Soft crying filled the air. The metallic scent of blood filled my nose. Somewhere in the distance, there were loud bangs every ten or so seconds. I focused only on holding the girl who clung to me. The entire world outside had ceased to exist, until only the two of us remained in that dark room.

  Eventually, Violet’s trembling ceased. By then, she had soaked my dress with her tears, not that it mattered. I didn’t think I offered much in the way of comfort. She felt cold. Perhaps I only offered warmth, and perhaps only warmth is enough sometimes.

  She broke away from me and scooted over to the side, the movement awkward and halting. We leaned against a far wall, the Transmutation Circle and the corpse of Duke Indri lying flat in front of us. Blood had pooled down beneath him. I’d almost thought it might reach us, eventually. It had stopped.

  “If you- if you ever tell anyone else about this I’m going to….” Violet trailed off.

  “My lips are sealed,” I said back. “I won’t tell a single soul.”

  “Good, see that you don’t,” Violet grunted.

  I looked over at her, froze. I saw how pale she was. My gaze fell to her wound, to the hole I’d put in her. It was bleeding freely now. Blood spilled out, tried to claw back into the wound, but spilled out anyway as something gave out inside.

  I hurriedly reached over and pressed my hands firmly against the wound. Heat slipped out from between my fingers.

  “You-you said this was a gash.” My voice sounded shaky. It was hard to keep my composure, but I tried anyway.

  Violet didn’t pull away. Instead, she clicked her tongue, sighed. “What difference does it make? I don’t like making people worry.”

  I stared at her. Her breathing was getting shallower. “H-how? You said your Gift…made it fine!” She had said that.

  “I control blood, though I guess you figured that out by now,” Violet muttered. I had. “You need…mana for a Gift. And talent. Sucks I never was... better at it... never liked it anyway...” She shook her head, and didn't say anything more.

  “I-I’ll get you outside,” I said quickly, reaching over to pull her up. I channeled mana into my arms, into my legs. So many parts of me screamed. I didn’t have much left at all.

  “Don’t bother,” Violet grumbled.

  "Shut up," I hissed, gritting my teeth. I forced us upright and took one step before my legs wobbled. Violet couldn’t hold herself up anymore, and I couldn’t keep us both standing. We collapsed in a tangle of limbs, landing back in the pooling blood where we’d started.

  Violet groaned. “Told you, didn’t I?”

  I stared at her, hands covered in blood. She stared back, her eyes following my movement as I reached over to press my red-stained fingers against the wound again, trying again to stop the bleeding. More blood seeped through. Surely a normal wound would have slightly healed with mana alone by now.

  Something in her face softened. "Don’t hurt yourself doing something you can’t do. That’s too stupid. It’s something I would do."

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I said, my voice cracking. “This is because you tried to-”

  Violet’s arm shot out and hit me in the side. Hard, just enough to ache. “Don’t say something that stupid again.”

  We both stared at each other. I swallowed, faintly nodded. Something inside me pulled tight inside me. “I-I won’t.”

  Violet faintly nodded her head. Was it just my imagination, or had she started to lose the color she had left?

  I tried putting more pressure on her wound. It was hard to know if it helped. The blood just kept coming. Damn it. I wished I knew anything about this.

  “Hey, smartass.”

  I lifted my head to look at her.

  “Kind of a stupid question, but….” She swallowed, looking away from me. “Why do you think he didn’t want me?”

  The fragile dam over my emotions burst in an instant. Hot tears spilled down my cheeks, perhaps more painfully because she wasn’t crying herself.

  “I mean, I get that my mom was awesome and all that. I get that.” She took a deep breath. “But I was still right there, ya know? I don't…”

  “It’s not your fault.” It was hard to keep my voice steady, no matter how hard I tried. “He was scum. A lot of adults are.” I suppose my own mother was only the second-worst adult I knew now. Had known, rather.

  The girl nodded slowly and was silent for a time. I almost wanted to prod her again, just to see if she was still there. “Ya know, I didn’t have a fucking mother. Didn’t have a fucking father, too, I guess. Now….” She shrugged. “Have some distant family I think. In…another city. Eirheim?” She trailed off.

  I understood what she meant, even if I didn’t want to. She was alone. Distant relatives, but that was a small thing compared to having a family.

  “I don’t have a mother either,” I whispered. In this life, or the last. “And my father…they say only someone like a God or a Hero can fix him.” There wasn’t much chance of that happening.

  Violet turned to look at me. She had been crying. Her tears had been quiet, unlike my louder, uglier ones.

  “So I guess….”

  I nodded. “We’re not that different after all. Not really.”

  A silence followed that lasted a few seconds.

  “If you tell anyone about this-”

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  “You’ll beat the hell out of me.” I finished for her. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind. It sounded like fun.

  She nodded, leaned back, stared at the ceiling. Her eyes almost shut. Her body grew colder. Something inside me felt like it might snap.

  Violet’s eyes were almost shut by now. The heat was leaving her body rapidly, leaving her skin as cold as the stone floor beneath us. When she spoke, the trademark harshness was completely gone, replaced by a whisper. “Hey…ya wanna try being an adventurer sometime?”

  “What?”

  “I think it would be fun.” She said, halting. “Fucking wish I got to let loose a little more, ya know? Always wanted to try.”

  I felt cold. “I- yes,” I whispered. “We will. I’m not as good as you, but I’ll try.”

  She laughed. It sounded like a cough. “Shut up. You think I’m fucking dumb? I know your Gift isn’t . I figured it out.”

  An odd thing happened. I found myself smiling faintly, even in this situation. “Yes, you’re exactly right, Violet.”

  Her eyes closed. Mine blurred. I had to keep her conscious. Keep her focused on something. I knew that much. Nothing came to mind.

  So, I started talking. About life at the manor. About Anias and Estovan. About Damian and Sere. About my father, who hadn’t woken up and perhaps never would. Eventually, I ran out of things to say. Only one thing came to mind then.

  “I-I don’t know how to explain or what it means, but I’m not really from here, I guess,” I murmured. “I’m from a place very far away. Isn’t that crazy? It’s hard for me to believe either, but….”

  I looked up at her face, wishing she’d open her eyes. She didn’t. I trembled more, and then I talked. I told her about my previous life, as much as I could remember it. I told her about the jumbles in my head. I told her my name, my real name, though the distinction was growing fainter and fainter.

  She never opened her eyes. Occasionally, she would mumble something I didn’t understand. I kept talking.

  “I couldn’t kill my mother,” I mumbled. “Tried damn hard but….” I trailed off. “Then I just ended up here, I guess. Kinda jealous that you managed to…you know.”

  It was the greatest secret I had. Perhaps the only one that could truly end me. I didn’t think Violet heard. A part of me thought I was a coward, only voicing it to someone in this situation. There was a small unburdening, buried almost immediately by the grief.

  The blood had stopped flowing as freely now, at least. She was cold. I furiously wiped away the tears and stared at her. She was still breathing, slow, pained gasps that sounded like they were being forced out of her.

  I’d done this to her, no matter what she said. The guilt was just one of the things eating me from the inside.

  The banging in the distance had faded some time ago. Steps and whispers approached. I froze. Indri’s men, surely. Fuck, they’d found us. No way to tell how many or how dangerous they are.

  I raised my arm to the side, fingers flexing, ready to call to the Godblade.

  

  The sword warned. I didn’t care. If it took my life, so be it. I’d raze this entire fucking manor to ash and dust if I had to. I would kill every single person here. Every person who let things end like this.

  “I feel something,” a woman’s deep, powerful voice.

  I turned, only to see the woman in question. She had short purple hair, a frame that was the perfect mix between muscular and lean, and sharp brown eyes that stared blankly at me. They turned from me to Violet and then to Duke Indri’s corpse. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything. I didn’t get the impression she was any kind of guard at all.

  She shook her head, turned back. “I found them!”

  More people came: a tall, thin man with a bow and quiver. And…Anias.

  “My Lady!” Anias said quickly, as soon as she spotted me. She hurried over past the other two. I felt her Gift touch.

  “No,” I whispered. “Heal her first.”

  Anias looked at Violet, then back at me. “My Lady, I-”

  “Please. Heal her first.”

  Anias nodded slowly and moved over to the girl. She stared at the wound, channeled mana. The wound closed. “My Lady, my Gift isn’t- not for this. I closed the wound but…I can’t do anything about the blood.”

  Whatever small hold I’d still had over myself was threatening to shatter right then. I was going to lash out, I knew it. It was getting harder and harder to care.

  “Let me see.” The woman stepped forward, stooped, and touched Violet's hand. She channeled mana, too, and nodded to herself.

  “She’s alive, so she should be fine. So long as I don’t run out, anyway. We have to hurry.”

  Anias nodded; apparently, this all made sense to her. My brain had been fogged over, and it was taking so much effort to start thinking again. How was she even here? How had she even found out? All of those questions were secondary. I looked at the woman, watching her expression shift as she waited for me to speak.

  “Are you sure? Please, don’t lie to me. If you’re just doing it to console me, don’t.” My voice was cold. I tried to make it at least a little warmer. “Please.”

  The woman looked at me and hesitated. She shared a glance with the man standing off to the side. “Lady Veyne, my Gift whatever I’m touching. I can’t make her better, but she won’t get any worse.”

  It didn’t sound like information she would have ordinarily shared. Adventurer’s Gifts weren’t usually a mystery. Perhaps hers was.

  I looked to Anias for confirmation. She slowly nodded. “Sierra is an S-rank, My Lady. If she says her Gift will hold her, it will.”

  Hope was a fragile, tenuous thing. Yet, I did feel a spark of it now. I took a deep breath. Nodded.

  “Then, may I tend to you, My Lady?”

  I nodded faintly and felt Anias’ mana start to wash over me. The pains and aches I had forced into the background seemed to be rearing their heads again. I winced and tried to ignore them as best I could. A few of them dulled. Anias’ Gift couldn’t heal most of the injuries I had, either.

  “You’re late,” I murmured.

  “There was a barrier, My Lady. Like at the Auction House. It took a while to break. There were guards and many golems. Estovan is outside, dealing with stragglers. We would have had to wait for the army, if it wasn’t for him.” She gestured behind her, at the man standing there.

  I nodded faintly. That made sense, and I supposed it would also answer all the banging.

  “I’m just going to take this one outside then, yeah?” Sierra had Violet flung over her shoulders. The adventurer was looking to me for permission. “I need to get her to Miranda. Soon. Best damn healer I know. She’ll heal her if I force her.”

  “Thank you.”

  Sierra left, leaving just me, Anias, the adventurer, and the corpse of one of the five most powerful men in this city.

  A few seconds passed. Anias didn’t say anything, nor did the male adventurer. “You’re not going to ask?” I gestured towards Duke Indri’s lifeless form.

  “I trust you have a reason, Lady Esra,” Anias said simply.

  “What about him?” I gestured.

  “My name is Mathias, M’lady.” He tipped his head. “And…we saw.” There was no need for him to tell me what he saw. I understood well enough from Violet’s description. “For now, I’m quiet. I don’t just take any job. And we-I owe your father a great deal. Sierra is the same.”

  “You can trust them,” Anias murmured. “More than most..”

  I swallowed, licked my lips. Now that the immediate horror had passed, my mind was spinning. Turning. Thinking. There had been a barrier, like at the auction. People would have seen. People would be here, and soon.

  “You called the Veyne guards?”

  “I did,” Anias confirmed. “Count Roderick is on his way, but he was surveying the Thalos District when I called for him. Count Vance left for an expedition two days ago. House Wardell will be here first.”

  Shit.

  Things were starting to get a lot more complicated. How much time did we have before everything went to hell? A group of elite fighters could cross the city easily. Columns of soldiers would take far longer.

  There was only one option here, and I needed to do it , no matter how I felt.

  “Anias, you passed by rooms here, yes?”

  “They had Artifacts,” Anias informed me.

  “Bring them all here. Every single one.” I whispered. Reached to my side, tugged at that itch in the back of my head. The Godblade appeared, bright and brilliant. There was a inside me, as I wrenched mana out of a mana core that barely had any to spare.

  Mathias let out a gasp. Anias looked dubious. I forced myself to get up on shaking feet, forced myself to take a step towards the Transmutation Circle. Even that small motion almost made me fall over.

  “My Lady, what are you-”

  

  “Bring every single one of them here. Find me the Head Maid. Now. Then, we bring this roof down.”