I woke to a pain I did not recognize. The pain came from somewhere deep inside of me, from my mana core. Every breath I drew pulled at it, and the core flinched from the pulling. I tried to draw in ambient mana. I had been doing this since my first day in this world. The mana touched the walls of my core and the core recoiled. It sent a throb that started from my chest and emanated outwards, even to my feet.
This had never happened before, in my old life. Then again, my boundless mana had never emptied before either. Something cold settled in the pit of my stomach. It was not pain. I refused to name it.
“It’s called burnout, though maybe they call it something else now. You’ll feel better come morning, after you sleep again.” The voice came from my right. I turned my head, and the motion alone made the hollow in my chest clench. Ash sat on a wooden stool beside the bed. She was sitting upright with her hands resting on her knees, and her blue eyes were steady on me.
“This is what happens when you push past empty and keep going,” she continued. “Any mage who trained seriously would know the feeling.” She stared at me, as if I were an idiot. “Surely you expected this much, at least.”
I stared at her. “How long have you been sitting there?” I asked.
“An hour.”
“Why?”
“I knew you’d wake from all the tossing and turning,” Ash said simply. “So I waited.”
I did not say anything. I knew that Heroes were fools, but this went beyond even my estimations. Ash held out a cup of water. I stared at it, and then took it without protest. My throat was dry, as it happened. Taking the water still felt like a concession. The water was cool. I handed her back the cup. Then I reached for the egg at my side. It was there, nestled behind me now. I shifted enough to touch it. Its pulse was slow and steady beneath my fingers. I checked it. It was fine.
“You kept reaching for it in your sleep,” Ash said. She was not smiling, though her voice suggested she might have liked to.
“I did no such thing.”
“You did. I have been watching, remember?”
I did not dignify this with a response. I tried to sit up. The hollow in my chest seized, and my arms refused to bear my weight. The world tilted for half a breath before a hand found my back.
“Careful,” Ash was there, her palm pressed flat between my shoulder blades, steady. And warm. She eased me upright though I had not asked. My spine found the wall behind the bed and I leaned against it.
A Demon Queen did not require assistance sitting. This was beneath me. I should have swatted the hand away and risen on my own power. Her hand stayed a moment longer than the act required. I noticed this. I filed it into the now archive, which would someday grow large enough to warrant its own library. Ash offered me more water. I drank. She sat back down on the stool.
The room was dark, save for the dimming lantern. I did not say anything at all for some time. I moved the egg on top of me and held it. Then, I focused on trying to gently draw in ambient mana. Perhaps it was unwise, but the pain was not as bad as it had been when I’d just woken up. I might just be well again by the time morning came.
“He’s awake,” Ash said. I lost my focus. I knew who she meant. I looked at the far wall. “I went back,” she continued. “After you…after we came back I mean. I was going to leave firewood by their door.” She paused. “The door was open.” I said nothing. “He was sitting up, holding his mother’s hand. Sara was next to him and she was talking darn fast. Really fast. I didn’t understand half of it, I don’t think he understood any of it.” Ash’s voice had gone quiet. “But he was smiling.”
The wall was very interesting. There were cracks in it I had not noticed before. I counted them. “There’s a mark on his arm now,” Ash said. “A yellow Spark. I didn’t see it when you first…did what you did.”
This was new, I had been too…distracted at the time to notice. I seized on this. “A Spark?” I repeated. “And here I thought he had been rejected by the System.”
“He had been.”
“I did not think I could have done such a thing for him. Save him, yes, but not this. This might mean quite a few things for my powers. I had thought them just a type of Concept Ma-”
“Lily.” I stopped. Ash was looking at me. “He’s going to be fine,” she said.
I held her gaze for a moment too long. I had not asked. I looked back at the egg and adjusted it, though it did not need adjusting. “Of course he is,” I said. “I saw to him.”
The silence returned. I let it sit for as long as I could bear, which was less long than it should have been. The question had been sitting inside me for days. I did not know how to ask it. I had demanded answers from Kings, and yet this was harder by far. I did not know why it came to me now, but it did.
“The night after the Inking,” I began. The words came out stiff. “I came to the door. You were…” I stopped and tried again. “I heard you weep.” Ash did not flinch. Her hands went still on her knees, and that was all. She did not look away from me either. “Why?” I asked. It was the wrong way to ask, I was sure of it. It was also the only way I knew. The only way I’d barely learned.
Ash was quiet for a time. When she answered, her voice was simple. “It was because of Marin.”
I frowned. “The boy?”
“Yes. I saw what the Ink did to him and….” She shook her head. “It spilled out of me, though I tried to hold it in.”
I turned this over. It did not quite make sense to me. “You were a Hero for years,” I said. “You must have seen worse. You must have witnessed far greater suffering than one boy’s pain.”
Ash nodded. The motion was slow, and she said nothing for several breaths. “It’s not about scale,” she said slowly. “I’d hoped…this world, a thousand years away from everything. I hoped it would be different.” She looked at me. “It wasn’t, and this time I had no power to stop it at all.”
I was quiet for a long time. I needed to say something. You were supposed to say something reassuring, at a time like this. At least, I was fairly certain you were. The words were awkward in my throat. I tried anyway. “You are…not entirely without merit,” I said. Ash blinked.
“As a protector,” I continued. “Your instincts are sound. Your resolve is…adequate.” I said. My voice was lower than I would have liked. “That boy is awake because you brought me creatures to practice on. That contribution was…not insignificant. Not nothing.”
This was getting worse. I could feel it getting worse with every word. Would that I had a spell to reverse time. “What I mean to say,” I pressed on, “is that the world is less likely to go unchallenged with you in it. You could not stop what happened to that boy but you did not sit idly either.”
Ash stared at me. In the dim light, I could not be certain, but I thought color had risen in her cheeks. It was a strange reaction to a straightforward assessment of her tactical value. Perhaps the room was warmer than I’d thought. “Thank you,” she said. Her voice was quiet. “That’s…that’s probably the kindest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“It was not kind. It was accurate.”
“Sure.” Ash’s mouth twitched, and then cracked into a smile.
Some time later, Ash rose from the stool. She stretched, a quiet, tired sigh escaping her lips, and turned away. I lay back down on the bed, watching her.
She made to move over to the floor, to the spot against the far wall where she always slept. I watched her gather her thin blanket and her single pillow. She knelt, preparing to fold herself into that cramped corner, the way she had every night in this hut. It was the arrangement we had settled into.
My jaw tightened. For the very first time, I found myself objecting to this arrangement. The words stuck in my throat before I finally forced them out. “You may come to the bed, if you wish. There is room.”
Ash froze midstep. She looked back at me, her head tilted. Her face had that strange coloration to it again. “You…want me to sleep with you?”
“Yes?” I said. “I am not in the habit of repeating myself. You are allowed to sleep on the bed, this one night. For your….” I paused. “Your aid.”
Ash stared a moment longer. She looked back at her spot by the wall, back at me. Then she slowly nodded, moved closer. Only when she’d drawn close, did I consider rescinding my offer.
Ash sat on the edge of the bed and then she lay down, beside me, close enough that the warmth of her settled against my side without effort.
I did not protest. I should have. I had offered her a place by the bed, but there was room without her needing to be so close. This was ‘exchanging heat’ the Hero had mentioned before then, though I felt little need of it now. Doubtless, it was just more pointless Heroic worrying. Her shoulder pressed against mine, and the fabric between us did little and less to keep the heat from passing.
Ash’s breathing slowed. She slept quickly. She always did. Not that I had been paying attention. It was a useful enough skill for a soldier, I supposed.
My gaze, of its own volition, traced the line of her jaw. Then down, past the collar of her tunic, to the scars that ran along her arms -all of them white and faded. They were the marks of a life spent at the edge of a blade. I could respect such marks and the years behind them. I had respected every warrior I had ever killed, even as I’d killed them.
My gaze lingered of its own accord. The Hero’s build was not slight. I had known this in an abstract way, the way one knows the bounds of a fortress without walking its halls. Now, the knowledge became less abstract.
She was strong in the way that came from years of use. She was broad across the shoulders and generous in frame…and yet there was a softness to her that I had not expected. The deep curve of her hip, the way her waist gave way to it. The fullness at her chest where the cloth gathered. Heroes were supposed to be angular things. Ash was not angular. She was all of those hard things beneath, and yet soft over them.
Why was I thinking about this? The observation was clinical. One assessed one’s allies. That was simple prudence, and nothing more. I looked away. The room had gotten warm. The ceiling was far more interesting.
I raised my right hand toward the ceiling. The gesture came without thought. I held my hand there and studied it. I studied the black Line, the Requiem. It had not even been two weeks since I’d been reborn.
Strange, that so much happen in the span of so few days. Strange that it be so important. Stranger still that I remember every single moment of it. I had lived centuries that had had less weight to them than these few days. What this meant, I did not know. Only…that I would not have minded a few weeks more. Tomorrow, the Inker would come, and I would see the world beyond just Hamel.
The thought filled me with something sharp. I lowered my hand.
Beside me, the stupid Hero breathed. She had lied to me. I was sure it had been more than just a single hour since she’d sat awake by my side. I was sure of it. Heroes were ever fools. I looked at her. Looked at the ceiling. Looked at her again.
Perhaps, I thought, it was a good thing I did not end up here alone.