Ten minutes.
I have this much.
At least, this is how much I have, based on the wiki, which is already up in my head like it usually is – not as an accessible tab to consult but as an underlying layer of context that is always on. Vorn shows up ten minutes after the final vendor finishes selling in the row. That was four minutes ago.
Six minutes.
Lyra is folding the final display bolt. She is quick and deliberate, and her eyes do not look in my direction, nor is there anything happening in this market aside from the torch in the door, casting a long shadow in the dark of the stone. I sit on a stool, able to access all the information in the wiki, and with the open intervention branch in front of , ready to take action if I am the type of person to do such a thing, and roughly six minutes to determine which type of person I am.
There is no data available on the outco because no Kai ever made it this far.
Okay then.
"Lyra," I say.
She turns her gaze upon – sa as before. Patiently, slightly curious, ready.
And today, I am not saying nothing.
"How long has it been since you and Daren have had a conversation?" I ask her. "No, not about the dinner arrangents, the booth, or even just the planning, but a conversation."
She stops mid-fold.
It is not that split second of frozen silence when I ntioned Vorn. It is the other kind of stillness that cos when the question has hit soplace within soone and it is weighing their decision to acknowledge or not.
"It’s a weird question," she tells .
"Maybe."
She places the folded bolt back onto the counter. She is not grabbing another one. "So why are you asking this?"
"I have watched you two for the past week," I explain. "You know Daren better than he knows himself, and it’s starting to show more and more. And I am thinking it is ti to let that be known by others besides myself."
Skill: Observe
Flag Response: Emotional connection — suppression chanism engaged. Corruption level: 91/100. Vulnerability status: high. Potential intervention period: open.
Remark: First flag indicating breach of emotional distance noted. No such flag previously identified.
No such flag previously identified.
She watches for a while. The light of the torch glints off the gold in her hair, making it appear even more vibrant, and she has the look of soone who has carried sothing at a certain angle for a long ti and is weary of maintaining that angle.
"You have known us for a week now," she begins. Uninflected. Not hostile, but exacting.
"Yes. I am aware. Why does it matter?"
"Why do you care?"
And there you have the question, right? I pause for a beat and then conclude that if I am to destroy the entire script, I may as well be truthful in my destruction.
"Because Daren is one of the best people I’ve t in — " I pause. Reset. "In a long ti. And so are you. And sothing is happening in the space between us, and I don’t believe that either of you initiated the phenonon, and I don’t think either of you understands how much progress it has made."
Silence from Lyra.
Silence in the market.
Maybe four minutes. Maybe three.
"He never asks," she says after so ti. Softly. Not angrily — just truthfully. "About anything. The stall, what I’m thinking, what I want. He speaks of the guild, the dungeon raids, the dinner. He speaks to at tis without knowing it, and then he looks at as if nothing is wrong and I — " She breaks off. "It’s okay. He doesn’t an to."
"I know he doesn’t."
"Well, it doesn’t qualify as a problem then."
"It is," I counter. "But it lacks intent. Those are two separate concepts."
She stares at with a gaze I cannot completely decipher. Skill Observe attempts:
Emotional Condition: Grief related. Non-acute — chronic. Extended suppression period. Principal bond strain: unaddressed by both parties.
Corruption Response: Status quo maintained. Vulnerability level steady. Intervention opportunity: active.
Static.
91/100 and it isn’t moving. I look at it, and I feel so tension ease in my chest without realizing it had ever been there.
"You should tell him," I suggest. "Not about anything specific, really. Only, that you need him to ask. That’s the whole thing – the part he doesn’t understand."
"This shouldn’t have to be discussed."
"Everything worth discussing feels that way first."
She picks up the folded bolt and stacks it with the others, moving with more hesitancy than before. "Unclassified with a social skill and you only knew us a week ago," she remarks, but without hostility.
"Friendly Conversation," I clarify. "It’s more multi-purpose than you think."
This draws the half-laugh. More briefly than last ti. She presses her fingers into the edge of the counter top and stares at the ledger without opening it.
"He’s coming back tonight," she says in hushed tones, "and he’s in a good mood thanks to dinner and will tell all about it and ask if I’m alright and I’ll tell him that I am and that will be that."
"If you do nothing else."
"I don’t know how."
"You did it to just now."
She ets my gaze then.
We stare at each other for long monts.
The torch by the door flares in response to a sudden rush of wind blowing through from the alleyway.
The shadow wavers and shifts.
The wiki automatically switches to viewing the entrance footage when proximity alarms activate.
⚠️ PROXIMITY ALARM
VORN – detected. Distance: 60 ters. Approach vector: Entrance, main row.
ETA: 90 seconds.
Flags: Active – 4
Mood: Focus
In less than ninety seconds, my wiki will still have no relevant data.
In less than ninety seconds, Vorn will be within sixty ters of .
In less than ninety seconds, Daren will remain in the city where he belongs and be doing what he should with no hint that anything is going wrong.
The corruption ter reads at ninety-one percent static and hasn’t moved in a while. For the first ti in seven Chapters, I have actually broken the script.
"When he gets ho tonight," I say. "Tell him you need him to ask. Say it like that exactly. Don’t have to say why."
She is silent for a mont.
"And if he doesn’t even know how to do that?"
"Then at least you’ll both know that. And that will be a different sort of problem."
Sixty ters. Forty-five seconds.
Lyra glances at the ledger. Then at the folded cloth. Then at .
"All right," she says.
I stand up from the stool.
"I’ll leave you alone to close up," I say.
She nods. Gone already, sowhere else in her head, thinking about sothing else, the careful angle in her gaze having shifted perhaps two degrees but that makes all the difference.
I start walking toward the row entrance.
Vorn is approaching from the left—dark clothing, unhurried, on-ti. His eyes et mine at roughly the sa ti that mine et his. Fifteen ters. His User Interface floats above us, visible only to .
VORN — Independent Contractor (Unaffiliated)
Combat rank: A-
Relationship / Lyra: 381/1000
Active Flags: 4
Mood: Focused → Recalculating
Hidden: ⚠️ [Observe — 30% reveal attempt...]
Hidden: Variable detected in script. Assessnt required.
Recalculating.
Vorn stops. We are standing ten ters apart in an empty market row, Lyra twenty feet behind finishing with her ledger, the torchlight casting everything in amber hues and miniature scale.
He gives the sa kind of glance he gave at the Broken Crown—incredulous, calculating, patient. Yet this ti there is sothing subtly different in his deanor. The glance at the Broken Crown conveyed the ssage, I see you there and I am not concerned.
This glance conveys sothing else entirely.
"Kai," he says.
"Vorn."
His eyes dart from to the stall. Then back to . A small, unreadable shift in expression occurs.
"Passing through?" he says.
"Not really. More heading back to where I ca from."
"Interesting."
I move aside to the side of the row, yielding the path but neither blocking nor confronting.
Three seconds.
He nods and walks away, and I hear Lyra call out his na from behind , her voice steady after spending the last twenty minutes getting serious questions answered and slipping into the sa asured cadence she uses before going under.
But at a different angle.
I go back to Daren’s room without turning around, go to the wiki, and see that there isn’t an entry for tonight anymore, the place where there used to be a summary now blank.
WIKI ENTRY — Lyra’s Unraveling
STATUS: ⚠️ Route divergence detected. Original data no longer valid.
New entry: Generating.
Current corruption ter: 91/100
Flag: Point of No Return – PENDING
Pending.
Not locked. Not triggered.
Pending.
I slide my hands into my pockets and walk down the empty market, the sensation hitting like a wave for the first ti since waking up here on cobblestones.
The feeling of having absolutely no clue what happens next.
The worst sensation I’ve ever experienced.
And it’s the first thing that ever felt real.
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