The fog had receded just enough to turn the roof of the abandoned triage center into an island floating above a sea of grey cloud. It was a dangerous place to train. There were no railings. Just a sheer drop into the mist. But Senna insisted on the open air.
"Again," she commanded. Her voice was tight.
She was standing today. She leaned heavily on her broom staff. Her face was a rigid mask of concentration.
Vane was fifty reps into the Piercing Veil thrust sequence. His shoulders burned and his lungs felt raw from the cold damp but his motion was fluid. He didn't have to think about grounding his heel or locking his hip anymore. The Argent Horizon was carving its own groove into his nervous system.
He snapped the spear back into guard exhaling hard. "That was fifty."
"Your recovery is lagging by a microsecond," Senna snapped taking a shaky step toward him. "You are admiring your own thrust. An enemy doesn't pause to applaud you."
She raised the broom handle stepping in to deliver a corrective whack to his ribs.
But she moved too fast.
The sudden shift in weight was too much for her corrupted core. Mid-swing her body betrayed her. A horrible wet sound ripped from her throat and she collapsed not into a crouch but into a rigid vibrating heap on the rooftop gravel.
Vane dropped his spear and was at her side in two strides skidding to his knees.
"Senna! Easy I got you."
He reached for her shoulders to apply the holding technique that had worked before. To be the anchor.
This time when he touched her it felt like grabbing a live wire connected to a mausoleum.
The cold was shocking. It burned his palms through his gloves. Senna was arching her back so violently he thought her spine might snap. Her eyes were rolled back showing only whites threaded with burst capillaries.
"Senna breathe! Hold the line!"
She couldn't hear him. This wasn't a normal flare-up. The thick black veins at her neck weren't just pulsing. They were writhing beneath her skin like trapped eels spreading upward across her jaw and downward toward her heart.
Black ichor thick as tar and smelling fiercely of ozone and rot began to leak from her nose.
Vane tried to project calm. He tried to find the resonance but there was nothing to grab onto. Her internal structure was a chaotic storm of agonizing energy. She was drowning on dry land.
"No," Vane whispered. The panic finally broke through his composure. "No don't you dare break now. Not after all this talk."
He pressed down harder as if he could physically squeeze the corruption back inside her. It just flared hotter a backlash of necrotic mana stinging his hands.
She stopped thrashing. That was worse. She went completely limp. Her breathing turned into a shallow bubbling rattle. The black veins began to spread faster webbing across her cheeks.
He was losing her. Right here on the roof. The great wall was crumbling into dust in his arms.
Vane realized with horrifying clarity that his charm and his lies and his stolen tricks meant nothing against this.
He needed a real miracle worker.
He gently lowered her head to the gravel shrugging off his uniform jacket and bundling it around her.
"Wait here," he commanded raggedly though she couldn't hear him. "Don't you move. I am coming back."
He stood up backed away two steps and triggered [Flash Step].
The world blurred. He burned mana recklessly chaining the stolen dagger skill together appearing and disappearing in bursts of speed across the treacherous rooftops of the forgotten sector. He didn't care who saw him. He didn't care about preserving his mana pool.
He hit the edge of the main campus and kept running a streak of disheveled uniform and desperation cutting through the perfectly manicured lawns.
Lecture Hall 4B was massive. It was amphitheater-style and currently filled with two hundred students listening to a drone about advanced alchemy reagents.
The side door slammed open with enough force to crack the plaster.
Every head turned. Vane stood there chest heaving sweat and grime streaking his face his shirt plastered to his skin. He looked wild. He was a feral creature from the badlands interrupting civilization.
The professor stopped mid-sentence sputtering indignantly.
Vane ignored him. His eyes scanned the tiers of seats locking onto a pale head of hair near the middle row.
Isole Sylvaris looked up from her notes. Her mismatched eyes widened slightly as she processed the sight of him.
Vane didn't shout. He didn't make a scene. He just looked at her with an intensity that burned the air between them and jerked his head toward the door. Now.
A ripple of whispers started. The rat was finally cracking.
Isole hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then with a fluidity that belied her usual deliberate movements she closed her book stood up and walked down the stairs ignoring the outraged professor and the stares of her peers.
She met Vane at the door.
"You are interrupting a vital—"
Vane grabbed her wrist. His grip was hard and desperate.
"I need you," he said. His voice was a low rough tear in the quiet hall. "Someone is dying. Right now."
Isole pulled her wrist back slightly her cool demeanor wavering. "Vane there are infirmaries. If you have injured yourself in one of your foolish—"
"Not me," Vane cut her off leaning close dropping every pretense of being the charming rogue. "It is dead mana corruption. Advanced. She is drowning in it."
Isole went still. The academic curiosity in her eyes sharpened into something surgical.
"Where?"
"The fog sector. Past the boundary."
"That is forbidden territory," she said automatically but she was already stepping through the door with him.
"Yeah," Vane said breaking into a run and pulling her along. "It is a great day for breaking rules. Try to keep up princess."
They moved fast. Vane led her along the least populated paths dodging patrols. Isole to her credit didn't complain about the pace or the mud soaking the hem of her pristine robes as they crossed into the untreated sector.
When they burst onto the triage roof Isole stopped dead.
Senna was where Vane had left her a small heap under his jacket. The black veins had turned her face into a grotesque mask. The puddle of ichor beneath her head was larger.
"Gods above," Isole whispered her hand flying to her mouth. "Is that... a Valerian officer's insignia on that gown?"
"Save the history lesson for later," Vane snarled dropping to his knees beside Senna. "Fix her."
Isole knelt on the other side. Her expression shifted instantly from shock to intense clinical focus. Her hands hovered over Senna's chest.
"Her core is collapsing. The necrotic energy is consuming her remaining life force at an accelerated rate."
"Can you stop it?"
Isole's mismatched eyes began to glow. The air around her grew heavy charged with two distinct opposing polarities.
"No one stops death Vane," she murmured her voice echoing strangely. "But I can sometimes convince it to wait."
Authority: [Samsara]
A sphere of energy erupted around them. It wasn't the clean white light of standard healing. It was a swirling sickening vortex of vibrant emerald green and deep rotting crimson.
Isole plunged her hands into Senna's chest. Not physically but energetically.
Senna's body arched violently off the gravel. A silent scream tore from her throat as the opposing forces of life and death warred inside her burned-out channels. The black veins pulsed angrily fighting the intrusion then began to slowly grudgingly recede.
It took ten minutes. By the time Isole sat back gasping and pale sweat dripping from her own nose the black web had retreated to Senna's collarbone.
Senna lay still. Her breathing was ragged but deeper. She was alive.
Vane slumped back on his heels putting his head between his knees fighting the urge to vomit from sheer relief.
Isole stood up shakily dusting gravel from her knees. She looked from the unconscious Expert to the shivering Rank 1 Commoner.
"A Rank 6 Expert of a fallen house," Isole said her voice thin and brittle. "Hiding in the academy's garbage dump. And you are… what? Her student? Her keeper?"
Vane looked up. The charm was gone. He just looked exhausted and fiercely protective.
"I am her stepping stone," Vane said hoarsely. He reached out and gently wiped a streak of black blood from Senna's cheek. "And she isn't dead yet."
Isole watched him for a long moment re-evaluating everything she thought she knew about the Oakhaven rat.
"You are playing a dangerous game Vane," she whispered. "You have bound yourself to a sinking ship."
"Better than swimming alone," Vane muttered pulling the jacket tighter around Senna's unconscious form.