“ I'm asking you,” he says. “If you don't want to step down, if duty comes first… would you let me stay?”

Opeli pauses and swallows and curls her fingers around his. “Let me consider the first option,” she murmurs. “Would that be all right?”

Soren presses another kiss into her hand. “Of course.”

The poetry in it is charming. A knight and a cleric, sworn to each other by a vow known only to them. They go about their business as they always do, but the question is there, in the open now, but at the very least, Opeli knows what she means to him. How long he would wait.

In the meantime, the city grows restless. Corvus and Terry return with increasingly concerning reports: riots on the edges of the city-proper, buildings burned, citizens at each other's throats.

Every morning, Opeli makes his tea and bids him goodbye and be safe, and every evening he returns with tea for her, keeping the promise that he will. 

“We're on the verge of an uprising,” says Opeli one night, watching the stars through her window, searching for the ones Callum marked as Aaravos’. “I don't think there's anything Ezran can do to stop this now.”

Soren grimaces. “We need to start getting people out of here.”

“Which ones?” asks Opeli. “How do you know we wouldn't be evacuating Aaravos’ followers and placing them within our strongholds?”

“There are a few that we know are loyal to us. We can get them out. Get them to Evrkynd.”

“It's the same problem, Soren. There’s no way to evacuate our people without risking further loss.”

“So what are we supposed to do? Let it happen?”

Opeli sighs and looks away. “I don’t have an answer you’ll find acceptable. I can’t accept it myself.”

A pause settles over them. Soren blinks furiously at his tea. “You won’t go, will you? If it happens.”

“No,” says Opeli firmly, without hesitation, without fear. “My duty is to this city and there will be people looking for shelter and guidance. My place is here.”

“It doesn’t have to be your duty, Opeli. You can still step down. No one would think any less of you for it after everything you’ve done here. You can live through this, and maybe after, we could—”

“Would you step down?”

Soren snaps his mouth shut. Then he sets tea down and rubs his hands over his face.

Opeli twitches her lips sadly and reaches for his hands across the table. Hers are so small around his but her grip is warm and more comforting than it should be in the face of everything that’s going on. “How could I do anything less?” she asks quietly. “How could I go knowing that you were still here? How could I live not knowing if I would see you again?”

“I’d find you,” he says hoarsely. “I’d find a way.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“I can.”

Opeli shakes her head. “I won’t go, Soren. My place is here. With you.”

Soren tries to find whatever comfort he can in that.

The riots get worse, and one day, Soren and his men can’t stop them. 

There are fires on the horizon and bodies in the streets. It’s hard enough to fight their own people, but Claudia has been rallying Aaravos’ followers for years from every corner of Xadia and the Human Kingdoms and they swarm the city in droves. Aanya’s forces are on their way but they won’t be here until morning, and surviving the night won’t be possible for most.

It was clever, really. They are already spread thin between here, Evrkynd, and New Aurea. Callum comes and goes as he needs because he and Rayla live in the Silvergrove now with their little one, and all Claudia had to do was wait until he was gone.

Soren’s men are tired. They’d known things were bad for a while but they’d never expected a force like this. Soren’s orders are to fall back, get out of the city, save whoever you can , but it won’t be enough. The city will fall, and thousands will die, and even those who get out will still have to find their way to Evrkynd on roads that stopped being safe months and months ago.

Ezran is devastated. He blames himself. He waits in the castle for refugees looking for sanctuary for as long as he can and directs them into the tunnels so they can, at the very least, get out.

“You have to go too,” says Opeli. Her robes are soot stained. There is blood on her face. She’d found a bow on her way back from the temple, it seems—years ago, Soren had taught her how to use one in case she ever needed to fight, and there is pride hidden in the horror of her holding one now. “Ezran. You have to go.”

“There are still people out there!” snaps Ez. “They need help! They need a way out!”

“I know,” says Opeli quietly, catching Soren’s eye. Her intent is clear, and Soren’s heart shatters in his chest. “Go.”

“What—I—”

“Soren. Take him.”

Soren can’t. His limbs are too heavy. His lungs have seized. “Opeli,” he manages. “Don’t do this.”

She smiles sadly at him. “You are sworn to him first,” she says, “and someone has to stay. Go.”

And it takes every fibre of Soren’s being to listen, to haul Ezran kicking and screaming into the tunnels, his own heart wrenched out of his chest as he shuts the concealed door behind him leaving Opeli alone with a bow that she is only just capable of using. 

“What are you doing?” screams Ezran, beating his fists against Soren’s hollow chest. “We can’t leave! We can’t leave her there!”

Soren says nothing. He can’t. He shoves Ezran forward, his throat closed, his heart in pieces but he focuses on the ground and takes one step, and then another, and then another, praying to Five Sisters for the first time in years for strength he doesn’t have.

“Soren, stop! Answer me! How could you , of all people—”

“My duty is to you,” snarls Soren at last. “Not her. Not—” He swallows painfully, his eyes burning with tears. “The people need you, okay? I have to keep you safe. That’s my job and I won’t—I can’t fail anyone else.”

“What about her?” demands Ezran. “What about Opeli? How could you leave her ?”

“We’re not talking about this.”

“Do you think we’re all idiots? Do you think we never noticed how you look at her?”

“We need to go.”

“ You love her, Soren! And we both just left—”

“I KNOW ,” roars Soren. “What do you think I’m doing to myself right now? How do you think I’m supposed to live with myself knowing I left her there to die? We both knew—We both always knew that it was never going to go anywhere, that if we had to make a choice, we had to choose you, and here I am, choosing you, so don’t you dare ask me how I could do this. We need to go.”

He shoves Ezran forward some more, and for the first time, Ezran doesn’t resist. He says nothing. Until—

“You have to go back.”

“What?”

“I’ll go,” says Ez hoarsely. “I swear I’ll go. I’ll speak to some banthers or something and they’ll get me to Evrkynd so I can send word to Aanya. But you have to go back.”

“Ez—”

“Tell her I made it an order. Go to her.”

There’s a pause. Then Ez hugs him, and after a moment, Soren hugs him back. 

“You’re a good person, Soren,” sniffles Ez. “You’re a good knight. Thank you for everything.”

“Thank you, ” whispers Soren, his own tears beading in Ez’s hair. “She’s going to kill me.”

In spite of everything, Ez laughs. “Not if it was a direct order from me. And it is. Go to her. There might still be time.”

So Soren goes. He doesn’t look back.

It’s a valiant effort. He pushes past a handful of stragglers: injured townsfolk who limp through the tunnels, families with small children who can’t keep up. It’s comforting in its own twisted way to know that she didn’t stay for nothing, but by the end of it, it doesn’t matter.

They are both exhausted, both bleeding from wounds no amount of magic will heal, but they’re together, and frankly, that’s all Soren knows how to care about now that the fighting is starting to slow.

“I should have stepped down,” whispers Opeli as sunlight peeks through the window at last. “I should have said yes.”

“Next time,” chuckles Soren weakly, brushing matted, bloody hair from her face. 

“There’ll be a next time, will there?”

“Yeah. I think so.” He presses his lips to her forehead with what little strength he has left and draws her close. “I’ll find you,” he whispers. “I’ll make it happen.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“I can.”

She breathes out a sigh. “I’ll wait.”

The light that touches them is warm. Soren thinks of the poetry of it: a knight and a cleric, who loved but were never lovers, allowed one last embrace while the sun rises over their fallen forms.

He presses his face into her hair. Then he sleeps.

Chapter Text

Day 6: silence/voice

Soren gasps awake.

The lights are bright. There’s something beeping somewhere to his left. He squints against the fluorescents and the chatter and eases himself up. 

“Soren! You're okay!”

“Ez?” 

Ezran appears in his vision with a grin. He's a postdoc again, his hair shorter, his brow bare. The crown is in the museum, he thinks. It was found decades ago, hidden away in a different section of the ruins. Soren wonders if the other version of him made it to Evrkynd okay.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “Must have freaked you out.”

“Just a lot,” says Ez, breathing out a laugh in his relief. “Corvus and Terry and I have been taking it in turns.”

“They've been here? How long have I been out?”

Ez shrugs. “A couple of days, give or take. It’s so weird. The paramedics brought you in and as far as they and the doctors could tell, there was nothing wrong with you. They did all sorts of tests but it was like you were just asleep.”

“Maybe I just needed it,” jokes Soren. “Maybe all those all-nighters I did as a student are finally catching up with me.”

“I'm glad your sense of humour is still fine,” chuckles Ez. “For real though, they were starting to get worried that you had some wild sleeping sickness and they were considering quarantining Terry and Corvus too.”

Soren snorts at that. “Well, there's no need for that. I'm fine.”

“Are you actually, though?”

Soren grunts a little and shifts in the cot. His head feels okay. His lip isn't split anymore and there's no sword wound under his ribs. He supposes there never was.

And Opeli—

Opeli.

His breath shudders. Ezran has Aanya here. Callum has Rayla. Terry and Corvus are both here too. But Opeli is not.

It doesn't make sense. Everyone else is here but Soren searches his memory and he’s sure he’s never met her in this life. Where is she? If he tried to look for her now, would he find her? Where would even start?

“Soren?”

He sighs. His chest feels hollow, empty, the missing piece of it never so evident, and he's so tired all of a sudden. It's as if the life in him has simply been sapped away. “I'm okay,” he murmurs.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” he says, blinking tears out his eyes. “I think I’m just ready to go home.”

The hospital discharges him without too much fuss. The doctors are still confused but he is, by all definitions, healthy and well, and they can't find any reason to hold him any longer than they have. Ez drives him home with a promise to check in on him again in the morning, even though Soren swears he’ll behave and call the moment he feels even remotely unwell.

He climbs the stairs to his apartment alone. The silence is so pressing. Has he never realised how lonely this has been? Had he truly forgotten that there was someone there once, someone more than a friend but not quite a lover, who could fill the quiet and the empty spaces? Her absence is glaringly obvious now and it only makes the ache in his chest worse.

He stares at the photos he took of the sketches from the Gallery.

He thinks of the bones that they found and remembers the warmth of Opeli’s skin in his final moments.

He thinks of the promise he made her, and of her last words to him.

I’ll wait .

Has she been waiting all this time? Should he have found her earlier? If she's here somewhere too, is she burdened with the same knowledge and the same memories as he?

So many questions. So few answers.

Soren takes a couple of sleeping pills in the end in the hope that he might see her again, at least in his dreams.

He doesn't.

He never dreams of her again.

The days pass. They are long and they blur together into hours of sorting and examining his own bones and the bones of the woman he loved.

He doesn't tell Terry and Corvus. He knows how insane it sounds and mentioning any of it would see him sent straight back to hospital for a mental health check. They put their notes together and by the end of it, Corvus concedes. The bones belonged to a knight and a cleric, and Terry crows about his victory and demands his beer immediately in celebration.

Viren calls a meeting for exhibition queries the moment they say their analysis is done.

“We’ll take them,” says Aanya firmly as she walks through the conference room doors. 

Viren sneers at her. “We’re here to decide on a permanent home for the specimens as a collective,” he says, his voice cold. “Forgive me, Dr. Koroleva, but the Director of the Katolis Museum also deserves a chance to argue his point.”

“Yes, I would like that,” says Dr. Ibis mildly, “but I’m curious to hear Dr. Koroleva’s reasoning. The National Gallery has traditionally housed art. Why should the remains go to you?”

“One was a cleric,” says Aanya simply. “Terry here tells me that the circlet indicates she could have been a High Cleric. Her remains belong on Temple Hill.”

“And the other?” asks Ibis. “He was a knight. Surely we can allow his resting place to be at the museum amongst the other artefacts retrieved from the castle.”

“No,” says Soren sharply. “We’re not separating them.”

The conference room pauses. Viren narrows his eyes at his son. 

“That’s not for you to decide.”

Soren stands firm. “They were found together. They should be allowed to stay together. It’s bad enough you want to display them for the whole world to see.”

“The specimens will be dealt with—”

“They’re not specimens, ” snaps Soren. “They’re human remains. They were people, and dead or not, they should be treated with respect.”

Another pause, this one filled with palpable tension as Viren stares down his son. Soren meets his glare with his own, but it’s Terry who defuses it in the end.

“Think of the story you could tell,” he says. “The lovers who couldn’t be, allowed to rest and be together in death. It’s romantic, it’s beautiful—the general populace would be all over it.”

“Be that as it may,” says Viren coolly, “the question still stands. Where can we place them?”

“The Gallery ,” insists Aanya. She levels a look at Ibis. “We’ll give you access to the other Clergy artefacts in exchange. We can loan them to you for an exhibition if you like—perhaps we can even collaborate on a joint exhibition for Katolis History Month. The revenue it would bring would be significant for both of us—but she should be allowed to rest at the Gallery, and I’m certain her knight would want the same.”

Another pause. Ibis looks as if he's weighing his options, but at last he smiles. “That sounds reasonable to me,” he says, nodding at Aanya. “Very good. I ask also that you allow us access to check their condition and to perform routine maintenance once a month.”

Aanya grins back. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. Thank you, Dr. Ibis.”

Later, as the meeting concludes and everyone is packing away their things, Viren corners Aanya before she can leave. Soren hangs back, even as Terry and Corvus make moves towards the door. 

“You don’t fool me, Koroleva. Clark put you up to this.”

“Dr. Clark is on secondment at the Archives,” says Aanya crisply. “ I want them at the Gallery. The cleric deserves to rest at the temple she served.”

Viren scoffs, clearly unconvinced, but he straightens regardless and steps back. “Give Ophelia my regards,” he snaps. Then he turns on his heel and storms away.

Aanya only rolls her eyes and gathers her things, but Soren hesitates, his breath caught on the inhale as the name rings through his mind. “Ophelia?”

Aanya nods. “Dr. Ophelia Clark, yes,” she says. “She took a job at the Archives a few months ago but her research interest has always been the Clergy. The collection of stuff we have is because of her. She’s been saying we should move past the art and have a permanent exhibition for the Clergy for years—she’ll be thrilled that we’ll be housing the remains.”

Ophelia.

Opeli.

Soren swallows. “Thank you,” he breathes, clapping Aanya’s shoulder.

She blinks, confused, but Soren doesn’t see it—he’s already running. It couldn’t be that simple, could it? Could she really have been here the  whole time?

It’s such a long shot, but he takes off towards the Archives anyway, sprinting through traffic and pedestrians, dodging roadwork and leaping over flowerbeds, following that tug in his chest and hoping with all his heart that he’s right, that she’s there, that he can finally keep the promise he made her seven hundred years ago. 

“Kazi!” he gasps as he tumbles through the Archive doors.

Kazi blinks and then all but shrieks as Soren almost bowls them over in his rush. “S-Soren?”

“Is Dr. Clark here? You said she was at a conference last I saw you, is she back?”

“I—” Kazi clears their throat and eases Soren’s hands off their shoulders. “I’m sorry, she’s back but she’s not here. She returned from Duren feeling a bit out of sorts and she’s taking some personal days until she feels better.” They study Soren, concerned, and perhaps a little bit wary from being all but tackled. “Is everything okay?”

Soren’s breath rushes out. His heart thumps. His lungs feel tight. “It’s fine,” he manages. The disappointment rings through him and he’s hollow all over again. “Here.” He snatches a business card from the front desk and scribbles his phone number into the back. “Can you have her call me when she gets back?”

“Yes, of course,” says Kazi. “Is this about the tomb?”

“No,” mumbles Soren. “It’s a personal thing. Just… make sure she gets that card.”

Kazi frowns at him, but nods. “I will.”

It feels stupid to wait by the phone, but Soren does. Every moment it doesn’t ring with an unfamiliar number is another moment that feels lost in hundreds of years of lost moments. He waits a day. And then another. And then a week.

His phone is silent.

In the meantime, Aanya blocks off a part of the atrium and has Ibis, Corvus, and Terry set up the display. It takes them a week, and when they open that part of the Gallery again, Soren doesn’t go.

It hurts too much. His chest feels as empty as the promise he made to find her seven hundred years ago. It just feels like another failure, another loss.

“You should go see them,” says Corvus. “It’s beautiful. I think, whoever they were, they’d be glad to know that they’re still together.”

“Yeah,” breathes Soren, wanting to laugh at the irony of it. “Maybe I’ll go later.”

“Soren.” Corvus frowns at him and peers into his face, like he might be able to figure out, somehow, what Soren’s been refusing to tell them since they opened the tomb in the first place. “What’s going on?”

He puts on a feeble smile and waves him off. “I’m fine. Look, I’ll go this afternoon. I’m just… a bit out of it, I guess. Don’t worry about it, okay?”

Corvus looks unconvinced but Soren sighs his relief when he doesn’t prod.

He goes, as promised, just before closing time and the crowds are starting to thin. It’s raining outside and the Gallery’s floors are slippery with rainwater, but Soren steps carefully over the marble towards the glass display and stops. 

There’s only one other person there. Her coat is white. Her hood is drawn. Her scarf is as red as the banners promoting Katolis History Month on the Gallery walls.

She turns.

Soren’s heart leaps into his throat.

“Opeli,” he breathes. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Opeli chokes out a laugh and blinks tears out of her eyes. “I’ve been waiting.”

Chapter Text

Day 7: duty/desire

“Do you think they got out?” Ezran asks. His voice is so small and shaky that he’s surprised he managed to get the question out at all. Katolis is still burning in the distance, but he and the refugees who made it to Evrkynd are safe for now, even if everything else around them hangs heavy with loss.

“I’m sure they did,” murmurs Corvus, setting a hand on Ez’s shoulder.

Ez snorts. “Don’t lie to me Corvus.”

Corvus twitches his lips sadly at that. He and Terry had found Ez with a group of stragglers and a couple of banthers on one of the more long winded roads to Evrkynd. It was safer to travel there than on the main roads, but it took them time. They reached the city just past noon, but Ez is still watching the horizon, waiting for others. Waiting for them .

“The honest answer isn’t a happy one, Ezran.”

“I know,” sniffles Ez. “I just hope that… he found her in time and that… wherever they are, whatever happened to them, they’re together.”

Corvus’ breath shudders out. “He did,” he says. “And they are. I know it.”

University of Katolis Archaeology Team Unearths Tomb of Forbidden Lovers
By Naimi Selari Nykantia, Published Aug 10 2025, 08:00 KST 

Early this summer, a team of archaeologists from The University of Katolis stumbled upon an extraordinary find in the old castle ruins: a tomb with not just one body, but two. Speculation has spread like wildfire about who the occupants could be, but U of K have finally released a statement about their findings.

“One was obviously a knight,” says Corvus Chase, field archaeologist. “His armour is a little different to what we’re used to but you can see the crest of the Crownguard on his breastplate so we can assume he was pretty high up. Our running theory is that he was the Captain of the Crowngaurd in his day. The other was… a bit more controversial.”

Controversial is one way to put it: “The second, we’re pretty certain, was a cleric,” says Terrestrius ‘Terry’ Rakau, the forensic archaeologist of the team. “It was hard to tell at first and obviously armour preserves better than clothing but we found traces of material that would have been robes once and a circlet that indicates she was pretty high up too. Traditionally, clerics couldn’t marry, and these guys weren’t—wedding bands have been in use for millennia but neither of them were wearing one. To us, it’s pretty clear that it was a love that persisted even though it wasn’t allowed.”

How did they get there then? How did they die?

Rakau adds: “There’s a fair amount of evidence that they died of wounds sustained in battle. There’s a pretty clear mark on our knight’s ribs where a sword got him, and we think our cleric bled out from whatever injuries she may have received. Our friends at the Katolis Radiocarbon Dating Facility tell us that these guys fell about 700 years ago, which lines up really well with the siege by The Order of the Fallen Star.”

“A follow up team went and did a more thorough survey of the tomb,” Chase says, “and the current theory is that they were guarding a concealed entrance to the tunnels that run under the old castle site when they were attacked.”

“Whoever they were, they were very brave,” says Rakau, “and we’re glad that they could be together in dearh.”

We’ll never be sure of what happened, but it’s a heartbreaking story of duty and desire for certain. The Lovers of Katolis Castle are now at rest together at the National Gallery, right in time for Katolis History Month.

“Why, exactly, didn't you want to be interviewed for your find?”

Soren snorts loudly into his coffee. It’s a bright day. The sun is warm. The breeze is cool. The bakery across from the Katolis Archives serves some decent coffee and, to Opeli’s delight, pomegranate jelly tarts, which Soren had obliged without thinking twice. 

There’s such a sense of rightness to this. A sense of peace. 

“Have you ever been interviewed by Nyx?” he scoffs. “Yeah, she goes by Nyx. She’s pushy and loud and obnoxious—Corvus and Terry were happy to do it, I didn’t have to be there.”

“You didn’t want to make sure she got the details right?”

“What would I say?” he challenges, giving her a look over his coffee. 

Opeli snorts a little and picks the edge off a tart. “I suppose nothing that wouldn’t make you sound absolutely insane. Did you find what you needed in the Archives, by the way? Kazi said you dropped in shortly after the tomb was found. I apologise again that I wasn’t there—could have saved us both a lot of trouble.”

Soren chuckles and reaches for her hand. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, pressing her knuckles to his lips. “I found it just fine.”

We lay here for years or for hours
Thrown here or found
To freeze or to thaw
So long, we'd become the flowers
Two corpses we were
Two corpses I saw

And they'd find us in a week
When the weather gets hot
After the insects have made their claim
I'd be home with you
I'd be home with you

- In a Week, Hozier

fin