CHAPTER VI
AN ANCHOR AND A ROSE
K R Y S A A L I S
The Anchor Rose Inn, Lithrys, Il'Maryna, Vespria
First of the Retreat, Kalinarym, 5th Circle of Arc 120, 1081 AV
I wish I could have even a part of what I’m missing. I can fight for that hope and use what light she left to me to protect everything she held precious.
— Excerpt from Anguish of the Heart, First Book of the Revelations from the Lost Soul
The morning following the revelation in the library parlor was a study in practiced denial. Krysaalis arose at her usual hour, the amber glow of the residence sconces matching the steady, academic pulse of the Rosethorn Estate. The air within the manor felt heavy, saturated with the secret she now carried like a physical burden in her chest. Every stone of the estate, once a symbol of safety, now whispered of the A’nira—the beautiful shield of history that she now realized was a shroud.
She provided intellectual guidance to the Torryaenen Twins, guiding Ashterah and Torryaen through the registers of diplomacy—a rigid, traditional curriculum of social protocols that felt increasingly hollow. She watched the girls with a new, sharp-edged intensity. Ashterah, with her testing gaze and the forbidden book hidden in the vault of her mind, and Torryaen, whose every movement was a physical search for a tangible truth her books never offered. Krysaalis felt the crushing irony of her position: a tutor of knowledge who had spent her life investigating the gaps in others' stories, finally realizing her own life was built upon a Lacuna.
Between lessons, she had sent a discreet return message to the Anchor Rose Inn in Lithrys, arranging a meeting with a man she knew only by a title and a reputation: the Duke of Dragondown.
Malyndriel, ever the silent sentinel, had spent the morning in a state of quiet, focused preparation. She had arranged to accompany the Acolyte as both a guardian and a companion, her presence a steadying, physical anchor of iron and duty against Krysaalis’s internal storm. Malyndriel’s blonde hair—that "whispered anomaly" of the Lyris line—was tied back in a severe warrior’s knot, and her navy-silver armor gleamed with a predatory polish that suggested she expected more than a simple carriage ride.
Late that afternoon, the pair set out in a gilded Lyris coach. The vehicle was a triumph of Vesprian artifice, its curves following the organic arcs of a rose in mid-bloom, emblazoned with the family’s crest: a single rose on a navy field, with a single drop of blood falling from its petals. Flanked by a pair of house guards in Lyris crimson, the procession left no question that an official sanctioned by the House was on business of import.
Krysaalis rarely made use of such ostentatious transportation. Most of her world existed in the quiet alignment between Rosethorn and the capital city of Vespyr, which sat nestled within the protective ring of a flooded coastal caldera. The ride from the estate to the port city of Lithrys took more than two hours, a journey through the low, rolling coastal plains that felt like a slow unraveling of the order she had known.
Out the window, the sun, Elos, was beginning its descent, painting the landscape in the burning violets of the evening’s Retreat. The fields were covered in stargrass—a bioluminescent flora that reacted to the fading light. As the sea breeze began to comb through the plains, each blade emitted a dim, bluish-white glow. To Krysaalis’s Mind’s Eye, the fields were not merely grass; they were a shimmering sea of constellations that mirrored the stars beginning to prick through the violet sky above. A single blade was a lone star; the whole field was a wave of light that pulsed with the rhythm of the tides.
“I still don’t get it,” Malyndriel said, breaking the silence. She was leaning against the velvet upholstery, her hand resting habitually on the pommel of her blade. Her presence was a dampening field for Krysaalis’s anxiety. She had been asking about the failure of the Alabaster Gate—the last known functional link between the islands and the heartland.
Krysaalis felt a sharp spike of heat behind her ears, her Mask threatening to flush pink. “The successful revitalization of that transportation method fueled imaginings that could revolutionize logistics,” she said, her voice carrying the hollow resonance of a woman repeating a dogma she no longer trusted. She left unsaid her belief that such a revolution would only happen so long as the Lyris family controlled the "sheet music" of the technology. She thought of the Keystone Gate hidden beneath Rosethorn—the "open secret" Valgarion guarded—and felt the pressure of the lies pressing in.
By the time the gilded coach passed through the city gates of Lithrys, the air had turned thick and heavy with the scent of the sea. A cool, salt-rimed evening fog was rolling in off the Eleysian Sea, carrying the scent of wet stone, wood-smoke, and the busy ambition of the docks.
Lithrys was The Gilded Threshold of Vespria—the only port open to the kali and foreign vessels. As the carriage navigated the vibrant streets, Krysaalis gazed at the managed chaos. This was the city the Lyris family—those she had served for so many Arcs—had built for the Qyendom, a place where the elegant spires of Vesprian sung-stone mingled with the blocky, pragmatic warehouses of the humans. She saw the faces of shandaryn, shin’misal, and kali in the bustling crowds—a symbol of unity that Krysaalis now recognized as a projection of Lyris power. The city was beautiful, but it had thorns; the "Bleeding Rose" banners snapped in the wind, a reminder of the price extracted for this curated harmony.
Dominating a decorative plaza near the passenger wharf stood the Anchor Rose Inn. The main structure was a triumph of the "Maritime Rose" aesthetic, built of strong, dark, polished woods reminiscent of a ship’s sturdy hull. The carriage pulled in front of the entrance, where the two shandaryn were escorted into a magnificent lobby. Above the door, a masterwork sign of silvery platinum depicted an anchor intricately wrapped in sculpted rose vines.
“If you need a safe harbor in Lithrys, drop an anchor at the Rose,” Krysaalis murmured, the old saying tasting like brine on her tongue. A wave of nostalgia, sharp and unexpected, washed over her. She had not set foot here since the Pilgrimage of 966 AV, more than a century ago. She had been a hopeful adolescent then, dazzled by the inn’s kaleidoscope of rose-themed tapestries. Now, as they were escorted to a private sitting room overlooking the internal courtyard, the scent of roses felt less like an invitation and more like a prelude to a confrontation.
“How long do you think we’ll be made to wait?” Krysaalis asked, once they were alone.
Malyndriel meandered past her, casually plucking a handful of berries from a silver bowl. “Dunno. Depends on if the ‘Duke’ is here, or if they have to drag him out of a tavern.” She paused, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the room with a veteran’s Stillness. “This place is too quiet, Krys. It’s the kind of quiet that listens.”
Krysaalis moved to the window, staring down into the famous Rose Garden. Valgarion had once told her the garden was designed with acoustic precision; the curve of the walls and the density of the harmonium-treated wood in the balconies allowed a sigh on a bench to be carried clearly to the suites above. It was an acoustic snare disguised as a paradise. Below, moonflowers and luminescent moss cast a soft lavender glow over paths of sanded stone. The air was thick with the scent of night-bloomers and the subtle, rhythmic clack-drip-clack of a nearby fountain.
A quick knock heralded their guide’s return. “You may follow me. The Duke awaits you in the Garden.”
They followed the steward through corridors of dark timber and stained glass, emerging into the cool, damp air of the courtyard. The garden was a place where secrets were kept in the filtered light. They strode toward an alcove on the far side, where thorny vines sprouted Blood-Roses—flowers that looked like fuming embers of fresh blood. Each pulsed with the space of a relaxed breath, faint veiny lines appearing across the petals before fading into the dark.
In a stone gazebo bordered by reliefs depicting the Five Seas, they found him.
Sitting astride a wooden bench was perhaps the most grizzled kali Krysaalis had ever seen. His skin looked like old leather, and a thin scar cut across his left cheek. He looked up as she approached, his rheumy blue eyes taking her in with a frank, unsmiling assessment. This was no courtier; he was a man carved from the sea and old battles.
To Krysaalis’s Mind’s Eye, he lacked the shifting, emotional Mask of her people, but he possessed a heavy, singular presence. He sat with a leaden density, an unyielding stillness of iron and stone that anchored him to the world so firmly it made the gazebo feel smaller.
Krysaalis placed a hand on her chest and offered a slight, formal bow. "My lord Duke," she began, her Therysian stiff from lack of use. "I am Krysaalis a'Ciermanuinn. It is my understanding that you are to provide passage to Alfirhavn."
"That's the cargo manifest," he grunted, his voice a low gravel that sounded like a hull under strain. He did not rise; he just gestured to the parchment on the table with a hand that was missing half an index finger. "You're the one with the Qyen's writ?"
"I am," Krysaalis said, pushing the scroll across the stone table.
He picked it up, his eyes scanning the contents with a speed that suggested a sharp, strategic intellect hiding behind a beautiful mask of pragmatism. He set it down with a heavy slap. "An Acolyte of Valis, going to poke around a dead island. A long way from a library. Vespria's interests, it says."
"The interests of the shandaryn people are the interests of Vespria," she replied, her voice steady despite the raw power she felt radiating from him.
"Is that what they're calling it these days?" He let out a short, humorless laugh and looked at the small velvet pouch at her belt. "Passage isn't free, Lady Acolyte."
Krysaalis untied the sack and set it on the table. It landed with the heavy, satisfying clink of Vesprian gold. Cedrik picked it up, weighing it in his palm with a practiced motion.
"This'll get you to Alfirhavn and back again," Cedrik said, rolling the coins back into the sack. He tossed it lightly, the gold jingling with a heavy, rhythmic clink. "Assuming there's anything to come back from."
He did not look at Krysaalis. His gaze drifted past her shoulder, locking onto the figure standing in the shadow of the rose trellis.
To Krysaalis, the air in the gazebo suddenly felt thinner. She watched Cedrik’s lip curl slightly—not a smile, but a grimace of recognition that deepened the lines around his eyes. He stared at Malyndriel with the look of a man seeing a debt collector he thought had died.
"Still wearing the same armor, Sentinel?" he grunted, his voice dropping to a lower, rougher timbre. "It shines brighter than I remember. But then, I suppose time doesn't scratch your kind the way it does mine."
Krysaalis glanced back. Malyndriel’s expression remained stoic, but her eyes softened just a fraction. "The armor doesn't rust, Captain. It is the man inside it that bears the weather. You look like you’ve sailed through a few tempests since Averos."
"And became one," Cedrik countered dryly. He rubbed the stump of his index finger—a souvenir from the Corsair War. "Probably been more than twenty years, Lady Sentinel," Cedrik grunted, shifting his weight off his bad leg. "The last time I stood in this courtyard, the smoke from the Corsair War hadn't even cleared from the islands. I was a Duke in his prime then. Now? I'm just an old sailor chasing ghosts."
Malyndriel watched him, her face as smooth and unlined as it had been on their last parting. "Time is a river to you, Cedrik. To me, it is merely a room I have stepped out of for a moment. You look... distinguished. The grey suits the gravity of your station."
He turned his attention back to Krysaalis, but the Acolyte noted a shift in his posture. The leaden stillness was gone, replaced by a restless, almost agitated energy. His fingers tapped a rhythmic, nervous beat against the stone table. It seemed to Krysaalis that the Duke was recalculating the cost of this transaction in a currency other than gold.
"Does the shadow come with the cargo?" Cedrik asked abruptly, gesturing to Malyndriel with his mangled hand. "My deck has enough trouble without Vesprian duelists getting seasick in the scuppers."
"No," Krysaalis answered, confused by his sudden hostility. "Malyndriel is my anchor here, but she returns to Rosethorn with the coach tomorrow. I travel alone."
Cedrik let out a short, sharp breath through his nose. To Krysaalis, it sounded like relief, though his eyes remained hard and suspicious.
"Good," he muttered, though he looked anything but satisfied. He stood up with a series of pops and cracks from his joints. "Keep it that way. I run a quiet ship."
"My First Mate, Yosif, will arrange for your things," Cedrik said, signaling the end of the meeting with a dismissive wave. "I have business to conclude in Lithrys. If it goes as I hope, I leave before the fullness of your Thea’s Eye. If not, I leave on the tide tomorrow night. Sunset. Be aboard then."
Krysaalis stood. She extended her hand to shake Cedrik’s as was the custom among the kali. Simultaneously, Cedrik closed his right hand to a fist and placed it on his chest in the shandaryn sign of departure.
The mismatch hung in the air for a second. Cedrik pulled his hand from his chest just as Krysaalis retracted hers. A nervous giggle escaped her—a brief flicker of the girl she had been before the weight of the Omnium—as they fumbled through the collision of etiquette. They finally settled for a single, firm handshake. His palm was rough, warm, and smelled of old leather and the sea. It was the touch of a man who lived by his will, not his scrolls.
They smiled at one another, a brief moment of mutual appraisal. Krysaalis gave him a small bow, which he returned with a hurried grunt. She turned and whisked her skirts toward the wing where she and Malyndriel were staying. As she walked past the pulsing Blood-Roses, she reflected on what she had just done. She had negotiated with a Therysian Duke. By herself. She was returning to Aille. She wondered if the islands would welcome her home, or if she was merely another ghost returning to a tomb.
† † †
Beyond the balcony, the coastal plain of Lithrys was a sea of undulating light. The Stargrass was blooming, the bioluminescent tips flaring a cold blue-white every time the salt breeze swept in from the bay—a terrestrial mirror to the Arc of Starlight above. It was beautiful, but to Krysaalis, it looked like the land itself was feverish, bleeding the magic of the Twilight into the mundane air. The very earth seemed to be humming a song only the grass could hear.
Krysaalis closed the doors to the balcony of their room with a solid thud heavier than intended, shutting out the salt-laden air of the garden—and the memory of the Duke's gruff, unyielding presence. She let out a breath she had not realized she was holding, the tension of the negotiation still pulsing beneath her skin like a tearing sound in her mind. She felt the heat of her Mask fading, leaving her face pale and drawn in the reflection of the dark glass.
She moved to the window, staring unseeingly at the glowing moonflowers. The garden’s lavender light seemed to mock her internal gloom. Malyndriel, ever the Sentinel, had silently and efficiently swept the room for resonant listening devices—checking the frame of the mirror and the harmonium-embedded sconces—before her gaze drifted back to Krysaalis. She rested near the fireplace, her polished armor a silent testament to her unwavering vigilance.
"He is... not what I expected," Krysaalis said quietly, her voice addressed more to the glass than to her companion. "So brusque. So... unrefined."
She paused, her reflection a pale shape in the dark. "And yet, Lirynel trusts him. She has sailed with him many times. Her judgment of character, especially in matters of diplomacy, is impeccable. He must be more than he appears."
"He's a Therysian Duke who earned his title in a war, Krys, not a Vesprian courtier," Malyndriel replied, her voice coming from across the room like a grounding frequency. "They don't win battles with polite conversation. Lirynel trusts him because he's useful, and because he's dangerous enough to keep his promises."
Malyndriel stepped toward the light of the hearth, a thoughtful expression crossing her features. "He’s changed, though. It’s been nearly two decades since I last stood on his deck. In Vespria, twenty years is a single movement of a song. But for him... he carries the burden of a different world now. He’s no longer just a sailor; he’s an anchor that has been dragged through a very rocky bottom. There is a growl in his spirit that wasn't there before."
A tense silence settled in the room, thick with the unspoken gravity of their impending journey. The occasional pop and snap from the fireplace reminded Krysaalis she was in the room, not still in the gazebo. Her thoughts were a tangled knot of anxiety and the strange, electric thrill of the unknown. Above, through the skylight, the Arc of Starlight began to manifest, a brilliant celestial bridge reaching toward Aurelia, the sight providing a fleeting moment of ancestral peace.
Then, from the door to the adjoining room, came a soft, rhythmic tapping. Tap... tap-tap... tap... tap.
Krysaalis froze. The sound was a ghost—a tune from a dream, a half-forgotten melody. It was a childhood lullaby her mother used to sing, a secret rhythm she had shared with Lirynel and Illiryssa in the long-lost days before Ciermanuinn fell.
Malyndriel, however, did the opposite of freeze. In a single, fluid motion, she drew her sword, the steel singing a sharp, lethal note. She moved soundlessly toward the door, her body a coiled spring of deadly intent.
The rhythm repeated, familiar and gentle, and then it stopped—one beat short of completion. The final, expected knock never came. The silence that rushed into the void was louder than the tapping had been, a question hanging unanswered in the air. It was the "Secret Knock" she had used with her two Torryaenen foster-sisters—a silence that demanded absolute trust.
Krysaalis turned toward the door and gave a quick nod to Malyndriel, who crouched, ready to strike. The Acolyte slowly raised a hand, her heart pounding frantically against her ribs. She knew that tune. And she knew what the missing note meant.
Krysaalis confidently stepped toward the door, ignoring a warning look from Malyndriel. “What are you doing?” Malyndriel hissed quietly. “You don’t know—”
Krysaalis put her hand on the door latch and pulled. Malyndriel tensed, her blade leveled at the opening.
The door swung inward to reveal a figure wearing plain, loose, water-resistant traveling clothes. Krysaalis watched Malyndriel’s tension slowly melt as recognition washed it away, the Sentinel’s features softening from a stoic defensive look to one of warm, stunned reunion.
“Liryn?” Malyndriel asked, her voice a surprised whisper. She lowered her sword, but did not stow it.
Lirynel did not arrive alone; she brought the gravity of the lost Arcs with her. She stood in the doorway, cloaked and shadowed, but Krysaalis felt the presence of her friend like a physical wave. In an instant, Krysaalis was no longer in the inn, but back in the sun-dappled study at Rosethorn, a huddle of five—Lirynel, Malyndriel, herself, and the two young twins—all gathered around ancient texts. She could hear Lirynel’s patient voice explaining the old Elowyn ways, could feel the warmth of their shared purpose as they taught the next generation their lost heritage.
All of it—the Circles of camaraderie, the Arcs of absence—crashed over her in a single, silent wave.
"You can blame the Duke for my appearance," Lirynel said, offering a tired nod to the Sentinel. "He came to my room not ten minutes ago, looking as if he’d seen a ghost. He told me the 'Shadow of Averos' was standing in his garden. He thought our cover was blown, Mally. He thought the Crown had sent you to arrest him."
Krysaalis blinked, the pieces falling into place. Cedrik’s agitation in the gazebo had not been about overcrowding; it had been paranoia.
"I told him the Sentinel was an old friend, not a jailor," Lirynel continued, moving to the window to check the blinds. "But his panic gave me an idea. If Cedrik thinks Malyndriel is a problem... then we can make her the solution."
She turned back to them, her expression sharpening into the general’s visage Krysaalis knew well.
"A man named Vorik has moved his pieces into place," she said, shifting tone. "And we need to move ours. Malyndriel, you cannot go with Krys. But you can give us the one thing we don't have: a perfect decoy."
Lirynel gestured to Malyndriel’s armor. "You will return to Rosethorn with the official entourage tomorrow morning. Your coach will leave with the rising sun, visible to all. And I... I will become the shadow. I will wear your spare mantle and helm. To any watchers in Lithrys—and to a nervous Captain—the Acolyte travels with her Sentinel guardian. Let them believe the Princyn is halfway to Reimes."
Malyndriel nodded, a sharp, professional acceptance of the plan. “I’ll ensure the coach looks occupied. No one will suspect the Acolyte is anything but protected by her usual shadow.”
"Vorik is a threat to any before him, and now we believe he is making for Aille,” Lirynel paused and Krysaalis felt her mind’s eye unconsciously whisked to her ancestral homeland. Lirynel made the distant feeling suddenly very real. “There are survivors, Krys. Elowyn. From Ciermanuinn. They have been guarding something for over a century."
"Survivors." The word did not just shock her; it realigned her entire understanding of the past week. Suddenly, Valgarion's cryptic words in the Omnium made terrible, perfect sense. 'Decided it safer if everyone believed them gone.' He had not been teaching her history; he had been confessing a conspiracy. They were hidden. The Vesprian Council had not failed to save them; they had chosen to erase them. Hearing it now from Lirynel, seeing the weary dust of travel on her friend's cloak, turned the data into a physical weight.
The "A'nira"—the Great Lie she had been told her entire life—did not just shatter; it evaporated. The silence of the last century was not peace; it was a holding of breath.
“Carielyn believed… she believed you were the key. Not just to finding the Blade, but to understanding what our people have been protecting all this time.”
Lirynel took a final step forward, her voice dropping to an intimate whisper.
“Cedrik Dawntreader is trustworthy, and his ship is our best cover. He will take you to Aille. But I will not order you to go. Valgarion has secured your sabbatical, your writ gives you the authority, but the choice… the choice is still yours. After everything you have endured, no one would blame you if you turned away. This is a journey back into the heart of your own pain, and I will not force you to take it.”
Lirynel’s last words hung in the air, a final resonance: "I will not force you to take it."
Krysaalis looked around the luxurious suite. She saw the soft glow of the moonflowers outside, the plush velvet of the furniture, the safe, curated silence of Vesprian nobility. It was a beautiful cage. For twenty years, she had lived in the comfort of the "Good Lie," protected by the Torryaenen, sheltered from the sharp edges of her own history.
If she walked out that door, she was not just going on a trip. She was defecting from safety. She was walking into the dark that had swallowed her parents.
She looked at her hands. They were trembling, just slightly. Not from fear, but from a sudden, violent realization: I have been waiting for this permission my entire life.
She did not answer with words. The choice had been made not in this room, but seventeen Arcs ago, the moment the Alabaster Gate fell. She had just been waiting for the door to open.
Krysaalis walked to the small travel pack she had begun to prepare. She picked up a simple, woolen traveling cloak. The fabric was rough against her fingers—real, tangible, unlike the silk of the court. She folded it with deliberate, steady hands, placing the last piece of her old life into the bag.
She turned back to face Lirynel. The heat of the Mask had faded from her face, leaving her expression pale, set, and terrifyingly calm.
"Tell the Duke I will be ready at sunset," she said.
† † †
Krysaalis spent the following morning in a state of hyper-focused preparation. She remained within the suite, finalizing her notes and reviewing the sea charts of the Eleysian archipelago. Through the thick glass of the balcony doors, the sounds of Lithrys reached her as a distant, muffled cacophony. She could hear the rhythmic thud of crates, the frantic shouts of teamsters, and the low, grinding thrum of the harbor’s tidal engine. Everywhere she looked, she saw the ancient standards of order that the Lyris family still tried to replicate.
She thought of the ship waiting for her in the deepest berth of the port. She suspected it was more than it appeared. A vessel of deceptive Resonance. Its hull was constructed of Twilight Timber, and while the harbor records would not speak of such things, her intuition—and Valgarion’s hints—suggested an Iron-Heart Wood keel. It was a Therysian marvel, an instrument of war hidden beneath a merchant’s gilding.
The wait for sunset was a slow movement. Malyndriel had departed with the coach at dawn, leaving Lirynel to step into the role of the armored shadow. They spoke little. The time for academic theories was over; the time for the Unabridged Truth had arrived.
As the sun, Elos, began to dip once more toward the horizon, casting long, bloody shadows across the Rose Garden below, Krysaalis donned her heavy traveling cloak. Beside her, Lirynel stood in navy-silver armor, her face partially obscured by the high collar of the Sentinel’s mantle and the shadow of a deep hood. Selyne was a faint ghost in the sky, watching the transition of power.
“Ready?” Lirynel asked, her voice a low, disciplined murmur that mimicked Malyndriel’s cadence.
Krysaalis took a centering breath, feeling the air of Lithrys—cool, moist, and smelling of brine and ambition—filling her lungs. She looked at her reflection one last time, seeing the petite shandaryn woman who had survived the ash of her home only to be caught in the gilding of another's world.
“Yes,” Krysaalis said, her voice a clear, ringing note. “It is time to find the wolf.”
Together, the Acolyte and her "Sentinel" stepped out of the room, leaving the Anchor Rose behind. The tide was rising. This time, Krysaalis would be the one to meet it.
