POV: Mara
Old Haru sits on his bench near the lower steps, hat crooked, eyes bright. I bring him a heel of bread and a small pear. “Exchange,” I say.
“Always,” he grins. He taps his temple. “Today I brought a better memory.”
“Show-off,” I tease.
His grin slips. His eyes roll. He sags sideways like a rope cut wrong.
I drop the bread. “Haru!” I’m under him fast, my knees on the wet stone. “Hey. Hey.” His skin is hot. His breath is short. His lips are pale.
Pia runs. “Water!” I shout. “Now!”
“I’ve got it!” she says, already moving.
I cup Haru’s head. “Stay with me,” I whisper. “Please.”
His eyes flutter. He looks at me and not at me. “Laleh?” he breathes.
The name hits me in the chest. My mother. I flinch. “No,” I say, voice shaking. “I’m Mara. I’m here.”
“Laleh,” he whispers again, a small smile on his mouth like he’s somewhere softer. “You hum. The moon listens.”
Aster aches inside me, deep, low. Mother. Gate. Song.
Pia arrives with water. I tip a little to Haru’s lips. He swallows, coughs, curses faintly. “Don’t you dare,” I say, voice breaking. “You owe me another rhyme, old man.”
He chuckles once. “Bossy,” he rasps.
“Eat the pear,” I say, shoving it into his hand. “If you die, I’ll steal your hat and wear it badly.”
He wheezes a laugh. “Cruel.”
We sit in the rain until his color returns from paper to skin. My dress soaks. I don’t care. My knees hurt. I don’t move.
A shadow falls. I look up. Cael stands there, rain on his shoulders, eyes soft in a way I almost never see.
“Need a litter?” he asks.
“No,” Haru croaks. “Just my bench and her voice.”
I flush. “I wasn’t singing.”
“You hum when you lie,” Haru says, smug.
Cael’s mouth tips like he wants to smile and knows better. He crouches, level with us. “Can you stand?” he asks Haru.
“Eventually,” Haru says. “Not today.”
“We’ll bring a blanket,” Cael says to me. “And soup.”
“Soup is a law,” I say. My voice is thin.
He looks at my wet knees, my shaking hands. His face changes—not soft, not hard—something else. Something that yields. Like a door opening an inch.
“I’ll be back,” he says, and he is.
We tuck Haru in and feed him and bully him into promises. He calls me Laleh once more, then corrects himself. “Mara,” he says, clear. “Moon child. Not yet. Not yet.”
I swallow that and don’t argue.
Later, in the corridor, a scholar in Archive gray almost slams into me. He’s pale and excited and terrible at walking. “My lady—sorry—Mara—sorry—message for the Regent,” he babbles. “The Vein. It—” he lowers his voice—“pulsed. Faint. White-gold. When we said a name.”
“What name?” I ask, even though I think I know.
He blinks at me like he just realized I have a face. “I’m not allowed—sorry—I have to go.”
He runs. My skin prickles. Aster hums low, like a pot about to boil.
Not now, I beg her silently.
The hum stays. A thin line of warning.
I steady my hands and head toward the stairs, but my legs feel borrowed. The stones blur for a moment, the world tilting like a bowl of water tipped too far. I brace a palm against the wall until the shaking stops.
Pia finds me before I can pretend I’m fine. “Hey,” she says, eyes sweeping my face. “You look like someone told you soup is canceled forever.”
“Close,” I manage. “Archive things.”
“Oh no.” Pia grimaces. “Nothing good ever starts with ‘Archive things.’ That’s like saying ‘I touched a cursed lantern but only a little.’”
I want to laugh. I almost do. Instead my throat locks. “They said the Vein pulsed.”
Pia’s brows rise to her hairline. “Like… alive pulsed? Or ‘we hit it with a broom’ pulsed?”
“White-gold,” I say. “From a name.”
She inhales sharply. “Was it your name?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
Aster shifts uneasily.
Door… door…
I push the thought away before it shapes itself.
Cael returns again, this time with a clay bowl steaming in his hands. Silvie must’ve bullied him into carrying it. He kneels and holds it out.
“You can rest now,” Cael says to me, but it lands wrong—lands too close. Like a hand almost touching my cheek.
“I’m working,” I say.
“You’re soaked.”
“So are you.”
He looks down at himself, at the wet shoulders of his tunic, as if he forgot water touches him. “Fair.”
For a second—one stolen breath—our eyes meet and hold. The air between us tightens like a drawn bowstring.
Then Pia sneezes, and the spell breaks.
Cael clears his throat, stands, and steps back. “I’ll send word when the Regent reads the message.”
“I don’t need—”
“Mara.” His voice softens, dangerous. “You do.”
I look away first. He leaves before I can find a reply.
Rain shifts into sunlight for just a blink. Aster presses her palm against my ribs.
Something is coming, she whispers. And it knows your name—whichever one they said.
My hands go cold.