Shadows Between Rain
The night outside the library was soft and wet. Streetlights hummed faintly, their halos stretched thin through the mist. The trio walked without a sound, their silhouettes elongating and merging with the damp air. Behind them, the glass doors of the library slid shut with a sigh, sealing the warmth inside and leaving the drizzle to whisper over the pavement.
Lucien moved at the front, his steps so soundless they barely disturbed the puddles. He was tall and composed, his frame wrapped in a charcoal-gray coat that repelled every trace of rain. A faint network of scars traced his right cheek—precise and deliberate, as though carved by ritual hands rather than violence. His hair, pale blond and straight, looked almost white under the luminescent haze, as if sculpted from the moonlight itself.
Maris glided behind him with unhurried grace. Her dark auburn hair shimmered like old wine, refusing to cling to her coat despite the drizzle. She wore a long velvet coat of deep forest green, the color nearly blending with the restless night. Her pale face was sharp but not cruel—its stillness carried the poise of one who remembered devotion, who once accepted worship instead of doubt. Every step she took seemed to part the rain.
Cassian trailed a few paces behind, his movements lighter, more human. His complexion seemed gentler than the others—translucent skin with veins faintly glowing beneath, like light through parchment. His eyes were gray tinged with amber, alive with play and thought, and his dark brown hair fell loosely around his temples, streaked faintly gold near the tips. Whatever centuries had stripped from the other two, curiosity still clung to him like breath.
"You stayed too long," Maris said quietly, her voice smooth but edged like velvet over broken glass.
Cassian's gaze lingered on the library's glowing windows. "He was curious. About the old histories."
Lucien didn't turn. "Curiosity is a spark. You forget how quickly it burns out."
Cassian smiled faintly. "Not always. Some sparks catch."
They turned down a narrow street lined with dripping brick facades and humming power lines. A crooked lamppost flickered overhead, throwing momentary light across Lucien's sharp profile. His shadow stretched long and spindly, trembling across the rain-slick cobblestones.
"This city forgets itself," Maris said after a quiet stretch. "It forgets what it was built on."
Lucien's tone was gentle but firm. "It forgets because we allow it to. Memory is dangerous when the living cling too tightly to truth."
Cassian gave a small laugh, not unkind. "And yet here we are—trespassing in their sanctuaries, reading over their shoulders."
Maris's eyes caught the orange glow of a window high above, turning them the color of garnet. "You should not have approached him."
Cassian met her gaze evenly. "I didn't reveal anything. We spoke of books, nothing more."
"You spoke of stories that were never meant for his kind," Lucien said. He paused before the eaves of a crumbling church whose stained glass bore no light. "Do not mistake restraint for ignorance. You were seen—truly seen. That is never nothing."
Cassian said nothing. He could still feel the human's presence—the pulse he'd heard so close, the steady rhythm beneath the surface. He had expected the usual fear, that quiver mortals never hide, but there had been none. The boy's gaze had met his calmly, curious rather than frightened. That kind of courage was rare. Dangerous.
"The boy has a scent about him," Maris murmured, stepping close enough that her coat brushed Lucien's. "Not of innocence. Something touched him. He has crossed a threshold he doesn't yet understand."
Lucien's gaze drifted toward the fog curling at their feet. "And the other one? The one behind the counter?"
Tariq's face flashed in Cassian's mind—the focused stare, the way his hands moved like precision instruments across the keys. "A watcher type. Modern faith—logic, not belief. He will see, but not understand."
Lucien's hand brushed the church wall, fingertips leaving no trace of moisture. "Both have crossed our path now. The threads tighten."
A distant rumble rolled overhead—thunder muffled beneath the thick clouds, deep enough to feel through the soles of their shoes. Cassian tilted his head, listening. It sounded like something ancient groaning beneath the earth rather than the sky.
Maris's voice was softer now. "Will you tell him?"
Lucien looked up at the sputtering streetlight, his expression distant and unreadable. "Not yet. Let him wander in the dark first. Let him think the shadow belongs to him. The truth always tastes sweeter when it's earned."
Mist whipped around them as a cold gust of wind swept from deeper in the city. Far above, the moon's dim disc flickered through the clouds—a thin, silver eye watching its favored children.
"Come," Lucien said. "We have lingered long enough."
They turned down another street, one long forgotten by traffic lines or storefronts. The cobblestones here were fractured and old, cut through by moss and thin streams of running rainwater. Soon, the bright pulse of New Ashara's center fell away, replaced by quiet roads leading toward the south edge of the city, where the forest loomed dark and unmoving.
Maris glanced up once more. "You still believe it's here? After all this time?"
Lucien's voice was low, carrying the weight of memory. "It never left. The Tree cannot die while the curse that roots it lives."
They walked until the air changed—until asphalt gave way to soil heavy with damp earth. The skyline of New Ashara blurred into a smudge of fog and silver lamplight behind them, and before them stretched the forest, vast and unyielding. Even from the edge, its silence pressed outward like a held breath.
Maris studied the black canopy. "If the Tree still grows, then the ground feeding it should have rotted, centuries ago."
Lucien's eyes flashed pale in the dark. "Rot sustains what was born of it. Those roots drink deeper than death."
Cassian watched the treeline where faint blue-white lights moved in slow trails between the trunks—too steady for lightning, too alive for illusion. "You think that's where he ties in, don't you? The boy from the library."
Lucien stopped walking. The puddles around his feet trembled. "You felt it too."
"There was a pulse," Cassian said. "Not his heartbeat—something else. Like the air around him recognized him."
Maris frowned. "You think he's marked?"
"I don't think," Cassian whispered. "I know."
Lucien's lips curved into the faintest smile. "Then the old whispers were true. The line hasn't ended."
The wind shifted, bringing with it a scent that didn't belong to rain or stone—pine needles crushed underfoot, iron and jasmine, and something faintly sweet, like sap. Lucien closed his eyes for a moment, breathing it in.
"That's where we begin," he said softly. "The Tree still calls. And if the boy is bound to it, so will he."
Maris's voice was almost pitying. "For his sake, I hope he never finds the path."
Lucien turned to her, the rain tracing invisible halos along his scars. "Every mortal finds it eventually," he said. "The difference is whether they kneel before it or are buried beneath it."
They crossed the final street, leaving the city's faint glow behind. The roar of traffic evaporated, replaced by the low rustle of unseen leaves whispering in the mist. The forest ahead pulsed faintly with silvery light—breathing, awake.
Cassian stood at its edge. "Do you hear it?" he asked.
Lucien's gaze lifted toward the dark. "I never stopped hearing it."
The forest answered with a sound too low for thunder, too wide for wind—a heartbeat pulsing from deep within its roots.
They stepped into the mist and were gone, swallowed whole by the waiting dark.