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Chapter Text

1/

In the sweltering summer, Aedes Elysiae becomes unbearably hot, enough to sweat your body weight’s worth of water out through your pores. The last harvest of the winter wheat marks the coming of the solstice, the first of longer days.

The sun is still up when they finish working the fields, and the heat hasn’t dissipated in the slightest. Phainon swipes his palm across the back of his neck, and it comes back drenched in sweat. He lifts up his tunic to wipe his face and plops down near the shocks of wheat with a grunt. His body is burning up from the inside, enough to make him dizzy.

Something cold touches the side of his neck, making him jump from the temperature difference. When he turns around to see who it is, he makes a wry face.

“Drink up,” says his father. “Then you can go back first.”

“I’m fine,” Phainon protests, but Hieronymus shakes his head.

“Don’t push yourself,” he says. He flicks Phainon lightly on the forehead, earning a pained hiss. “You know that you run hotter than the others. I’ll finish up here. You go ahead.”

Phainon sighs but doesn’t argue. He watches his father amble back to the far side of the fields; then he looks up at the sun with a faint squint. In the winter, he could last for hours out here, from sunup to sundown, but summers are more painful than he’s willing to let on, though it doesn’t escape his father’s watchful eye. 

He drains the waterskin dry, but the burning still doesn’t go away. He closes his eyes to breathe in, but the soft scent of wheat doesn’t lift the heaviness from his shoulders anymore. He gets to his feet and drags himself to the lake to bathe alone.

2/

By the time he’s finished washing himself, the sun has finally ceded its place in the sky, tucking away its angry rays to make way for the night stars. He emerges from the water fresh and clean. The fire within has died down enough that he no longer feels like a living furnace.

His father is still not home, but his mother has prepared dinner for the two of them.

“You eat first,” she says. “Your father can eat when he gets back.”

“What’s the occasion?” he asks curiously, seeing his favorites spread across the table.

Audata smiles faintly at him, combing callused fingers through his damp hair as he starts eating. “Well,” she says, “the mail carrier leaves tomorrow morning for Okhema.”

Phainon grunts in acknowledgement through the food. When she drops a cloth over his head and starts toweling him dry, he makes a noise of mature adult protest.

“Have you decided what to write back?” she says.

He swallows down the suncake after nearly choking on it. “I…haven’t.”

She hums in response and leaves the long cloth over his head. She heads back to the living room, leaving him to sit alone and ponder what to pen back to Cyrene, who had written him a letter just two weeks ago from the Eternal Holy City. He still isn’t feeling particularly inspired by the time he’s finished eating and washing his dishes.

“Don’t fall asleep out there,” Audata tells him on his way out.

“I won’t be long,” he promises.

The path from their house down to his secret spot kisses the curve of the sea, glittering prettily under the moonlight. He follows it to the gentle low rolling hills of unharvested summer wheat, tall stalks waving as he walks past, Cyrene’s letter fluttering in his fingers against the night wind. He has the entire road to think of a reply, and yet nothing comes to mind except that the darkness feels nice and cool against his skin.

For starters, Phainon isn’t even really sure what he wants to do.

He’s spent his whole life in the wheat fields of Aedes Elysiae. There are rivers and lakes, mountains and forests, and beneath the sun, the land turns to gold like alchemy.

His parents are as healthy as ever, and the village is prospering in trade. There is nothing more that he could ask for in this idyllic world where all of his loved ones are happy.

But sometimes, when night falls, he looks up at the twinkling cosmos and thinks that something’s missing. Nights like these, Phainon lies down, pillowed by wheat, pinned to the earth under the weight of the vast sky, watching the stars slowly and imperceptibly change, above him and without him.

He presses Cyrene’s letter to his chest and draws in a tremulous breath, curling in on himself like a newborn in the womb. He screws his eyes shut and waits for an answer, a sign, to come. He lies there for what feels like thirty million heartbeats and sighs, no closer to clarity than he has been for the past few years.

His parents have been worried, even if they’re cautious about showing it. Piso and Livia keep inviting him to play in hopes of cheering him up. Cyrene’s letter is clearly an act of intervention to get him out of the village. Even he thinks he must be going through some kind of quarter life crisis that he has yet to overcome.

But no one can seem to show him how to make it easier to breathe.

He cracks an eye open in resignation.

At that very moment, a bright streak of white and blue dashes across the sky, running west to east, splitting the night. He sits up, head tilted back to follow the motion, eyes wide with awe, his breath catching in his lungs.

It’s the first time he’s ever seen a shooting star. He basks in the wonder of it, forgetting everything else to marvel at the sight, to stand witness to a miracle. The dusk breeze picks up, urging him to his feet.

If Cyrene were here, she’d tell him to make a wish.

Phainon looks down at the barely legible scrawl on the parchment in his hand, inviting him to come visit her in the city.

He can’t really think of a wish, but he does have a tentative answer to her letter. After all, that shooting star fell in the direction of Okhema.

The traces of its flaming trail are like a raw, still-burning slash across the sky. He feels that same heat in his chest, like a fiery gash mirrored over his own heart, as he runs home and tells his parents that he’s decided to travel.

The mark in the sky is gone in the morning when he bids everyone at the village a tearful goodbye and hops onto the hay cart with the mail carrier to Okhema. But that feeling doesn’t disappear, still smoldering, and for the first time in his life, he leaves Aedes Elysiae behind.

3/

Okhema is in the southerly lands, surrounded in all cardinal directions by mountains. Its position as a defensive stronghold is third to only the Sky Temple and Castrum Kremnos. Everything about the city feels elevated, and above it kneels the colossal stone visage of Kephale, the Worldbearing Titan.

Phainon is more intimidated by the city locals who brush past him brusquely when he gets off of the cart in a daze.

He doesn’t know where to go, and he basically has nothing to his name except the clothes on his back, the rucksack over his shoulder, and the small pouch of coins his father had given him before he left. He’d split the bread his mother baked with the old mail carrier in exchange for pointers on how to navigate the city on the way there. Now, he realizes that the old man’s tips were a little too vague to be genuinely helpful.

Okhema is way bigger than he expected. And he has no idea where to find Cyrene. In the letter, she mentioned she’d recently moved out of the temple grounds, that her new place is in front of a fountain, on the second floor above a diner.

He feels daunted, but he came all this way, and he can’t turn back now. He marches into a giant plaza with murals on all sides, taking his first step into the new world.

Three hours later, he’s forced to admit that he’s lost. 

Triangulating the coordinates with a fountain and a diner would have been trivial in Aedes Elysiae, which has one communal well and no diners, but a metropolis is really on a different level. Okhema has at least twenty-five fountains of varying sizes, and he’s still not clear if all the street stalls with customers eating at the tables count as diners. He’s never been in a place with more people than wheat stalks before.

Phainon checks Cyrene’s letter one more time, hoping that the words will rearrange themselves magically into the exact location he needs to get to. 

Nothing.

He groans and slides down against the wall and tries to come to terms with how dumb it was to arrive without letting Cyrene know in advance.

An impulse had sparked in him from the shooting star, setting his heart aflame. Now, his whole body is burning under the daylight, perspiring from the heat in misery and remorse.

“Would you like some water?” a cool voice asks, piercing through the hustle and bustle of Marmoreal Market.

Phainon looks up in the direction of the voice. A blonde haired woman clad in embroidered ivory is leaning out of the window of her shop, peering at him curiously and unblinkingly with glassy green eyes.

“Please,” he says meekly. “If it isn’t too much trouble.”

“Come sit under the shade,” she says.

Phainon moves underneath the cotton canopy and gratefully accepts the proffered chalice of water. The vessel looks more expensive than anything he’s ever owned. He hopes that she won’t charge him for drinking out of it.

“An unfamiliar face,” she muses. “You’re new to Okhema?”

He nods. “I came to stay with a friend for a while. But I got lost trying to find her.” He clears his throat. “I’m Phainon of Aedes Elysiae. Thank you for the water.”

“Aglaea,” she replies, as he takes another careful sip. “And if you plan on staying in the city for a while, I recommend that you buy some new clothes.”

Phainon chokes and coughs. “Is… Is there something wrong with my current ones?”

Aglaea falls silent, which is scary enough considering her face is already expressionless. Without warning, she retreats into her store, leaving him sitting there in trepidation, sweaty palms cupping her chalice.

He looks up at Kephale in the distance before bowing his head in repentance. In a daze, he wonders if Cyrene had to go through this her first time in the city too. Although, she has always been smarter than him, so probably not.

“Should I just go home?” he mutters to himself.

If he went back to the city gates now, he could still catch the last caravan westward to Attica. From there, it’s three days on foot until he reaches Aedes Elysiae, with his tail between his legs. He’ll wait for Cyrene to send him a message back before coming to the city next time.

A shadow falls over him. He looks up again and meets Aglaea’s eyes; then he blinks at the robes in Aglaea’s arms. Though he doesn’t have an eye for fashion, even he can tell, from the regal white overcoat to the deep blue mantle with gold accents, that the aura about these clothes is different. And that there’s no way he could hope to afford them.

“Here,” Aglaea says, offering them to him.

Phainon shrinks away, eyes wide. “Miss Aglaea,” he says, trying to reason with her. “You could tell that I’m not from here just from my clothes. So you must also know that I couldn’t possibly afford these…”

Aglaea tilts her head to the side, assessing him. “You have a sensible head on your shoulders if you were able to think that far ahead,” she says, not unkindly. “So let me give you another perspective.”

She all but drops the clothes onto him and takes a seat on the steps of her storefront next to him. He gathers the pooling fabric up into his arms so that it doesn’t touch the ground.

“If I were a store owner looking for customers to maximize my profits,” she says, “I’d pick the customers who would pay the most for my wares.”

Phainon nods, so she continues.

“Most of the people here are locals. They know the market price because they know where to source their needs from competition. But a newcomer to the city wouldn’t know any better.” She glances at him meaningfully. “And some newcomers even come identifiably new.”

He runs his hands over the soft fabric, feeling the cloth catch over the calluses on his hands. He gets her meaning well enough. He figured it was strange to be charged just for asking for directions, but he’d been desperate enough to pay up. All the more reason why he couldn’t buy these clothes even if he wanted to. He smiles wryly.

“Then, Miss Aglaea, are you a store owner looking for customers to maximize your profits?” Phainon asks her.

Aglaea laughs, low and pleasant. “I am looking for inspiration,” she replies, her eyes molten gold and green with certainty. “For somebody that will bring my designs to life. Everything I make is one-of-a-kind, Phainon of Aedes Elysiae. There is no competition.”

He swallows, feeling the score over his heart pulse. 

“Try them on first,” she urges. 

4/

After she finishes adjusting his collar, she steps aside to let him check in the mirror. His eyes widen when he sees his reflection. The clothes fit him as if they were tailor-made to the exact measurements of his body. He feels a bit weird with such an unrecognizable version of himself, but the giddiness wins over at looking so cool, like a hero fresh out of a legend.

“Miss Aglaea,” he says in boyish wonder, beaming at her.

She smiles back at him. “I knew they would fit,” she says calmly, yet somehow also quite smug. 

She gathers up the clothes he’d laid on the chair next to the mirror, folding them over her arm. 

“Let’s burn these then.”

“Wait!” he cries out. “I only just bought those!”

Aglaea waves a hand at him. “I’ll take it off of the price of what you’re currently wearing.”

“I didn’t even agree to buy them,” he protests.

“But you’re wearing them,” she points out. “Now I couldn’t possibly sell them to another.”

Phainon pales. “I… I can wash them for you,” he says, hands fumbling at the complicated buckles over his front, barely managing with the pauldron. He follows her light, quick-footed steps deeper into the store, and probably could’ve caught up if he weren’t struggling to strip at the same time.

“What in the world,” says a bemused voice from behind them both, “is going on here?”

“Cifera,” Aglaea greets with Phainon half undressed next to her. “You’re back early.”

The cat-girl named Cifera standing at the storefront gives Phainon a dubious look before turning back to Aglaea. “Am I interrupting something?”

Aglaea shakes her head. “This is Phainon of Aedes Elysiae. He’ll be staying in Okhema for a while.”

“Oh, so that’s what this is,” says Cifera with a haughty sniff. “You’ve picked up another stray.”

“Play nice,” Aglaea reminds her. “It’s his first day in the city.”

“…Hmph,” she says sourly. “Well, he’s sleeping on the floor. I won’t give up my spot.”

“There’s some kind of misunderstanding here,” interrupts Phainon. “Miss Aglaea only helped me because I was lost. I’m actually staying with a friend. Who I should really go find now. Miss Aglaea, if you wouldn’t mind giving me back my clothes?”

Aglaea looks at him wordlessly. He gives her a beseeching look, supplicating to the kindness that prompted her to call out to him in the first place. She answers him by mercilessly tossing the ocher yellow shirt and dromas purple pants into the flames.

5/

“You’ve always been like this,” says Cyrene fondly.

Head hanging low, sitting on her guest bed seven thousand balance coins in debt while arguably looking the best he ever has, Phainon doesn’t meet her eyes. 

“An idiot?” he supplies morosely.

She shakes her head, giggling. “Quick to act,” she corrects. “Once you decide on something, you always go full steam ahead.”

Fortuitously passing by, Cyrene had found him pretty close to tears. The fact that she lived right across from the Goldweaver shop was his only stroke of luck today. First day in the city, now owing a monetary amount greater than he’d ever see in his whole life, and his new clothes had been incinerated under Aglaea’s divine will. At least she hadn’t gotten her hands on his other set of clothes. And, to her credit, she didn’t leave him without a way out.

He still hasn’t figured out if she was scamming him. But the robes she gave him were definitely higher quality than the ones he’d bought earlier in the market.

“What a day,” he says, holding his head in his hands. His stomach then growls. “Ugh.”

“The day’s not over yet. Here, I’ll treat you to dinner to compensate you for your long and arduous journey.”

Phainon peeks up through his bangs at her. “I’m really not being a bother by crashing here?” he asks.

“Hardly,” Cyrene says. “Once I got your letter, I was over the moon. Remember back in the old days? We both wanted to travel the world, learn new things, and take them back home to show the others.” She beams at him. “That spark in you was missing for a while. But I can tell that it’s back now.”

She nudges his side and guides him to his feet, the same way she used to when they were kids and he couldn’t tell north from south in the Membrance Maze.

“You’re ready for change, right?” she says knowingly. “That’s why you came all the way to Okhema.”

“…Will I change?” he says hesitantly. “In Okhema?”

Cyrene taps her cheek thoughtfully and then winks at him. “Whether you’re ready or not, something's about to change.”

Chapter Text

1/

His first week in Okhema ends without much fanfare. With Aglaea’s kind recommendation, he secures employment at the dromas stables in a calmer and quieter part of the city. The wages aren’t bad; five balance coins an hour, and the shifts are ten hours a day. At this rate, Phainon will be able to pay his debt off in one hundred and forty days, if he doesn’t spend that money on literally anything else.

In other words, he has to find a second job.

“What’s the rush?” Cyrene says. “Miss Aglaea didn’t tell you to pay her back as soon as possible, did she?”

“No,” Phainon admits. “But I’m in debt, Cyrene… What would Mom and Dad say if they knew?”

Cyrene gives him a pained look. “If you knew how much I owe…”

“What? You’re in debt? How much?” he says worriedly.

2/

In other words, he definitely has to find a second job. 

He insisted on paying half of the rent for his staying term, and after a long debate that he surprisingly won, she finally accepted. Maybe the real reason Cyrene had invited him to the city was because she couldn’t have left without getting detained at the gates for debt evasion and her letter was a secret signal for help, but the defendant has firmly denied this.

“I’m still above water,” she insists. “And you’re one hundred years too early to be worrying about other people. Don’t mind me. You’re really going to get a second job?”

“Miss Aglaea said there might be some opportunities in the Marmoreal Palace,” he replies, scratching his neck, “since they’re short on bath workers this time of year from all of the tourists.”

“It is the summertime,” she says knowledgeably and cheerily. “You picked a good time to come. How do you feel about Okhema now?”

Phainon lets her change the topic as literally the bigger person and smiles faintly. “It’s not bad,” he admits, all things considered.

The city is still alive even after the sun goes down, unlike in Aedes Elysiae. Sometimes, he can hear faint singing from down the street as the stall owners close down their shops for the day. There are raucous children around Livia and Piso’s age that frequently race through the busy streets with bright giggles and laughter. Kyros started giving him discounts at the diner after he’d intervened in a fight between a few rowdy drunks. Ctesias, his coworker from the stables, has been nice enough to treat him to lunch every day since he’s started working there, and there’s more.

There are plenty of reasons for him to like Okhema—and all of them are people.

He can recognize that he’s being given a reason to stay in the city, starting from the day Aglaea burned his clothes to a crisp. At the very least, he wants to repay everyone for their kindness.

“But no place can beat Aedes Elysiae,” he clarifies.

“I miss the scent of wheat,” Cyrene says wistfully.

When night falls in Okhema, the dusk wind is temperate and cool. He lies back with an arm behind his head, staring up at the ceiling, watching the shadows of curtains dancing in the moonlight from the breeze. He thinks about all the nights he spent lying in the fields, to the point where he could smell nothing but wheat, and then ultimately nothing at all. Half a continent away, in a city of only gold and marble, he finally remembers grassy sweetness.

The sound of Cyrene’s breathing is ever constant from the other side of the room; she’s already fallen asleep by the time he replies, “Me too.”

3/

“You’re not wearing the clothes,” Aglaea notes, eyeing him up and down.

Phainon resists the urge to cover himself up, a shiver of fear running up his spine when her gaze trails below his neck. 

“I didn’t want to get them dirty,” he explains. “And…well… They make me stand out.”

“It’s not the clothes that make you stand out,” a voice says next to him.

Cipher (as she insisted after giving him a look that could kill when he called her Miss Cifera) shuffles past him with bolts of colorful fabric and gives him a once over. The lack of personal offense on her face seems to imply his outfit isn’t so bad today.

“Then what does?” he entreats, a little anxiously.

“Have you looked in a mirror?” she says. “It’s clearly your face.”

When he continues to stare at her uncomprehendingly, touching his face in worry, she rolls her eyes and heads into the store. Aglaea hands him a chalice of water as if to soothe both the physical and metaphorical burns.

“Are you sensitive to the sun?” Aglaea says, checking his pinked cheeks.

“I run hot,” he admits.

The stables afford enough shade that he hasn’t had any trouble during the noon. But running odd errands for Aglaea in the afternoon usually ends up with him burning up by the end of the day. That doesn’t stop him though. He usually looks forward to dropping by Aglaea’s store in the morning, just to make sure he gets her approval before he heads out to work, and the tailor shop is the first place he visits after his shift ends, so he can pay up the coins.

Now his schedule might change though, with his new official employment contract at the Marmoreal Palace.

“You could ask to be assigned to the cold water baths now that you’ll be working in the palace,” she suggests. “And they’re usually not as crowded in the evenings.”

Cyrene’s already taken him to the baths every day, because she refuses to turn her living space into another dromas stable. He’s learned from sitting in the main chamber that it eventually gets too warm for him to stay for long, and—well—the people around them sometimes look at him.

“Maybe I will,” he says, gratefully.

4/

The first time he stepped foot into the baths of the Marmoreal Palace, he was blown away. The sea bordering Aedes Elysiae is more vast, but the dock is only thirty planks long and two planks wide. The central bath chamber in Okhema is taller than the oldest maple tree in the town and bigger than the village square by several magnitudes. They could fit at least two hundred people in the main hall alone.

His seventh time here, and the novelty still doesn’t wear off when he reports for duty.

Xenia starts him with simple and menial tasks, like tending to the temperature of the cold water baths, waiting on the bathgoers with towels at the ready. She thankfully spares him from anointing people with oil, because when he tried a test massage on Daros during the application screening, even Daros, whose trained body had been chiseled by the masons of Castrum Kremnos, cried uncle. 

“Come out to the lobby after you’re done adjusting the pools,” she tells him. “We’ll need your help to hand out towels in front of the main chamber.”

Phainon tilts his head to the side curiously. “Do you expect more people before dinner?” he says.

Xenia shakes her head. “A delegation from Janusopolis is arriving soon,” she explains. “Lady Tribios mentioned they’ve got special guests in the group who have never been to Okhema.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “We’ll have to make sure they know where to go and what to do.”

“Oh,” says Phainon. “But I also don’t know where to go and or what to do.”

“Don’t worry,” Xenia says. “We’ll let Bacchus engage them. You just handle the towels!”

Then she shoos him off to the west wing to earn his keep.

Come to think of it, Cyrene had left for Janusopolis early in the week. Seminary students were required to be physically present at the temple four of the seven days of the week for classes, and they were free to do self-study wherever they liked for the remaining days. She mentioned before leaving that she wouldn’t be back until late tonight, so the envoys from Janusopolis surely wouldn’t include her.

Special guests who’ve never been to Okhema.

He wonders that, like him, even people from a major city like Janusopolis could experience new firsts here.

5/

Xenia waves him over when he emerges from the west wing with a fresh basket of towels. He stands dutifully by the reception desk, staring at the colossal water curtain separating them from the outside of the palace with anticipation and curiosity. Bacchus is a little ways closer, waivers and quill in hand.

Phainon steels his nerves, waiting with bated breath.

The first to step through the curtain is a wizened old man wearing golden and white robes. Behind him, a seemingly neverending line of priests emerge from the water in synchronization, their hands folded delicately over the front of their bodies as they step to the side.

“Welcome to Okhema, honored guests,” says Bacchus.

“Please,” the old priest says, gesturing at the last group of people to enter. “Rather than us old-timers, let us all welcome our new friends. They have traveled far and wide to meet us as allies in peace. It has been decided that they will be accommodated here in the palace.”

“The pleasure is ours,” says Xenia.

The silhouettes of five people step forward out of the water one by one. They’re wearing the most foreign clothes that Phainon has ever seen. They don’t come in the habit of the Janusopolis priests; nor do they seem to be part of any shared faction. 

A blonde man with furs around his neck, despite the season, glances around the reception hall with a polite smile on his face.

The man with a stone face who follows the first one in is shaping up to be the least strange of the group.

Phainon looks past him and into the gaze of the next person entering. When their eyes meet, she stops in her tracks, stock-still. He blinks as the color drains rapidly from her face. Before he can open his mouth to say anything, she spins on her heel and goes right back out from where she came, nearly bowling over a woman with long red hair that could rival Lady Tribios.

The last person to walk through the curtain, with a hat wider than a Mountain Dweller’s shoulders, glances at the red-haired woman. “Why did she run off?” she asks in confusion.

The blonde man shrugs. “Let her be,” he replies calmly and unbothered. “We also have the Express navigator here to mediate.”

Phainon is still staring in the direction that the third guest had left. If he wasn’t imagining things, then what happened was she took one look at his face, turned pale like she’d seen a ghost, and ran.

Cipher’s words from earlier today echo in his head. Is there really something wrong with his face?

“May I have a towel?” the red-haired woman asks him kindly.

“Yes! Sorry,” he says, snapping out of it. He clears his throat, gathering his bearings, bowing his head. “Welcome to Okhema.”

She smiles at him. “Thank you. We’ll be in your care.”

6/

After the special guests are escorted by Bacchus to the upper floors, Xenia lets out a sigh of relief.

“Good work,” she says. “They’re quite an interesting bunch. In all my years of working here, I’ve never seen visitors dressed like that. And they came in with a crazy escort. That looked like basically the entire clergy of Janusopolis.”

Phainon nods, still processing.

He thinks absentmindedly that Aglaea would probably be interested in meeting them just to assess their clothes. And here he’d thought that the citizens of Okhema were the pinnacle of Amphoreus fashion.

“You’re free to go, by the way,” says Xenia. “Take a bath or go eat dinner in the Court of Seasons. Take advantage of your employee benefits.”

“What about,” he says, pausing. “What about the one who left?”

Xenia shrugs. “She’ll have to come to the desk for teleslate access to her room. But that’s a problem for the next person on shift.” She drops a pouch of coins into his lax hands, and he nearly doesn’t catch it in time. “Good job on your first day. See you next week.”

She heads out first, and he follows her out, still in a daze, passing underneath the water curtain in the same spot that the grey-haired stranger had hours before. When he comes out from underneath the waterfall, the path up to the palace is almost empty beneath the orange-purple sky.

He breathes out quietly under twilight, placing his palm over his chest. He thinks to himself that her eyes were warm like the abundant gilded fields of harvest month, and that, when she saw him, as if he’d imagined it in the briefest moment before she’d turned away, she had looked incredibly sad.

7/

As promised, Cyrene returns from Janusopolis later that night. He’s never seen her this excited outright as the one who’s always been more level-headed between the two of them. He hears her footsteps from outside the door, and she all but stumbles in after he unlocks it, still wearing her training robes and other ceremonial accoutrements.

“Did you eat dinner?” he asks.

“Never mind dinner,” she says. “Did you see them today? The group from Janusopolis that left early this morning for Okhema.”

Phainon nods. “I did.”

“I saw them too,” says Cyrene. “The temple was in an uproar at their arrival. All of the priests spent the past few days in ceremony, seeking an audience with Oronyx. There’s never been anything like this in the history of Amphoreus.”

Phainon sets aside a cup of water for her, which she gratefully downs. Then she falls back against her bed, turning her head to look at him from her pillow.

“They’re not from Amphoreus. They’re from beyond the stars. Change,” she says with breathless excitement. “The world really is about to change.”

Chapter Text

1/

His world is always changing before he can. 

Devastatingly, once Snowy had overtaken him on the track of life; delightfully, after Cyrene had been accepted to train at Janusopolis; decisively, when wildfires razed down the north fields during the summer he decided ultimately not to go to Castrum Kremnos.

When Cyrene tells him that the world is about to change again, everything is already so much more different than anything he’s ever known. He can’t imagine himself in this newly foretold world where there are people from beyond the stars he used to watch in the fields.

But Cyrene could always see farther than him, eyes fixed on the distant horizon. 

During the last hour of spring tides, she was brave enough to take the first step away from the shore, despite being two heads shorter than him. The water came up to her knees. When he hesitated, she offered her hand to him, and told him to keep his balance without looking only at his feet, to keep his bearings without only looking at the sky. And if he couldn’t take that first step, she would always wait until he was ready to.

She says to him, like she used to, “You have all the time in the world to find your footing.”

2/

Convincingly enough, Phainon ends his stables shift today after tripping over a pile of regurgitated red clay. His footing is very much still not found, but at least it wasn’t dromas dung. That being said, the judging look he gets from Cipher feels a lot less forgiving than Cyrene’s patient encouragement.

“Where’s Miss Aglaea?” he asks, audaciously, in Cipher’s eyes, seeking an audience as is.

“She’s busy,” Cipher replies, taking the pouch of coins off of his hands. She hands him the usual chalice of water that’s sort of unofficially become his. “Summoned to the Marmoreal Palace on account of business.”

Curiously, he repeats, after drinking, “Business?”

“Nothing for your pretty little head to mind,” says Cipher with a high-nosed sniff, though she tells him anyway. (Phainon has learned that while her tongue is sharp, if she likes someone enough, her claws are not.) “But if you must know, Lady Tribios requested her presence. She went to meet some of the new clientele.”

He’d gone most of the day without hearing any direct news of the delegation from beyond the stars. He was the only one at the stables who had seen them in person. Ctesias was curious, and even Lucretia asked what they were like, but “They looked really different!” was all the information he could bring himself to reveal, and there is only so much distance that inner city gossip can travel before being lost to the wind, since the stables are on the outskirts of the city proper.

That is to say, he can’t help but ask out of unbidden curiosity, “Which ones?”

“How would I know?” Cipher says, clearly uninterested. “Now, onto the matter at hand. That friend of yours is a seminary student, yes?”

Phainon tilts his head to the side, taking the topic change in stride. “Do you mean Cyrene?” he says. “She is. But she’s off for the rest of the week.”

Cipher snaps her fingers. “Good. Have her take you to the Grove. Aglaea needs these.” She hands a small scratch piece of parchment over, with what looks like the titles of reference material for dye-making. When he scans the words on the paper, she arches a suspicious brow. “You can read?”

Phainon nods. He’s unsure whether or not to be offended. “Everyone in my village can read,” he explains.

“Then why are you working at the stables? ” she says in bafflement. “Shouldn’t you also be in school?”

“I’m in debt?” he says.

“...Hmph,” she replies. “Well, it’s none of my business whatever you’re in. But what does it matter if you’re a prince or a pauper? You’re already one foot in the door, just—”

Cipher pauses. She shakes her head.

“Anyway,” she says. “Aglaea needs those before the end of next week.”

3/

For the Grove’s Library of Philia, literacy isn’t the actual barrier to entry. Most of Okhema’s merchant class—anyone above the poverty line, really—can read, and the city even has bathhouse libraries. It’s just that only students of the Grove or Janusopolis are technically permitted to tread within the Sacred Tree, with a visitor quota. Cipher had clearly accounted for this when she asked. What she hadn’t accounted for, or perhaps hadn’t cared to account for, was that Cyrene would leave him to fend for himself.

(This is how the interaction went when he asked:

“There’s a secret passage,” she said. “I think it’s there in the case of emergency evacuation, but it’s rarely if ever used, much less guarded. I’ll draw a map for you.”

“Can’t you come with me?” Phainon said. “Aren’t you free right now?”

“But where’s the adventure in that?” she replied. “If you’re going to carry out a book heist, you should do it with feeling!”)

Phainon’s first ‘feeling’ is that Cyrene wanted to go to the baths to catch another glimpse of the interstellar delegation for herself, though her formal reason was that she needed to discuss something with someone from the Janusopolis escort.

His second—is that the Grove at night feels emptier than he expected. Contrary to what Cyrene led him to believe, there are no guards. Nor are there any sleepless scholars to be seen this far up above the Serene Court of Learning. He certainly didn’t see anyone while sneaking along the steep evacuation corridor.

He probably could have just walked in normally. The sound of his footsteps are dampened by the soft grass.

Phainon thinks of other magical tree hollows, of a maze of tiny little fairies, of bright bells ringing, and shakes his head, hearing Miss Pythias’ voice in his head telling him not to daydream. Then he remembers how she wanted to visit the Grove to see the libraries for herself, and that sudden pang of loneliness in his chest doesn’t end up going away.

It’s a different kind of ache from the dull, numbing pulse he’d felt lying in the wheat fields. This one, sharp and insistent, tells him to leave this silent hollow behind and return to Okhema to find Cyrene or Aglaea or Ctesias or even Cipher, to find another living someone so as not to weather this night by himself. 

He squashes this moment of weakness down. The situational stakes aren’t as big as saving a world, but Aglaea’s counting on him, which is all the motivation he needs to push forward. Yet when he takes that last step into the library, he realizes that his unspoken prayers have been answered, that he is not actually alone.

They lock eyes from across the expanse of the library chamber.

He blinks at the sight of her, mind completely blank.

She stares back with an expression just as hard to read as the first time. The scroll in her gloved hands drops to the tiles at the twitch of her fingers. Their staredown continues until she stands up abruptly from the table, taking one step back.

“Wait!” says Phainon quickly, before she can flee. “I didn’t mean to disturb your reading. Please stay.”

The grey haired stranger startles slightly at his voice, but as if heeding his words, she doesn’t move. She casts her gaze down somewhere by her feet and then gives a clipped nod. Sensing that she’s no longer a flight risk, he walks tentatively closer.

At the sound of his footsteps, she raises her head in confusion and meets his eyes directly again. For the first time, Phainon hears her speak.

She says, “You weren’t going to leave?”

“The max occupancy is one hundred and twenty people. There’s no reason we can’t both be here,” he says reasonably, ignoring the fact that they’re both technically trespassing.

Her expression turns wry at his bold rhetoric, but with the near-imperceptible hint of a reluctant smile. Hope flourishes in the same well where he’d hidden his small despairs. He thinks that maybe he misread her at the palace. Her eyes are still as golden as they were two days ago.

Phainon smiles back at her encouragingly, because she seems like the type that usually doesn’t, because this is the first positive reaction he’s elicited from her ever—and right now, above all, she doesn’t seem sad anymore.

She pauses. Then she turns away and reaches for a nearby stone tablet. He doesn’t understand what’s happening until she’s halfway through the motion, and it’s only thanks to his quick reflexes that he manages to close the distance and slot his hand between her forehead and the slate before impact.

He sucks in a pained breath. He’s not sure what stings more: his knuckles, or this. 

Phainon rather uselessly notices that her hair is soft against the undersides of his fingers. She stares at him from underneath the shadow of his raised arm, eyes wide with shock, but the one who’s more shocked deserves to be him.

He slowly lowers his hand. He did not misread her at the palace. He takes the tablet out of her grasp just in case she decides to use it on him next.

“It seems like we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” Phainon says cautiously. “Pardon me for asking, but have I…offended you in some way?”

“No,” she says.

“But you’ve tried to run every time you see me,” he points out.

She doesn’t even hesitate. “I’m allergic to handsome men.”

This…is clearly a lie, and he’s not quite sure how to call her on it. But his cheeks still pink up at the implication, completely caught off-guard. Standing only a few centimeters apart, she can probably feel the embarrassment radiating off of him as actual physical heat. He tries not to broadcast the hurt from a compliment that he can’t feel happy about.

“That is…such an extremely specific and unfortunate affliction,” he says, a bit disheartened. But there’s not much he can do about his face, and he figures that he should at least try to leave her with a good impression, as a citizen representing Amphoreus. “Sorry for bothering you. I’ll take my leave.”

Phainon turns on his heel, but a surprisingly strong force tugs at the hem of his tunic.

When he looks back at her, she’s pulled out a handkerchief. She bandages up his completely unwounded hand, tying a small bow over his knuckles, leaving him completely unsure of where they stand. The leather of her glove brushes over his fingers, and then she withdraws.

“You stay,” she says, just a bit gentler than before. “I have to head out anyway.”

She brushes past him in the direction of the library entrance, leaving him standing there in a daze.

By the time Phainon remembers to move again, she’s already long gone.

4/

Etiquette dictates that Phainon should return the handkerchief to its rightful owner. But he doesn’t know if he’ll see her again, or if she’ll let herself be found by him. He doesn’t even know her name.

Cyrene finds him sighing as he washes the small square cloth on the balcony in the morning.

“Looks like you came back with more than just books,” she says curiously.

“…The books!” he says in realization, with a groan.

“Busy night?” she surmises.

“Never mind mine,” Phainon says. “How was yours? You got back late.”

Cyrene nods. “An impromptu forum started in the back gardens of the palace yesterday with the interstellar delegation,” she says. “I heard that it lasted until daylight. I went and listened for only a few hours though.”

“Forum? About what?” says Phainon.

She claps her hands together. “Good question,” she says cheerily. “There were two topics while I was there. One was about trade; the other one was about joining their interstellar alliance. The discussion was burning hot. You probably would have enjoyed it.”

Phainon’s ears perk up at the prospect of trade. As he hangs the handkerchief up to dry, he says jokingly, “So the whole universe can taste bread made from the wheat of Aedes Elysiae?”

“Exactly,” she says, eyes crinkling. “And we’ll get access to new books, new technologies, new cultures and cuisines…”

“But we have to join their alliance first,” he clarifies.

Amphoreus doesn’t even have a formal alliance among the different major municipalities. Each of them worships a different Titan, and small rural towns like Aedes Elysiae are simply included by extension inside the jurisdiction of majority worship. Meaning—even if Okhema and Janusopolis were to agree, that doesn’t mean Styxia and Castrum Kremnos would.

“Well,” says Cyrene. “The argument was kind of swinging in that direction until the mediator arrived.”

“Mediator?”

“I didn’t catch her name,” Cyrene says. “She was in a hurry to stop the tensions from rising so she didn’t introduce herself. But I guess you saw her on the first day? Grey hair, golden eyes? They all stand out, but she was definitely different.”

Phainon tries not to let his expression betray him while Cyrene gushes on.

“She’s really done her research,” Cyrene says, severely impressed. “She mentioned some local specialties from Amphoreus that a lot of people didn’t even know about. And she’s heard of Aedes Elysiae! I want to meet her in person…”

“…Wow,” says Phainon, glancing away nervously.

“Okhema’s about to become much livelier in the coming weeks,” Cyrene concludes. “Trade conditions might be permanently up for revision, but the alliance talks are expected to close in the next two months. They're inviting representatives from the other major cities. Lady Tribios is probably drafting the invitations as we speak.”

Cyrene pauses. 

“So? What do you think?”

“It’s a lot,” says Phainon honestly.

Cyrene sits down primly next to him. “It is a lot,” she agrees. She peers into his face, giving him a smile. “But you’re still enjoying Okhema?”

“I am,” he says, just as honestly, smiling back.

“Then what’s all this nervous energy?” she says. “Are you hiding something? The Phainon I know would be asking what kind of food they have beyond the stars by now.”

“What kind of food do they have beyond the stars?” he offers.

“Nice try,” says Cyrene. “What happened last night? Why didn’t you come back with any books?”

“I forgot,” he says.

“Fine,” she says, accepting his answer. “Then what’s this?” She points at the small square cloth drying in the sun.

Phainon coughs. “I… Someone…lended it to me.”

“Okay, you don't have to tell me,” she says knowingly. “But something else is bothering you, right? Nikador could probably hear you sighing all the way from Kremnos. You don’t have to keep it bottled up.”

Cyrene could always see farther than him.

“…All right,” Phainon says. “First question. Do you think I’m too handsome?”

5/

He might have been willing to divulge the entire encounter with the grey-haired stranger with a little bit more wheedling, but after Cyrene laughs herself to tears, he says, “Forget it!” and stomps to work, leaving the handkerchief to hang in the wind.