Yuna woke to the smell of soup and the sound of arguing.
"can't just let her sleep forever. It's been two days."
"She burned through more resonance than most people use in a year. Her body needs time."
"Time we don't have. The Herald is still out there, and she's the only one who's felt it directly."
"She's also the only one who nearly killed herself saving your defensive line. Show some respect, Vance."
Yuna opened her eyes. The infirmary ceiling swam into focus, grey stone lit by the amber glow of oil lamps. Her body felt like it had been filled with wet sand. Heavy. Sluggish. Wrong in ways she couldn't name.
Two days. She'd been unconscious for two days.
She tried to sit up. Her arms shook, barely supporting her weight, and something deep in her chest cramped so hard she gasped.
"Easy." Aria appeared at her bedside, pressing a gentle hand to her shoulder. "Don't try to move yet. Your resonance channels are still healing."
"Water," Yuna managed. Her voice came out cracked and thin.
Aria helped her drink from a clay cup. The liquid was cool and faintly sweet. Across the room, Vance and Chen Wei stood near the door, their argument frozen by her waking.
"How do you feel?" Chen Wei crossed to stand at the foot of her cot.
"Like something chewed me up and spit me out."
"That's accurate." Chen Wei's expression was hard to read. "You depleted yourself to dangerous levels. Another minute of what you were doing, and you would have started losing more than memories."
The memories.
Yuna's hand went to her chest, pressing against the hollow space there. She tried to picture her father's face the way she'd done a thousand times before, whenever she needed comfort.
Nothing. Just a blur where features should have been. She knew she'd had a father, knew things about him. His laugh. The way he'd called her little star. The sound of his voice reading bedtime stories. But his face was gone. Erased as cleanly as if someone had taken scissors to a photograph.
"I can't remember what he looked like," she whispered.
Aria's hand tightened on her shoulder. "The memories sometimes come back. Not always, but sometimes. Your mind finds other paths to the same information."
"And sometimes they don't." Yuna kept her voice flat. "Sometimes they're just gone."
No one contradicted her.
They let her sit up after an hour. Stand after two. Her legs felt like they belonged to someone else, responding to commands with a delay that made walking treacherous. Aria stayed close, ready to catch her if she stumbled.
"Where's David?" Yuna asked as they made their slow way toward the main hall.
"Sleeping. He hasn't left the infirmary since they brought you in." Something softened in Aria's voice. "Marcus had to physically carry him to his quarters last night. He'd been awake for thirty-six hours."
"He shouldn't have."
"No. He shouldn't." Aria guided her around a rough patch of floor. "But he did. That's what happens here, Yuna. People start caring about each other whether they mean to or not."
The main hall was quieter than Yuna remembered. Fewer people, clustered in smaller groups, their voices hushed. The attack had taken its toll. She could see it in the bandages, the empty spaces where people should have been, the way eyes tracked toward the entrances with constant vigilance.
"How many?" she asked.
"Four dead. Seven injured." Aria's voice was matter-of-fact. The tone of someone who'd learned to count losses without letting them drown her. "Would have been worse without what you did. A lot worse."
Yuna waited for that to feel like something. It didn't.
They found a quiet corner, and Aria helped her lower herself onto a bench. The stone was cold through her thin clothes. Grounding her in a body that still didn't feel entirely hers.
"I need to tell you something." Aria sat down across from her, her single hand fidgeting with the edge of her bandage. "About Vance."
"What about him?"
"He's not happy about what happened. Not the attack. He's used to those." Aria met her eyes. "He's not happy about you."
Yuna waited.
"Before you arrived, he was the strongest resonance user among the Insufficient. Not by much, but enough to matter. Now you've come along and done something he couldn't dream of, and he's..." Aria paused, searching for the word.
"Jealous?"
"Threatened." Aria shook her head. "It's more than jealousy. Vance built his whole identity around being necessary. If someone else can do what he does, but better—"
"Then he's not special anymore."
"Then he's just another broken person waiting to die." Aria leaned back, her expression troubled. "I'm not telling you this to scare you. I'm telling you because you need to watch your back. What happened to Tomas wasn't an accident. Vance pushed him deliberately, knowing he'd burn out. And now he's got a reason to push you too."
Yuna thought of Tomas's empty eyes. The way his threads had shattered, leaving him hollow in a different way than the creatures outside the walls.
"Why hasn't Chen Wei done something about him?"
"Because we can't afford to lose anyone who can fight. Even him." Aria's mouth twisted. "That's the math of this place. Useful people get second chances. Third chances. As many as they need, until they either change or get themselves killed."
"And the people they hurt along the way?"
Aria didn't answer. She didn't have to.
Marcus found her in the training alcove an hour later. She was sitting with her anchor stone in her lap, trying to feel for the threads.
"You shouldn't be out of bed."
"I shouldn't be a lot of things." Yuna didn't look up. "I can't find them. The connections. It's like the battle burned out whatever let me feel them."
Marcus sat down across from her, his bulk somehow fitting into the small space. "Temporary. Resonance depletion causes sensitivity loss. Your channels need time to recover, like muscles after overexertion."
"How much time?"
"Days. Weeks. Depends on how badly you damaged yourself." He studied her face, his dark eyes unexpectedly gentle. "What you did out there was remarkable, Yuna. It was also incredibly stupid. You could have killed yourself."
"People were dying."
"People die every day. That's not a reason to throw your life away."
"Then what is?" The words came out sharper than she'd intended. "What's the point of having this power if I can't use it to help?"
Marcus was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice had dropped to something softer.
"My daughter was seven when the Hollow took her. Her name was Sera. She had her mother's eyes and my stubborn streak, and she loved to climb trees even though I told her a hundred times she'd fall." He paused. His massive hands were clasped in his lap. "When the attack came, I fought. Harder than I'd ever fought before. I used every thread I had, burned through memories and emotions and pieces of myself I'll never get back. And in the end, it wasn't enough. They took her anyway."
Yuna didn't know what to say. So she said nothing.
"The point of having power isn't to use it until you break. It's to use it wisely. Strategically. In ways that actually matter." Marcus met her eyes. "You saved lives yesterday. But if you'd killed yourself doing it, how many lives would you have saved in the future? How many battles would we lose because our strongest sensitive was gone?"
"I'm not the strongest"
"You are." His voice was flat. Certain. "What you did with those threads, boosting thirty people simultaneously. I've never seen anyone do that. Not even the Seers in the old records. You have potential that we can't afford to waste."
The words should have been encouraging. Instead, they felt like chains settling around her wrists.
"So I'm supposed to hold back? Let people die because I might be useful later?"
"You're supposed to learn control. Learn your limits. Learn when to push and when to pull back." Marcus stood, his joints cracking. "That's what training is for. When you're recovered enough, we'll start again. But this time, we're going to do it right."
David appeared at dinner.
He looked terrible. Dark circles under his eyes. Hair unwashed. His shifting coat hung off his shoulders like he'd lost weight in the past two days alone. He sat down across from Yuna without a word and started eating the grey porridge with mechanical efficiency.
"You look like death," she said.
"Funny." He didn't meet her eyes. "You actually looked like death. Do you have any idea how scared I was? Watching you collapse like that, feeling your thread go dim?"
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Just don't do it again." He finally looked up. The fear in his face hit her harder than any words could have. "I've watched too many people die in this place, Yuna. I can't watch you too."
"David"
"I know it's stupid. We've known each other for less than a week. But you're the first person since I got here who actually..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "Never mind. Forget it."
"Who actually what?"
He was quiet for a long time. Around them, the hall filled with the sounds of people eating, talking, existing in the small moments between crises.
"Who actually made me want to stick around," he said finally. His voice was barely audible. "Who made this feel less like waiting to die and more like... I don't know. Something worth fighting for."
The words hung between them.
"I'm not going anywhere," Yuna said. "I promise."
"Don't make promises you can't keep."
"I can keep this one."
David's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. "We'll see."
The confrontation came three days later.
Yuna was recovering. Slowly. She could feel the threads again, faint whispers at the edge of her awareness, though reaching for them still left her dizzy and sick to her stomach. Marcus had cleared her for light training, which meant sitting in the standing stone circle and practicing perception without actually using any power.
She was walking back from a session when Vance stepped out of a side corridor, blocking her path.
"Feeling better?"
His voice was casual. Friendly, even. The smile on his face didn't reach his eyes.
"Well enough." Yuna kept her own voice neutral. "Excuse me."
She tried to step around him. He moved to block her again.
"I've been thinking about what you did during the attack. That boost you gave everyone." Vance tilted his head, studying her like a specimen. "Pretty impressive for someone who's been here less than a week."
"I got lucky."
"Did you? Because from where I was standing, it looked like something else." He took a step closer. Close enough that she could smell the sourness on his breath. "It looked like someone showing off. Making a big splash so everyone would notice her."
"People were dying"
"People are always dying. That's what happens in a war." Another step. He was in her space now, looming over her, using his height as a weapon. "But you just had to play hero, didn't you? Had to prove that the new girl from Earth was special."
"I was trying to help."
"You were trying to make the rest of us look bad." His voice dropped, low and dangerous. "And now everyone's talking about you. Chen Wei's favorite new project. Marcus's prize student. The girl who might be a Seer."
He spat the last word like a curse.
"I didn't ask for any of that."
"No. You just took it." Vance's hand shot out, grabbing her wrist before she could react. His grip was painfully tight. "Let me tell you something, Park. I've been here for eight months. I've bled for this place, lost friends for this place, done things that still keep me up at night. And you don't get to waltz in and take everything I've built just because you have some freaky natural talent."
"Let go of me."
"Make me."
The threads. She could feel them now, faint but present. And she could feel Vance through them too. The anger. The fear. The desperate need to matter that drove everything he did. She could push. Could reach into that tangle of emotion and pull, the way she'd pulled during the battle.
But the memory of what that had cost stopped her cold. Her father's face, gone forever. The smell of her first apartment. Her mother teaching her to cook.
She couldn't afford to lose anything else.
"I'm not your enemy," she said, keeping her voice steady. "I don't want to take anything from you."
"Too late." His grip tightened. "You already did."
"Let her go."
The voice came from behind Vance. David. His face was pale but set, his hands clenched at his sides.
"This doesn't concern you, Park."
"It concerns me now." David stepped closer. "Let her go, or I'll make sure Chen Wei hears about this. And about what really happened to Tomas."
Something flickered in Vance's expression. Fear, maybe. Or calculation.
He released Yuna's wrist with a shove that sent her stumbling backward. "This isn't over," he said, and walked away without looking back.
David caught her before she could fall. "Are you okay?"
"Fine." Her wrist was throbbing, but nothing felt broken. "You shouldn't have done that. He's going to make your life hell now."
"My life was already hell. At least now it's hell with a purpose." He managed a weak smile. "Come on. Let's get you to Marcus before he decides to come looking."
That night, Yuna lay awake in her corner of the main hall, her anchor stone warm against her chest. She tried to remember her mother's face.
It was still there. Clearer than before, maybe. Sharpened by the fear of losing it too. The lines around her eyes from too much smiling. The grey threading through her dark hair. The way her whole face would light up when Yuna walked through the door.
The door doesn't matter, her mother had said.
But doors kept appearing in Yuna's life. The hospital door she couldn't walk through. The portal door that had swallowed her whole. The door between who she was and who she needed to become.
Some doors you ran from. Some doors you ran toward.
And some doors, you had to build yourself. One painful step at a time.
She closed her eyes and reached for the threads again. They were there, faint but growing stronger. And beyond them, at the very edge of her perception—
That cold presence. Still watching. Still waiting.
But now she wasn't just afraid of it.
Now she was curious.
What are you? she thought. What do you want?
And somewhere in the darkness, something stirred in answer.