Chapter 37 Chapter 37

Chapter 37 Chapter 37


The webstrike court shone like a silver net cast over the water, suspended by taut spider-silk cables above the slow-moving canal. Even in the city’s perpetual twilight, the arena attracted clusters of spectators who stood at the edge of the docks or leaned over the platforms, eager for a glimpse of the heirs of Keltos and Maelis.

Nyxios entered the arena first, his stride confident but casual, as if the stares from around him were nothing new. His hair had been slicked back, leaving the lines of his face exposed. The deep purple silk of his shirt was rolled to the elbows, revealing the whipcord muscles of his arms. As he stretched, a ripple of anticipation moved through the crowd.

From the opposite entrance, Skotos appeared with a deliberate pause, surveying the set-up with an expert eye. His tunic today was fitted and dark, trimmed with the silver and green typical of House Maelis. The cut made him seem taller, and his hair, pinned up with silver beads, gave him the air of a highborn tactician rather than a mere player.

A low hum drifted over the court as both took their places on the platform. Two apprentices, already blindfolded and with bells tied to their ankles, stood ready on the suspended web below.

“Who will win, do you think?” whispered on of Stotos’ admirers.

“It’s always Keltos unless Maelis gets clever. They say the scion of House Keltos was raised on this court.”

“Today’s for show, not for score,” her companion countered. “You saw what happened at the ball. Skotos will want to prove himself after last night’s embarrassment to his cousin.”

Nyxios and Skotos circled the platform’s edge, each weighing the other’s stance. The web below glimmered, barely moving. The apprentices listened for the bells, tense as strung bows.

Nyxios made the first throw. The ball left his hand so fast it blurred, slicing past Skotos’ thigh and striking the net with enough force to leave it twitching.

“Should have seen that,” someone hissed. “He throws like a shade.”

Skotos answered with a slower, looping arc. Nyxios tracked its sound, stooped low, and plucked it out of the air with a single graceful reach.

The volley escalated, balls slamming across the net from every angle. There was poetry in the way Nyxios moved: fluid, feline, always dancing just outside Skotos’s rhythm. But Skotos adapted, his own throws growing sharper and more aggressive as the game wore on.

Sweat beaded on their faces. Out of the direct sunlight, the arena grew humid, filled with the scent of canal water and the electricity of rivalry.

The match came to its climax in the third round. Skotos threw two balls at once. Nyxios caught one, but the other spun high, clipping his face as he twisted to dodge. It left a thin, bright line down his cheekbone, like a slash of red paint. Blood pearled immediately.

A gasp rippled through the gallery. Some clapped, others whispered.

“Did you see that? He threw so hard he cut the Keltos heir!”

“He’ll be furious.”

Nyxios touched his cheek, assessing the wound with a flash of white teeth. “Beautiful play,” he called across the platform. “You’ve outdone yourself.”

For a moment, Skotos hesitated, uncertain if he’d crossed a line. But Nyxios only grinned, shaking the blood off his fingers like it was nothing. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing a poultice won’t fix.”

They finished the match. Skotos the clear winner by a point and the crowd’s energy shifted from hungry to satisfied, already dissecting every detail.

“First the ball, now the court! Keltos is letting Maelis win. There must be something wrong at home.”

“He’ll be fine. He always is. The cut’s barely more than a scratch.”

As Nyxios and Skotos exited, a young guard waited with a towel and a look of polite alarm. “Should I summon a healer, sir?”

Nyxios waved him off. “Put that away. I can manage.”

He pressed the towel to his cheek, staining it, then walked the canal boardwalk in long, easy strides. He knew the cut looked worse than it was, but the sting kept him alert—a sharpness in the air that followed him home.

The Keltos estate shimmered in the mid-afternoon half-light, silent except for the distant clatter of dishes from the kitchen and the faint lap of water against the pilings. As he reached the main doors, Nyxios was met by a familiar figure.

Patrina stood just inside the entry, clutching a stack of notebooks to her chest. She wore her usual scholar’s attire: simple, clean, but more elegantly tailored after the wardrobe upgrades from Nyxios’s father. The faint bruise of exhaustion under her eyes had faded, and her hair was swept back with a jeweled comb. The sight of her, so vibrant after the chaos of the ball, made him pause.

She did not bother with decorum or greeting. Her gaze locked onto the blood running down his face.

“What happened?” she demanded, reaching up as if to touch him, then stopping herself.

He shrugged, and there was nothing charming or coy in it. “Webstrike. Skotos got lucky.”

“How bad is it?” Her voice trembled with genuine worry.

“It’s just a scrape. I’ll fix it shortly. Don’t fuss,” Nyxios replied. He started to step past her, but she was already moving, her hands reaching for his chin.

He stood still. Patrina tilted his face in the light, expression tight with concentration.

Then she pressed her thumb lightly against the deepest part of the cut.

A pulse of warmth radiated from her fingers, so subtle at first Nyxios thought he’d imagined it. But the pain receded instantly, replaced by a gentle tingling that spread across his cheek. Where her hand moved, the skin knitted together, leaving only a faint shadow of what had been.

A guard by the door gasped softly.

Patrina blinked, as if surprised at herself, and jerked her hand back. The moment broke, and self-consciousness flooded her.

Nyxios caught her wrist before she could retreat. “Thank you,” he said, voice gone quiet.

She flushed, eyes darting to the stunned guard. “Not here,” she whispered. She tugged Nyxios by the hand, leading him through a side corridor toward the library.

As they walked, the guard’s whispers chased them down the hall.

“She’s magic-touched. Did you see that?”

Patrina heard every word. She moved faster, nearly yanking Nyxios off balance as they entered the Melanthor’s quiet reading room and ducked into a private alcove.

The air in the library was cool, tinged with the smell of old paper and the faint traces of Nyxios’s favorite incense. They were alone but for the ticking of a distant clock and the faint shuffle of a servant shelving books on the other side of the stacks.

Patrina let go, her shoulders hunched. She stared at her ink-stained fingers, flexing them as if they’d betrayed her.

“I wasn’t thinking,” she said. “I saw the cut and I just did it. I’m sorry I never talked about this.”

Nyxios watched her, saying nothing at first. He dabbed at his face. The wound was gone; only the faint warmth of her magic remained. “You don’t like others knowing your secret.”

She shook her head, hair tumbling forward. “No. I can’t let anyone know. Not the dark elves. Not the humans, if they would see me now.”

“I’ve never cared about your magic, you know. I was drawn to you from the beginning. You could have had none at all, and it wouldn’t matter to me.”

Her hands curled tight, “That’s not what most would think. Where I’m from, having magic doesn’t make things easier. Especially if you’re a healer. It decides your life for you.”

“Explain.”  His shadows rose and rubbed her arms in a cool embrace.

Fever, cough, all of it. Couldn’t get out of bed. My brother Marcus went without me. He was so proud to get his fire and wind marks, tiny bright things. I stayed home. My parents didn’t want to wait, but the rule says you must go by the birthday. Our neighbor, Doctor Elith, came later to do the test privately. He was gentle. I remember how he hummed while he drew the magic to the surface. He said, ‘You’re rare, Patrina. Very rare indeed. Light magic, pure and strong.’ He looked at me like I was a miracle in that moment.”

She hesitated, closing her eyes. “But for human society, that’s dangerous. You’re not just a person anymore. You’re a tool. They’d take you out of school and assign you to a medical hall, or worse they send you to the battlefronts, even if you’re barely grown. My parents hated the thought. My mother kept saying, ‘Let her choose, let her be what she wants.’ So they hid the magical tattoo. Found a spell in some old book and cast it over my arm so it just looked like skin. No hint of magic, not even to a casual inspection.”

Nyxios’s gaze was steady. “And it worked? No one suspected?” 

She allowed herself a small, wry smile. “There are always rumors. Some teachers wondered if I was blocking, or if maybe I just had no magic. But the spell held. I spent years pretending to be ordinary. The University bought my cover story. I could study what I wanted—debate, dialects, sociology. Even got picked as an assistant professor, which would never happen for a ‘healer’. If anyone ever did discover the spell, I would lose everything. They’d send me to the medical colleges, never let me publish again. All my research, all the work, would vanish.”

“That’s why you hid it.” Nyxios’s shadows reached for her hand—delicate, not quite touching, as if giving her space to decide whether she wanted comfort.

Patrina nodded. “If they knew, they would have pulled me from the Collegiate Alliance before I finished my first year. I’d have been transferred to the healing schools. Always under supervision. No chance at academic honors, or field work, or the degree I wanted. My parents risked everything just so I could live my own life.”

Nyxios broke the silence, voice velvet-smooth. “Your people don’t value your passion unless it serves their system. It’s cruel, in its own way.”

She caught the edge of a chair, gripping it. “I love research. I love learning. They want me to spend my days healing minor injuries, never growing, never challenging myself. The spell hiding my ability’s mark works, but it can be undone. If anyone inspects me closely or uses truth magic.”

“In Solasa, it was different.” The words came out quieter, “I thought, maybe there, I could be the whole version of myself, just for a little while.”

She let herself remember: the way the sky at the Summit of D'Geanth bled from gold to blue at dusk, how the high elven scholars glided through the Archive halls, and how her own footsteps always seemed to echo. She recalled Aldergon Graniel, the Grand Librarian, his hair the color of silver leaf, always trailing long sashes that left the faintest whisper on the marble floors.

The memory came back to her, vivid and whole:

They had met in a sun-drenched alcove of the Sylcanae Archive, where stacks of books formed a privacy screen. Aldergon’s robes always seemed to find the only patch of sunlight in a room. He gestured for her to sit opposite him, placing a handful of glass orbs on the table.

“Again, but this time, let the energy pool in your palm,” he instructed, watching with the detached interest of someone judging a rare artifact.

Patrina’s hands shook as she tried, feeling the familiar warmth flicker to life beneath her skin. She held her palm over the orb, concentrating until a faint glow illuminated her fingers. The orb brightened to match.

“Good. Now heal the break inside.” He tossed another orb at her, its surface marred by a jagged crack.

It took several tries. The light stuttered, sometimes too strong so the orb flashed and died, other times so weak nothing happened at all. Aldergon never scolded, only encouraged: “There is no merit in brute force, only in patience. Healing is not a battle, it is a negotiation.”

When at last the glass mended itself, the seam nearly invisible, Aldergon allowed himself a hint of a smile. “Well done. You see? Not so uncommon here. Among high elves, nearly a tenth are granted light magic. But your human heritage makes it especially potent. You could heal more than wounds, perhaps even grave illnesses, if you learned to trust it.”

Back in the present, Patrina let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“In Solasa, healing magic was just… normal. Almost boring to them. Aldergon said it was just a matter of training. He tutored me privately, but never pressed me to use it in public or for anyone I didn’t choose. It’s strange, sometimes, how the same gift can mean everything in one place and nothing in the next.” She shook her head. “He warned that someday, I’d be tempted to use it to save someone without thinking. He was right.”

He considered. “If you were free tomorrow to do whatever you wished, what would you choose?”

“Easy,” she said, the words surprising even herself. “I’d write books. I’d teach at the Archive. I’d debate with the best minds in Limdrion, and maybe someday in Solasa again. I want to add something lasting to this world.”

Nyxios’s thumb brushed her knuckles, slow and thoughtful. “Then that’s what you’ll have here. You’ve earned your place. Keltos has scholars, not just healers. The Archive of the Melanthor is yours as much as mine.”

She let out a trembling laugh. “You say that as if it’s the simplest thing in the world.”

“Perhaps it is, for me. Dark elves respect power, but we value passion more. You want to study. It’s what drew me to you first.” He leaned closer, and his cool breath brushed the tiny hairs at her temple. “You’re not what I expected, Patrina. You’re better.”

Patrina collapsed into his embrace, “I don’t fear my own magic. I fear what would happen if anyone claimed me for it. I watched what happened to other children with rare abilities. The pressure. The expectations. It’s like being trapped in amber.”

Nyxios considered her words carefully. “In Limdrion, having magic makes you precious. Especially if it’s rare. But I want you for yourself, not what your bloodline could offer my house.”

His shadows held her closer.

Her lips twisted in a bitter smile. “That’s not what the others think. I heard the whispers at the ball. They assumed you’d chosen me for what my magic could add to your family. The color of my collar. The children that would come from our bond.”

“I won’t pretend I don’t understand the logic,” Nyxios gave a gentle smile. “But I never cared about human bloodlines. Even at the ball, you were all I saw.”

She met his eyes, searching for deception. There was none; only the open, unwavering certainty that had always defined him. She allowed herself to lean into his presence. His shadows, delicate and alive, curled around her shoulders, neither binding nor restraining—simply holding the space for her. She wondered if he could feel the small tremor in her frame, the struggle it took to loosen her grip on old fears.

“There’s more beauty in your magic than in any potion or spell.”

She flushed, uncertain how to respond.

On the other side of the bookshelf, a servant crept away.

They sat together in the library’s private alcove, surrounded by the hush of ancient tomes and fading sunlight. Outside, the city pulsed with gossip about the ball, and inside, servants rehearsed a hundred ways to discuss the human companion’s latest oddity.

But in this quiet space, it was just Nyxios and Patrina, and the possibility of building something not from expectation but from truth.

She reached for one of the books on the table, flipping it open with a nervous gesture. “If Keltos is full of surprises, at least let it be a good one for once,” she said quietly, smiling in spite of herself.

“A good surprise,” he agreed. “Nothing less.”

Their lips met in a heated embrace.

Patrina felt joy in his arms and finally, a place she thought it might not be so bad to call home.