I stared at Seraphina for several seconds while the location of the Moonwell reconstructed itself inside my head.
Ashfall had been built over the ruins of a civilization that disappeared nearly eight hundred years ago. Most of that history had been little more than background flavor I’d dumped into a few paragraphs, but the Moonwell had actually mattered.
It was hidden behind a sealed chamber on the second floor, protected by an entrance that could only be opened by activating four runes in the correct order.
For once, my own writing might actually save my ass.
"Lyra, open the cell."
Both women looked at me.
"Mistress?"
"The cell. Open it."
Lyra glanced toward Seraphina before lowering her voice. "Mistress Velessa ordered that she never be released."
"Velessa is dead, and I’m the Mistress now." I gestured toward the ridiculous number of chains covering the entrance. "Unless there’s another succession rule nobody has bothered mentioning, open it."
Lyra hesitated only a moment longer before removing a ring of keys from her belt.
Seraphina watched us suspiciously as lock after lock clicked open. "What are you doing?"
"Helping you."
"Why?"
"You’re really obsessed with that question."
"Demons aren’t known for their charity."
"Neither are humans, judging by the two starving in the other cells who have food in front of them."
That shut her up.
Lyra removed the final chain and pulled open the reinforced door. I stepped inside while she approached Seraphina with a smaller key for the restraints around her wrists.
Seraphina didn’t resist as the first shackle fell away, followed by the second. The moment Lyra unlocked the restraints around her ankles, Seraphina planted one hand against the wall and forced herself upright.
She made it approximately two seconds before her knees buckled.
I caught her beneath the arms before she hit the floor, and Seraphina immediately stiffened against me.
"Get your hands off me."
"Gladly. Stand up."
Her glare could have stripped paint from a wall. I slowly loosened my grip. Seraphina immediately started falling again and I caught her a second time.
"Are we finished proving a point?"
"Fuck you."
"Apparently not."
She muttered something about demons under her breath but stopped fighting me. I pulled one of her arms across my shoulders and helped her toward the door while Lyra watched with an expression I couldn’t quite decipher.
Seraphina was surprisingly light.
Whatever strength she’d once possessed had disappeared along with her ability to use mana. Her damaged channels weren’t simply preventing her from casting magic. They’d crippled the reinforcement that people in this world naturally gained as they became stronger.
Whoever had done this hadn’t wanted her dead. They’d wanted her helpless.
That distinction was becoming increasingly interesting.
"Where are you taking me?" Seraphina asked as we reached the staircase.
"Somewhere that might fix your mana channels."
She stopped so abruptly that I nearly lost my balance.
For the first time since meeting her, the hostility disappeared from her face.
"What?"
"You heard me."
"Mana channels cannot simply be repaired."
"Normally, no."
Her eyes narrowed again. "Then what do you want?"
I sighed. "Do you interrogate everyone trying to help you?"
"Only demons."
"Whatever."
She continued staring at me, clearly expecting an answer.
The System wanted me to invest in her, but explaining that a magical floating window had classified her as an SSS-grade investment opportunity probably wasn’t the best way to establish trust.
"I haven’t decided what I want from you yet."
Seraphina’s expression changed immediately.
Her eyes slowly moved toward my horns before dropping lower.
Then she looked at the arm I’d wrapped around her waist to keep her standing. Disgust flooded her face.
"Oh, for fuck’s sake." I rolled my eyes. "Not that."
I paused as I looked at her.
"You are a succubus."
"I’m painfully aware."
Lyra made a strange choking sound beside us. I looked at her and she immediately turned away.
’Did she just laugh at me?’
Getting Seraphina upstairs took considerably longer than expected. By the time we reached the second floor, sweat had formed along her forehead, although stubbornness alone seemed to be keeping her conscious.
I led them through the damaged eastern corridors until we reached a section Lyra had previously described as inaccessible.
A collapsed stone archway blocked most of the passage.
"Mistress," Lyra said, "there is nothing beyond here."
"There should be."
I squeezed through the gap.
A narrow chamber waited on the other side, exactly where I remembered it. Unlike the rest of Ashfall, the walls were made from smooth white stone, with four circular runes carved around a featureless slab at the far end.
Relief washed through me.
Finally, something was where I’d fucking put it.
"Bring Seraphina through."
Lyra helped her across while I approached the runes.
Moon. Crown. Eye. Flame.
I’d spent an embarrassing amount of time deciding the sequence because I wanted readers to believe Roland was clever when he solved it.
I pressed the moon first, followed by the flame, then the eye and finally the crown.
Nothing happened and my stomach tightened in response.
Then the chamber suddenly began to tremble.
Dust fell from the ceiling as ancient mechanisms groaned somewhere behind the wall. The stone slab split down the middle and slowly withdrew, releasing a wave of cool air carrying a scent vaguely reminiscent of rain.
Lyra stared into the opening. "How did you know?"
"Excellent leadership." She looked at me with a side eye. "Let’s go with that."
Beyond the doorway, a natural cavern descended toward a pool of silver-blue water. Crystalline veins spread through the surrounding rock, filling the chamber with enough light to illuminate ancient pillars half-consumed by mineral deposits.
The Moonwell.
It was smaller than I’d imagined while writing it, perhaps twenty feet across, but the mana filling the chamber made the hair along my arms rise.
Seraphina felt it too. Her expression changed as we approached the water.
"This isn’t demonic magic."
"No." I replied dryly.
"What is this place?"
"The Moonwell."
"How do you know about it?"
"That’s becoming a complicated question." I chuckled as I got excited. I crouched beside the water and touched its surface.
The System responded immediately.
[MOONWELL]
Ancient Restoration Spring
Stored, Mana: 100%
Major Restoration Available: 1
Replenishment Period: 30 Days
I stared at the final lines.
One use.
The Moonwell would recharge, but using it on Seraphina meant Ashfall would lose access to its strongest healing resource for an entire month.
With adventurers already raiding the dungeon and only a handful of residents capable of fighting, that wasn’t insignificant.
I could save it for myself. I could keep it available in case one of Ashfall’s defenders suffered a fatal injury. Once word spread, access to something capable of restoring destroyed mana channels might even be worth considerably more than the thirteen silver currently sitting in my treasury.
Instead, I looked at Seraphina.
SSS potential.
Fallen Seraph Bloodline.
Ninety-nine percent Investment Compatibility.
More importantly, I remembered exactly what happened to her if I did nothing.
"Get in."
Seraphina stared at me. "You expect me to climb into an unknown magical spring because a succubus told me to?"
"Preferably before I reconsider spending its monthly charge on someone who keeps insulting me."
That caught her attention. "You would use all of it?"
"Yes I would."
"Why? Why would you do that?"
"There it is again."
Seraphina ignored me and crouched beside the Moonwell. Her fingers hovered above the surface before cautiously dipping into the water.
Her eyes widened.
Whatever she sensed seemed to settle the argument.
Lyra helped remove the heavier pieces of Seraphina’s ruined clothing before lowering her into the spring. The silver water reached just beneath her shoulders as she settled against the edge, and for several seconds nothing happened.
Then the entire cavern lit up.
Seraphina gasped as silver light raced beneath her skin.
Her back arched, fingers gripping the edge of the Moonwell while currents of mana spiraled around her body. The water’s surface began falling visibly as stored energy poured into her damaged pathways.
A window appeared before me.
[INVESTMENT INITIATED]
Target: Seraphina Vael
Investment: Moonwell Restoration
Investment Grade: SSS
[Mana Channel Restoration in Progress...]
I watched the percentage climb while Seraphina clenched her teeth against whatever was happening inside her.
Then something changed. Black-gold light erupted behind her.
For a fraction of a second, six enormous wings appeared across the cavern wall.
They weren’t physical. They were shadows formed from mana, beautiful and deeply disturbing, with dark fractures running through golden feathers.
Lyra stumbled backward.
"What was that?"
I knew exactly what it was because the System confirmed it.
[Fallen Seraph Bloodline Awakened]
[Fallen Seraph Bloodline: 5%]
The phantom wings disappeared.
Seraphina collapsed against the edge of the pool, breathing heavily as the last silver light faded beneath her skin. The Moonwell had dropped nearly a foot, its brilliant glow reduced to a faint shimmer.
I activated Author’s Insight again.
Her condition had changed.
[Current Potential: A]
[True Potential: SSS]
[Mana Channels: Restored]
She wasn’t remotely close to the monster she’d eventually become, but she wasn’t broken anymore.
I’d changed something.
Something important.
The System erupted with crimson light.
[INVESTMENT SUCCESSFUL]
Investment Grade: SSS
Fate Deviation: Minor
[INVESTMENT RETURN CALCULATED]
Magic +5
Spirit +4
Holy Resistance +5
Fallen Seraph Bloodline Fragment +2
[Bloodline Skill Acquired]
[Blighted Radiance: Conjure corrupted divine flame and launch it at a target.]
[Evolution Progress +10]
Heat surged through my body before I could process what I was reading. Mana flooded through pathways I hadn’t even known existed, and something hot gathered inside my chest before settling beneath my skin.
I’d become substantially stronger without swinging a weapon, killing a monster, or spending a single point on myself.
I’d made Seraphina stronger.
And somehow, the System had rewarded me for it.
’Oh, this is fucking broken.’
Movement from the Moonwell pulled my attention away from the notification.
Seraphina gripped the stone edge and slowly pulled herself upright. Her legs trembled when she stepped from the water, but this time they didn’t collapse beneath her.
She stood on her own.
For the first time since I’d entered her cell, the hatred in her blue eyes wasn’t quite as absolute.
There was confusion now.
Maybe even the beginning of curiosity.
"Why?" she asked quietly.
I looked at the woman who would one day burn the Holy Capital and become one of the seven greatest calamities in the world.
I probably shouldn’t tell her that part yet.
"Call it an investment."