The southern road was narrower than the imperial highways.
Less maintained. Less watched.
The Academy valley had long since disappeared behind them, replaced by dry hills and wind-carved stone. The sky felt larger here. Less contained.
Farworth had insisted on a modest transport carriage rather than a military escort.
“Less attention,” he had said.
Now he slept across the opposite bench, one arm folded over a stack of research folios, spectacles slightly askew. His breathing was even, light — the kind of sleep only scholars achieved when they trusted their companions not to die suddenly.
Arata sat by the window.
Lyra sat opposite him.
The wheels creaked rhythmically beneath them.
For a while, neither spoke.
The silence was not uncomfortable.
It was just… full.
“You’re staring at nothing,” Lyra said eventually.
“I’m thinking.”
“About What?” She asked.
He glanced at her faintly.
“You didn’t have to come.”
“I know.”
“You still haven’t told me why you did.”
Lyra leaned her head lightly against the carriage wall, watching him instead of the passing landscape.
“Do I need a reason?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s very like you.”
Arata looked back out the window.
“The southern laboratory isn’t safe,” he said. “It’s not structured like the Academy. No containment wards. No formal oversight.”
“I’m aware.”
“If something happens—”
“It won’t be the first time something happens,” she said quietly.
He frowned slightly.
“That’s not reassuring.”
She smiled faintly.
“I’m not here to reassure you.”
A pause.
Wind pushed softly against the carriage frame.
“You’ve been quieter,” she said after a moment.
“I’m tired.”
“Of what?” The professor asked him.
"Nothing to concern yourself with, Oh Dear Professor of mine."
She studied him carefully.
“At the Academy, every move I made was interpreted,” he continued. “Measured. Evaluated. Filed.”
“And you didn’t like being categorised.”
“No.”
Lyra folded her hands in her lap.
“You weren’t suffocating because of the Academy,” she said softly. “You were suffocating because everyone wanted you to become something.”
He didn’t answer.
“And you,” she added gently, “were afraid you were already failing them.”
That landed closer than he expected.
The carriage rolled over uneven stone.
Farworth shifted faintly but did not wake.
Arata exhaled slowly.
“You declined him,” he said suddenly.
Lyra went still.
“Declined who?”
“You know who.”
Silence.
Outside, the hills gave way to sparse woodland.
“That’s not why I came,” she said.
“I didn’t say it was.”
“You were thinking it.”
He didn’t deny it.
Lyra looked down at her hands.
“It was a political proposal,” she said finally. “Strategic. Predictable.”
“And?”
“And I don’t like being predictable.”
“That’s not an answer.”
She met his gaze now.
“It would have aligned my family with a future monarch whose ambitions I don’t fully understand.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“And that bothers you.”
“Yes.”
He held her eyes a second longer.
“Is that all?”
The question lingered.
Lyra hesitated.
The air shifted — not mystical, not tense — just heavy with something about to be said.
“There are expectations placed on me,” she began quietly. “By my family. By the court. By people who think I should—”
She stopped.
Arata waited.
She inhaled.
“I came because staying would have meant choosing a path that was decided for me.”
That was closer to the truth.
But not the whole truth.
“And coming with me isn’t decided?” he asked.
“It is,” she said. “By me.”
That mattered.
The carriage slowed slightly as the terrain roughened.
Lyra looked at him again.
“There’s something else,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow faintly.
“What?”
She hesitated.
Not from fear.
From calculation.
“I didn’t just decline him,” she said.
“I made it clear that I wouldn’t be… positioned.”
Arata’s expression sharpened. “And?”
“And entitled boys don’t enjoy being refused.”
A faint humorless smile touched her lips.
“Especially princes.”
He studied her.
“You think he’ll retaliate?”
“I think men like him don’t forget.”
The wheels creaked again.
The southern horizon was beginning to change — darker land, lower structures in the distance.
“You should have told me,” he said quietly.
“Why?” she replied. “So you could feel responsible?”
He didn’t answer.
She leaned forward slightly.
“You’re not the only one who’s trying to choose their own direction.”
That softened something in him.
“You’re not running from him,” he said carefully.
“No,” she replied.
A beat.
“I’m running from being owned.”
That was the closest she had come to honesty.
The carriage hit a rough patch.
Farworth stirred.
Lyra’s voice lowered.
“There’s something else I need to tell you about the Tribunal—”
Farworth inhaled sharply and pushed himself upright.
“Ah,” he muttered, adjusting his spectacles. “We’re nearing the outer perimeter.”
Lyra leaned back immediately, expression smoothing into composure.
Arata glanced at her.
The unfinished sentence hung between them like a suspended thread.
Farworth peered out the window.
“You can see the outer structures from here,” he said. “They never repaired the southern approach after the last collapse.”
Arata turned toward the horizon.
In the distance, half-buried in stone and dust, rose the dark silhouette of the Southern Laboratory.
Not grand.
Not imperial.
Functional.
Isolated from society.
Farworth cleared his throat.
“Whatever conversations you two were having,” he said mildly, “I hope they’re concluded.”
“They weren’t,” Lyra replied calmly.
Farworth gave her a brief look. "Anyways..."
The carriage rolled forward.
Toward the laboratory.
Toward the beginning of something none of them fully understood.
And somewhere behind them — far to the north — politics continued to sharpen its knives.
...
The Southern Laboratory did not rise like the Academy.
It did not attempt beauty.
It was carved into the mountain face — rectangular, efficient, almost aggressive in its geometry. Windows were narrow. Stone was reinforced with steel lattice. No banners. No sigils carved for prestige.
Just function.
When Arata stepped inside, the air changed immediately.
Cool.
Dry.
Filtered.
No incense. No wards humming in decorative rhythm.
Only ventilation systems and the faint click of machinery.
Farworth inhaled deeply.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Much better.”
Lyra raised an eyebrow. “You find this comforting?”
“It smells like research,” he replied.
They were shown to modest quarters. Spartan but clean. Functional furniture. No aesthetic indulgence.
Arata slept without dreaming that night. In the south, the veins were much thinner compared to the north.
...
The next morning, Arata stepped into the main atrium.
It was vast.
Three levels of open walkways circled a central chamber filled with long steel tables, suspended light rigs, and projection displays.
Researchers moved everywhere.
White coats and men in glasses.
Holo-Tabs in hand.
Holographic dragon-line fractals rotated in midair.
A cross-section of preserved draconian tissue glowed faintly in a containment cylinder.
Someone adjusted resonance calibrators with careful precision.
Someone else argued about energy dispersion coefficients.
Arata stopped near the railing.
For the first time in weeks—
He felt something close to relief.
This was structured.
This was rational.
No doctrine.
No political theatre.
Just minds attempting to understand something larger than themselves.
Lyra joined him at the balcony.
“Well,” she murmured.
He nodded faintly.
“Maybe this is it.”
Below them, a researcher gestured animatedly at a floating projection.
“No, no — if the harmonic distortion exceeds the third amplitude threshold, the whole premise collapses!”
Another researcher nodded gravely.
“Yes. Quite.”
Arata watched.
Maybe here—
Maybe here he could finally understand his blood without fear attached to it.
Maybe here madness was just another variable.
He exhaled.
“This feels… normal.”
Lyra didn’t respond immediately.
Her eyes were moving.
Not at the projections.
At the people.
Something was wrong.
Not obviously wrong.
Just Wrong like everything was staged.
Below them, a researcher carefully adjusted a series of dials.
The dials were not connected to anything.
The wires hung loose behind the console.
Another scientist furiously scribbled equations on a transparent board.
The equations looped.
The same line written three times, slightly rearranged.
A man carried a stack of labelled specimen containers from one table to another.
Then, five minutes later, carried them back.
With great seriousness.
Two researchers debated over a graph.
The graph was upside down.
Neither noticed.
Arata leaned slightly forward.
“You see that?” Lyra murmured quietly.
“Yes.”
“Do you know what that machine is doing?”
He squinted.
“It’s… oscillating?”
“It’s not plugged in.”
He blinked.
Below, a researcher tapped at a holographic interface.
The display flickered.
Reset.
Flickered again.
He nodded sagely.
“Promising results.”
Another scientist peered over his shoulder.
“Very promising.”
Lyra’s lips pressed together to stop from smiling.
“They’re performing,” she whispered.
Arata frowned.
“That’s not possible.”
“Watch.”
Below them, a woman in a pristine coat approached a containment cylinder with exaggerated caution.
She pressed a button.
Nothing happened.
She nodded gravely.
“As expected.”
As expected.
Arata’s eyes narrowed.
A man at a distant table carefully labelled a sample:
Specimen A-17.
He placed it in a rack.
The rack was empty.
Entirely empty.
He turned, satisfied.
Arata straightened slightly.
“Why?”
Lyra didn’t answer immediately.
Her gaze sharpened.
“Because someone expects observers.”
A researcher suddenly glanced upward.
Their eyes met Arata’s.
The man smiled — too quickly — and immediately began pretending to recalibrate a device.
That wasn’t malfunctioning.
Arata’s relief began to thin.
“This is staged,” Lyra said quietly.
“But for whom?” Arata asked.
She didn’t answer.
Because she was counting.
Researchers were too evenly distributed.
No clutter.
No genuine argument escalating beyond theatrical tone.
No chaotic spill of papers.
No real obsession observable.
This wasn’t how brilliant people worked.
This was how brilliant people imagined they were supposed to work.
Arata descended the stairs slowly.
The room didn’t quiet.
But it shifted in Micro-adjustments.
Posture straightened.
Voices lowered.
A man hurriedly flipped a tablet upright.
Lyra followed.
Farworth entered moments later, eyes scanning everything once — and then again.
He smiled faintly.
Not amused but very Interested.
Arata stopped beside one of the central tables.
“What are you working on?” he asked a nearby researcher.
The man blinked once.
“Resonance mapping of non-linear conceptual drift.”
Arata stared.
“In relation to what?”
The man hesitated.
“…Draconic harmonic variance.”
Lyra tilted her head.
“Which lineage?”
Silence.
“Generalised,” he said.
Farworth stepped closer.
“Generalised resonance mapping?” he asked mildly. “Across all lineages?”
The researcher swallowed.
“Yes.”
Farworth’s smile widened slightly.
“Fascinating.”
The man nodded quickly and began adjusting the disconnected dials again.
Arata turned slowly.
The atrium no longer looked reassuring.
It looked rehearsed.
“They’re not incompetent,” Lyra said softly.
“They’re hiding something,” Arata replied.
[I feel so cosy here]
The Dragon's voice resounded inside Arata for the first time since he had left the Academy.
