Tomas pulled the door shut behind them and let out a breath he'd been holding since they walked in. He turned to Vel.
"Never in my life did I think I'd stand face to face with the royal family," he said. "Let alone a prince."
Vel said nothing, so he went on.
"He seemed nice, though."
"Seemed so," Vel said.
The word was doing a lot of work. Tomas didn't catch it.
They started down the corridor, footsteps low against the stone.
"Didn't Rohen say there was tension between the crown heirs?" Vel asked.
Tomas thought back. "Something like that. Why?"
"Now one of them works behind his brother's back." Vel kept his voice down. "So which is it. Is he here because it's his duty..." He let the question hang a step. "Or because he chose to be? Among commoners."
Tomas slowed. "You're saying he wanted to be here. Because of us?"
Vel turned it over a moment.
"Think about it. An errand like this, any of his people could have run it." Vel frowned. "Or maybe he knew there was nothing useful among the nobles."
Tomas glanced sideways at him. "Should we follow what he said?"
"For now." Vel let it settle. "We keep the Archmagister away from their judgment."
Tomas nodded, though the crease stayed on his brow.
At the split in the hall, Vel stopped.
"I need to see Clara," he said. "Tell the others not to wait for me."
"You sure? On your own?"
"I'll be fine."
Tomas hesitated, then gave a short nod. "Then I'll head back." He lifted a hand. "Get some rest after, if you can find the time."
"You too."
They traded their goodbyes and parted ways.
---
The two guards at the recovery room door nodded him through. Vel took a breath before he pushed the handle down.
The bed stood sideways to the door, the tall window beyond it.
Clara sat propped against the pillows with the blanket drawn over her legs.
Her gaze rested somewhere past the glass. Whatever held her attention, it wasn't the courtyard.
She didn't notice him until he stopped beside the bed.
Vel dropped into the chair beside the bed.
"Clara-san."
She turned. Her gaze settled on him and held there a long moment before she spoke.
"You are... Vel. Right?"
She had the name, but nothing behind it. Someone must have given it to her while she healed.
"That's right." Vel nodded. "You probably don't remember. I brought your party some food, back in Oakhaven."
He almost smiled at it.
"Honka called it leftovers."
Recognition reached her only then.
"You've grown," Clara said. "The kid I remember was scrawny."
Vel let out a small chuckle.
"How are you feeling? Anything abnormal?"
"Like waking up from a nightmare." She considered it a moment longer. "Into a world you no longer recognize."
Vel knew that feeling. Better than he cared to.
"But I'm mostly fine. Physically." Clara flexed the fingers of her metal hand as she said it, one after another, as if checking they still answered her.
It felt strange, seeing Clara without her platinum-ranked armor, in nothing but a simple white recovery gown. Vel had known her one way until now, and this wasn't it.
His eyes went from the gown to the collar, to the points where the metal pinned itself into her flesh. He leaned in without meaning to.
"That looks like it hurts," he said.
Clara's flesh hand rose and stopped short of touching it. "It's nothing, really." She managed a smile for him. "A lot better than the other way..."
She let that go unfinished and turned back toward the window.
Vel let the silence sit a moment before he broke it.
Somehow, he had to tell her about Celia.
"How much do you remember?" he asked.
Clara didn't answer. Her breathing went shallow, careful, the way it does around a wound.
"It's okay if you can't remember," Vel said quickly.
"It's just..." Vel kept his eyes on her, and had to find the rest of it. "There's something you should know. About Celia."
The name went through her. A twitch she hadn't chosen, running from the metal shoulder down, close to a shake before she caught it.
She said nothing after that. She only sat there, still turned toward the window, braced for whatever he had carried in with him.
Vel drew a breath. "During our fight with the Demon Lord..."
"She was..."
Clara's metal fingers curled against the blanket.
"...badly injured."
Clara turned from the window, but her eyes settled on her lap instead of on him. "How bad?"
Vel didn't look away.
"Fatally."
Clara drew a slow breath and turned her face away again.
She stayed like that for several long seconds.
When she looked back, her eyes had reddened.
"I told her to stay out of trouble."
The blanket drew tight in her metal fist.
"But she never listened. Always wanting to learn swordplay."
"To be like me, she said."
Her free hand found her face.
Tears fell into her lap. She made no sound at all.
Vel laid his hand on her metal arm before she could go any deeper into it. He wasn't sure she could feel it through the metal.
"There's something else," he said. "She... might not be completely gone."
She wiped the tears away and turned to him, unhurried.
"What do you mean? I saw..."
So she does remember.
"Before death could take hold, I stopped the process."
"You... How?" Curiosity pushed the tears aside.
"A spell. One that maintains her body, and keeps it from reaching the final state."
"Even then..." Clara searched his face. "In all my years as an adventurer, I never saw anyone bring back the dead."
"Some tried. What came back were mindless undead." Her voice wavered.
"You're right. No spell in this world can do that kind of miracle." His hand stayed where it was. "But I'll find one."
"As her sister, I hope you agree with my decision to keep Celia preserved...until we can find a way."
Vel held her gaze. He needed her to hear it as a promise, not as a comfort.
Maybe she didn't believe him. Maybe she did, and wouldn't let herself hold a hope that might turn false.
She studied him a while. The tears had dried at the corners of her eyes.
Then she leaned back into the pillows and looked away. Vel's hand slid off her arm.
"In the fairytale I used to tell Celia, there was a place," she said. "A sacred hall, where every warrior who gave their life in battle would go."
"To die for others is the highest honor a warrior can earn. To let them go is how you respect it."
Clara looked down at her metal hand again.
"...So silly..."
The way she said it, Vel couldn't tell whether she meant Celia or herself.
"What if there's none. What if you never find one." She turned to him. "Would she stay like that forever?"
He didn't have to think about it. That had been decided long ago.
"Then I'll make one."
Clara didn't answer. She looked at him, long and unhurried, and Vel held still under it.
She was reading him. He could feel it, the same measuring look she must have turned on every threat she'd ever faced, weighing what he was, whether his word was worth anything.
Whatever she was after, she found it. Or she ran out of reasons to keep looking.
Then her hand found his. The metal one, gripping harder than she seemed to know. Vel didn't pull away.
She nodded.
"Save my sister."
Vel had heard those words before, in a different voice.
He returned the nod.
"I will."
Footsteps carried in from the walkway outside. More than one set, and one heavier than the rest.
Then came a knock.
"Clara. It's me."
Vel hadn't heard that voice in a long while.
Clara pulled her attention from him. She drew herself up against the pillows and smoothed the blanket flat, and by the time her hand went still, nothing of the last hour was left on her face.
"Come in."
The door opened on Graham, Vice Headmaster of the Adventurer's Guild in Elnor.
Behind him stood a larger frame, filling what was left of the doorway.
Honka.
They stepped through.
Graham stopped beside the bed, studying her for a long moment before speaking.
"I see you already have good company." His glance settled on Vel. "You gave us quite the scare."
Clara smiled faintly.
"Still trying to piece things together."
Honka's eyes found Vel as well, and stayed there longer than Graham's had, looking like he hadn't expected the boy to be in this room.
Vel stood and stepped to the side, leaving the space by the bed to them.
"Word of you reached Elnor before you did," Graham said. "Every morning someone came asking whether we'd heard from you."
"It wasn't pleasant having nothing to tell them."
He let out a quiet breath.
"We had lost hope."
"Bah." Honka's voice filled the room. "It'd take more than a pack of oversized mutts to put her down."
Clara smiled at that.
"Maybe this is too soon," Graham said, the ease leaving his voice. "But if you're able, I'd like to hear what happened from you. If not, it can wait."
No one filled the quiet that followed.
Clara used it to gather herself. She thought about it a long while.
Then her hand went to the back of her neck, and she winced, as if reaching for the memory cost her something in the body as well.
She straightened her back.
"It still come in pieces..."
"...you remember the Alphas."
Graham nodded once. Honka didn't move at all, which from him said more than anything he could have shouted.
"I didn't have the strength to put them down. Less still, in the state I was in."
"So I ran. Back to the portal." Her voice found its footing. "If I could locate the source, I thought I might close it before anything more came through."
"But..."
She stopped, brow tight.
"The portal changed."
---
Clara stood in front of the portal, chest heaving. The greatsword was too heavy to lift now, its point dragging a furrow through the dirt behind her, its spine catching the faint moonlight.
Blood seeped through the bandage at her shoulder.
Then it pulsed. A low thrum rolled through the clearing, deep enough to vibrate in her ribs.
The violet surface folded inward into a vortex, then flashed.
A cloaked figure stepped through. Slender. Pale skin.
"What... Who are you?"
She got the sword up between them. It took everything she had left.
He tilted his head. The sword between them did not seem to concern him.
"Are you with the Wulfang?!"
Still no answer. Only that same attention.
Clara braced to charge.
Then the ground began to carry sound. A stampede, building, and behind it the howls. She knew what was coming before the first of them broke the treeline.
They came out of the trees heads low, growling.
Then spreading, fanning wide, as more filled the ground between her and the dark.
The figure stepped forward, past her. Whatever she did next was of no concern to him.
He stopped between her and the pack, posture straight, hands behind his back. No weapon. No guard.
The growling deepened, and Clara could feel it. She was no longer their target.
Before any of them could move, he was gone.
For a few seconds the space in front of her stood empty.
Then he was back, standing exactly where he had vanished from, his cloak still settling.
Far back, past every rank of them, a heavy thud shook the forest.
One of the Alphas fell, well behind its own lines. The cut through its neck was deep and clean.
Frenzy flared in the remaining Alpha's eyes. It bared its teeth and dropped into its attack crouch.
Then it howled.
The army moved in an instant. Some growled, others huffed.
The formation fanned out and closed in on a single point. Dirt kicked up behind them under the pale light.
Yet at the other end, the figure stood still.
The first of them left the ground, jaws wide, teeth sharp and ready to snap.
But before it even reached an arm's length, its flesh tore open, its body split apart, shoulder to hip. Blood colored the ground where it had been.
The cloaked figure's hands were still behind his back.
Then the next one. Same fate.
The Wulfang assault became denser, faster. But none of them reached their target.
Bodies piled up around the being.
To the Wulfang, it seemed there was an invisible blade waiting for them.
But to Clara, she saw it. Almost.
Not the being himself. His afterimage. Cutting down every Wulfang with his bare hands.
He was fast. Too fast. And that was the least of it.
Clara had measured every monster she ever fought in a single glance. This one gave her nothing to measure.
As the herd thinned, the attacks slowed. They had grown wary.
Then the opening revealed itself.
The figure came flying, palm out like a spearhead, through the second Alpha's throat and out the other side.
He landed near where he had started.
The blood had gone everywhere. None of it on him.
Then, he walked toward her.
Unhurried.
His hands remained behind his back, as though nothing here had ever demanded otherwise.
"This world is also infested."
He stopped.
"A purge is in order."
Then the smile came. Slow, spreading. Like he had finally found what he was looking for.
Only then did he turn to the portal.
It pulsed faster now, the rhythm uneven, as though the passage itself were beginning to collapse.
"Unfortunately, this visitation cannot be prolonged."
"What are you saying?!"
Clara did not fully understand what this being wanted.
But she knew that look. And her gut had already decided.
His arm left his back and rose to his shoulder.
Clara braced the greatsword and charged.
Then, darkness. Somewhere in it, his voice echoed through.
"You... shall be the anchor."
---
Clara's hand closed around the collar. This time the pain escaped her, a short sound through clenched teeth.
"What happened after that was nothing but gaps."
"Before I knew it, I was here."
For a while none of them spoke.
Vel turned the story over. He had thought he understood how the portals worked. But two different threats came out from the same portal?
"What did he mean by that," Graham said. "The anchor."
Clara shook her head. She sat with the question a while longer.
On the blanket, her metal hand closed into a fist. There was something she wasn't ready to give up yet.
Vel stepped in before Graham could press.
"Who was controlling you?" Vel asked. "Do you know?"
Clara looked down.
"His name..."
"...argh—"
The wince took her harder this time. Her whole body pulled in around it, as though the collar had decided the name was not hers to give.
"His name is..."
The collar bit again.
Her fingers dug into the blanket, the name ground out through her teeth.
"Beliath."
Clara breathed out. Her hand still hadn't left her neck.
"He is a demon lord. That much I know." She looked up. "He came from somewhere past the portal."
Graham was quiet a moment.
"We've crossed countless portals."
"Every one of them led to monsters."
"This is the first time we've found a world looking back."
The room went quiet again. Vel had nothing to add that they didn't already fear.
Graham exhaled.
"Whatever it is, there's nothing we can do about it right now. Not in this room."
He turned to Honka.
"Honka. Was there something you wanted to say?"
It didn't sound like a question. It sounded like a reminder.
"That's..."
Honka scratched the back of his bald head. Vel had come to know the gesture. It surfaced whenever the man was embarrassed.
But Clara spoke first.
"You haven't changed at all."
"Changed? Hah!"
He dropped into a stance. "I've only gotten stronger!"
Then he let it fall away.
"But this isn't about me..."
He looked to Graham. The Vice Headmaster seemed to already know what was coming.
Then Honka went down. Both knees, head bowed low, both hands flat on the floor.
"Clara Freznoria." His voice came out solemn and tight. "I must take this moment to seek your forgiveness."
Clara's face shifted to confusion. "Honka, what—"
"It was my fault you lost your arm."
He lowered his head even further.
"If I'd done my job... if I'd listened to you..."
"Maybe you would've been strong enough."
"...Maybe Oakhaven wouldn't have fallen."
"...and everything after."
The room fell silent. Vel had never seen the boisterous monk so subdued.
He lifted his head.
"It was my fault. All of it, that day." His broad shoulders slumped.
Graham stepped forward and set a weathered hand on his shoulder.
"Every time the Guild offered him a promotion to Platinum, he turned it down," the Vice Headmaster said. "Said he had no right to wear that rank."
Clara looked at him for a while. Then she lifted the blanket aside and set her legs down over the edge of the bed, facing him straight.
"Old friend."
"I don't think I can give you one."
The words struck him harder than a shout.
His shoulders stiffened.
"Because I never held it against you."
"We all made choices that day. Mine was to stay behind."
The next words seemed to turn inside herself.
"And some of them, we just have to live with. No matter how long you turn the past over, none of it changes."
"So look inward. Look forward. That's the only place your forgiveness is."
Honka thought about it.
Then his massive shoulders tensed.
"It doesn't feel right. Like I can just pretend it never happened."
Clara let out a long breath.
"Then look at him."
Honka frowned.
"You led the survivors out after all."
Her eyes had gone to Vel.
"One of them is sitting right here."
"Fate is a strange thing. To think our paths would cross again like this."
She turned back to Honka. He had turned toward Vel too, though his eyes stopped short of meeting him.
A shake of her head. Then she punched his shoulder, light.
"Fine. You owe me a favor. I'll call it in later."
The silence held. For the first time, it felt unbearable.
Graham cleared his throat and stepped forward.
"One more thing, about the debrief. I'd rather keep it quiet."
"But the Kingdom and the Church can't look away. Not anymore. They'll want your word at the Tribunal."
"It's fine." Clara's metal fingers clinked against the bed frame. "That will be easy."
Her gaze drifted, as if she had stopped herself from saying more.
Whatever she had lived through, Vel understood she meant to keep it to herself.
"Well. This has been pleasant. But we'll take our leave."
"But we just arrived!" Honka protested, finally getting to his feet.
"What are you going to do," Graham said. "Throw a party?"
"Heh. That sounds about right."
"I'll hold you to that." A ghost of a smile crossed her lips.
Graham left first.
Honka lingered a beat longer, and gave Clara one last nod. Then he turned to Vel.
"Don't slack off."
And then he was gone, and the room felt too quiet without him in it.
Clara's fingers traced the metal collar at her neck.
"I should probably go as well," Vel said, walking closer. "You need your rest, and I've got some research to do on improving that device."
Her hand paused on the collar.
"I never had the chance to say this."
Her eyes lifted to his.
"Thank you. For saving me. And for taking care of Celia when I could not."
Vel held her gaze. "I don't know what would become of my family if it wasn't for you."
He bowed. Not out of habit. Because he meant it.
"I'll see you again."
At the door, he stopped. Looked back at her.
"Celia was family to me."
"If you need anything, no matter how small, please call for me."
"Understood."
He left the room lighter than he'd entered it.
For the first time in longer than he could remember, the weight had eased.
It felt as though the world itself had finally been allowed a moment to breathe.
The feeling carried him halfway to the courtyard.
Then the noise reached him. Raised voices, over one another, coming from the courtyard ahead.
And in among them, he caught ones he knew.
His friends.