The door swung open.
His mother rushed in first, her orange hair wild around her face and her green eyes wide with panic. Emilia followed close behind, with Julia right behind her, and all three of them stopped when they saw him lying on the floor.
"Aric!"
His mother was at his side in an instant, dropping to her knees beside him and gripping his shoulders.
"What happened? Are you hurt? Can you hear me?"
Emilia tried to rush over, but Julia caught her before she could get any closer.
"Let me go! I want to see him!"
"Emilia, stay back," Julia said, holding her firmly.
His mother ran her hands over his arms and shoulders, checking him for any obvious injuries before her eyes fell on the black liquid spreading across the floor beside him.
Her face went pale.
"JULIA. CALL FOR AILO. NOW.."
Julia nodded and pulled Emilia toward the door.
"But I want to stay!"
"We have to let the doctor do her job," Julia said, guiding the girl out of the room despite her protests.
The door closed behind them.
His mother’s hands were on his face, her hands warm and trembling as she kept asking him questions, but Aric could barely make out her words.
Everything around him had become unbearably loud.
Her voice.
His heartbeat.
Even his own breathing seemed to echo inside his skull, each sound pressing harder against his head until he could barely think.
Heat began to spread through his body.
It started in his chest, then moved into his arms and legs, growing stronger with every passing second. Sweat gathered along his forehead as his skin became hotter and hotter.
"Mom..."
His voice came out weak.
His mother leaned closer, still holding his face between her trembling hands.
"What is it?"
Aric tried to answer, but another wave of heat rushed through him, leaving his body trembling beneath her hands.
The door opened again, and hurried footsteps rushed into the room. Aric heard Julia speaking to someone, but he was too weak to lift his head.
"Your Grace, Doctor Ailo is here."
Ailo entered the room and hurried straight toward Aric.
"Young Master!"
She dropped to her knees beside him, one hand immediately reaching for his wrist while her eyes moved over his face and body.
"What happened?"
His mother shook her head, her hands still trembling.
"I don’t know. I found him on the floor like this."
Ailo’s eyes moved to the black liquid beside him.
"What is that?"
"I don’t know either."
Ailo looked back at Aric and placed a hand against his forehead.
"Help me get him onto the bed. We need to examine him properly."
Ailo slipped one arm beneath his shoulders while his mother took the other, and together they lifted him from the cold stone and eased him back onto the bed. The movement sent another wave of heat through his body, and Aric bit down on his lip as his fingers curled into the sheets.
His mother pulled the blanket aside while Ailo leaned over him. Two fingers pressed against his neck as she checked his pulse, then her hand moved to the center of his chest.
Ailo closed her eyes.
A faint warmth spread from her palm and seeped through his skin. Aric felt the sensation move deeper into his chest, flowing through his body like a thin current. It passed through his muscles and organs before reaching the source of the strange heat.
Her magic moved around it slowly, examining the flow of mana within his body.
Then it reached his mana core.
Aric could feel the foreign energy circling it, probing its surface and tracing the faint movements of mana within.
Ailo’s eyes snapped open.
She pulled her hand away and stared at him.
"What is it?" his mother asked.
Ailo didn’t answer. She placed her palm against his chest again and closed her eyes, sending another thread of mana into his body.
This time, her expression tightened as she followed the flow around his mana core.
"His mana core..."
She opened her eyes.
"It’s repairing itself."
His mother’s eyes widened.
"What?"
"His mana core. It’s repairing itself."
She stared at Ailo, then looked down at Aric.
"How is that possible?"
Ailo shook her head.
"I don’t know."
Her hand returned to his chest, and she closed her eyes as another thread of mana slipped into his body.
She remained silent for several seconds, carefully following the flow of mana around his core before finally opening her eyes.
"In all my years as a healer, I’ve never encountered anything like this."
His mother’s hands tightened around his, her fingers trembling slightly as she held on to him.
"What do we do?"
Ailo remained quiet for a moment, her eyes still fixed on Aric’s face as she watched his breathing and the faint movement of his chest.
"The heat is coming from the core itself," she finally said. "It is part of whatever is happening inside him, and I cannot stop it without interfering with the repair. I don’t know enough about what is happening to risk making things worse."
His mother’s fingers tightened around his again.
"So we just wait?"
"The process will likely resolve on its own," Ailo replied. "His body is doing something I don’t understand, but it is doing it without any help from us. The heat should fade once the repair is complete."
His mother looked down at Aric, her eyes lingering on his pale face.
"And if it doesn’t?"
Ailo said nothing.
She did not need to.
His mother turned back to Aric and gently pressed her hand against his forehead, her palm warm against his burning skin. He could feel the slight tremble in her fingers even through the heat that seemed to have consumed every part of his body.
"I am here," she whispered. "I’m not going anywhere."
Aric wanted to answer her, more than anything, but his body refused to cooperate. He wanted to tell her that he could hear every word she said, that he knew she was beside him, that she did not need to be afraid because he was still here and he was not going to leave her again. Yet no matter how hard he tried, his throat would not produce the words, leaving him with nothing but the warmth of her hand and the sound of her voice reaching him through the haze.
The heat continued to rise.
Time passed, though Aric had no idea how much of it had gone by. Minutes could have passed, or perhaps much longer, because everything around him had begun to blur together. His mother’s voice faded in and out, sometimes close enough that he could make out every word and sometimes so distant that it sounded like it was coming from the other side of a vast room. He could hear Ailo moving around him, her footsteps coming and going as she continued to watch over him, while somewhere in the distance the door opened and closed again, though Aric was too exhausted to care who entered or left.
There was only the heat.
It spread from his chest through his shoulders and down his arms, then continued into his legs until even his fingertips seemed to burn, as if something deep within his body was slowly being drawn out and replaced by fire. Every breath felt heavy, his muscles remained tense beneath the sheets, and the longer it continued, the harder it became to tell where the pain ended and the exhaustion began.
Eventually, he closed his eyes and stopped trying to fight it.
Then, almost imperceptibly, something changed.
The heat in his fingertips began to lessen, replaced by a faint coolness that slowly travelled through his hands and up his arms. The burning in his chest gradually weakened, the pressure that had been building behind his eyes began to disappear, and the constant noise inside his head became quieter with every passing moment.
Aric drew in a slow breath, expecting the same burning sensation that had accompanied every breath before it, but this time there was only a dull ache lingering in his chest.
He breathed again, and it was easier.
Another breath followed, deeper than the last, and for the first time since the heat had begun, his body no longer felt as though it was fighting against itself.
The strange warmth continued to drain away until only a faint trace remained, leaving behind a deep exhaustion that settled into his limbs. His muscles finally relaxed against the mattress, his fingers slowly releasing their grip on the sheets, and his breathing gradually returned to a steady rhythm.
Aric opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was his mother.
She was still sitting beside him, still holding his hand, and still watching his face as though she had been afraid that looking away for even a moment might make him disappear again.
"Mom," he whispered.
His voice was weak, barely more than a breath, but it was enough.
Her eyes immediately filled with tears as she leaned forward and pressed her forehead against his.
"You scared me."
Aric managed a tired smile.
"Sorry."
A small, wet laugh escaped her, though the tears continued to roll down her cheeks, and she squeezed his hand without letting go.
Ailo stepped closer and reached for his wrist, pressing two fingers against his pulse as she studied him carefully. She remained that way for several seconds before finally pulling her hand back.
"The heat has passed," she said.
Aric turned his head slightly toward her, still feeling exhausted but far more aware of his surroundings than before.
"What happened?"
Ailo studied him for a moment, then a small smile touched her lips.
"Well," she said, "the good news is that you are not dying."
Aric blinked at her.
"That’s good news."
Ailo gave a quiet laugh before her expression became more serious.
"The strange news is that your mana core appears to have repaired itself."
Aric stared at her, unable to make sense of what he had just heard.
"What?"
"I don’t know how it happened, and I don’t know why it happened," Ailo said, shaking her head slightly. "But I checked it several times, and there is no mistaking it. Your mana core is whole again."
For a moment, Aric could only stare at her.
He looked toward his mother, who seemed just as stunned by the revelation, before lowering his gaze to his own hands and slowly opening and closing his fingers.
His mana core.
The same core that had failed him three years ago.
The same weakness that had left him bedridden and unable to do anything while his life passed around him.
The same condition that everyone had believed would continue to define his life.
It was whole again.
Aric remained silent as he tried to understand what that meant for him, but the answer refused to come. He did not know whether his body would remain stable, whether he would ever be able to use mana properly, or what had caused the strange repair in the first place.
He knew nothing.
Yet beneath all those questions, something unfamiliar had begun to take shape inside him.
For the first time since he had opened his eyes in this unfamiliar body, since he had inherited memories that were not his own and awakened to a life he had never chosen, he could see the possibility of something beyond sickness, weakness and three years trapped in a bed.
Maybe things could be different now.
Maybe he was not destined to remain the person this body had once been.
And for the first time since waking up, Aric allowed himself to feel something he had almost forgotten how to feel.
Hope.