Chronicles of the Cycle: When the Sun is Blue

Chapter 8 - Threads on the Map

Isandra Veyra

The artificial light in the Governor’s office was cold, designed to keep the mind sharp and eliminate any shadow where ambiguity might hide. Outside, the Rixus night enveloped the city, but in here, at the pinnacle of the Veyra tower, time itself seemed under our control. Edrian watched the cityscape through the armored window, his hands clasped behind his back. He wasn’t admiring the view; he was assessing it, like a general studying a map before a battle. My place was at the long, polished mahogany table, a holographic screen floating silently before me, displaying the post-crisis reports.

The crisis, of course, was the one we had manufactured. “Solar flare.” An elegant, scientific term to cover up a massive electrical storm that had swept across all of Fosack. The narrative had been a success. Edrian’s speech, where he announced his aspiration for Internal Minister of the continent, had calmed public nerves and reinforced his image as a firm leader in times of uncertainty. I myself had drafted the key points, calculated the dramatic pauses. It had worked perfectly.

“Approval ratings are up seven percent in twenty-four hours,” I stated aloud, my tone as neutral and polished as the table’s surface. “Confidence in your leadership is at an all-time high. The campaign for Internal Minister has a solid foundation .”

“Confidence is a volatile asset, Isandra,” Edrian replied without turning. “It is built on whispers and collapses with a single shout. Make sure no one has a reason to shout.”

I swiped a finger across the screen, moving from opinion polls to the technical reports. This was where the official narrative and reality dangerously diverged. “The energy containment teams have stabilized the grid. However, the raw data from the fluctuation remains anomalous.” I projected a map of the continent in the center of the room. On it, a series of epicenters blinked in red. “The discharge was not uniform, as one would expect from a solar flare. It originated from specific points. There have been residual energy spikes in key industrial zones.”

Edrian turned slowly. His gray eyes, usually warm for the cameras, were now as cold as steel. “Deep exploration zones. Our projects. Any damage?” “Contained. But the energy released… it’s of a nature our scientists are still unable to categorize. It does not behave according to the known laws of physics.” “Then have them write new laws,” he said simply, as if reality were a document he could amend at will. “What matters is that it is under control. Anything else?”

I came to the last file of the night. The most insignificant, and for some reason, the one that unsettled me the most. The surveillance report from Rixus. “There is a person of interest at the Institute,” I said, and a boy’s face appeared on the screen. Messy dark hair, eyes that looked too serious for his age. “Miguel. Fifteen. Exchange student from Abrak.”

Edrian raised an eyebrow. “The curious boy. The one we sent to Rixus to keep an eye on. Has he caused trouble?” “Not trouble. Questions.” I read excerpts from the report. “He questioned Professor Zara Veyra about the existence of magic and portals in his first class.”

I used our cousin’s full name on purpose. Zara was a Veyra. A brilliant academic and, supposedly, a loyal piece in the most strategic position of all: the history chair at the most prestigious institute on the continent. For an exchange student to challenge her on the very topics our family had spent centuries burying was, at the very least, a bold impertinence.

“Furthermore,” I continued, “he has made contact with two persons of interest.”

Two more images appeared next to Miguel’s. “Kari Veyra,” I said, and I noticed the slightest tightening in Edrian’s jaw. “Our Kari. She has been observing him in the hallways. The contact was brief, but deliberate.”

“Kari is young and sentimental,” Edrian said with disdain. “She has always had a conflict of loyalty between her family and her idealistic emotions. Watch her as well. I don’t trust her discretion. Who is the second?”

“A student named Kai. And a group of youths calling themselves ‘The Flame of Fraxy.’ Last night, Miguel attended one of their meetings at a private residence.” Edrian’s coolness evaporated, replaced by a flash of genuine interest. I knew that look. It was the one he got when an unexpected piece appeared on the board, one that could either ruin his strategy or grant him ultimate victory. “The orphans of Fraxy?” he mused. “The ones we took in and cared for. The ones who whisper blame on my family for their parents’ ‘accident.’ I thought they were just an anarchist debate club.”

“They appear to be more organized than we believed. And now, they have the boy from Abrak with them. The one who asks about portals. The one who comes from a port city full of legends. The group’s leader appears to be this Kai.” “And who is he? Another lost Veyra?” Edrian asked, a hint of sarcasm in his tone. “No known relation. His records indicate he comes from a minor family in the outer districts. A brilliant scholarship student. Intelligent, but with a history of questioning authority. A classic profile of a rebel with a cause.”

Edrian fell silent, staring at the hologram that now showed three faces connected by lines of investigation: Miguel, the catalyst; Kari, the sentimental Veyra; and Kai, the organized rebel. I watched the wheels in his mind turn, connecting threads I was only just beginning to glimpse. The anomalous energy rising from the earth. A group of resentful survivors. A boy obsessed with myths that were proving uncomfortably accurate. And in the middle of it all, two of his own cousins, Zara and Kari, acting strangely at the same epicenter.

I was his strategist. My job was to see the threats, to calculate the risks. And what I saw was a confluence of unacceptable risk factors. “Edrian, this boy… his curiosity is a catalyst. He is drawing disparate elements together. Our own family. I suggest an intervention. A transfer, perhaps. Or a more… direct warning.”

He smiled, a thin, humorless smile. “No, Isandra. Don’t be so predictable. You don’t crush a wasp when it can lead you to the nest.” He approached the screen and touched Miguel’s image. “This boy is not a threat. He is a tool. He is searching for a truth that we wrote. Let him search. Let the orphans of Fraxy play their detective games with their bright new informant.” His voice dropped, becoming a dangerous whisper. “Double the surveillance on him. I want to know what he eats, what he reads, who he talks to. I want to know what he dreams. And I want a full report on Kari’s loyalty. Family is a bond, not an excuse.”

He turned and walked back to the window, ending the conversation. I was left alone with the images floating in the air. Edrian’s smiling face on the news, Miguel’s serious face, the red epicenters pulsing on the map. Threads. Edrian believed he was the only one pulling them. But for the first time in a long time, I felt the threads beginning to weave a pattern that not even he could foresee. And at the center of it all was a fifteen-year-old boy who had only asked too many questions, and who, without knowing it, had begun to capture the interest of two Veyras.