Chapter 731: Gazel in a Jar

Didi crossed the last three steps to the shelf without feeling her own legs move at all. The jar was small, no bigger than a teacup, with one ember turning slowly inside it, waiting.

‘It is only a jar, so do not shake.’

She lifted it in both hands, the way she once carried a sparrow with a broken wing. The glass was warm against her palms, warm like a hearth she could not remember standing beside.

“Highness,” the ember whispered, then flickered, “I am only the dutiful part, the scrap he left.”

Her breath left her in one rush, white smoke curling from her lips into the freezing air of the vault. Every proud word she rehearsed on the stairs was gone, leaving only a girl of nine in a snowed-in courtyard.

“I know what you are, I said goodbye to the rest of you,” she said, sobbing and laughing in one breath.

The Collector must have snatched this scrap out of the river before it ever reached the Wheel. Of course he did, because he never let anything he wanted float away.

“The ribbon… did you keep it?”

“Every single day, you impossible man,” she said, lifting the notched practice sword so his ribbon swung against the glass.

He taught her on that practice sword in a frozen yard, his ribbon tied to the hilt, correcting her grip until her fingers went numb. That same patient voice now came from a jar on a shelf, small, thin, nearly worn through.

“You taught me everything I know.”

Her knees gave way, so she sank onto the floor with the jar cradled close to her chest. She wept openly, ugly and helpless, with no throne in sight to be dignified for, no court watching.

The ember spoke slowly, as if every word cost it a spark, “A princess does not weep on floors.”

“This princess does as she pleases, you taught me that yourself,” Didi told it.

Behind her the household fell silent, the lantern light holding them back at a respectful distance. Hajin stood closest, his shadow lying across her shoulders like a borrowed coat, wordless and steady.

“I am not crying, the dust down here is simply terrible,” Juna muttered, scrubbing at her eyes.

“Of course it is, darling,” Cessy said, passing her a handkerchief.

Alya hung back at the edge of the lantern light with her hands folded, her eyes suspiciously bright.

Eirwen sniffed, dabbing her eyes, “Let it be recorded that I wept for a perfectly respectable reason.”

‘Tell him everything, there may never be another chance.’

“I never meant to leave you, Highness, I tried to hold the gate until—”

The ember fizzed and went dim, a thin hiss of bright sparks spitting angrily against the inner glass. Didi cupped both hands around the ember as if shielding a candle, her heart pounding in her throat.

“I know you did, you held it as long as any man could,” she said.

“Good… then I may rest easy.”

“Not yet, you may not, I have so much to tell you first.”

“He keeps me at the end of the row, Highness, he never looks at me.”

“Why would he avoid you?” Didi asked, frowning down at the glass.

“I do not know, but he hums whenever he passes.”

Behind her Hajin went very still, his glove curling tight around the Grasp as it trembled hard. He said nothing aloud, though his jaw tightened like a man memorising a face before it vanished.

‘He hums when he passes, remember that.’

The ember brightened again, slowly, the way an old man’s eyes brighten at a song he loves. Didi pressed the jar to her ribs, afraid that if she loosened her grip it might fade.

“Tell me, Highness… how fares the kingdom?”

“I am still a princess, the kingdom is in ruins but I am one,” she said, wiping her cheek on her wrist.

“Of course you are, Highness, you were born to it.”

“I have people now, a loud crowd of them who follow me everywhere.”

“Then you are not alone.”

She stopped there, because the next part was the hardest of all to say aloud, even to a jar. Her whole face burned, but she dared not glance over her shoulder at the boy standing right behind her.

“I am in love, you already knew, so do not tell the others,” she whispered.

“With the fool behind you?”

“He is not a fool, he is… fine, he is a little bit of a fool.”

Somewhere behind her Hajin made a strangled noise, then grew intensely interested in a crack in the wall. The ember flickered in a manner that Didi was almost certain was laughter, warm, fond, and rather smug.

“Fool, come here,” the ember wheezed.

Hajin knelt beside her on one knee, his voice rough, “Right here, sir, the fool himself, good to see you.”

“Look after her, she hides her fear behind frost.”

“She hides it badly, sir, I’m on it,” he said quietly.

“I am sitting right here, you two,” Didi hissed, though she was smiling through her tears.

“I am terrified too, so terrified I cannot breathe some nights,” she added, hardly louder than the cold.

“Then be brave, Highness, you always were.”

The ember dimmed in a long guttering that seemed to stop her heart in her chest. Then it flared again, stronger, as though speaking only tired it and cost it nothing worse.

“Gazel, please say something else,” she begged, the jar trembling in her hands.

“Still here, Highness, only a little tired.”

“Then rest a moment, I will be right here the whole time,” she said, rocking the jar gently.

She bowed her head over the jar, her shoulders shaking in earnest now, tears dripping quietly onto the lid. Two strong arms slid around her from behind, drawing her back against a chest steady as a forge wall.

“Got you, Didi,” Hajin murmured into her hair.

Into his shirt she said, still gripping the jar, “Don’t you dare tell anyone I did this.”

“Did what, I was inspecting the ceiling the entire time,” he said, tightening his hold.

“Idiot.”

Her cheek rested against his heartbeat, a steady drum in a distant, safe room beyond all the walls. For one long breath the world held nothing else, not the throne, the Birth-King or the waiting dark.

[ashley(mod): everyone please stop typing, give them a minute]

[DarkBlade: I am not crying, you are crying]

Nobody in the Reliquary moved, not even the jars, as if the whole vault were holding its breath.

Then Hajin reached out with his free hand, laying it gently against the glass of the ember’s cage. The Fragment in his chest answered with a low gold hum, rattling jar after jar along the shelves.

‘The ember is leaning toward his hand, like a flower toward the sun.’

“Soul-ember integrity stands at four percent and is climbing steadily,” Aria announced, standing at his elbow with a small panel glowing at her cheek.

“Four percent of what, exactly?” Didi whispered, her eyes never leaving the jar.

“Of a man, Princess, rising faster whenever Hajin speaks.”

“Damn, he really is listening,” Hajin breathed, his voice thick.

“Hold on, Gazel, I’ll get you out, you hear me?”

“I hear you… fool.”

“Dutiful,” a velvet voice sighed from the walls themselves, “cheap, but I kept him.”

Every lantern in the Reliquary guttered at once, plunging the endless shelves into a sudden, dreadful, waiting hush. Along the far wall of the vault a great black seam split open, the stone parting like lips.

Something obsidian stepped out of the dark, fourteen feet tall, stooping under the arch to look down at them.