There are seasons that lend themselves to ritual, and there are rituals that should never be trusted simply because they arrive with the season.
Spring is the most deceptive of them all.
It presents itself as renewal. As rebirth. As a gentle turning of the wheel toward warmth and light. Flowers bloom, lambs stumble into the world, and the air itself seems to carry a promise that all things lost might, in some small way, return.
It is precisely this promise that has led many a scholar into error.
I include myself among them.
The incident of Yolkryn, Blushveil, and Cobalis occurred during what I shall now refer to, with no small measure of regret, as my Spring Reclamation Attempt. The aim was simple in theory, if not in execution. I sought to restore a fragmented spirit using sympathetic vessels, carefully prepared and attuned to seasonal energies of renewal.
In hindsight, I can already hear my grandfather sighing from whatever plane currently holds his attention.
One does not borrow the language of nature and expect it to obey.
The vessels themselves were innocuous in appearance. Small, rounded forms, handcrafted and deliberately imperfect. Each was painted in soft, vibrant tones reminiscent of traditional Easter eggs, though I took care to ensure the patterns were unique. Speckled surfaces, subtle irregularities, and layered pigments were applied to encourage individuality within the vessels.
I did not wish to create identical anchors.
I wished to encourage a harmonious convergence.
That, as it turns out, was my first mistake.
The spirit I intended to restore was not malicious. A gentle thing, by all accounts. A presence once recorded in the outskirts of Matlock, known only for its quiet attachment to a particular stretch of woodland and the faint sensation of warmth reported by those who passed nearby.
It had faded.
Not violently. Not tragically. Simply… dispersed. As many spirits do when memory no longer holds them firmly in place.
I believed I could gather those remnants.
The ritual was conducted within the lower chamber of Ravenwood Manor, in the room long dedicated to containment and manifestation. Candles were placed in a triangular formation, each corresponding to one of the vessels. The painted forms were arranged at the centre, equidistant, forming a circle of intended unity.
I spoke the incantations as recorded in the lesser-known appendices of Percival Ravenwood’s journals. A risky choice, I now admit, as Percival had a tendency to record success with far greater enthusiasm than accuracy.
Still, the theory held.
Call the fragments. Bind them gently. Encourage cohesion.
Restore.
For a moment… it worked.
The air grew warm. Not oppressively so, but with the soft, familiar heat of early spring sunlight. The candles flickered, not with agitation, but with something almost like recognition. A faint glow began to gather above the vessels, a pale, wavering light that seemed to pulse in time with an unseen rhythm.
I recall thinking, quite clearly, that I had succeeded.
Then the light split.
It did not shatter violently. There was no explosion, no dramatic surge of energy. It simply… divided. As though it had always intended to do so.
Three strands of pale luminescence descended, each finding its way into one of the painted vessels.
The room fell silent.
Not the ordinary silence of a completed ritual, but a deeper absence. A pause. As though something, somewhere, was considering what had just occurred.
Then, one by one, they opened their eyes.
Yolkryn was the first.
A soft yellow glow shimmered across its speckled surface, and its dark, hollow eyes formed with unsettling clarity. It did not move at first. It simply existed, as though becoming aware of its own presence.
Blushveil followed, its coral hue catching the candlelight in a way that felt almost warm. There was a gentleness to its initial stillness, a quietness that might have been mistaken for calm.
Cobalis was last.
Its deep blue surface seemed to absorb the light around it rather than reflect it. When its eyes formed, they appeared darker than the others. Not larger, not shaped differently, but deeper. As though they extended further inward than they should.
I waited.
One expects a reaction. A sign. A gesture of recognition or confusion. Something to indicate that the spirit within had retained even a fragment of its former self.
Instead, they turned toward one another.
Not physically. Not at first. But there was a shift, subtle and unmistakable, in their orientation. A collective awareness. Three points of attention converging inward.
I spoke to them.
“Can you hear me?”
Yolkryn tilted, ever so slightly. A movement that might have been interpreted as curiosity.
Blushveil remained still, though I noted a faint change in the reflection across its surface, as if responding to something I could not perceive.
Cobalis did not move at all.
Then, without warning, all three shifted.
It was not a step. They do not possess limbs in any conventional sense. Rather, they appeared closer together than they had been a moment before. The distance between them reduced by a margin so slight it might have been dismissed, had I not been observing them directly.
I adjusted their positions manually, restoring the original spacing.
A necessary precaution.
I recorded the initial observations in my journal, noting the division of the spirit and the apparent independence of each entity. At this stage, I believed the ritual had succeeded in part, though not in the manner intended.
I had not restored a soul.
I had partitioned it.
Over the following days, their behaviour became… instructive.
Yolkryn exhibited what I can only describe as a fragment of joy. It responded to light. When placed near a window, it would orient itself toward the sun, its surface catching the glow in a way that seemed almost eager. It did not move unpredictably, nor did it display any signs of distress.
It was, in many ways, the least concerning of the three.
Blushveil was more complex.
It responded to presence rather than light. When I entered the room, it would turn, subtly, as though acknowledging my arrival. There was a softness to its behaviour, a suggestion of awareness that bordered on familiarity. More than once, I had the distinct impression that it was attempting to recognise me.
It never succeeded.
Cobalis…
Cobalis did not respond to either.
It remained still for long periods, its dark eyes fixed forward. Yet when I left the room and returned, it was never quite where I had left it. The changes were minimal. A fraction closer to the others. A slight shift in angle.
Always inward.
It was on the fourth night that I first heard them.
A sound, faint and indistinct, emanating from the chamber below. Not a voice, precisely. More a resonance. A low, almost melodic hum that rose and fell in irregular intervals.
I descended immediately.
The three were closer together.
Not touching. Not yet. But closer than I had ever placed them.
The sound grew clearer as I approached. Three tones, overlapping. Not in harmony, but not in discord either. Something… searching.
I separated them at once.
The sound ceased.
I did not sleep that night.
Nor the next.
It became apparent that proximity altered their behaviour. When apart, they remained largely passive. When left unattended, they would shift closer. When sufficiently near, they produced that sound.
An attempt, I realised, at convergence.
They were not independent entities.
They were incomplete.
Each held a fragment of the original spirit, but none possessed enough to exist fully. And so, in their limited awareness, they sought one another.
To recombine.
To restore what had been lost.
This, in itself, might have been manageable.
Were it not for the changes that began to occur when they drew too near.
On the sixth night, I found Yolkryn positioned between the other two.
Its usual responsiveness to light had diminished. Its surface appeared duller, less vibrant. Blushveil, by contrast, seemed more active than before, its subtle movements more pronounced.
Cobalis remained unchanged.
Or so I believed.
It was only upon closer inspection that I noticed the shift in its eyes. Not in shape or size, but in depth. They appeared… fuller. As though something had been added.
Something taken.
I separated them again, this time placing each vessel in a different room within the manor.
An extreme measure, but necessary.
For a time, this proved effective.
The humming ceased. The movement stopped.
Balance, of a sort, was restored.
Until the morning I found them together once more.
All three, positioned at the threshold of the central hall.
No doors had been opened. No barriers disturbed.
They had simply… gathered.
Closer than ever before.
Yolkryn’s brightness had faded further. Blushveil’s responsiveness had intensified to the point of unease. It turned toward me before I had fully entered the room, as though anticipating my presence.
Cobalis…
Cobalis was no longer still.
It leaned.
Not in any physical sense that I can adequately describe, but there was a clear and undeniable orientation toward the other two. A pull. A gravity.
The humming began again.
Louder this time.
And beneath it… something else.
A fourth tone.
Faint.
Incomplete.
But present.
That was when I understood.
They were not merely attempting to reunite.
They were trying to become more than they had been.
Three fragments, each lacking, seeking not just restoration, but completion beyond their original state.
A dangerous proposition.
I intervened at once, separating them once more and reinforcing the containment measures within the manor. Additional sigils were inscribed. Barriers strengthened. Observation increased.
Since then, they have remained stable.
For the most part.
Yet I cannot ignore the pattern.
When left alone, they shift.
When unobserved, they gather.
And when they draw too near, they begin to remember something that does not belong to any one of them.
Yolkryn, Blushveil, and Cobalis are not malevolent.
Not in the traditional sense.
They are incomplete.
And incomplete things, given time and opportunity, will always seek to finish themselves.
The question that remains is this.
When they do…
What, exactly, will they become?