The room was much quieter than Plum expected.
After the chaos of Rustrows—the drums, the fires, the shouting, the hangovers, the gossip, the near-death magical catastrophe—she had expected Mythic storage tents to be more dramatic.
Glowing skulls, maybe.
A cursed harp.
At least one suspicious jar.
Instead, the inside of the tent felt almost like a shrine.
Plum slowed as she stepped in, her memory orb tucked close to her chest. The air smelled of beeswax, old paper, dried herbs, and rain-soaked cloth. Tall shelves lined the canvas walls, their wooden frames carved with knots, briars, rivers, antlers, wings, moons. Relics sat upon them in careful rows: cracked clan seals, bronze bracers, old summoner bells, carved bone charms, chipped drinking horns, ceremonial blades dulled with age.
Tapestries hung from the support beams, heavy with colour and old story.
Plum drifted toward one without meaning to.
It showed a procession of Mythic lords beneath a sky of three rivers. Lions, wolves, foxes, dragons, goats, owls, stags—all crowned in clan colours, all surrounded by gold thread and curling mana. At their feet knelt Pureblood scribes in pale robes, heads bowed, scrolls held out in offering.
Another tapestry showed a battle.
Another, a throne.
Another, chains.
Plum’s smile faded a little.
“These make the Mythics look…” She searched for the word. “Regal.”
Bartleby had already drawn his notebook from his coat.
“They were.”
Celeste glanced up from where she had been hovering nervously near the centre table. “They were?”
Bartleby nodded, eyes moving over the tapestries with scholarly hunger. “Mythics ruled much of Prydain before the modern Council structure. During the Chains of Mana era, several Mythic dynasties held authority over Caerfaen and beyond.”
Plum looked back at the kneeling Purebloods stitched in silver thread. “That’s the era where they enslaved Purebloods, right?”
Bartleby’s mouth tightened.
“Yes. As power centralised, several Mythic houses became… difficult to oppose.”
Plum gave him a look. “That’s a polite way to say tyrants.”
“It is a historically cautious way to say tyrants.”
Celeste hugged her arms. “What about hybrids?”
Bartleby hesitated.
That was never comforting.
“Hybrids existed in a difficult position,” he said carefully. “Many worked alongside Mythic clans because they had mana, or partial mana, or inherited traits useful to clan society. But some also aided Pureblood resistance movements, especially later, when Mythic rule became harsher.”
“So they were on both sides?” Celeste asked.
“In some cases. In other cases, neither side wanted them enough to claim them properly.”
The words sank into the room.
Bartleby glanced at her, softer now.
“Hybrids have never really had a stable place in history. Their condition made things complicated.”
Plum leaned against a shelf. “You mean exploding.”
Bartleby closed his eyes briefly.
“I was trying to be gentle.”
“But yes?”
He sighed. “Yes. Exploding.”
Celeste went very still.
Her hand drifted to the rune at the back of her neck.
“Do hybrids explode?”
Plum and Bartleby both looked at her.
Then at each other.
Then back at her.
Plum gave a deeply unconvincing laugh. “Not, like, casually.”
“That is somehow worse,” Celeste said.
Bartleby cleared his throat. “Historically, uncontrolled hybrid mana could become dangerously unstable. There are records of catastrophic burnout events, especially among those with multiple incompatible bloodlines.”
Celeste’s ears dipped. “So… they used to.”
“Yes,” Bartleby admitted. “They used to.”
Plum lifted both hands quickly. “But then Silas introduced the Hybrid Reform Acts, and now every registered hybrid wears one of those runes at the back of the neck, so no one explodes. Hooray for not exploding.”
Celeste’s fingers curled over the rune.
“But why did they explode to begin with?”
Plum opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Looked at Bartleby.
Bartleby looked at the floor.
Plum shrugged helplessly. “No idea.”
Celeste blinked. “No idea?”
“You can look it up, I guess,” Plum said. “But most official records just go, ‘hybrids unstable, runes good, please clap.’”
Bartleby grimaced. “That is an appalling summary.”
“Wrong?”
“…Not entirely.”
Celeste looked down.
For a moment, the room seemed too full of old eyes. Every tapestry face, every stitched lord, every kneeling figure, every chain worked in gold and red thread watched from the walls.
Then Bartleby noticed the book.
It rested on a lectern near the rear of the tent, half-open beneath a thin cloth cover. The pages were thick and cream-coloured, inked in a mixture of old Welsh, Bardic script, and Prydanic notes added later in narrow margins.
Bartleby drifted toward it like a moth toward a sacred flame.
“Oh,” he whispered.
Plum immediately followed. “That’s your history goblin face.”
“I do not have a history goblin face.”
“You look like you’re about to propose to a book.”
Bartleby ignored her and leaned over the page.
His excitement lasted approximately three seconds.
Then his brow furrowed.
“Ah.”
Plum peered beside him. “Can’t read it?”
“I can read some of it.”
He squinted.
Then, with great seriousness and terrible pronunciation, attempted, “Yr… Ysgri… fen… wraag?”
Celeste winced before she could stop herself.
Bartleby looked wounded.
“I apologise to the language.”
Celeste stepped closer, shyly. “I can translate a bit, if you like.”
Bartleby turned to her as if she had just offered him a private tour of the moon.
“You can?”
“A little. It’s old Caerfaenic, and I’m not perfect, so I might get some of it wrong.”
“That is acceptable,” Bartleby said at once, notebook already half-raised. “Approximate translation is still translation.”
Plum peered over his shoulder. “Careful, Bartleby. History goblin face is back.”
“I do not have a history goblin face.”
“You absolutely do.”
Celeste leaned closer, one finger hovering just above the ink without touching it.
“It says…” She skimmed the page slowly, lips moving as she untangled the older phrasing. “Before breath and bone, before the first cry, there was She Who Wrote.”
Bartleby’s pencil froze.
“She Who Wrote?”
Celeste nodded, reading on. “Not queen. Not bride. Not… um… not a vessel for someone else’s will.”
Her brow furrowed.
“The Writer. Yr Ysgrifenwraig. The Woman Who Writes.”
Plum’s expression softened despite herself. “That’s kind of beautiful.”
Celeste kept skimming, translating the meaning rather than every line.
“It says her words didn’t disappear when she spoke them. They gathered together. Became threads. And the threads learned how to hold things.”
Bartleby began writing very quickly.
Celeste glanced at him. “You’re going to hurt your wrist.”
“I accept the risk.”
She gave a tiny laugh, then looked back at the page.
“Those threads became Y Wehyddu. The Weave. It says she didn’t command the world into obedience. She taught it how to exist.”
The tent quietened around them.
Even Plum stopped fidgeting.
Celeste’s voice grew softer.
“From her river came earth, flame, and life that could speak back. The Weave touched all things like…” She hesitated, searching the old words. “Like a mother touching a child’s forehead. Not to own them. To remember them.”
Bartleby looked up.
Celeste swallowed.
“It says some remember that touch as magic. Some as instinct. Some only as longing.”
Her eyes lingered on the last lines.
“We are written,” she translated quietly. “We are reading. We are still being written. Even wrongly. Even bravely.”
For a moment, none of them spoke.
Then Bartleby whispered, “That is extraordinary.”
Plum rubbed at one eye and pretended she had not.
“Bit dramatic for a book,” she muttered.
Bartleby stared at her.
“What?”
“That was not criticism,” he said. “That was your defensive emotion noise.”
Plum pointed at him. “Don’t analyse me in a sacred tent.”
“Aye,” said a voice from behind them. “Best not. Sacred tents remember gossip.”
Celeste jumped.
Elder Arlo stood in the tent entrance, leaning on his staff with a faintly amused look.
Plum immediately hid the memory orb behind her back.
Arlo’s eyes flicked to it.
Then to her.
Then away again, mercifully.
“Ah,” he said, stepping inside. “I see you have found the Llyfr y Goleuni Gwehyddu.”
Celeste looked back at the book. “Is that what this is?”
“The Book of the Woven Light,” Arlo said. “One of the older copies.”
Bartleby inhaled like a man trying not to explode with questions.
Arlo smiled faintly. “It is part of the Crefft y Goleuni. Our faith. Our craft. Our remembering.”
Celeste’s ears lifted. “Your religion?”
“Aye. As old as the Luminarch Doctrine, perhaps older, depending on which scholar you wish to irritate.” His eyes twinkled. “It is a long read. Full of stories, chants, arguments, warnings, recipes that are almost certainly metaphors, and many things forgotten by time.”
Bartleby looked physically overwhelmed with joy.
Plum rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t cry on the relic.”
“I am not crying.”
“You’re spiritually damp.”
Celeste kept looking at the page.
“Is it important for me to learn?”
Arlo’s expression softened.
“No religion should ever be forced upon a frightened heart.”
The answer seemed to surprise her.
He moved closer, resting one hand lightly on the lectern.
“Faith may be part of the puzzle, little star. It may give language to what you see. It may offer stories where history has left wounds. But it is not the answer.”
Celeste looked up.
“What is?”
Arlo smiled gently.
“Life.”
The word settled over her more kindly than prophecy ever had.
“Living is the answer. Choosing. Loving. Being wrong and trying again. No book, however sacred, is worth more than the people it teaches us to protect.”
Celeste’s shoulders loosened.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
Arlo inclined his head.
The tent flap opened again.
Solas stepped inside.
The temperature in the tent seemed to drop by five degrees.
He looked first at Plum.
Then Bartleby.
Then the open book.
Then Celeste.
His gaze lingered there.
Not cruelly, exactly.
But with the hard edge of someone who had already decided fear was the same as wisdom.
“Brassmane is looking for you,” he said.
Arlo’s face became unreadable. “All of them?”
“The Knights,” Solas said.
His gaze flicked to Celeste.
“And the girl.”
Celeste flinched at that.
Arlo noticed.
So did Solas.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then Plum gave Celeste a little nudge. “Come on. Before Ray remembers I exist.”
They began to leave, Bartleby still glancing longingly back at the book.
Celeste paused near Solas.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “If I wasn’t supposed to read it. I meant no disrespect. And I probably did a very poor job reading it anyway, because some of the words are old Caerfaenic, and then some of it feels like poetry, and poetry is very slippery when it wants to be. So if I said anything wrong, I really didn’t mean to—”
Solas cut across her.
“No.”
Celeste stopped at once.
His wings shifted behind him.
“I mean for your own good, you should not read it.”
Celeste blinked. “For my own good?”
“There is no point.”
The words struck harder than she expected.
Arlo’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Solas.”
Solas did not look away from Celeste.
“That book is not a comfort object. It is not a welcome gift. It is not a map to belonging.”
Celeste’s fingers tightened around the edge of her sleeve.
“I wasn’t trying to—”
“I know,” Solas said.
That almost made it worse.
His voice lowered, not gentler exactly, but quieter.
“When the barrier falls, you will leave. You are Knights of Clawdiff. Sworn to the city. To Lady Umbranox. To duty. To whatever war waits beyond these ruins.”
Plum’s smile vanished.
Bartleby went still.
Solas stared past Celeste, as if looking directly at the camp outside—the celebration, the braids, the shawls, the warmth she had only just begun to believe in.
“This place is not your home.”
Celeste’s throat tightened.
Bartleby shifted awkwardly. “He… does have a point.”
Plum turned to stare at him.
Bartleby winced. “Not emotionally. Logistically.”
“Bartleby.”
“I said logistically.”
Plum folded her arms. “Yeah, but she got accepted into the clan last night. Maybe don’t say it right now.”
Bartleby lowered his notebook slightly, chastened.
Celeste looked between them, then down at the ribbons still woven through her hair.
She wanted to argue.
Wanted to say Brassmane had welcomed them.
Wanted to say the oath had meant something.
Wanted to say she was tired of being told where she did and did not belong.
Instead, very quietly, she said, mostly to herself, “Well… maybe I can visit.”
Solas’s gaze sharpened.
“In between killing zombies and formal affairs?”
Celeste looked up.
He was not smiling.
“Like I said,” Solas continued, “I am telling you this for your own good. Enjoy the celebration. Take the kindness being offered. But do not get too attached.”
The tent felt suddenly smaller.
Celeste nodded once, because she did not trust her voice.
“Right.”
She lowered her eyes and walked out.
Plum followed immediately, jaw tight.
Bartleby lingered only long enough to give Solas a deeply disappointed look, which was somehow more cutting than an insult, then hurried after them.
Arlo remained beside the lectern.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Solas did not look at him.
At last, Arlo sighed.
“Fear makes poor scripture, Solas.”
Solas’s jaw tightened.
“If she reads it, she will get ideas.”
Arlo’s expression did not change.
Solas finally turned toward him.
“I know what you and Brassmane are planning.”
The air between them stilled.
Solas’s voice dropped lower.
“It is heresy, Arlo.”
Arlo rested both hands on his staff.
Solas’s eyes flicked to the book, then to the tent flap where Celeste had disappeared.
“And you know it.”
Outside, Celeste stepped back into the light of the camp, her braids bright with clan ribbons she was suddenly afraid she had no right to wear.
