Lysandra Davies | Virgo

The clock on the bedside table had long since stopped ticking.

Its hands were frozen at 3:47, one slightly bent where age or magic had warped it. A thin film of dust dulled the glass, but the faint scent of lavender still lingered in the air, the smell of old linens and cleansing charms that had burned themselves out days ago.

Lysandra Davies sat at the edge of the bed, her posture perfectly still, a pale ribbon of light slipping across her silver-blonde hair from the half-drawn curtains. The man lying before her looked half-swallowed by the world between life and death, skin greyed with fatigue, breath shallow, his soul thread flickering faintly in her inner sight. The spirit within him wasn’t gone... not yet. Just tangled.

Her gloves, made of spirit-thread silk, whispered as she adjusted them, a ritual more than a necessity. The faint runic embroidery on her wrists pulsed to life, tracing gold and silver lines beneath her skin as she reached out.

“His mind is... fraying at the edges,” Lysandra murmured softly, her voice melodic but low, a calm cadence meant to soothe more than explain. “Whatever curse touched him, it’s older than most I’ve seen. It’s feeding on grief, not blood or bone.”

Across from her, a woman sat with red-rimmed eyes and trembling hands. She clutched a rosary-like charm between her fingers, though the faith it belonged to had long been blended with the kind that recognised what Lysandra truly was.

“Can you save him?” the woman asked, voice cracking.

Lysandra glanced up, her lavender eyes catching the dim light. For a moment, they looked almost metallic, polished amethyst reflecting the faint candle flames.

“I can mend him,” she said after a heartbeat’s pause. “Saving, though... that depends on how much of him still wants to return.”

The woman bowed her head, a quiet sob escaping her, and Lysandra reached across to gently touch her wrist. Her touch was grounding, calm, her presence like still water under moonlight.

She turned her focus back to the man, humming softly under her breath, a melody half-remembered from her childhood, soft and steady, the way a mother might sing to a feverish child.

The air in the room shifted. Threads of pale blue light rose faintly from the man’s skin, wisps of soul essence drawn upward like smoke. They tangled, knotted, and twisted, and Lysandra began to work. Her hands moved with impossible precision, tracing runes in the air that left luminous trails behind her fingertips. Each thread responded, pulled gently into alignment as if the world itself recognised her command.

But not all of it was light. There was something dark woven in, stubborn and heavy, an old curse buried deep in the man’s essence. As she drew closer, it resisted, lashing back with a hiss that brushed the edge of her consciousness like a cold wind.

Lysandra didn’t flinch. She exhaled, muttering a phrase in Old Gaelic under her breath, a cleansing incantation used by her order. The darkness writhed, faltered, and dimmed to nothing.

And then... quiet.

The threads stabilised, and colour began to return faintly to the man’s face. His breathing deepened. The wife let out a choked sob of relief.

Lysandra leaned back, exhaustion brushing at her temples, and reached for the small vial of sage tonic on the bedside table. Her movements were slow but deliberate, like a painter admiring her finished piece.

“It will take time,” she said quietly. “He’ll sleep through the night, but his spirit will need to rest for several days. Keep the room warm.”

The woman nodded quickly, her gratitude spilling out in fragmented thanks that Lysandra waved away with a faint smile. “It’s alright,” she said gently, standing to gather her tools. “The worst of it has passed.”

Her voice softened again, almost to herself. “For him, at least.”

She began to pack her instruments, small glass vials, silver needles etched with sigils, a spool of ethereal thread that shimmered like moonlight. The faint glow from her runes dimmed as she exhaled slowly, grounding herself, anchoring her energy back to her own body.

“His soul thread was fractured,” Lysandra said softly, her voice calm but weary. “Whatever curse found him, it clung to memory, something heavy, something personal. I’ve sealed the worst of it for now, but...” She exhaled slowly. “The mind will take time to follow where the soul’s been mended.”

The woman nodded weakly, her throat too tight for words. Lysandra offered a quiet, reassuring smile and reached for a vial of pale blue tincture, placing it on the bedside table.

“Two drops of this in water before dawn,” she instructed gently. “It will steady his breathing if he stirs. Don’t wake him. The body will rest as long as the soul allows.”

It was only then, as she turned slightly, that she became aware of the figure standing near the end of the bed.

They hadn’t spoken, the quiet gravity of someone who belonged to the man lying unconscious. Lysandra could feel the ripple in the air around them; the delicate hum of emotional tethering that only a Soul-Weaver could sense. It wasn’t grief yet, but the echo of it, a vibration that trembled faintly in her chest.

She studied them for a moment, silent. Her lavender eyes, threaded faintly with gold, flicked over their stance, not to assess, but to read the imprint of what clung to them. There was love here. Or loyalty. Or loss. Perhaps all three.

When she finally stood, her robes whispered against the wooden floorboards. The candlelight caught the faint metallic threads woven into the fabric, each shimmer marking her as something otherworldly and deliberate.

She stepped closer, slow and unthreatening, her tone as measured as her movement.

“You know him,” she said quietly, not a question but a certainty. “It’s in the way your energy settles near him, like a compass finding true north.”

Her gaze softened, the professional precision in her voice giving way to something gentler.

“I’ve done what I can. The curse won’t kill him, but it will try to reclaim what it lost. The next few days will decide whether his mind remembers he’s still here.”

She glanced back toward the bed. The man’s breathing had evened out, faint but steady, the rise and fall of his chest catching in the soft light.

“The threads are stable now,” Lysandra continued, crossing her arms loosely as she turned her attention back to the silent observer beside her. “If you stay close, speak to him, even if he doesn’t respond, it will help anchor him. Memory ties are powerful. They can keep a soul from drifting too far.”

For a heartbeat, she hesitated, an almost imperceptible pause before she added, softer still:

“I’ve seen people return for less.”

Silence lingered for a moment, warm and fragile. The only sound was the faint ticking from a charm above the door, counting the seconds of borrowed peace.

Lysandra studied them again, her expression unreadable but not cold. “You care for him,” she said quietly. “That will matter more than anything I can do.”

She glanced at her gloves, then down at her own hands, flexing them as if testing whether they still remembered what warmth felt like. When she looked back up, her eyes met theirs fully, luminous, steady, searching.

“I’ll stay until dawn,” she said after a moment. “In case his soul stirs again.” A faint trace of a smile touched her lips. “You don’t have to speak if you don’t want to. Just... be here.”

Then, with a small exhale, she pulled a chair closer to the bedside and sat, leaving a quiet space beside her.

The candlelight flickered again, catching the faint embroidery beneath her skin, delicate gold veins glowing faintly at her wrists and throat.

And as she watched the man’s breathing slow into steady rhythm, Lysandra’s gaze drifted briefly toward the silent figure nearby. Something about their presence, the steadiness, the grief threaded with quiet strength, resonated in the air between them.

She didn’t say it aloud, but the thought brushed her mind all the same:

Souls like that don’t just wander into my work by chance.

Her eyes softened once more, voice quiet but sure when she finally spoke again, not for the man this time, but for them.

“He’ll wake soon,” she said gently. “And when he does, he’ll need to see someone who remembers who he is.”

It wasn’t a question, or a command, just truth, threaded with empathy, offered to the one whose presence anchored this fractured room back to life.

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