Wyn was encouraged to find that the infirmary at the guild was actually quite robust. Unlike the other guild buildings, it was not raised up on a stone terrace, but rather set between two of them, and pressed against the back wall. As he entered beneath the tiled awning, the warmth of lanternlight gave way to the steadier radiance of lightstones, set into sturdy fixtures above each bed.

There were actually far fewer wounded than he expected. More than half of the men and women present were from the group he'd brought in, already being treated by a bevy of healers. More of the green butterflies he'd noticed had gathered here, still alighting on people's wounds and healing them slightly before turning red and drifting off. A few children brushed past him, apparently cleared to rejoin the others so soon.

He approached the nearest healer and got her attention. "Excuse me, I'm looking for an Elis? Guildmistress Cennet sent me."

"Oh, mister Elis? Yes he's just over there helping that young woman," the healer said, perking up at the mention and pointing him in the right direction.

On one of the beds nearest the entrance, Sadirah was being treated for her shoulder wound by a man wearing a simple white mask. He had messy white hair which parted in the middle, held out of his eyes by a headband. Despite the color, he wasn't actually old, and the upper half of a youthful face was clearly visible above his mask.

"How are you feeling?" Wyn prodded, as he walked over.

She looked over, her eyelids seeming heavy. "The pain is mostly gone. I'm tired though."

"It is lucky she got here when she did," the healer said. His voice was soft, and soothing in a way unlike Wyn had ever heard before, like a gentle stream running over smooth stones. It was younger than he expected too, making his age hard to guess at, though he couldn't have reached his 30th year. "Whatever hit her was venomous, and the necrosis had already begun to spread. If it wasn't for her constitution, it may have worsened."

Wyn's eyes widened. "The venom, is it—"

"Purged," he confirmed. "And the wound has been treated." He turned to Sadirah. "As I said Miss, your body's aura is incredibly robust. You should recover after a good sleep, and you may feel more lethargic until you do, that's natural."

"That's good." Wyn breathed a sigh of relief, and Sadirah chuckled tiredly at his reaction.

"Now as for you sir, can I help you with something?" The healer asked.

"Yes, well, I was sent by the guildmistress to receive treatment. From you that is."

The healer, Elis, gave a small tilt of his head. "From me? That's unusual. I'm hardly the only one here."

Wyn shrugged apologetically.

A smile ghosted over the man's eyes. "Well then, I suppose I can't argue with the Guildmistress." He rose with a fluid grace, and ushered Wyn to an adjacent empty cot. "Take your shirt off for me, I'll start there."

Wyn nodded, and slipped his arm free from the torn sleeve, revealing the mottled bruises across his ribs, and the shallow cut near his collarbone.

Elis leaned in, examining the wounds without touching them at first. "Hm." His eyes were mismatched—one green, one gold, with scarring around the latter. The healer held up a hand, glowing green orbs gathering around his fingertips as he traced them over Wyn's skin.

Manifestation? Wyn's eyes widened slightly, but Elis just kept going.

"My, you're in worse shape than you look," he muttered. "You're surprisingly resilient."

"I've had worse before."

Elis chuckled under his breath. "I believe you." He pressed a hand against Wyn's shoulder, and it began to grow warm. "Pull your aura away from your shoulder please. It will be more painful if you don't."

Wyn obliged, drawing his aura away and focusing on the sensation of life aura touching his soul, trying to follow what Elis was doing. Healing techniques were something that interested him, especially if he could learn to use them indirectly with mana weaving, circumventing his pure aura.

For a moment, as concentrated life aura began to slip through the slightly porous boundary of his soul and burn away, Wyn was reminded of his time in Estin, where Tor would spend each morning doing something like it on a much greater scale. However, the sensation quickly changed.

It was like Elis had somehow molded a scalpel from his aura, and slit a tiny opening through which more could flow. Of course, spirit fire flared up and burned away the overflow, leaving nothing changed.

The healer seemed to frown, then fixed Wyn with a strange look. "That's not aura—what is that? Do you have some sort of blessing?"

"I wasn't sure how it would interact," Wyn admitted. "It's like a kind of poison resistance."

"And foreign mana acts as a poison, yes I see… Interesting." His eyes danced with something like curiosity as he sat back and seemed to reevaluate. "I've forgotten my manners it would seem. I never did ask your name."

Wyn blinked, a bit bemused. "It's Wyn."

"Elis," the healer nodded. "Where are you from, Wyn?"

"Straetum. It's a small village on the northern plateau, so you've likely never heard of it. Why do you ask?"

Elis paused for a long moment, deeper in thought than Wyn would have expected. "Curiosity, I suppose. Straetum…" His eyes closed, though Wyn got the impression he was smiling. "You're right, I can't say I've heard of it. Have you had this blessing for long?"

Wyn hesitated, but he supposed there was no harm in it. "Since I was a child, though I only really understood it last year."

Elis seemed to notice his expression, and chuckled softly. "Forgive me, I'm a healer. Oddities like this catch my interest, and I admit I've never seen a blessing quite the same. They can be a personal thing though, I understand." He reached for a small case beside him, revealing needles of faint silver and vials of different liquids. Reaching in, he took one of the needles and dipped it into a vial of a brown elixir. "This will only sting for a moment."

He slid the needle into Wyn's upper arm, though Wyn couldn't actually tell what it did—spirit fire didn't react, and neither did his aura—was it mundane?

"Now perhaps we could overpower that blessing of yours," Elis whispered. "But that isn't very efficient at all, so I'll see if I can think of anything more creative. A warning, you might feel your arm go numb, just ignore that."

Once more, the healer placed his hands onto Wyn's shoulder, sliding the aura-scalpel back into the already-healed boundary. Wyn felt life aura slip through the cut, and the veins in his arm began to glow, shining green through his skin. Spirit fire rushed in, even as he tried to hold it back.

Then his arm disappeared.

No, that wasn't right—he could still see it, it was still there, but all sensation from his shoulder down had faded completely. He couldn't move it, he couldn't feel it, but the veins still glowed, and as Wyn watched, the bruises began to fade as well, right in front of his eyes. Internally, his spirit fire seemed to sputter at the edge of his arm, as though it had reached the boundary of his soul.

"Tricky tricky," the healer muttered. "Your aura is so pure… it's like a newborn's. Stronger though, very strong for your age."

Wyn forced down a tinge of panic. Logically, he knew it was probably fine, but suddenly losing the ability to feel his arm was terrifying. "What did you do?"

"Careful. Keep a hold of your aura Wyn. If you let it slip, this won't work. Healing like this is a delicate art. Tell me about your hometown, or your past. Think of better times than these."

Wyn closed his eyes and let out a steady breath. At Elis's urging, he started to talk about Straetum—growing up in the valley, working as a guardian of the tomb, summers spent swimming in the river and lake—and slowly, he felt himself calm. As he talked, Elis moved from wound to wound, creating the same numbing sensation, and healing it entirely. It was soothing to simply think about something else, and Elis turned out to be a great listener, showing a real interest in his past.

"And these 'spirit glades' are so near your town? That sounds as though it could be dangerous."

"It could be," Wyn smiled. "But only if you broke the rules and went into them. In fact, if it hadn't been for a spirit knight, both me and my best friend would have died just like that."

Elis hummed thoughtfully. "A spirit knight, so far to the west? Whatever could he have been doing out there?"

Wyn hesitated for a moment before responding. "I never did find out."

"Is that so?" Elis looked up at Wyn, his gold eye piercing. "That's unfortunate. I'm sure it would have been an interesting tale indeed."

Inclined to change the subject, Wyn looked out the window of the infirmary. "So, how about you? Where are you from?"

Elis smiled, or at least, Wyn thought he did beneath the mask. "Ah, I suppose I don't sway well enough to pass for a local, do I?" His gaze grew distant. "Let's say I'm from a small village on the southern peninsula, nowhere of note."

"The warfront?" Wyn thought of it immediately. The southern peninsula was where the Nladian incursion had begun, and they still had territory there, matching the land that the alliance occupied in the north of Nladia. It was something of a symbol, from what Wyn understood—the war wasn't over, not really.

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"You could say that."

"I'm sorry," Wyn said.

Elis's face was steady as he continued working. "People often apologize for things they didn't cause. Isn't that a strange thing?" He laughed quietly to himself. "Your sympathies aren't necessary though, Wyn. That which I endured is just a product of this world, nothing more or less."

"A product of this world?"

"Something like that." Elis smiled, not elaborating any further. He worked quietly after that, cuts closing, bruises fading. He seemed to get faster as he went too, quickly adapting to whatever method he was using to bypass Wyn's spirit fire. When he finished, he leaned away and looked at Wyn from further back. "So, how do you feel?"

Wyn worked his shoulder, stretching and prodding his body as he let his spirit fire diminish. "Great, actually, that's incredible."

"That's good. I get the feeling we'll be needing you soon enough." Elis stood up, brushing off his pants. Then he tilted his head back and groaned dramatically. "Maaan that really took it out of me. I think I'll take a break now."

Wyn thought the healer suddenly seemed much younger than he had a moment before.

Elis sauntered off, but not before tapping one of the other healers on the shoulder. "Let me know if there's any more injured kids. I'll get up for them, but I'm taking a nap."

And just like that, he was gone, turning a corner and vanishing further into the building.

Wyn fell back against the bed, letting out a long sigh as he rested his head against the pillow on his cot. He really did feel better—healers were amazing. He bumped it up a spot on his list of things to study once they reached Taravast, which included but was not limited to mana weaving, the spirit arts, and local baking techniques.

His stomach growled at the thought, and he remembered he hadn't actually eaten. He wasn't sure how much he needed to with spirit fire—something else to test—but he would see if they had any rations in the guild before meeting with Guildmistress Shani again.

"Wyn?" A voice broke him out of his thoughts, and he slowly opened his eyes to see Sadirah standing over him. "Could we talk?"

He sat up slowly, and her eyes darted away as he pulled his shirt back on. "What's up?"

"Somewhere else?" She whispered, glancing back at the infirmary. Maybe it was a bit too clinical, or maybe she just wanted privacy, Wyn wasn't sure which, or if it was something else entirely.

"Sure, lead the way."

They walked out into the guild, stepping slowly. Wyn was surprised once again by the size of it all. Compared to the other guilds he'd seen, which tended to be singular buildings, maybe with a training yard or two, the guild in Liresil was a tiny town all its own. Even knowing what was going on outside the walls, it was spacious enough that he could almost forget.

"What did you talk with the guildmistress about?" Sadirah asked as they walked, her fingers fidgeting nervously in front of her.

"Just exchanging information," Wyn said, though he held back information about the cult's reach and other acolytes. There was no reason to worry her. "Did you know she's apparently related to one of the old sepals? Nasrin."

Sadirah shook her head. "She died around the same time I was born. By the time I was old enough to know what a sepal was, she had been long replaced."

"Well, I guess Eldress Shani thinks we might be able to figure something out between the two of us. And if I can get into touch with my friends, then we can organize a counterattack."

"How will you get in touch with them?" Sadirah frowned. "The city is flooded. You can't go out there on your own!"

"I can handle monsters Sadirah. But no, I wasn't planning on it. I have a way to get in touch with them—it should work if they are where I think they are. I just need a little more time."

She looked at him strangely, then turned her eyes to the rest of the guild. "A counterattack then? If you think it's a good idea, then who am I to gainsay it? The monsters have to slow down at some point, don't they?"

That might have been true under normal circumstances, but Wyn wasn't so sure now. Still, he just nodded.

"I feel better after Elis healed me," Wyn said. "Calmer. We're not without options, I promise."

"It just still doesn't feel real," Sadirah said as they walked beneath the walled terrace of a dueling arena. "I keep expecting to wake up back in my bed, and it will have all just been a nightmare."

Wyn glanced out over the pathway below, watching the adventurers run by on different assignments. Even in the safety of the guild, even after getting healed, he had to admit the atmosphere was still bleak.

"The nightmares tend to come after," he muttered, then winced, wishing he'd bitten his tongue. "Sorry."

She didn't seem too hurt by it though. "Ah, you mentioned monsters attacking your village didn't you?"

Wyn laughed dryly. "It happened twice, actually."

"And your father…"

"It was a long time ago." He looked down at the palm of his hand, clenching and unclenching his fist. He was fine. "The second time wasn't as bad. I was stronger then. I'm stronger now."

Beside him, Sadirah stopped walking. Wyn took another step before realizing, and turned back. She was staring at the flagstones, her jaw tight, lips pressed into a line.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"For what?" he asked gently.

"For dragging you out here and… wasting time on nothing. I thought I could get it all out, but…" she grabbed onto her now healed shoulder and seemed to squeeze it. "Every time I try, the words just fall apart."

Wyn studied her for a moment—the way she grit her teeth, the way her lilac hair fell in front of her eye like she wanted to hide. The way she stood tall anyways, like she refused to do just that. Then, he looked up at the rooftop of the building next to them, which curved like green-painted leaves atop the grey stone.

"Here," Wyn said. "Follow me." He leapt up onto the roof, gesturing for her to follow.

Sadirah peered up from below, crossing her arms. "I can't make that jump."

Wyn raised an eyebrow. He felt a phantom ache in his back from a kick with too much force behind it.

"I really mean it," she protested, her cheeks coloring. "I wouldn't—I'm not lying Wyn. Please believe me?"

Finally, he sighed, and held out a hand. She looked up at it like it were a strange star in the sky, then reached out and let herself be pulled up.

The roof of the guild building sloped gently, curving up and down, before ending abruptly against the enormous trunk of Haoma in the back. He led her, shaky-footed, to a section of the roof on the side, secluded from the rest of the city.

Wyn lay back against the lacquered wooden shingles—it wasn't very comfortable, but he tried to settle in anyways. The battle had waned at the walls, and though the adventurer's guild rumbled like a building storm, the city beyond was quiet, like the silence at a wake.

"Just… take your time."

That was all he said.

The air smelled faintly of smoke, mixed with the oils of weapons and pungent spices. It was an overwhelming scent. Wyn took a deep breath anyways, the flames inside him rising and falling with his chest as he looked up at the stars through the gaps in the leaves. He didn't say anything more. He just waited, hearing the nervous girl fidget beside him until she finally spoke.

"I know… I know that there's something different about me." Sadirah's voice was a whisper. "If I really think about it, I know that. It's always been that way. I have to be careful, because sometimes if I'm not, I hurt people. I think I've hurt people before. I mean, really hurt people. But Wyn, I don't remember."

Wyn slowly looked over, trying to reconcile the girl beside him with the massive crater in the midst of the city. "What do you mean?"

She shook her head. "I can't remember much before Father took me in, and even after, it's spotty. So much of my childhood is just… gone. At the plaza, I remember trying to protect Rea, I just thought I couldn't let her get hurt. I remember the pain in my shoulder, and then slamming into the ground. But after that? Nothing. It's all blank. I don't know why I was crying—but I felt like I'd lost something important. And I was afraid, Wyn. Terrified."

"Of what?"

"Myself." Her voice cracked.

And Wyn could only wish he knew what to say. He tried to force something out, some words of reassurance, but he couldn't.

"I wonder if they're all scared right now," Sadirah whispered. "I hope so, if only it means they're all alright. Do you think they're okay Wyn? Do you really?"

"I do," Wyn said. "They're probably scared, and they probably miss you. But they're okay Sadirah. Believe that."

"If… if I wasn't so afraid, do you think I could save them?" She raised her hand and looked into her palm. Wyn's eyes caught on her bandaged arm again. Some of them had torn earlier, and he saw red beneath. Her voice trembled. "If I just wasn't so weak, then surely… I could go to them, and hold them in my arms, and tell them everything would be okay. So why am I so scared?"

Wyn remembered the aura streaming off of her. At that moment, she'd been stronger than him by far. If she could actually use it? What could she do? But he saw the tears brimming in her eyes, and he heard the shaking of her voice.

"You don't have to do any of that." She looked his way, her eyes meeting his. And he uttered a promise. "You can just leave everything to me. I'll make everything work out. Okay?"

Her lips parted faintly, staring into the silence between them. Then, she turned her head back towards the sky. "Wyn… I have two favors to ask."

"What are they?"

"Protect them, Wyn. From this siege, from the Withering, whatever it takes. I don't want them to die."

He nodded. "I promise. And the second?"

"Can you turn around?" She let out a single, choking laugh. "I think I'm going to cry."

Slowly, Wyn rolled over onto his side, looking out over the walls. But as he listened to the sobbing girl behind him, he couldn't help but reach back. He took her hand.

She squeezed it back—too tightly.

***

It was quiet.

Sadirah had fallen asleep shortly after their conversation, completely exhausted from everything that had happened. Her chest slowly rose and fell, and her pained face was soft in sleep's embrace.

Wyn had things to do, and he knew the guildmistress was waiting for him. Still, it was a detour he considered worth it, for more reasons than one. He'd carry Sadirah back to the infirmary to let her rest, then start planning their next move. Though, before he did that, there was one last thing he wanted to see.

He peered past the veil of the mundane, and when he did, he could see aura drifting out of her that hadn't been there before. It didn't seem pure like his own, but it was similar, a pearlescent white that seemed to shift into other color gradients as it drifted away.

I knew I recognized it. It's the same as the mana at The House of Spring. He remembered thinking that the mana there was unusually thick, and of a strange aspect too. This confirmed it, it was the same. Whatever is suppressing that power, it loosens when she sleeps. Since she's always there, it's built up over time?

Considering the circumstances, he wondered if it was somehow connected to emotion. It was aura after all, and from what he understood, a channeler's aura could ebb and flow with their mental state—though not so dramatically.

But what if it wasn't something as simple as aura? According to Iillia, Wyn had borne the blessing of spirit fire since he was a child. And in hindsight, he could see the signs had been there. And yet, the events of the flood had fully awoken it, letting him harness his own powers more fully.

He looked again at Sadirah's sleeping face, so light of burden. If it was something like that, and her heightened emotions—fear, pain, anxiety—were the key to drawing on whatever power slumbered within? He didn't want to put her through it.

He hoped his shoulders were wide enough to hold it all. No, they had to be.

At the same time as he came to that decision, he finally got the message he'd been waiting for.

Wyn? Eia's voice entered his mind, and he sat up, eyes burning in the dark.

What's the situation?

The acolyte. He finally stopped.

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