No hiss. No hum. Just stone shifting into stillness. Final, unyielding.
They didn’t speak. Not at first. Too much had already been said inside that circle.
Now the corridor stretched ahead, dim and breathless. Each step farther from the ritual felt quieter. Older.
The vault’s enchantments no longer clung to the walls here, just dust and the echo of silence. Dormant magic, long asleep.
And yet the weight didn’t lift.
The questions followed. Louder now that the orbs were no longer watching.
How long had he known her? How did he know her? Where had they met?
She didn’t remember ever meeting a fairfolk until recently. Until him. And that one blurry encounter with the transparent fairy, and the Bronze-man muttering about a wraithling. A wraithling she never actually saw.
And then there was the golden thread. Was that... fairfolk-related, too? Was that his?
The thought made her stomach twist.
She walked a little faster, catching his pace. Kion was still hovering. Barely stable, still adjusting. He drifted slightly left every few meters and nudged himself back, as though his internal compass had gone fuzzy.
But he was still whistling. Like nothing heavy had just happened.
The tune ended in a breath, then turned his head slightly toward her.
“You handled that better than most, you know,” he said, “wanna rank how bad that was on a scale from awkward to existential?”
She stopped.
Halted.
He floated on a moment longer before pausing, slowly turning midair. No glare this time. No heat. Only calculation.
Because if he was Accord, if he was one of them, then she’d already condemned herself. The moment the orb turned red at her loyalty claim, her life had been signed away. He could report her. Frame her. Strip her from everything.
She had nothing left to lose.
But if he wasn’t... If there was a sliver of chance he wasn’t one of them...
...
She’d deal with that later.
He turned toward her fully. Still smiling. Still too casual. But he caught the change in her expression. And stilled.
“You said you’ve known me long before this,” she said, “how? From where? How long have you been watching me?”
Kion’s eyebrows rose, his smile pulling taut like she’d just handed him a riddle he’d written himself.
“Hmmm,” he said, drawing out the sound, “let’s just say... I once gave you fruits when you were starving. And you inhaled them like you hadn’t eaten in a year.”
She stared. Jaw twitched.
“That never happened.”
A pause.
“...Right?”
He only shrugged, wings tilting. Then drifted forward again like that settled the matter.
She stood frozen as the distance between them widened.
Frustration stirred. Not because it was a lie, but because it might not be. And she couldn’t tell. She didn’t remember.
“You’d be surprised how much you forget when you’re concussed, starved, and busy clawing your way through hell,” Kion added, offhanded. Too light to be cruel, too casual to be a lie.
Chaos cracked open behind her ribs.
When had that happened?
Had it ever happened?
Concussed, starved, in hell. That combination only existed in one place, one phase of her life.
Before she earned her own lodging, before she had any reins at all.
It had to be before the field clearance, before the First Blade. Back when she was still a number, not a name.
The dorms. The facility. The hell under Accord’s roof.
But that was years ago. Fifteen? Twenty?
She had injuries every other week. Bruises layered over bruises. That part was a blur. But food? Someone giving her fruits?
Accord never gave actual fruit. Only rations, thin broth, hard bread. She’d remember the taste if someone had given her one. Wouldn’t she?
She couldn’t recall.
But if he was telling the truth... if any part of that memory was real, then it had happened there.
Which meant...
He’d been there. He had access. To her. To the facility. To Accord grounds.
And somehow, despite all that... he’d been impressed by her. Back then. When she was barely standing.
None of it made sense.
She stepped fast, closing the gap between them. Reached toward him, but stopped short. Let her hand fall, hovering instead, in front of him.
“You sure you didn’t get the wrong person?” she asked.
Kion crossed his arms, expression shifting, something between mock offense and theatrical pity.
“And you think just because we live long, we’re as forgetful as an elderly human?”
She stiffened.
A beat.
“...Right.”
Her voice sounded small.
Kion nodded once, then released his arms and turned, hovering forward again.
Another storm swirled behind her ribs. Not panic. Not yet. Just questions, sharpened, weighted.
Because the only people who had access to her past like that, who had witnessed her break, were Accord.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Are you Accord, Kion?”
The words left her mouth before she could stop them.
Too loud. Too raw. Too real.
The air froze.
Her eyes widened. Too late.
She slapped a hand over her mouth like she could force them back in. But the damage had already sunk in.
Too much. She’d said too much. The quiet pressed harder now that it was over.
The implication was clear. Obvious. Dangerous.
If he was... Then that first lie, the one she offered the door... “I obeyed the people I serve. My loyalty’s never strayed.”
And the door’s rejection... that glaring red flare.
She had confessed. Out loud. To him.
Her heart punched hard. Enough to jolt her balance.
But Kion?
Didn’t flinch.
Didn’t sharpen his mana.
Didn’t narrow his eyes.
He looked at her. Steady, quiet, a little too amused. And then that same, familiar grin curled on his face, first the corner, then the rest.
“Maybe,” he said.
Soft, pleased, and nothing more.
Then he kept hovering beside her like it meant nothing at all. As if she hadn’t just torn open the very thing she’d sworn to never name.
Maybe silence really was the safest answer.
Kion's POV
Post-Truth Room, Sealed Area, Tenzurah Buried Library
She said his name again.
The second time.
Out loud this time.
Not a tether flick. Not a note. Not a thought.
Spoken. Sharp. Real.
And paired with the most cursed question she could’ve asked.
Of all the things she could’ve asked, she chose that one.
“Are you Accord, Kion?”
Not how he knew her.
Not why the door had responded to him the way it did.
Not even when he’d started watching her.
Just that.
Obvious. Suicidal. Almost impressive.
And somehow, the most impossible thing she could’ve said.
She went straight for the throat.
He almost laughed.
She didn’t even mean to say it.
He felt the regret spike through the tether before the sound finished leaving her mouth.
Sharp and jarring, like a self-inflicted wound.
And yet she’d said it anyway.
Out loud.
His breath stayed steady, but not because the question didn’t rattle him.
It did.
Just... not for the reason she probably thought.
Because she was afraid now.
Not of him exactly, he could feel the fear wasn't pointed like that, but of what it would mean if he said 'yes'.
Not after her first lie had flared red in front of them both.
Not after the door spat it back like poison.
Not after he’d pointed that he wasn’t human.
The fear that rose in her then hadn’t faded.
It had steeped. It had settled.
It wasn’t just a slip of the tongue.
It was a confession, and not the kind you walked away from.
A Shadow whispering the name of the Accord aloud, even as a question, wasn’t just reckless.
It was a sin. A treasonous, oath-breaking, soul-burning sin.
No Shadow survived what came after a slip like that.
Especially not if it was reported.
And it always got reported.
The Accord made sure of that.
Their terror wasn’t just in bloodshed. It was in control. In erasure.
In the unshakable belief that if anyone ever connected a name to a face, one of those two things wouldn’t exist for much longer.
Some Shadows had infamous titles. Given, never chosen.
Whispered like ghosts, too dangerous to speak during daylight.
But faces? None survived long enough to know both.
So no one spoke them.
No one asked.
Until she did.
And then just... kept walking.
Like that settled anything.
Like “Maybe” was a legitimate, well-reasoned answer and not the vague shrug of a man two steps past a breakdown.
Honestly, even he wasn’t sure what kind of reaction he expected from himself in that moment. But the word had left before his brain could slap on a filter.
“Maybe.”
It echoed longer than it had any right to.
And now she was walking like that made sense.
Cool.
Okay.
Sure.
And the tether now hummed with silent reverence.
Like she’d just found a unicorn standing in her salt circle.
He didn’t get it. Had no idea why.
But it wasn’t stabbing him anymore.
It wasn’t gnawing at the edges of his concentration or trying to rewrite his bloodstream with her panic.
That... was a plus, right?
Right?!
But she thought he was with the Accord now?
What exactly about him screamed, “Hi, I’m a loyal, well-trained operative from the most secretive and bloodstained branch of your entire faction”?
Was it the shaky illusions?
The fake translations?
The way he panicked when she called out his mistakes and nearly hijacked the entire mission just to rewrite everything herself?
Was it the rogue eyeliner of insomnia and persistent wing limp?
Because, you know, classic spy behavior right there.
Very ominous. Very elite. Very stabby.
And seriously. A fairy.
She thought a fairy joined the Shadow Accord.
The Shadow Accord.
The one famous for murder, mind games, and cleaning their knives with whatever you were fond of most.
They didn’t exactly host tea parties with sweets. More like bloodletting with flair.
Fairfolk weren’t built for that. They were built for sparkles and flower crowns and 19 variations of sugar-dusted cake.
Peace. Harmony. Magic that tasted like laughter and sunlight.
And sweets.
Had he mentioned sweets?!
He could handle the accusations. Honestly.
If she wanted to project some dark operative fantasy onto his perfectly moisturized self, who was he to stop her?
If that kept her from throwing him out the nearest fissure?
Love that for him.
He’d happily stay her suspicious, supply-wielding, emotionally-supportive babysitter with trauma wings and a very fragile ego.
But why?!
Where had he gone so wrong that this, this whole disaster, felt plausible to her?
He didn’t have the answers.
Didn’t have the energy to try and correct her either.
So he kept walking beside her.
Let her wear that silence like armor.
Let her pretend she hadn’t just said something that could get both of them executed under the right audience.
And maybe, maybe he’d let her keep thinking “maybe” was an answer.
For now.
Because in the end, a little lie for comfort wasn’t the worst thing he’d done.
Letting her believe the door needed seven truths hadn’t been honest either.
It didn’t. Six was enough.
The final orb, the one crowning the arch, always lit after the sixth.
It wasn’t judgment. Just a marker.
A quiet signal, 'the vault had heard enough'.
But when she saw it glow after his words, and whispered, “Seven?”
He hadn’t corrected her.
Because something in her had unlocked.
She’d looked at him, not with suspicion, but with less weight in her stare. Less armor.
And the tether had shifted.
Just a little.
He could feel it, she believed him.
That he meant it. That he wouldn’t use her truths against her.
And if letting her think his truth had opened the door helped her breathe easier...
He could live with that.
Because if she ever realized how far to the truth she really was?
They’d both have a hell of a lot more than awkward glances and passive-aggressive tether snaps to deal with.
The corridor stretched quiet ahead of them, their footsteps the only rhythm beneath the stone.
He could feel her tension. Not just from the rigid line of her spine, but from the tether that hummed low and uneasy, like it couldn’t decide whether to snap or slacken. She hadn’t said a word since.
He hadn’t either.
Because somewhere between the door and now, the floor had started to tilt.
Just slightly.
Barely enough to notice if he were alone. But he wasn’t. And Writ noticed.
He could feel her catch it the same moment he did, subtle shift in posture, in breathing, in the tether that curled tighter around his ribs.
A slope.
Downward.
But the ceiling hadn’t dropped. The corridor didn’t narrow.
No steps. No obvious decline in the design.
The structure held as if this had always been level ground, carved with precision.
And yet... here it was. Slanting.
Like something deeper was pulling them in.
He had to adjust his flight even more. Subtle shifts, gentle pulses of telekinesis to stay level, compensating for both the quiet slope and his still-slightly crumpled wing.
Each inch forward nudged him slightly lower. Gravity leaned harder into their steps.
She noticed it too.
Her stride changed, still silent, still sharp, but with that careful edge she used when something stopped making sense.
Calculated. Coiled.
The air changed next.
Faint. Imperceptible, almost.
But the hairs on his arms lifted.
Not from cold. From wrongness.
He turned.
Nothing.
Just the dimming hallway behind them. Silent. Unmoving.
Old glyphs dormant along the walls, dust thick in the corners.
The vault had sealed behind them. No fork. No path branching out. Just this.
A straight walk with no end in sight.
And no way back.
Not through the truth door.
Not through the vault that locked behind it.
This was the only direction left.
Forward.
Always forward.
The silence dragged long between them.
Not companionable. Not hostile. Just wary. Fragile.
Writ’s fingers brushed her pouch again, the notebook one.
A grounding habit, but he noticed the way her other hand had drifted subtly closer to the blade at her hip.
She’d felt it too.
The cracks appeared not long after.
Hairline at first. Across the wall.
Then one beneath their feet.
Another splitting the ceiling overhead in a slow, meandering path that bled into shadow.
They were old.
But they weren’t decorative.
They looked like stress fractures. Like something deep had shifted once and the building hadn’t recovered.
And they stretched far ahead, tiny threads in stone that guided their gaze toward the dark.
Kion exhaled, slow.
The tether hummed again, still subdued, but restless.
He didn’t say a word. Neither did she.
What was there to say?
You think I’m Accord? Cool. By the way, the earth might be bleeding.
No thanks.
So he said nothing. Kept walking beside her.
Listening to the faint creak of ancient stone and the not-quite-right silence of the corridor ahead.
This wasn’t just old architecture anymore.
Something here had shifted.
And whatever it was... it had teeth.
There was only one direction left.
And no one in their right mind would choose it.
But they weren’t in their right minds.
Not anymore.