Chapter 25
XAVIAN
The preparations had taken longer than I'd hoped, each rune etched into the crumbling stone of the churchyard wall demanding more focus than I could easily spare in my exhausted state.
The thin spot there, where the Shardline wore gossamer-thin, hummed faintly under my touch, responding to the anchors I'd set—crude things, really, crystals scavenged from old mortal trinkets and infused with what power I could muster.
It wasn't elegant, not like the crossings I'd known in Velrith, where sigils flowed like water and the veil parted with a whisper.
Here, it would be brute force, shoving Virelya through first, letting its bound energy tear open a rift wide enough for us to follow before the Shardline snapped shut like a trap.
The blade's power, amplified by the runes I'd prepared, should hold the opening for a handful of seconds, maybe ten if we were lucky.
I'd have to carry Morgan through, her weakness leaving no room for her to navigate it alone, and pray the surge didn't unravel her further on the way.
My own magic, frayed and muted on this side, couldn't guarantee a clean passage; it would be like forcing a door with a rusted hinge, risking splinters that could wound us both.
If we survived—and that was no certainty—the other side offered slim chances for refuge.
Velrith's edges, where the exile had spat me out years ago, were wild and unclaimed, fringes of House territories that no one bothered to patrol closely.
There might be a healer's enclave nearby depending on where we cross over to, one of the neutral outposts where rogue practitioners traded services for relics or favors, unbound by the great Houses' politics.
I'd crossed paths with one once, a woman named Seryth who mended wounds with threads of essence, her skills sharp enough to perhaps reattach what I'd severed, if the preservation rune held and we reached her before infection set in.
Trust was a fragile thing, though; Seryth technically owed me nothing, and word of my return would spread like fire through dry grass.
My list of allies was short, painfully so—a few old contacts came to mind, hidden in the borderlands, but reaching them meant evading pursuit long enough to send a message.
If no one, at least I would have my full magic back.
We could hole up in the ruins, scavenging what we could until Morgan stabilized, but that carried its own risks, the wilds teeming with creatures drawn to fresh crossings.
Everything hinged on getting through alive, on her holding together despite the blood loss and shock.
Those thoughts churned in my mind as I slipped back into the warehouse, the outer wards humming faintly behind me, a temporary veil against prying eyes.
The hour had nearly run its course, and urgency tightened my chest, the knowledge that Lirac's report would summon more pressing like a weight on my shoulders.
Morgan would be as I left her, pale and drifting on the cot, too weak to stand, her fever broken but her body still mending from the trauma.
I'd have to carry her the short distance to the churchyard, bundle her in my coat against the chill, and hope the motion didn't reopen the wound.
The blade, with her severed hand still gripping its hilt in that grotesque preservation, would go first, piercing the veil to force the way.
Then us, tumbling through into whatever waited on the other side.
I steeled myself for it, pushing open the door to the inner room, ready to gather her up and—
She was standing.
Not slumped against the wall or struggling to sit, but fully upright, dressed in the spare clothes I'd brought for her days ago, the jacket pulled on over her shirt, her stance steady if a touch cautious.
Her face had color, not the ghostly pallor from before, but a flush that spoke of circulation, of strength returning rather than ebbing away.
She turned toward me as I entered, her eyes clear and focused, meeting mine without the haze of pain or fever that had clouded them for hours.
The bandaged stump of her right arm hung at her side, wrapped neatly, but her left hand flexed slightly, as if testing its grip, and there was an energy about her, a readiness that shouldn't have been possible.
I stopped in the doorway, the plans fracturing in my mind, replaced by a stunned silence as I took her in.
This wasn't right. She should have been too weak to rise, her body still reeling from the blood loss, the surge's aftermath leaving her bedridden for days at best. Yet here she stood, composed and alert, the air around her humming faintly with something I recognized all too well—rune energy, but stronger, more vibrant than anything I'd managed in this muted world.
"What... how?" The words came out rough, my voice catching on the surprise, as I stepped fully into the room, closing the distance between us without thinking.
My gaze swept over her, noting the details that confirmed it: the steadiness in her legs, no tremble or sway; the way her breathing came even and deep, not the shallow gasps from before; the subtle glow under her sleeve where something pulsed with power.
She looked... restored, not completely, but far beyond what the sealing runes on her wound should have achieved.
I reached out, almost instinctively, to steady her or check for illusion, but she didn't need it, standing firm as I studied her closer.
Her skin had regained its warmth, the clamminess gone, and when I gently pushed up her left sleeve, there it was: a rune carved into her flesh above the elbow, the lines precise despite the makeshift nature, glowing with that soft blue light I'd seen in my own workings, but brighter, more sustained.
The cuts were fresh, blood crusted at the edges, but already sealing themselves, the skin knitting in a way that spoke of amplified healing, power flowing through her veins as if the mortal world's stifling grip didn't touch her as it did me.
She met my gaze steadily, a mix of defiance and that sharp curiosity I'd come to recognize, her voice stronger than it had been since the incident.
"I couldn't just lie there waiting for you to carry me out like baggage.
The hour was ticking, and I felt like crap, too weak to even stand.
But the runes you drew... they were humming, giving off this warmth that dulled the pain a little.
I remembered what you said outside, about amplifying the bind, strengthening things.
So I... I carved one into my arm. The spiral one, with the intersecting lines.
It hurt like hell, but then it started glowing, and this energy rushed through me.
Not fixing everything, but enough to steady me, push back the weakness.
I can move without feeling like I'm going to pass out. "
Her explanation hung there, simple in its telling but profound in what it meant, and I felt a wave of awe crash through me, genuine and unguarded, cutting through the urgency and exhaustion like sunlight through fog.
She had done this, on her own, in a world where my own runes flickered and faded, their power suffocated by the thin mortal air.
Yet hers burned steady, the glow under her skin brighter than anything I'd managed since the exile, sealing her self-inflicted wounds and bolstering her strength in ways that defied the limitations here.
If she could channel that much in the mortal realm, where magic thinned to echoes, then her connection ran deeper than I'd guessed, her latent power not just stirring but thriving, adapting in ways mine couldn't. It stunned me, leaving me staring at the rune on her arm, tracing its lines with my eyes, noting how the energy pulsed without faltering, knitting flesh and steadying her from within.
I stepped back slightly, recalibrating everything in an instant, the plans shifting under this new reality.
The crossing, that brutal shove through the veil, had loomed as a death sentence for her in my mind, her frailty a chain that could snap under the strain.
But now, with this strength flowing through her, the odds tilted, the risk of the Shardline tearing her apart diminishing.
She could walk through on her own feet, perhaps even lend her power to the anchors if needed, stabilizing the rift from her side.
The blade's silence added to the strangeness, that eerie stillness persisting since the surge, her severed hand still gripping the hilt in its preserved state, as if the entity within had gone dormant, watching or waiting.
No whispers clawed at my thoughts, no hunger gnawed at my veins, just a profound quiet that unsettled me even as it cleared my mind.
With her amplified like this, the crossing felt less like a desperate gamble and more like a viable path, one where we might emerge on the other side intact, ready to face whatever pursued us.
"You... you carved it yourself," I said finally, my voice low, laced with that awe I couldn't fully mask, as I met her eyes again, seeing the resolve there, the spark that had drawn me to her from the start.
"In this world, where power fades, yours holds strong.
Stronger than mine. That changes things.
The crossing... you might make it through without me carrying you. But we move now, before they breach."
The stillness from the blade lingered in the room, a heavy quiet that amplified the hum from her rune, and as I gathered our scant supplies, I recalculated the steps ahead, the thin spot waiting, the rift we'd force open.
With her like this, awakened in ways I hadn't anticipated, survival felt closer, the path through the Shardline a little less like stepping into oblivion.