Just her heartbeat against my chest. Fast and terrified and steady all at once, a rhythm I could count if I wanted to, but I didn't want to. The scythe hummed in my grip. Still hungry. But confused now, like it had forgotten what hunger was for.
Behind us, Azrathel was feeding on Vekros. Wet sounds. Tearing sounds. I didn't watch.
She held onto me.
Damian's people arrived since maybe an hour, maybe longer. I had lost track of time somewhere between her arms and the silence that followed.
Three healers. An old woman with hands like driftwood and eyes that get sad everytime she sees a scenery like this, no matter how many times.. A young man who kept his gaze on the floor. A middle-aged woman who smelled of temple incense and muttered prayers under her breath like she was afraid to stop.
They came through the door with bags and bandages, they expected nothing good but showed up anyway. The old woman looked at Damian's arm. At the ribbons of flesh and the white bone showing through. She clicked her tongue.
"Playing with shadows again," she said. Not a question.
"What did I tell you about this?"
"That I would regret it."
"And?"
"You were right, I regret it."
"I am always right. Hold still."
Golden light bloomed from her palms. Divine magic, the kind that cost prayers and years of devotion and something I would never understand. Damian hissed through his teeth but didn't scream. The flesh began knitting itself back together, slow and painful.
The young healer went to Silas. The curse damage was bad; black veins like cracks in old pottery, fingers still twisted uglily. But the source was gone now, swallowed along with everything else Vekros had been, the healing was slow, but effective.
The middle-aged woman approached me.The scythe raised itself thirstily before I could stop it.
She froze.
"I can't," I said.
"The blade won't allow it."
She looked at Nyssara. Still standing beside me. Close enough that our shoulders almost touched.
"Tangerine-Hair is sitting right there."
"That's different."
"Different how?"
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Had no answer that made sense.
The healer studied me for a long moment with eyes that seemed to see through skin and bone to whatever was underneath. Then she looked at Nyssara. Then back at me.
"The Void hates anchors," she said quietly. "You found one. Don't let go."
She walked away to help with Silas.
I didn't understand what she meant.
But Nyssara stayed.
We sat against the wall.
Side by side. Not touching. But close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from her skin, could smell the copper of dried blood in her hair, could hear every careful breath she took around her broken ribs.
The scythe lay across my lap like a sleeping predator.
She didn't say anything.
Neither did I.
The healers worked. Golden light flickered across the warehouse, casting strange shadows that danced with the ones pooling around my blade. Damian's arm was saved; weak, damaged, but attached. Silas's curse was stabilizing; the black veins would scar permanent, but he would live.
And on my arms, the corruption had pulled back.
I kept looking at it. At the black lines that had retreated from my temples, crawled back down my neck, settled somewhere around my collarbones like they were waiting. I should have had six hours left. Now it looked like twelve. Maybe more.
I didn't understand how.
"Gross," Malgrin whispered. First thing he'd said since the fight. "Effective, apparently. But gross."
I ignored him.
Nyssara's breathing had changed. Slower. Deeper. The rhythm of someone fighting sleep.
"You should rest," I said.
Stolen story; please report.
"So should you."
"I can't. The scythe."
"I know."
Silence.
Then, so quiet I almost missed it: "I'll stay awake with you."
Something in my chest did something I couldn't name. Her hair really looked like tangerines.
The hours passed strange and slow.
The healers finished their work and left, one by one, until only the old woman remained to watch over Damian. Silas was unconscious, his body fighting the last battles the curse had left behind. The middle-aged woman's prayers faded into the dark.
Just us now.
Her hand moved.
Slowly. So slowly I might have imagined it if I hadn't been watching from the corner of my eye. Across the space between us. Coming to rest on my knee, just above where the blade lay quiet.
She didn't look at me.
I didn't look at her.
The wounds in my palm were still bleeding; they wouldn't stop until I slept, and I couldn't sleep until this was over. Blood welled up between my fingers, dark and wrong.
I put my hand over hers anyway.
She didn't pull away.
My blood soaked into her skin. Stained her knuckles. Ran down between her fingers like we were both wounded, both bleeding, both holding on to something we couldn't name.
She didn't pull away.
"Genuinely disgusting," Malgrin said. "The blood, I mean. Not the... whatever this is. The whatever-this-is is surprisingly not terrible. For humans. Who are usually terrible."
"Just shut the fuck up, Malgrin"
He did.
Nyssara smiled.
We sat like that until the light changed. Grey becoming gold through the broken windows. Gold becoming grey again as clouds moved across a sun that didn't know the world might end today.
Not talking.
Not planning.
Not calculating anything at all.
Just two people holding hands in a palace chamber full of blood and sleeping allies and the quiet aftermath of something neither of us understood.
I must have drifted.
Not sleep. But something close; a grey space between waking and dreaming where thoughts moved slow like honey and time lost its edges.
When I came back, dawn was pressing against the windows and Nyssara's head was on my shoulder.
She was asleep.
Her breathing was slow and even, her body finally surrendering to exhaustion despite the broken ribs, despite the danger, despite everything. She had stayed awake as long as she could. Then she hadn't.
I didn't move.
The scythe whispered that her throat was right there. That her pulse was visible. That she was helpless and soft and so easy to...
I didn't move. It vanished.
I just sat there with her weight against my side and her blood-stained fingers still tangled with mine and watched the light change and didn't think about anything at all.
"You know," Malgrin said quietly, "in three hundred years, I have never seen a host do what you just did."
"What did I do?"
"Nothing. The blade was screaming at you for an hour. Showing you exactly how to kill her. And you did nothing. Just sat there."
"She was tired."
"That's not why."
I didn't answer.
"The corruption," he continued. "It's pulled back another centimeter since you started doing nothing. Just so you know."
I looked at my arm.
He was right.
The black veins had retreated further. Not much. But enough to notice. Enough to matter.
"How?" I asked.
"My first guess: Her trust. Something the Void can't eat because it doesn't know what it is." He paused. "She gave you something you didn't pay for. You accepted it without calculating the cost. That's not supposed to happen. The math doesn't work."
"The math never works with her."
"No. It doesn't." Another pause. "That's probably why you like her so much."
I didn't know what to say to that.
So I said nothing.
Just sat there, holding hands with a sleeping woman who should have been my enemy, watching dawn arrive over a city that might not survive the day.
She woke with a start.
Pulled away. Looked around. Remembered where she was and what had happened and found my eyes in the grey morning light.
Neither of us spoke.
The space where her head had been was cold now. The space where our hands had been was empty.
"The coronation," she said finally. Her voice was rough with sleep.
"Three hours."
"Less now."
"Less now."
She stood. Stretched. Winced at her ribs but didn't complain. Picked up her sword from where it lay beside us and tested the weight like she was relearning what it meant to hold a weapon.
I stood too. The Schattenblade still bound, still hungry. But quiet. Almost peaceful. Like it had decided to wait and see what happened before demanding more blood.
"After this is over," she started.
"I know."
"You don't know. You think you know, but you don't."
"Probably."
"Definitely." She almost smiled. Almost. "We need to talk about what this is. What we are. All of it."
"I know."
"You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"Saying you know when you don't know anything."
She was right. I didn't know anything. Didn't understand why she had walked into my arms when I was trying to kill her. Didn't understand why she had stayed. Didn't understand the warmth in my chest that had nothing to do with corruption and everything to do with the way she was looking at me right now.
"After," I said. "We'll figure it out after."
"After," she agreed.
She turned toward the door. Paused. Turned back.
"Yozi."
"What?"
She crossed the space between us in two steps and kissed my cheek.
Quick. Light. Gone before I could react.
"For luck," she said. And then, quieter: "And because I wanted to."
She walked away.
I stood there with my hand on my cheek and the veins humming confused questions and absolutely no idea what had just happened.
"Did she just - " Malgrin wanted to ruin it.
"Don't."
"But...."
"Don't."
He fell silent.
I followed her out the door.
Into the afternoon.
Into whatever came next.
The corruption on my arms had pulled back another half-centimeter.
I didn't understand the math.
Maybe I didn't need to. My mind was busy drawing stickfigures next to the equation on the paper.
And their smiles looked crooked.
--- SPECTACLE REPORT: SYSTEM ANOMALY ---
Performance Rating: [ERROR: UNQUANTIFIABLE] Malgrin's Note: "I am attempting to calculate the survival probability based on current power levels. However, the host has introduced a new variable: 'Holding Hands.' This variable has no known mana cost, yet it pushed back the Void corruption by 4%. That... shouldn't be possible. I hate it when the math doesn't work. Do it again."
CORRUPTION STATUS:
-
Level: Regressed. (You bought yourself time).
-
Cause: [REDACTED: SENTIMENTALITY].
ENTITY UPDATE:
-
Yozi: Confused. (Stick figures? Really?).
-
Nyssara: Anchor.
-
The Scythe: Sleeping. (For now).
NEXT OBJECTIVE:
-
The Coronation.
-
Current Status: We are going to be late.