“Well, well, Captain Vistarii,” she murmured after getting Arken situated in an empty bed. “It’s usually your men that I’m fixing up. Who is this one?”
“A friend,” I said. “Her name is Arken.”
A noticeable flicker of surprise passed through her expression, and I could see the ghost of a smile forming on her lips, though she simply nodded and said nothing. Was it really that surprising that I had a friend outside of work?
“We’re going to give her a sleeping draught now so that her body can focus on removing the poisons,” she said softly. “We can’t draw these out manually, I’m afraid.”
“I know,” I said. Another flicker of surprise. Yeah, that one was fair.
“Once we confirm her blood is clean again, we’ll help get those wounds closed and she’ll be significantly recovered by morning.”
“Good. You and your team have my thanks, Fen,” I said with sincerity, preparing to head out. “I need to debrief with my men and make sure the Leshy was taken care of, but I’ll be back soon.”
“Oh. There’s really no need, we can send for an escort when she’s ready to go home, Captain.”
I tossed a glance back over my shoulder at the familiar cleric.
“I’ll be back soon,” I repeated.
Fen raised her eyebrows, but nodded, barely holding back the smile now.Ridiculous.
I rolled my eyes and offered her a lazy wave as I left, making my way back towards the East Gate to find my men and ensure the daemon had been taken care of.
It was only after my debrief with the Guard that I felt the adrenaline begin to fade, leaving my system in shambles.
What the fuck just happened?
As I’d told Hanjae, I had absolutely zero explanation for the arrival of the Leshy.
One of the reasons that the Elder Guard kept active, daily patrols throughout the Wyldwoods was to search for residual weaknesses. Pockets of space where the veil between realms still ran too thin after the Cataclysm. Any time we found one,it was immediately reported to the Convocation, and one of the Aetherborne would come out to repair it.
Our guards were well-trained, they knew how to catch those weak spots in the veil well before any creature could feasibly pass through. And I, more than anyone else, should have been able to detect if something was amiss.
It didn’t make any fucking sense.
That flood of dark, tenebrous aether as it snapped through the void had come out of nowhere. It wasimmediate, almost as if…
But no. It was too early for that. And even if it wasn’t, they would never be so reckless as to leave a rift wide open and let a daemon follow.
And then there was the smoke.
The only explanation my mind could parse was that Arken’s Light was so intense, so searingly white-hot that the carapace of the Leshy had caught fire from the inside. These beasts were borne from rotting wood and ichor, so it was reasonable enough to presume that it had caught fire from the inside out once Arken had shoved her aetherblade into its chest… Right?
Except everything I knew about arcana suggested there was no way that a first-year Conduit could be that powerful, that precise. Sure, Arken was exceptionally advanced—she had passed tests for courses two years beyond expectations—but for her Light toburn?
I sighed heavily, running one hand over my face.
Stranger things had happened in life or death situations. It wasn’t exactly well-studied, but there had been reports of similar phenomena in the past.
What mattered was that she survived, and she was safe now.
Logically, I knew that I could do very little for Arken except wait for the clerics to get her system stable. As I leftheadquarters, I knew that the reasonable thing to do would be to go home, and visit her in the morning.
But I had almost lost her, and we were past the point of reason. If I wanted to get any semblance of sleep tonight, it would have to be in a shitty armchair in the infirmary, by her side as she slept.
I woke up the next morning to a glaring scowl from Scholar Helvig.
“Shoo, Vistarii. We need to work on her injuries before she wakes up. Go make yourself useful somewhere else. You’re in my way.”