✧ Chapter Twenty-Two ✧
The Man Who Was Late
from Have You Someone to Protect?
By ©Amer
Caelum didn't move from the doorway.
Elias' gaze landed on her for a breath—recognition, sorrow, and something unspoken threading the space between them.
Then, without waiting for permission, he stepped inside.
Lhady stood now, weakened but upright, clutching the edge of the bookshelf for balance. Her breath hitched the moment their eyes met. She didn't know his name. But she knew him.
Lhady stepped forward, quiet but steady, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Elias...?"
The man nodded once. "It's been a long road to find you. I hoped I wouldn't have to come like this."
Caelum narrowed his eyes. "You know her?"
Elias didn't answer right away. His gaze lingered on Lhady like he was seeing a ghost he'd promised to protect long ago.
"I knew her brother," he said at last, like pulling truth through a narrow crack. "Thorne Amer made me a promise—and I made one in return. But promises like ours… they tend to bind longer than they were meant to."
Lhady's breath caught. The name was like a stone thrown into still water.
"My brother…"
Elias stepped forward, slow and unthreatening. "You're not safe here. Not anymore. And I think you know why."
Caelum's hand subtly moved toward his belt—near the hilt of a blade hidden in plain sight.
"You should start explaining," he said, voice calm but taut.
Elias's eyes flicked to him. "You dream of fire, don't you? Of vows made beneath moons that remember what men forget—and lifetimes that refuse to stay buried?"
Caelum froze.
So did Lhady.
Elias looked at them both.
"The vow is stirring—not waking, but unraveling. And if the true sigil isn't whole by the next moonrise… memory will spill past its borders. And she—" his gaze flicked to Lhady, soft but sharp, "—will drown in what should have stayed forgotten."
Caelum's silence stretched like a wire between them.
The moment Elias spoke of the sigil, something flickered behind Caelum's eyes—quick, buried, but unmistakable. He knew something.
His hand, once tense near his blade, dropped back to his side slowly.
"I think you should leave," he said evenly.
Elias tilted his head. "You haven't told her, have you?"
Caelum's jaw twitched.
"Enough."
His voice wasn't raised, but it landed like a blow between them. "She just woke up."
But Lhady stepped between them, frowning.
"Caelum… what haven't you told me?"
His gaze met hers—and it hurt to lie to her. But he did what knights did best. He bore the weight.
"I'll explain later," he murmured. "Not now."
Lhady hesitated, but something in his voice—raw, heavy—held her in place.
"I need air," she whispered, and turned away before either man could stop her.
She walked past the hallway and toward the back room—the old study where the chest had once been hidden. Her hands moved on instinct now, drawn by something she didn't understand but couldn't ignore.
She opened the cabinet under the desk. The sigil lay where she'd left it: wrapped in a cloth embroidered with her guardian's initials.
The stone was pale gold, shaped like a narrow, eight-pointed star. Veins of silver cut through it, gleaming faintly.
Lhady unwrapped it and pressed her thumb to its center.
It pulsed once—softly, like it recognized her.
A breath escaped her lips.
This… this must be it.
She clutched it close, face calm, mask in place.
Elsewhere in the house, Caelum leaned against the wall with a storm in his chest, one hand clenched tightly. He remembered it now—the tiny fragment he'd found in the hidden compartment of the bookshop's floorboard. Not gold. Not elegant. A broken shard, dull and dark.
But when he touched it that day… it had burned his palm.
One is the sigil. The other is the key.
And he knew—without doubt—that what Lhady held was not the true sigil.
But he didn't stop her. Not yet.
Elias stood by the hearth, silent but unmoving. Caelum didn't sheath his blade, but he didn't raise it either.
The air between them held a quiet weight—like two men who had never met but knew of each other in the way old scars recognize new wounds.
"I wasn't planning to show up like this," Elias finally said. "But there isn't much time."
Caelum crossed his arms. "Twenty-seven days until the full moon," he murmured. "I know."
Elias nodded slowly. "Then you also know we need the sigil—whole."
Caelum's gaze sharpened. "She just woke up. She needs rest. Space. Not riddles from a stranger."
"I'm not here to pressure her," Elias said calmly. "I came to find it. And her."
Caelum stepped forward slightly, lowering his voice.
"I'll find the rest of it. The hidden fragment."
His tone was low but sure. "Just give me clues. I'll get there before the moon rises."
Elias looked at him with something unreadable—part doubt, part understanding.
"I've seen how this plays out. Only she can find the other half. Only she can see the path to it. The sigil responds to memory—but not all memory is lived. Some of it… is inherited."
He paused.
"This burden was never meant for one heart alone. But hearts are stubborn things. They keep secrets even when silence breaks them."
Caelum's jaw flexed, but he said nothing.
The silence stretched until Elias finally turned toward the bookshelf.
"I'll be staying in town. I'll give you time."
Footsteps—soft, familiar—approached from the other room.
Their conversation ended there.
Lhady stepped in, holding the sigil close to her chest. Her hair caught the light, her eyes wide but unreadable.
"I… hope I'm not interrupting," she said lightly, her gaze flicking between the two men.
Both turned to her as if nothing had passed between them.
Caelum offered a small nod, steady. "No. We were just talking."
Elias smiled faintly. "You're stronger than I expected. Thorne must have taught you well."
She blinked at the mention of her guardian's name, but said nothing.
Whatever passed between the two men felt sealed.
Except she had heard them. Enough, at least.
Only she can find the half fragment.
Caelum's silence, Elias's wording. Neither believed this was whole.
But as Elias turned away to leave, his eyes met Lhady's one last time—and something in them shifted. A flicker.
He knew what she held wasn't real.
She knew he knew.
But she wouldn't say that. Not yet.
And neither said it aloud.
The sigil pulsed softly between her hands like a sleeping heart.
Lhady stood just beyond the doorway, the sigil cupped in her palm.
Its faint glow breathed between her fingers.
She had heard enough.
Not every word. But enough.
She stepped forward with calm grace, the false sigil exposed.
"I believe this is what you're both talking about."
The two men turned. Neither denied it.
Elias's expression shifted—not with alarm, but a quiet, measured intrigue. He tilted his head, studying her not like a girl recovering from illness, but like a key turning in a long-locked door.
Caelum took a step toward her. "Lhady—"
She turned to Elias.
"You were a friend of Thorne, weren't you?"
Elias nodded slowly. "Yes."
"Then stay," she said. "Here. At the bookshop."
Caelum looked sharply at her. "Lhady—"
"Just for a while," she said calmly, but her eyes never left Elias. "If you truly carry Thorne's trust… then stay. We've more to unravel than time allows—and I've questions you haven't answered."
Her tone held warmth, but beneath it—curiosity, veiled urgency.
Elias met her gaze, and for a moment, something flickered behind his eyes—deep, ancient, and strange. Not dangerous. Not yet. But unspoken.
"…As you wish," he replied.
Caelum watched the exchange, jaw tightening, but said nothing.
Something in Elias made his instincts bristle—too calm, too knowing, like a shadow pretending to sleep.
Elias stepped past them, glancing once at the room to the left of the hall.
"Oh," he said suddenly, with a sly half-smile, "I'll take the first-floor room. The one with the sunburst window and the alchemy sigils carved into the ceiling beams."
He gave Caelum a wink "Charming touch, really. Alchemy marks that old don't hide—they linger. Whoever carved them either knew too much… or hoped to be forgotten."
Lhady raised an eyebrow.
Caelum didn't answer. His silence was answer enough.
Elias turned his back to them, coat sweeping behind him like a magician stepping behind his own curtain.
"I'll unpack my hat. Try not to set the place on fire while I'm gone."
And just before disappearing through the hallway, he flicked his fingers in the air.
A ripple passed through the air, barely perceptible—but the candles in the hall lit themselves, one by one, in a spiral of soft flame.
Lhady's breath caught.
Caelum's jaw locked tighter.
Elias didn't look back.
But they all felt it—the hush before something sacred remembers its name.
Everyone was keeping a secret. And the house, like the sigil, had begun to breathe.