Aiven stared up at the four-armed nightmare, the obsidian claws dripping with his fresh blood. The world was beginning to grey at the edges, the cold of the muddy clearing finally seeping into his bones.
Sorry, Lyra, he thought, his mind drifting back to the sun-drenched fields of Hearthport. This time... I really tried to live. I really tried.
The anomaly let out a clicking screech, its four arms tensing to tear what remained of Aiven's limbs from his torso.
But then, the silence of the clearing was shattered not by a sound, but by a light.
A blinding, pure white light erupted from Aiven. Swirling, high-pressure white smoke hissed off his skin, and a violent shockwave exploded outward.
The anomaly Kobold didn't just stumble; it was launched. The seven-foot monstrosity was sent tumbling backward like a ragdoll, crashing through a row of huts and obliterating a crude leather tent. The standard Kobolds, seeing their "god" tossed aside by a dying human, broke into a panicked frenzy, yapping and shrieking as they fled into the dark of the thicket.
Aiven dropped to the ground, his body still radiating that terrifying white heat. He was barely conscious, his vision swimming in a sea of brilliance. The bleeding from his left shoulder had stopped, the wound seemingly sealed by the sheer density of the mana pouring out of him, but the limb remained gone—lying on the ground a few feet away, a grisly reminder of his failure.
He felt like a furnace. His skin burned, his veins felt like they were carrying liquid fire, and his heart was hammering with a rhythm that threatened to tear his chest apart. He couldn't control it. He was a passenger in a body that had suddenly become a sun.
"My capacity is F-rank. Bottom of the barrel." His own words echoed in his head, followed by Virelle's playful, arrogant voice from the morning a few days ago.
"Well, the barrel must have a false bottom, then. Your core is like a star trapped in a bottle... it would be quite embarrassing if you were actually as weak as you look."
The false bottom, the star in a bottle, Aiven thought, his teeth gritting against the pain.
Outside the barrier, the vampire's amusement had vanished. He stared at the white silhouette of the clerk, his red pupils constricting to needles. He reached into his coat and pulled out a silver artifact—a jagged, obsidian-rimmed mirror.
"Variables," the vampire hissed, his voice no longer bored. "I loathe variables. We are leaving. Now."
He grabbed the purple chains binding Virelle, intending to drag her into the portal he was tearing into the air.
Aiven saw the movement. Through the haze of white light and agony, he saw Virelle's terrified face. He didn't think. He didn't calculate. He simply raised his remaining right hand and pointed it toward the dome.
A beam of pure, unadulterated mana lanced out. It wasn't a spell; it was a physical manifestation of his will. The invisible dome didn't just break; it evaporated. The purple chains coiling around Virelle shattered into dust, the feedback sending a jolt of white energy back into the vampire.
The vampire recoiled, his hand smoking. "Impossible," he breathed, staring at the raw power.
Virelle, suddenly weightless and free, ascended into the air. Her silver hair flared with a violet light that rivaled Aiven's white eruption. She looked down at the vampire with a look of absolute, lethal disdain.
"That's what you get," Virelle purred, her voice echoing with a thousand chimes, "when you underestimate my Master, you pale, over-dressed mosquito. You wanted to see a miracle? I'll show you a funeral."
She raised her hand, her prismatic orb spinning so fast it hummed like a hornet. A massive, concentrated sphere of mana began to form—a blast that would likely level the entire mountain side.
The vampire didn't hesitate. He knew when a hunt had turned into a slaughter. "I have no time for this," he snarled. In a blur of motion, he transformed into a streak of black lightning—a bat-shaped shadow—and dived into the closing portal.
Virelle released the blast.
The white-violet beam tore through the clearing a millisecond after the portal vanished. It missed the vampire, but the results were catastrophic. The beam obliterated rows of ancient trees, carving a wasteland in a perfect straight line for miles until it slammed into the foot of the distant mountain. A thunderous boom followed as a massive crater was gouged into the stone walls.
She didn't spare the destruction a second glance. Whatever she had missed—whatever consequences might follow—were distant, irrelevant things, swallowed by the roar of fading mana.
Virelle's gaze snapped sharply away from the smoking horizon.
She looked toward her Master.
Aiven's glow was reaching a fever pitch. He was so bright now that he was becoming a silhouette within himself. He looked at Virelle as she flew toward him, her face filled with a panic he had never seen before.
"Virelle!" Aiven shouted, his voice sounding hollow and metallic. "Get back! I can feel it... it's going to explode! I can't hold it back!"
He felt the pressure reach his throat. The world turned from white to a blinding, infinite gold.
"Master!" Virelle screamed, reaching out her hand.
Aiven didn't see if she reached him. The light swallowed everything, and then, the darkness finally took him.
The first thing Aiven noticed was the scent: it wasn't the ozone and metallic tang of the thicket, but the smell of sun-dried straw and aged wood.
He opened his eyes slowly. The ceiling above him was thatched, the woven reeds casting long, golden shadows in the late afternoon light. He was lying on a simple bed in a small, cramped hut. Beside him, sitting on the wooden floor with her head resting against the edge of his mattress, was Virelle.
She was asleep, but it wasn't the graceful, floating rest he had seen in the apartment. Her silver hair was tangled and dull, her face streaked with dried salt and dirt. She looked small—fragile in a way that seemed impossible for a being who had leveled a mountainside.
Aiven groaned, his body feeling like it had been crushed and poorly reassembled. He tried to push himself up into a sitting position, but the moment he shifted his weight, the world tilted violently. He reached out his left hand to steady himself against the wall—and hit nothing.
The momentum carried him forward, and he nearly tumbled off the bed. He stared down at his left side.
A thick, heavy nest of bandages covered the space where his shoulder ended. There was no pain—only a strange, hollow coldness and a phantom itch where his left arm should have been. The memory of the blue-lit claw and the vampire's mocking laughter rushed back, hitting him harder than the physical wound.
The movement of the bed made the frame creak. Virelle's eyes snapped open.
For a second, she just stared at him, her violet eyes wide and bloodshot. Then, a sound escaped her—a high, broken hitch of breath. Without a word, she lunged upward, throwing herself onto the bed and wrapping her arms around his neck in a desperate, crushing hug.
Aiven winced as the impact jarred his shoulder, but he didn't pull away. After a few seconds, he felt a wetness on his skin. Virelle was shaking, her face buried in the crook of his neck, and she began to sob. It wasn't the elegant, quiet weeping of a high-class mage; she was wailing like a child who had been lost in the dark for a long time.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry, Master" she choked out between gasps. "I was useless. I let him... I let them... I couldn't break the chains. I'm so sorry."
Aiven looked at her disheveled hair, feeling a lump form in his own throat. He raised his remaining right hand and rested it on the back of her head, his fingers tracing the tangled silver strands.
"It's okay, Virelle," he whispered, his voice raspy and thin. "It's okay. We're alive."
He took a shaky breath, looking at the bandages on his shoulder. "Thank you. I... I remember the light. I felt like I was going to turn into a sun. It must have been you, right? If you had not been there... I wouldn't be sitting here. You saved me and the entire village from myself."
Hearing his gratitude only seemed to make it worse. Virelle cried even harder, her sobs turning into loud, rhythmic gulps for air as she clung to him as if he might vanish if she let go for even a second.
The door to the hut creaked open. Elin, the village girl, stepped inside carrying a tray with several glass vials and a bowl of steaming water. She stopped when she saw Aiven awake, her face lighting up with a weary, relieved smile.
"You're awake," she breathed, setting the tray down on a low stool. "We weren't sure... you were so cold when she brought you back."
She looked at the bandages on his shoulder and bit her lip, her expression turning apologetic. "I'm sorry for the patching, Mr. Roan. I'm the only one in the village who knows a bit of field medicine, and I did a sloppy job of it. But most of the damage... the internal burns and the bleeding... Ms. Virelle handled it."
Aiven looked at Virelle, who was still crying on him; the bedsheet was visibly wet with her tears. Her sobs finally beginning to subside into exhausted shudders. He realized now why she looked so haggard. She had poured every ounce of her remaining strength into keeping his star from burning his body to ash.
"Thank you for looking after us, Elin," Aiven said. "And for the bandages. I... I appreciate the help."
"You're welcome, Mr. Roan," Elin said, her voice kind but subdued, eyes flicking briefly to the trembling mage at his side. She offered a small, understanding nod and stepped back, giving them the space they so clearly needed.
Virelle didn't look up. She just tightened her grip on Aiven, let out another loud, wet sob, and continued to cry into his shoulder, the perhaps strongest mage completely eclipsed by the girl who had almost lost the only person she had in the world.