CELESTIA - CHAPTER 56 : The Black Clothes
The sea had retreated. Zayn no longer heard the waves. He had walked to the beach, stood still facing the horizon, hands in his pockets, eyes dry. The water rose, fell, rose, fell – indifferent. He did not cry. He could not. The tears had stayed lodged somewhere between his anger and his fatigue, too heavy to fall.
When he climbed back up the hill, Azel was already gone. Only a flat stone, placed on the grass, marked where he had sat. Not a word. Not a sign. Nothing. Zayn did not take offense. It was Azel's way of saying "I waited for you, now you must walk."
The road to the Academy was silent. Zayn took the train, then a bus, then walked again. His black clothes – he had prepared them the day before, without knowing why – clung to his skin, heavy and warm. He was not hungry. He was thirsty, but he did not stop to drink.
The Academy had never been so quiet. The corridors, usually noisy with laughter and jostling, were empty. The classroom doors were closed. The black uniforms, always strict, seemed blacker today – not because they had changed color, but because those who wore them had chosen them for the first time. Not out of obligation. Out of grief.
Zayn melted into the crowd of students. He recognized a few faces but did not speak to them. He did not look for Rodrigue, nor Blanche, nor Yojuro. He sat on a stone bench in the courtyard, where the names of the dead would be read.
The names scrolled by. Some he knew – Kofi N'zaru, Rex, Masamune, Gravon, Éric, Alexandro. Others he did not. Students from other classes, other years, whose eyes he had never met. Children, like him. Children who would not go home.
Three minutes of silence. No one moved. No one cried. The wind, however, blew – a cold wind, coming from nowhere, making the black clothes and the dead leaves on the ground shiver.
When the ceremony ended, the students stood up, one by one, and walked away. Zayn remained seated. The others left, gathering in small circles, speaking in low voices. He stayed. Hands on his knees. Eyes in the void.
Cynthia sat down beside him without a sound.
She too wore a black dress – simple, strict, without frills. Her arm was still in a sling, but she had pulled up her sleeves to hide the bandages. She did not look at him right away. She watched the others walk away, then the sky, then her own hands.
"Do you want us to stay here?" she asked.
"I want them to come back."
"Me too."
Silence returned. Not the awkward silence of strangers, but the heavy silence of those who have shared the same fear, the same fatigue, the same helpless anger.
"You know it's not your fault, Zayn."
"That's kind, but it's not true."
"It's not kind. It's the truth."
Zayn turned his head toward her.
"How do you know?"
Cynthia did not answer right away. She took a deep breath, exhaled, and her shoulders slumped.
"Because I've already been through this. Losing someone. Feeling guilty. Telling myself I should have been there, that I should have been stronger, that I should have…"
Her voice broke, but she did not cry. She never cried.
"… that I should have done something."
Zayn waited.
Cynthia placed her hands on her knees, clenched them, unclenched them.
"I never told you about my childhood, did I?"
"No."
"That's because it's not a story you tell. But you've just been through hell. You deserve to know you're not alone."
She took a breath.
"My father was a scientist. Not a Paladin, not a fighter. A researcher. He worked for the UAP, in an underground laboratory, studying imprisoned Djinns.
He came home late at night, his eyes red, his hands clean – too clean. He never talked about his work. He just said "it's for everyone's safety." I was six. I didn't know what that meant.
One day, he took me with him.
At the back of the laboratory, there was a cell. A white room, bright, clean. On the floor, a drawn circle, symbols I didn't understand. And in the middle, a girl.
Liana.
She was six, like me. Her hair was gray, almost white, like ash. Her eyes too big, too bright, shone in the artificial light. She wore a gray jumpsuit, sleeveless. On her arms, marks – needle marks, yellowish bruises.
"She doesn't have a name," my father said. "She doesn't speak our language."
"Yes, she does," I said. "Her name is Liana."
My father didn't respond.
I came back often. I brought her drawings, cakes hidden in my pockets, words I was learning at school. She didn't answer, but her eyes lit up when I entered.
One day, I passed her a piece of chocolate cake through a small airlock. She took it, looked at it for a long time, and smiled.
It was the only time I ever saw her smile.
When I came back the next day, her cell was empty.
"She's gone," my father said. "Where she needs to be."
I understood later. She wasn't "gone." She hadn't survived the experiments. The marks on her arms, the needles, the blood tests, the tests – her little body hadn't held up.
No one cried for her. No one said her name.
Except me."
Cynthia lowered her head. Her hands trembled, but her voice was calm.
"That night, I didn't sleep. I stayed sitting on my bed, fists clenched, teeth clenched. And my hands started to glow. A white light, warm, alive. My father came running in.
'Cynthia! What are you doing?!'
'I'm getting strong.'
'Stop, it's dangerous!'
'I'm getting strong, Dad.'
I wasn't trembling. I looked him straight in the eyes, and for the first time, he stepped back. Not out of fear of me. Because he recognized that light. The Djinns' light. Liana's light.
'You're right,' I said. 'We need to understand them. But we also need to protect them.'
I turned off my light.
The next day, I asked to join the Paladin Academy. My father didn't dare refuse.
I became a Paladin for her. For Liana. So that no other child in a gray jumpsuit would smile while eating a cake before dying."
---
The wind blew. Dead leaves scraped the ground. In the distance, the last students had disappeared, leaving the courtyard empty.
Zayn looked at Cynthia. He didn't know what to say.
She looked up. Her eyes were dry, but her lashes glistened.
"So don't tell me you should have been there, Zayn. You weren't there, that's all. Rex wasn't there for you. No one is ever there when they should be. But that doesn't mean it's your fault."
"What if I really could have saved him?"
"You'll never know. And that's the hardest part."
Zayn clenched his jaw. He wanted to cry, but the tears still wouldn't come.
"How do you keep going?"
"I get up. I move forward. I fight. Because if I stop, I think about her. And if I think about her, I fall apart."
She placed her good hand on Zayn's.
"So we don't stop, okay?"
"Okay."
They remained sitting next to each other, on the stone bench, in their black clothes, under a gray sky.
The names of the dead, somewhere behind them, had not disappeared. But they were a little less heavy.
---