Hour 23
Mist had called for another water break, and they gathered in a circle around a small fire that Queen Hania had conjured. The flames danced without fuel, a simple elven trick that provided warmth and light without consuming anything.
Dani sat close to the fire, her eyes distant. "You should know why Kora did what she did tonight. Why she was willing to burn three weeks of her life for someone she barely knows."
"You don't have to---" Krad started.
"I do," Dani interrupted. "Because her story is why I'm teaching you to fight without crutches. Why I'm being so hard on you about the Moon Eater."
She took a breath, and when she spoke again, her voice carried the weight of old grief.
"Kora wasn't always a healer. Seven years ago, she was a combat mage. A really good one. Level 180 at age eighteen, which is almost unheard of. She specialized in light magic, offensive spells that could burn demons to ash, barriers that could stop siege weapons, purification techniques that could cleanse corrupted zones."
Krad listened intently. It was hard to imagine the gentle healer he'd met as a combat powerhouse.
"She was assigned to a Crimson Blade unit operating in the Shadowlands, a region that's permanently corrupted by dark magic. Her job was to clear the corruption and protect the civilians who'd been trapped there." Dani's hands clenched. "She was brilliant at it. Natural talent combined with relentless training. Captain Valdris said she'd be Celestial-rank before she turned twenty-five."
"What happened?" Queen Hania asked softly.
"She met a boy," Dani said. "A civilian kid, maybe fifteen years old, who'd been living in the Shadowlands his whole life. The corruption had twisted him, not fully, but enough that he was suffering. Constant pain, nightmares, his magic eating him from the inside."
Dani stared into the fire. "Kora tried to help him. Used every purification technique she knew. For three weeks, she worked on him day and night, slowly cleansing the corruption from his system. And it was working. The kid was getting better, smiling again, talking about what he'd do when he was healed."
The silence that followed was heavy with dread.
"Then the demons attacked," Dani continued, her voice barely above a whisper. "A full assault on the Crimson Blade outpost. Kora was exhausted from healing the kid, her mana reserves were at maybe 20%. But she was still the strongest mage in the unit, so she fought anyway."
"She pushed too hard," Mist said quietly, clearly having heard this story before.
"She pushed past her limits," Dani confirmed. "Kept casting even after her mana hit zero, burning her life force to fuel her spells. Just like she did today with the Blood Transfer technique. She killed dozens of demons, saved the outpost, became a hero."
Dani's laugh was bitter. "But while she was fighting, the boy she'd been healing was left alone in the medical tent. And the corruption she'd been suppressing came roaring back without her constant purification. By the time she returned from the battle..."
"He was dead," Krad whispered.
"Worse," Dani said. "He'd transformed. Become a demon himself. And in his confusion and pain, he'd killed three other patients in the medical tent before the corruption consumed him completely."
The fire crackled in the silence that followed.
"Kora broke," Dani continued. "Completely broke. She blamed herself, said that if she'd just had more power, if she'd been stronger, she could have both healed the kid completely and fought the demons. She became obsessed with finding ways to be stronger, to never fail like that again."
Queen Hania's expression was pained, clearly seeing parallels to her own story of corruption and failure.
"She started experimenting with forbidden techniques," Dani said. "Blood magic, demon contracts, anything that promised more power. Captain Valdris found out and stopped her before she went too far, but the damage was done. She'd burned out her combat magic pathways trying to force more power than her body could handle."
"That's why she's a healer now?" Krad asked.
Dani nodded. "The only magic she could still use was healing, the gentle, patient kind that doesn't require massive power outputs. Everything else was destroyed. She went from being one of the most promising combat mages in the guild to being support class only."
"That's horrible," Krad said.
"It gets worse," Dani replied. "For two years after that, Kora hated herself. Hated her weakness, hated that she'd lost her power, hated that she could only heal when what she wanted was to destroy the demons that had killed that boy."
"What changed?" Queen Hania asked.
"Captain Valdris did something crazy," Dani said, and this time her smile was genuine if sad. "He assigned her to me as a permanent partner. Told us we were stuck together for every mission, every assignment, everything. I was furious... I didn't want some washed-up combat mage following me around feeling sorry for herself."
She laughed softly. "We hated each other for about three weeks. I thought she was dead weight. She thought I was a heartless tracker who didn't understand real combat. We fought constantly, nearly got each other killed twice."
"What changed?" Krad asked.
"We were ambushed by a pack of corrupted wolves. Twenty of them, all infected with demon plague. I was a tracker, not a fighter, I could find anything, but I couldn't kill a pack of corrupted wolves on my own." Dani's eyes went distant with memory. "I was going to die. And Kora, who supposedly couldn't fight anymore, who'd lost all her combat magic... she picked up a stick and fought them off."
"With a stick?" Mist raised an eyebrow.
"With a stick," Dani confirmed. "No magic, no weapons, just a piece of wood and absolute refusal to let me die. She fought like a demon herself, took wounds that should've been fatal, kept fighting even when she should've collapsed. And when it was over, when all twenty wolves were dead and we were both covered in blood, she looked at me and said, 'I'm not strong anymore. So I have to be stubborn instead.'"
Dani wiped at her eyes, not quite hiding the tears. "That's when I understood. She didn't need to be the strongest mage. She just needed to be present, to fight with what she had, to protect people even when it seemed impossible. And I realized that's what real strength is... not the ability to destroy everything, but the refusal to give up even when you've lost everything."
The fire crackled gently, and everyone sat in silence for a long moment.
"After that mission, we became real partners," Dani continued. "I taught her how to fight without magic, daggers, hand-to-hand, tactics. She taught me that sometimes the best way to win isn't to hit harder, but to outlast your opponent. To be too stubborn to die."
She looked at Krad directly. "That's why she gave you those three weeks today. Because she saw in you what Captain Valdris saw in her... someone who needs to learn that borrowed power isn't real strength. Someone who needs to discover what they can actually do before they lose themselves in what they think they should be."
Krad felt the weight of that story settle on his shoulders. "She doesn't want me to end up like her."
"She doesn't want you to rely so heavily on the Moon Eater that when it's gone or sealed or demands too high a price, you realize you never learned how to fight as yourself," Dani corrected. "The Moon Eater is your stick in the woods, something you use when you have no choice. But first, you need to know how to fight without it."
Queen Hania had been listening quietly, and now she spoke. "I understand her pain. When I was corrupted, when Xerxes and the Red God twisted me into the Cursed Queen, I lost everything that made me myself. My love for my daughters, my dedication to my people, my identity... all of it consumed by borrowed power that I never asked for."
She looked at Krad with ancient sadness in her eyes. "The Moon Eater is different because you made a deal with it, yes. But the principle is the same. The more you rely on its power, the less you remember who you are without it. And when the day comes that it demands payment you can't afford, you'll have nothing left to bargain with."
Mist stood up, his expression serious. "Which is why we're going to spend the next several hours beating into you, sometimes literally, how to fight like a human. The Moon Eater is your emergency reserve. Not your fighting style."
Krad looked at each of them, Mist with his stern determination, Dani with her fierce protectiveness, Queen Hania with her hard-won wisdom. And somewhere in the alcove beyond, Kora lay sleeping, having given weeks of her life so he could have this chance.
"Okay," he said, his voice steady despite the fear and doubt churning in his gut. "Teach me. Show me how to fight without borrowing strength."
Dani smiled, the expression equal parts proud and predatory. "Good answer. Now get up, we've got hours of work ahead of us."