The first hour of travel was surprisingly quiet.
After reality had decided to rip me out of Valcrest, throw me onto the western edge of Aldren, and possibly do the same thing to thousands of other people, part of me expected the forest to complete the experience by sending some particularly unpleasant creature after me. Instead, my only companions were the steady murmur of the Vael River, the wind moving through the branches, and the sound of my own boots occasionally sinking into the damp earth.
I checked the map every so often to make sure the river was still flowing southeast. Fortunately, it was exactly where it was supposed to be, which meant I was still heading toward the old Caerwyn road and, from there, toward Rothen.
The problem with having a clear path and no monster currently trying to kill me was that it gave me far too much time to think.
So at some point, I ended up pulling out my adventurer plate.
The small piece of metal reacted to my touch. A blue line traced its edges before projecting the glowing letters I'd seen hundreds of times.
NELLIE
Classification: Legendary Staff Heroine
Magic Power: 1,846
Mana Capacity: 9,782
Mana Control: 917
Magic Resistance: 1,109
Spatial Affinity: 989
Casting Speed: 873
Physical Strength: 214
Physical Endurance: 238
An experienced adventurer could feel pretty proud if one of their main stats climbed past two hundred. I had several approaching a thousand, and my mana capacity was so absurd that during my first evaluations the instructors had repeated the measurement three times because they were convinced the crystal was defective.
It wasn't.
I'd simply gotten ridiculously lucky.
I slid a finger across the surface and brought up my magical affinities.
Fire was high. Arcane, exceptional. Spatial, exceptional. Barriers were also far above normal.
Then came that line.
The only one that had never changed.
Restorative Affinity: None.
I stared at it for a few seconds before putting the plate away.
It wasn't a surprise. I'd known since the first few days after waking up in this world.
One of my instructors had started by trying to teach me a restorative spell so basic that students used it to close small cuts. He corrected my stance, checked the way I circulated mana, and went through the formula with me several times before asking me to try.
Absolutely nothing happened.
We tried again.
Then we changed spells.
We used an affinity crystal.
They even brought in a second instructor because the first one started wondering whether he was doing something wrong.
The result was always the same.
I had no affinity for restorative magic, and I never would. I could study for the rest of my life, double my mana reserves, or memorize every healing spell ever written. My magic simply couldn't do that.
Back then, I'd accepted it easily enough. I'd just discovered I could do things most mages needed decades to master, and the world was full of healers, priests, potions, and respawn points.
I didn't need to be able to do everything.
I put the plate away and kept moving.
About twenty minutes later, I found the first tracks.
Deep wheel marks cut through a patch of wet earth. I stopped beside them and checked my map, because the old road should still have been quite a distance away. Those tracks had no reason to be there.
I followed them.
First I found a tree split down the middle. Then another with most of its bark torn away. A little farther ahead came broken crates, ripped sacks, and cargo scattered among the bushes.
The wagon was sitting in the middle of the forest.
One wheel had shattered, and the front had slammed into a tree. One of the horses was still harnessed to it, trembling and pulling weakly against the straps. The other lay several meters away and wasn't moving.
I ran toward the wagon.
"Is anyone there?!"
No answer.
I circled around and found the driver on the other side.
He was a man in his forties. For a moment I thought he was dead too, until I saw his chest rise faintly beneath his blood-soaked shirt.
I dropped my bag and knelt beside him.
The most obvious injury was beneath his ribs. A piece of wood had torn through his shirt and opened a deep wound in his side. It was no longer embedded there, but the amount of blood on his clothes and the ground told me he'd already lost too much.
"Sir, can you hear me?"
His eyelids moved before he finally managed to open them.
"Yes..."
"Good. Don't try to get up. I'm going to help you."
Valcrest, the map, Morgause, everything else vanished from my thoughts. There was only his breathing, the wound, and everything I'd been taught during training.
I couldn't heal him.
But I could treat him.
I inspected the wound carefully first, making sure there weren't any visible splinters left inside. Then I pulled out bandages, folded several layers of clean cloth, and pressed them firmly against his side.
The man tensed and let out a strained groan.
"I know. I know it hurts. I need to stop the bleeding, but I'll be careful. Try to breathe slowly."
I kept pressure on the wound while watching his chest. His breathing was too fast and too shallow.
"What's your name?"
It took him a moment.
"Rowan."
"All right, Rowan. I'm Nellie. I'm staying right here with you, okay? I need you to keep listening to me."
His eyes drifted down toward my staff.
"A mage?"
"Yes."
I saw hope appear in his expression.
"Then..."
I knew what he was about to ask.
"I can't use healing magic," I said, keeping my voice steady. "But I do know how to treat a wound like this, and I have potions. I've already found the problem, and we're going to do everything we can to keep you stable until I get you to someone who can heal you."
The hope didn't completely disappear this time.
That was what I wanted.
I opened one of my potions.
"I'm going to lift you a little. Don't strain yourself. Let me do the work."
I slipped an arm behind his shoulders and raised him only enough for him to drink small sips. I waited between each one, making sure he could swallow properly.
The potion began working.
Some of the shallow cuts started closing, and a little color slowly returned to his face. The wound in his side responded far less. The bleeding slowed, but it didn't stop completely.
It wasn't enough.
Still, it bought us time.
And right then, time was exactly what we needed.
I worked for several minutes without stopping. I cleaned the wound, kept pressure on it, wrapped it tightly, and checked the rest of his body. One of his legs was injured too. No exposed bone, but the joint sat wrong, so I improvised a splint using two pieces of wood from the wagon.
Rowan lost consciousness once.
I managed to wake him.
By the time I finished, my hands were covered in blood and my back was stiff from leaning over him for so long, but his breathing was a little more stable.
He was alive.
That was what mattered.
I pulled out the map.
The closest settlement where I knew there would be healers was Rothen. I calculated the distance, the terrain, and how much speed I could risk with a damaged wagon without making Rowan's condition worse.
Two days.
Maybe a little less if we reached the road quickly.
I looked back at him.
His eyes were closed, but he was still breathing.
"Rowan."
He opened them slightly.
"I'm here."
"Good. We have somewhere to go. Rothen. They have healers, and I can get us there."
"Is it... far?"
I didn't want to lie to him.
But I wasn't going to let the distance become the only thing he could think about either.
"We have some road ahead of us, but I know where we are and I know how to get there. The important thing is that we controlled the bleeding. Now I need you to save your strength while I take care of everything else."
Rowan watched me for a few seconds before nodding.
"All right."
I stood.
There were plenty of things I could do.
I lifted the wagon with magic until the axle cleared the ground. The wheel was too damaged to repair completely, but I reinforced it with wood from the cargo and kept the whole structure together with magic. I moved fallen trunks out of the way, freed the dead horse, and managed to calm the surviving one enough to harness it again.
All of that was easy.
A wagon that would normally have required several people and tools rose with a gesture of my staff. The logs blocking our path moved when I wanted them to. The damaged axle held together as long as I kept feeding mana into the reinforcement.
Everything around Rowan seemed willing to obey me.
Except the wound in his body.
I settled him carefully in the back, using blankets to soften the jolts from the road, then took the reins.
We started moving.
During the first few hours, Rowan barely spoke. Every rough patch made his face tighten, and I slowed down whenever I could tell the movement was hurting him too much.
I kept glancing back.
I didn't want him to feel like I was constantly examining him. I only needed to make sure he stayed awake, could still answer me, and that his breathing wasn't getting worse.
"How are you feeling?"
Rowan opened his eyes slowly.
"Tired."
"You can rest. Just try not to fall asleep yet. I want you to stay with me a little longer."
He nodded.
Several minutes passed before he spoke again.
"Do you think I'll make it?"
My hands tightened slightly around the reins.
I couldn't promise him something I didn't know.
But I could tell him the truth without taking away his hope.
"I think you have a chance. The potion worked, the bleeding is controlled, and your breathing is stable. All of that matters. Now we need to get you to Rothen, and that part is my responsibility."
Rowan slowly let out a breath.
"Then I'll trust you."
"Do that."
For a while, the only sounds were the wheels moving over the earth and the horse's steady steps.
Then I looked back at him again.
"Is there someone waiting for you at home?"
His expression changed.
Not dramatically, but enough for me to notice.
"My wife."
"What's her name?"
"Mira."
"Tell me about her."
Rowan was quiet for a few seconds, thinking.
"We've known each other for almost fifteen years. Married for twelve."
"That's a long time."
"Sometimes it feels like yesterday. Other times I feel like she's always been there."
His breathing seemed calmer while he spoke.
"What's she like?"
A faint smile appeared on his lips.
"Patient. Much more patient than she should be with me."
"Then she must be worried."
His smile faded slightly.
"Yeah."
"That gives us another reason to get you home."
Rowan looked at me.
"Another?"
"The first is that you want to go back. The second is that she's waiting for you."
He watched me for a moment before nodding.
"We have children too."
"Do you?"
This time, I didn't need to encourage him to continue.
"Two. Elias is eight. Sophie is five."
"Tell me about them."
Rowan took a slow breath.
"Elias has too much energy. He's always running around. Now he says he wants to become an adventurer."
"And what do you think?"
"I hope he waits a few years before making that decision."
"Then you still have plenty of work ahead of you with him."
Rowan lowered his eyes.
"Yeah."
"And Sophie?"
The smile returned.
"She collects stones."
"Stones?"
"Anything she thinks is pretty. Every time I come back from a trip, I have to bring her one."
He slowly moved a hand toward his pocket.
"You don't need to move," I warned him.
"It's okay."
He pulled out a small white stone crossed by a blue vein.
He held it between his fingers.
"I found this yesterday by the river."
I glanced back.
"It's beautiful."
"I think she'll like it."
"Then make sure you give it to her yourself."
Rowan studied the stone for several seconds before carefully putting it back into his pocket.
"I will."
Those two words reassured me more than they should have.
Later, when the terrain began to slope downward and the forest grew less dense, Rowan was the one who started talking.
"Mira and I want to open an inn."
I turned my head slightly.
"An inn?"
"When I stop traveling."
There was something different in his voice when he talked about it. He was still weak, but he wasn't thinking only about the wound anymore.
"We've been saving for years. We don't want anything big. Just something that's ours."
"Do you already know what it'll be like?"
He nodded.
"Mira wants a garden behind the kitchen. I want a small stable. Somewhere travelers can leave their horses and rest before continuing."
His gaze drifted toward the wagon roof for a moment.
"Six rooms."
"Sounds like you've planned it pretty carefully."
"We've talked about it a lot. Mira says four rooms would be enough. I still think six."
"Then you'll have to settle that when you get back."
Rowan closed his eyes briefly.
"Yeah."
He didn't sound like someone saying goodbye to a dream.
He sounded like a man expecting to go home and continue an argument he'd left unfinished.
That was what I wanted to hear.
"When it's finished, you'll have to visit," he said.
The invitation caught me off guard.
"Your inn?"
"If you're really a Legendary Heroine, my children aren't going to believe me when I tell them about this."
I watched the road for a few seconds.
"Then I'll come."
Rowan turned his head toward me.
"Promise?"
"Yes. When you open it, I'll come."
He seemed satisfied with that.
For the rest of the afternoon, we didn't talk constantly. I let him conserve his strength, and every so often I called his name again, asking about Mira, his children, or some small detail of the life he expected to return to.
I wasn't gathering information.
I only wanted to keep him with me.
That night, I barely slept.
I stopped the wagon in a sheltered place, fed the horse, checked Rowan's bandage several times, and gave him small amounts of water. The wound remained stable, and although his breathing still worried me, he hadn't worsened dramatically.
That gave me hope.
Not enough to relax.
But enough to start moving again as soon as dawn came.
We found the other bodies around midmorning.
I spotted an overturned wagon beside the road first. It wasn't nearly as damaged as Rowan's, and for a moment I thought we might have found other people displaced by the Rupture.
I stopped.
"I'm going to check. I won't be long."
Rowan opened his eyes and gave a weak nod.
I climbed down and ran toward them.
There were four people.
One lay beside the wagon. Two more were beneath the shade of a tree. The last was several meters away.
None of them moved.
I knelt beside the first and checked for a pulse.
Nothing.
I checked their breathing anyway, then moved straight to the next.
Nothing.
The third was the same.
The last was a young woman who probably wasn't much older than twenty. She had an improvised bandage around one arm and dried blood on her hands.
I knelt beside her.
She was dead too.
But not for as long.
I realized it while examining her.
Then I saw the wound.
It was serious, but not necessarily fatal if she'd received proper treatment in time.
I knew what I would have done.
I would have cleaned it, applied pressure, used a potion, and secured the bandage. I would have monitored her breathing, checked her pulse, and looked for other injuries before deciding how to move her.
I didn't know whether I could have saved her.
But I would have known how to try.
I looked at the man near the tree.
I recognized his injuries too.
The bandage around him had been applied badly, but it proved someone had tried to help. Marks in the dirt showed that the four of them had managed to gather together after appearing there.
They had survived the Rupture.
They hadn't arrived dead.
For some amount of time, they'd been here injured, trying to keep each other alive.
And I'd spent those same hours with Rowan.
I remained crouched beside the young woman as the thought slowly settled in.
If I'd been able to close Rowan's wound with magic, maybe it would have taken minutes.
He might have been able to walk.
I could have continued down the road.
Maybe I would have arrived before these people stopped breathing.
Maybe I could have done something.
Maybe not.
I had no right to turn a possibility into certainty just because it hurt.
But I could have tried.
And that was enough.
I looked down at my hands, still stained with traces of dried blood, and remembered that line on my plate.
Restorative Affinity: None.
I'd always known what it meant.
Until then, I'd never understood what it could cost.
A faint sound from the wagon made me turn.
Rowan.
Someone was still alive.
And he needed me now.
I forced myself to stand. I quickly checked the bodies for plates, documents, or anything that might allow their families to identify them later. Then I took a blanket from the wagon and covered the young woman.
I couldn't stay.
I couldn't bury them.
And I couldn't help them anymore.
"I'm sorry."
I wasn't sure who I was saying it to.
I returned to the wagon.
Rowan had opened his eyes.
"Was... anyone alive?"
I looked at him for a moment.
"No."
He closed his eyes again.
He didn't ask anything else.
I took the reins and continued.
The second day was much quieter.
Rowan spoke less and less, so I tried to keep a voice near him, even when his answers became only a few words.
"Rowan, are you still with me?"
A couple of seconds passed.
"Yes."
"Good. You don't need to talk much. I just wanted to hear you."
Later, I asked about Mira, and he said her name again. Then Elias and Sophie. He took longer to answer, but he still remembered them.
When the silence stretched too long, I brought up the inn again.
"You still haven't told me where you're planning to build it."
Rowan opened his eyes.
"Near... the old road."
"Then it'll be easy to find when I come visit."
"Yeah."
"And it'll have six rooms."
The faintest hint of a smile appeared on his face.
"Four... if Mira wins."
"Then probably four."
Rowan breathed slowly.
"Probably."
That afternoon, he spoke about Sophie again. He told me that whenever he came home from a trip, she ran out toward the road before he could even climb down from the wagon. Elias tried to act like he was too old to do the same, but almost always ended up running after his little sister.
I listened.
I kept every detail without yet knowing why I felt like I needed to.
Then he went quiet.
This time, I was the one who spoke.
I told him there was someone I wanted to see again too.
I didn't mention titles, castles, or everything complicated about explaining Morgause.
I simply told him there was someone.
"Wife?" Rowan asked, his voice barely audible.
"Not yet."
"Do you... want her to be?"
I looked ahead.
"Yes."
Rowan took a few seconds.
"Then go back to her."
Something tightened inside me.
"That's what I intend to do."
"Good."
That was one of the last full conversations we had.
Near sunset, the forest finally began to open up. First came cultivated fields. Then I saw smoke rising in the distance, and several minutes later I could make out rooftops at the bottom of the valley.
Rothen.
Relief hit me so suddenly that for a moment I felt short of breath.
We'd made it.
"Rowan."
I moved the reins, and the horse accelerated as much as it still could.
"Rowan, look. I can see it."
No answer.
"We're here."
The damaged wheel struck a rock and the entire wagon jolted, but I kept the speed.
"I told you. I knew we'd make it."
I waited.
Nothing.
I glanced quickly over my shoulder. Rowan was still lying beneath the blankets, though from my seat I could barely make out his face.
"Rowan."
The town was closer.
I could see the entrance.
The houses.
People moving between them.
"Tell me about the inn. We still have to decide what you're doing with those two extra rooms."
Nothing.
My fingers tightened around the reins.
"Mira wants her garden. Sophie is still waiting for her stone. Elias is going to need someone to keep telling him to wait before becoming an adventurer."
He didn't answer.
The horse was breathing hard. I knew I was asking too much of it, but I could already make out the guards at the town entrance.
"Rowan, stay with me. Just a little longer."
Silence.
I felt fear begin to spread slowly through my chest.
"There's a healer there. We're almost there."
No answer.
"You're going to make it."
My voice came out quieter this time.
"We're going to make it."
I didn't stop to check.
Maybe because every second mattered.
Maybe because part of me was afraid of what I'd find if I did.
We entered Rothen.
The Rupture had gotten there before us.
The town looked exhausted. There were too many people in the streets, too many wounded lying against walls, and too many voices asking for help at once. Several buildings were damaged, and a structure that clearly did not belong there had appeared through part of a house. Guards, volunteers, and healers moved from one emergency to another without stopping.
I jumped down from the wagon.
"I need a healer!"
My voice vanished among dozens of others.
People were asking for exactly the same thing.
A guard passed me carrying an injured child and couldn't even stop.
I looked back at Rowan.
No.
We'd made it.
I wasn't going to lose him here.
I pulled out my plate and closed my fingers around it until the emblem began to glow.
"I'M NELLIE, THE LEGENDARY STAFF HEROINE! I NEED A HEALER HERE, PLEASE!"
This time, people turned.
A guard saw the plate and reacted immediately.
"We need a healer!" he shouted toward one of the buildings. "For the Staff Heroine!"
Someone ran.
For one moment, relief washed through me.
My title had worked.
I turned back to the wagon and climbed in beside Rowan.
"It's okay. We're here."
I put a hand on his shoulder.
He didn't react.
"Rowan."
A man in white robes came running through the crowd.
"Where is he?"
"Here."
He climbed into the wagon and bent over Rowan while I started explaining everything.
"Deep wound under the ribs. He lost a lot of blood at first, but I got the bleeding under control. I gave him a mid-grade potion, cleaned the wound, and kept pressure on it. He also has an injury to his leg, but I immobilized it. He's been conscious for most of the trip, although he's been talking less over the last few hours. He just needs—"
The healer had placed two fingers against Rowan's neck.
His other hand began to emit a faint light.
Restorative magic.
The same magic that would never answer me.
I watched that light move across Rowan's chest.
I waited.
The healer opened one of Rowan's eyelids, checked for a pulse again, and kept his hand over him for several more seconds.
Finally, the light disappeared.
His expression changed.
"I'm sorry."
I didn't understand.
"What?"
"I'm sorry."
I looked at Rowan, then back at the healer.
"The wound is in his side. I kept it stable. He needs restorative magic. That's why I brought him here."
The man stayed silent.
"Please. Heal him."
I saw the pity in his eyes before he answered.
"I can't."
"Why?"
He looked down at Rowan.
"He's dead."
The words took far too long to mean anything.
"No."
"I'm sorry."
"We just got here."
"I know."
"He was talking to me."
The healer said nothing.
"He was talking to me not long ago."
Maybe it was my expression that made him check again.
He searched for a pulse. Used that small light over Rowan's chest once more. Waited.
Nothing changed.
When he pulled his hand away, his voice was even lower.
"He's been dead for several minutes."
Several minutes.
I looked at Rowan.
The town had appeared in the distance several minutes ago.
When I told him we'd arrived, he was probably already dead.
When I asked him to tell me about the inn, he couldn't hear me.
When I reminded him about Mira, Elias, and Sophie, there was no one left there to answer.
We hadn't even had time to say goodbye.
My eyes slowly dropped to his pocket.
The small white stone crossed by that blue vein was still sticking out slightly from the fabric.
Sophie's stone.
Around us, Rothen kept moving as best it could. The wounded kept asking for help, guards shouted instructions, and people ran back and forth trying to deal with the consequences of the Rupture.
But all of it began to feel far away.
I climbed down from the wagon with my plate still in my hand.
Its light was still glowing.
Legendary Staff Heroine.
That title had accomplished what my voice couldn't.
When I shouted it, people moved aside. A guard reacted. A healer abandoned what he was doing and ran to us.
The title carried weight.
My stats were absurd. I could control more mana than many mages would see in their entire lives, lift a wagon without touching it, stop attacks with barriers, and cross a battlefield before someone finished blinking.
In my first life, I'd never had anything like that.
Arthur had been born without any extraordinary gift. He had lived like an ordinary person and left that world without ever becoming someone he could call special.
When I woke up here, I thought I'd been given another chance.
This time, I had power.
This time, I was a hero.
And for a long time, I'd believed that meant that when the moment came, I would be able to do what a hero was supposed to do.
I looked down at my hands.
Those same hands could control absurd amounts of mana, but they were also the hands that had spent hours pressing against a wound I would never be able to close.
I thought about the four people I'd found beside the road. About how I'd recognized their injuries too late, and everything I would have tried to do for them if I'd arrived sooner.
Then I thought about Rowan.
Mira.
Elias.
Sophie.
The little stone still sitting in his pocket.
An inn near the old road, with a garden behind the kitchen and an argument left unfinished over whether it would have four rooms or six.
I'd done everything they taught me. I'd stopped the bleeding, used a potion, stabilized his injuries, repaired a wagon, and driven for two days until I found a healer.
I'd made it.
Just not in time.
My fingers slowly closed around the plate.
Until that moment, the words engraved on it had always felt enormous.
Now, with Rowan lying dead behind me, I couldn't understand what they were supposed to mean.
What was the point of calling myself a hero if I couldn't even save one life?