A harsh beam of light cut through the darkness and bored mercilessly beneath Valeria's eyelids.

  She tried to turn her head—but the movement immediately triggered a wave of nausea. Her stomach clenched as though someone had torn at her insides with cold fingers. Valeria froze and pressed her lips together until she tasted bitterness on her tongue.

  Her eyelids felt heavy as lead, as though someone had laid glowing stones on them. Every attempt to blink pushed her deeper into the pillows. Her body refused to obey. It wanted to stay down. It wanted to forget.

  But forgotten nights don't smell of lavender.

  A dull, deep-seated ache pulled through every muscle—not like the ordinary soreness after a training day at the Academy, but like the aftershock of an unnatural tension that had torn through her in the forest. It sat in the bones, not the fibres. As though her body were a string that had been wound so tight for so long it had grown paper-thin and brittle.

  Valeria tried to swallow.

  Her throat was so dry it hurt. It tasted of old sand and scorched iron. When she cautiously breathed in, a stabbing pain shot through her chest—a sharp tear that reopened with every expansion of her lungs, as though something inside her protested the moment she so much as tried to exist.

  Where am I? What happened?

  The thoughts didn't come in a clear sequence but as scattered shards. A yawning blackness. Heat that threatened to scorch everything. Cold that froze the blood in her veins. The bitter taste of ash. And hovering above it all, that one word, burning like a glowing seal in her mind—a name, a whisper, a naming.

  Valeria forced her lids open a sliver.

  The light was soft, warm, golden. It danced through a curtain and drew patterns on the wooden floorboards. Dust motes floated within it like tiny stars. Somewhere, wood creaked—that slow, soothing settling that only old houses make when they adjust to a new morning.

  A fresh, almost biting scent of clean linen hung in the air. Soapwort. Lavender. And beneath it… something else: hay, very faint. Not strong, but there. Like a trace that revealed a barn stood somewhere on the estate and the world was still tending to ordinary things.

  Valeria blinked again, and the room peeled itself from the fog.

  It was her room.

  Home.

  The Wolfclaw estate.

  The realisation didn't hit like relief but like a question. Her gaze drifted over the familiar things: the simple wooden shelf, the small bowl of dried herbs, the window through which light fell so naturally, as though there had never been a night that tried to break the world.

  If I'm home… how did we get here?

  Memory surged back.

  Oaks rising like pillars. A demon's laughter like rusty chains. A spiral of toxic green and violet eating into the earth. Black light that wanted to swallow everything. Krent on the ground. Blood on moss. Her own breathing, far too loud. And then—that barrier. Those five colours. That word.

  Valeria closed her eyes. A pulse throbbed in her temples. Her head felt as though someone had stuffed it with cotton from the inside.

  And deep beneath it all, almost hidden under the noise of her own beating heart, there was something else.

  A delicate, second rhythm.

  A warm point inside her, pulsing steadily, as if to tell her she was not alone.

  Valeria pressed her lips together and suppressed a groan.

  Later. That has to wait. Krent first.

  "Krent…?" she tried to call.

  But her voice was barely more than a hoarse croak, a breath of air that faded in the silence of the room without reaching anything. She swallowed again; her throat burned immediately.

  Valeria braced her elbows against the mattress, determined to sit up. She felt the strain in her arms, the trembling in her wrists.

  But the moment she lifted her upper body, a cutting pain shot through her ribs.

  Her breath broke off as though someone had severed it. Her legs, which felt like soft wax, gave out at once. She sank back into the pillows, gasping from the effort. The linen smelled of lavender and that particular soapwort Rubin always used when she did the washing.

  A detail that should have been calming in its ordinariness.

  Today it felt like a bitter reminder: You're alive. But you don't know why.

  The door opened quietly.

  Almost gently.

  A young woman stepped in. Her long, fiery red hair was tied back in a practical braid, and her bright blue eyes immediately searched the bed. She wore a simple dress of sturdy fabric, and at her belt several glass phials clinked softly with every step. On her face lay a warm smile—but Valeria saw at once that it was too thin. A mask that cost effort.

  "Rubin…?" Valeria's voice was only a whisper, but surprise pushed through even the pain. "What are you doing here?"

  Rubin came to the bed and sat on the edge. Her hand settled gently on Valeria's shoulder—a touch that was comfort and examination at once. Her fingers were warm. Valeria felt an almost imperceptible tremor in them. Not fear. Exhaustion.

  "We found you," Rubin said quietly.

  Her voice was calm. Always calm. As though she were a blanket laid over someone who was shivering.

  "Diamant and I. Meryia sent us after you as reinforcements… just in case. But when we arrived…" Rubin's gaze flickered briefly, as if she were seeing something that wasn't in the room. Something that smelled of sulphur.

  She swallowed the shadow down.

  "…we found nothing but a clearing that looked as though a god had unleashed his wrath upon it. Total destruction. And the two of you in the middle of it, completely unconscious."

  Valeria closed her eyes. The images burned back at once.

  Demon claws. Black flames. Spiral. Krent's blood. The moment she thought she was going to lose him.

  "How long…?" she asked.

  The word scraped in her dry throat.

  Rubin pulled the blanket a little higher and smoothed it, almost automatically, as though she needed to physically hold Valeria in the bed. "Krent was out for a day and a half. When he woke up, he was… well, himself." Her gaze drifted briefly to the window, where the light looked like something innocent. "You were gone for four days, Valeria."

  Four days.

  Valeria tried to grasp the number, but it slipped through her fingers. Four days in which the world had kept turning. Four days in which the forest had breathed. Four days in which Krent had been awake while she… hadn't been there.

  Four days.

  "I…" Valeria swallowed with difficulty. "And him? How is he really?"

  Rubin exhaled slowly. A long, heavy sigh that said more than words. "He's alive. More than that." A thin smile that didn't hide her worry. "But he's Krent. And Krent doesn't process things like this by lying still in bed and resting."

  Valeria nodded weakly.

  Of course.

  He hated looking weak. He was Iridium. He was a rock. And rocks didn't lie around waiting to be pieced back together.

  "We… we saw a dragon," she rasped. Her hands began to tremble uncontrollably, as though the word itself had touched her nerves. "Silver. It just stood there… as if it were part of the world. Then it vanished." She paused briefly, because her breath caught. "And then he came. That demon." Her fingers clawed into the blanket. "I've never felt anything like it. That horror… that will."

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Rubin was silent for a long moment.

  Not because she had no answer. But because she understood that Valeria didn't need an explanation right now. Only something to hold her.

  Rubin reached for a cup of tea on the nightstand and handed it to Valeria. "Rest. The explanations can wait. You survived, Valeria. That's the only thing that matters right now."

  Valeria took the cup with both hands. The warm wood felt good—real. Her fingers trembled so badly the tea rippled in small waves. The scent of calming herbs rose to her nose and eased the burning in her throat a little.

  She drank carefully.

  Warmth slid into her stomach, but it stayed on the surface. Her body seemed only reluctantly willing to accept that the immediate danger was supposed to be over.

  "How did you even get us back here?" Valeria asked quietly, after she had set the cup down.

  Rubin hesitated.

  Only for a breath, but Valeria noticed. Then Rubin nodded, as though she had decided Valeria could bear this truth now.

  "The clearing was… wrong, Valeria." Rubin's voice stayed calm, but her eyes darkened a shade. "The ground was completely black, as though it had been burned out from within. But the ash wasn't like normal wood. It was sticky. Almost like tar."

  Rubin's face twisted at the memory. "And everywhere, that smell. Sulphur, scorched earth… cold death. Like a furnace that had been left open far too long, its heat devouring every trace of life."

  Valeria listened in silence as her stomach tightened at the description. She could smell it again, as though the air in the room had briefly turned.

  "Krent was lying there," Rubin continued more quietly, lowering her gaze, "as though someone had torn him apart with brute force and then tossed him down at random."

  Valeria felt her heart clench.

  "We had to stabilise him on the spot. Diamant…" Rubin paused briefly, and in that tiny moment there was something in her voice Valeria rarely heard from her: honest respect, almost like wonder. "…well. He did his thing. His healing energy was so fast and clean, I've never seen anything like it. Without him, we couldn't even have lifted Krent without him dying under our hands."

  Valeria studied Rubin's face carefully. Rubin was Iridium herself, a master of alchemy and medicine. If she spoke like that, it was more than "well healed."

  "And you?" Valeria asked.

  Rubin raised the cup slightly, as though that were the simplest answer in the world. "Potions. Circulatory stabilisation. Breathing control. Pulse monitoring." A thin, wistful smile. "But with you, it was… harder."

  Valeria's heartbeat quickened. "Because I… because of the blood blade?"

  "Because you were so eerily still," Rubin said carefully. "You were breathing. Your heart was beating. But your mind was… far away. As though you were in a place where you didn't want to be found."

  Rubin glanced briefly at the door, as though expecting someone to be listening. Then she looked at Valeria again. "Meryia practically pushed us to get you out of the forest immediately. She said the Shrine Oak Forest is a gamble right now. One moment it carries you in its hands… the next it devours you whole."

  Valeria closed her fingers so tightly around the cup that her knuckles turned white.

  Flare.

  She didn't say the word aloud. It stayed inside her like a small, glowing secret. A thing too large to lay on a table.

  A metallic clang suddenly rang in from outside.

  Rhythmic. Hard.

  Then the characteristic hiss of electric sparks.

  Valeria turned her head immediately toward the window.

  Krent.

  He stood down in the courtyard on one of the training grounds. The morning sun lay on his skin; sweat gleamed and ran over fresh scars that marked his back and chest. His upper body was bare, his armour apparently set aside somewhere, as though it were nothing but dead weight right now.

  His twin blades whirled through the air. Blue sparks danced in wild leaps around the edges, like captured lightning sliding across steel and crackling in the dry air.

  But every strike was too hard.

  Every slash was driven too heavy, as though he weren't training but punishing himself and the world for his failure. The earth beneath his feet shuddered with every lunge—not because he was deliberately forcing magic out, but because he was pressing every movement into the ground with desperate force.

  His breathing came in bursts, heavy and irregular.

  He didn't look exhausted.

  He looked angry.

  Rubin followed her gaze to the window and sighed softly. "Since we brought you back, he hasn't allowed himself a single minute of rest. He trains until he collapses… and then he gets back up."

  Valeria felt something tighten inside her.

  "But… he's not ready for that kind of strain," she whispered.

  "No." Rubin nodded gravely. "He's angry. And he's hurt. And I'm not just talking about his ribs or his skin."

  Rubin tucked a red strand behind her ear. "He asked me every half hour for three days whether you'd finally woken up. Every time with the same look."

  Valeria swallowed hard. Something tightened painfully in her chest that had nothing to do with her ribs.

  Rubin hesitated a heartbeat, then continued, more quietly: "I caught him once, in the middle of the night, standing here in the room." Her voice grew even softer. "He was just standing in front of your bed. He didn't do anything. He just looked at you. For hours. As though he were waiting for you to tell him everything would be all right."

  Valeria stared out at the courtyard.

  Krent cut the air with lethal precision. The blue crackling was controlled—and yet today it seemed like a blade he was turning not against an enemy but against his own insides.

  He won't spare himself. Not as long as he has that look in his eyes.

  In the courtyard, gravel crunched beneath footsteps.

  A voice, calm and steady as stone, rang across the grounds.

  "Krent."

  The air vibrated briefly, as though the word had drawn a line.

  Diamant stepped through the wooden gate.

  His grey hair fell untidily across his forehead, and his yellow eyes shone alert and clear. No armour. No visible weapon. Just a simple tunic—and yet such quiet strength emanated from him that he seemed to fill the space the moment he entered it. He didn't need a blade to project authority.

  He was the authority.

  Krent froze mid-swing.

  His chest heaved violently. Sweat dripped from his chin onto the dusty ground. The blue sparks still twitched nervously across the steel, as though refusing to accept that he had stopped.

  "You…" Krent's voice vibrated with suppressed fury. "You didn't see what I saw, Diamant."

  Diamant stopped about five metres away. No expression on his face. No provocation. Only that gaze that had always seen too much.

  "You don't know what it feels like," Krent pressed on, the words faster, sharper, "to be so completely humiliated. In front of her. In front of Valeria. I couldn't do anything."

  Diamant didn't answer immediately. As though he were giving Krent time to hear himself. Then he said calmly:

  "You're alive, Krent. That's the only result that counts."

  Krent laughed shortly—hard, broken. "Not because I was strong enough!" His voice rose, and a shower of sparks sprayed from the blades like protesting fire. "But because we… because we were saved by something I can't even name!"

  Diamant took one step closer. Slowly. As though showing a wounded animal that he wasn't afraid.

  "Then you'll become strong again."

  He placed his hand calmly on Krent's trembling shoulder. For a tiny moment, the air around him flickered: a quiet, golden glow, pure healing energy pulsing within him like a second, steady heartbeat.

  It wasn't bright. Not dramatic.

  It was simply there.

  Stable. Unshakeable.

  "But not like this, my friend."

  Krent growled softly, fists clenched tight around the grips. Fury boiled visibly within him. His jaw muscles twitched, as though he wanted to bite the words apart.

  I want to be stronger. I have to be.

  But Diamant's gaze was so clear and unyielding that it permitted no further argument.

  "If you keep this up," Diamant said, "you'll destroy yourself before you can even set foot in a dungeon again. Your body isn't ready yet. Your magic is unstable." He tilted his head slightly, and in that small angle lay something that sounded like before—like two boys who had known each other since childhood. "One more day at this pace… and you'll be on death's threshold again."

  Krent stared at him, as though in that moment he wanted nothing more than to hate him.

  Then, for a brief, ugly instant, something else flickered across his face:

  Naked fear.

  Not the fear of the demon.

  The fear of feeling that helpless again.

  Diamant let him have that moment. He said nothing until Krent's breathing calmed a little and the blue flashes on the steel grew weaker, as though they were growing tired.

  Then Diamant slowly raised his hand and pointed to the centre of the courtyard. "Come."

  A single word, and yet it sounded like a path.

  "If you're carrying that much fury inside you," Diamant continued, "then let me feel it. Maybe I can help you turn it into something useful."

  His voice stayed calm, but it carried weight. No mockery. No competition. More like… an offer that simultaneously held the authority of an order.

  Krent clenched his teeth so hard his jaw muscles stood out. The blue crackling grew quieter, almost as though it were responding to Diamant's calm. He lowered the blades a fraction—not out of respect, but because his body had finally noticed it was trembling from exhaustion.

  "If I hit you…" Krent began, his voice rough.

  Diamant raised an eyebrow. "Then I'll simply heal it."

  A faint smile—rare, almost paternal. And beneath it a trace of teasing that only someone who had known Krent since he was five could use.

  "And maybe you'll finally learn to breathe again before you strike."

  Krent snorted.

  This time it was less defiance, more a short, broken laugh. He turned the blades in his hands and set his stance. No longer like someone who wanted to tear the whole world apart. More like someone who needed to prove to himself that he could still hold the blades without shattering.

  Up at the window, Valeria watched in silence.

  The sun lay warm on the courtyard. Somewhere a bird could be heard. Very faint. A normal sound. A normal morning. And yet it looked as though Krent were fighting a night he couldn't shake.

  That's the only way for him. And probably for us too.

  "You two are so unbelievably stubborn…" she murmured softly.

  Rubin, still standing beside her, gave her a small, honest smile. "Maybe." She laid her hand briefly on Valeria's forearm—gentle, steadying. "But that's exactly one of the reasons Wolfclaw is considered the strongest unit."

  Wolfclaw.

  Four Iridium adventurers who hadn't come together by chance. A unit that Meryia had forged—not with rankings, but with truth. With missions that hurt. With decisions that can't be taken back. With trust that only forms when you've seen each other's ugly side.

  Valeria didn't return the smile.

  Her gaze stayed on Krent.

  He set up for the first strike.

  Slower this time. More controlled. Almost cautious—as though he himself didn't believe he was allowed to be slow.

  Diamant evaded the blade as though it were a dance they had known for years. No jump, no hasty dodge. Just a step, minimal. An angle. As though showing Krent: you don't have to shout to land a hit.

  Krent drove the second slash with too much force.

  Diamant placed two fingers against the flat of the blade.

  And stopped the motion.

  Not with brute strength. But with a calm that was harder than steel.

  Krent froze mid-swing, muscles vibrating, sparks leaping briefly. His gaze flickered.

  Diamant said nothing.

  He let him feel it.

  That fury is a tool. But also a fire that devours you if you don't guide it.

  Valeria exhaled deeply, without realising she had been holding her breath the entire time.

  Inside her, for a fraction of a heartbeat, that warm, tiny something stirred again. A second rhythm, barely perceptible, giving her a feeling she didn't want to place—because it was too soft for what they had just been through.

  Valeria swallowed hard and forced the feeling back with all her might.

  Not now. Not yet.

  Outside in the courtyard, Krent continued training, and she knew: he wouldn't spare himself. Not as long as that burning look remained in his eyes, searching for an answer to the impossible.

  But Diamant was with him.

  And Rubin was with her.

  And somewhere between the creaking of the wood, the scent of clean linen, and the hiss of sparks lay a truth that Valeria only reluctantly allowed in:

  The next day had begun.

  And they were still here.