Chapter 4: The Unseen Current
The sanctioned request from Professor Markham, bearing his crisp wax seal, landed on Caden’s desk with the weight of a tombstone. It was the single most dangerous object in the Archives. Not because of what it was, but because of what it represented: a direct, official tether between the ghost in the stacks and the daughter of the commanding general.
He held the vellum slip, feeling the texture of authority it carried. Violet Sorrengail had formally requested access to "primary source materials pertaining to strategic assessments, specifically those that may present alternative viewpoints to canonical historical records." She had used Markham’s own words, polished to a fine point. The girl learned fast.
This changed everything. The delicate dance of chance encounters and misfiled books was over. Now, he would be actively curating a collection for her, under the watchful, if distant, eye of the college hierarchy. Every document he chose would be a calculated risk, a bullet aimed at the fortress of lies, with the gunpowder trail leading directly back to him.
He spent the night in the deepest, coldest section of the restricted archives, a place that smelled of mortar and forgotten oaths. He was not selecting the most explosive texts. That would be suicide. Instead, he chose with the patience of a master brewer, selecting ingredients that, when combined, would ferment into a potent draught of revelation.
He chose a logistics report from the Battle of Aritos that highlighted supply chain failures the official history omitted. He included a personal letter from a low-level scribe describing the "unusual atmospheric disturbances"—a common euphemism for venin activity—weeks before a major gryphon offensive. He added a tattered manual on ward theory, so ancient its symbols were barely legible, that suggested protective magic could be woven into physical objects, not just cast by riders. It was a seed he hoped would one day bear fruit against the venin. None of it was treasonous alone. Together, they painted a picture of a command structure that was fallible, secretive, and desperately hiding its own incompetence… and its true enemy.
The following afternoon, he was waiting for her at the designated research desk. He had laid out the documents with ritualistic care. When she arrived, her posture was different—straighter, with a new, hard-won confidence. The constant fear in her eyes had been tempered by a layer of grim determination.
“Cadet Sorrengail,” he said, his voice the flat, professional tone of a functionary. He gestured to the materials. “Your requested documents. They are not to leave this room. Notes are permitted with your own ink and parchment.”
She nodded, her eyes already devouring the spread. “Thank you.” She sat, and for a moment, she was just a student, the weight of her circumstances forgotten in the face of pure intellectual pursuit.
Caden retreated to a corner, ostensibly to mend a broken binding. He watched her. He saw the moment she found the first discrepancy, the slight intake of breath as she cross-referenced the logistics report with the official account. He saw her fingers trace the faded words describing the "pulsing, malevolent violet light" in the sky—the venin. Her brow furrowed. She didn’t know what it meant, but she knew it was important. She was on the trail.
This was the most dangerous part. His presence was now a constant. He was the guardian of this knowledge, the gatekeeper. He had to be a blank slate, a mere facilitator. Any hint of personal interest would be catastrophic.
Days turned into a week. She came every afternoon, a solitary figure hunched under a pool of lamplight. A strange, silent rhythm developed between them. She would request a specific type of document—"anything on early warning systems before the Battle of Krovla," or "texts on the properties of dagans." He would nod, disappear into the stacks, and return with a small, precisely selected stack. He never offered commentary. He never suggested a direction. He simply provided the raw materials.
He was a mirror, reflecting her own intelligence back at her, allowing her to draw her own conclusions. But he was a curved mirror, one that subtly focused the light, guiding it to the truths he needed her to see.
One evening, as a storm lashed against the high windows, she was the last one in the Archives. The only sounds were the howl of the wind, the sputter of her lamp, and the scratch of her pen. She had been staring at the same page of the ward-theory manual for a long time.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she whispered, not to him, but to the empty air. “The runes for strength and the runes for warding… they’re based on the same foundational symbols. But the applications are completely different.”
Caden, who was dusting a shelf nearby, froze. This was it. A direct, unprompted observation. A thread he had left for her. He could not remain silent. But his response had to be utterly innocuous.
He kept his back to her, his cloth moving slowly over the books. “The same clay can make a cup or a dagger, Cadet,” he said, his voice barely louder than the storm outside. “It is the intention of the hand that shapes it, and the knowledge of the fire that hardens it, that defines its purpose.”
He felt her stare burning into his back. The silence stretched, thick and heavy. He had not answered her question. He had given her a parable. A tool for thought.
When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet, but clear. “So the knowledge was never lost. It was just… repurposed.”
Caden did not confirm or deny. He simply picked up his dusting cloth and moved further down the aisle, leaving her alone with the storm and the terrifying, brilliant idea he had just placed in her mind.
He had become more than a guide. He had become her interlocutor, a silent partner in a heresy of their own making. The unseen current he had set in motion was now pulling them both into deeper, more treacherous waters. The fallen knight was no longer just shaping the path; he was walking it beside her, step for step, into the heart of the storm.
Chapter 4 - End