“This is an outrage! You expect me to overlook the death of one of my guild members? I won’t stand for it!”

Veltyen kept his face and body language as Inheritance’s guildmaster continued to rant and bluster, encased in the same cold anger he had experienced before he had executed Tristane.

He was not worried about the consequences of his actions, one, because he would do it again even if it meant being imprisoned, and two, he did not think he really would face such consequences.

Archmage Renglan’s face was visible over the three-way call. It had slowly lost its usual amiability as Ariela and Devlin laid out the sequence of events, backed by irrefutable evidence from the mages’ tracking spells and financial information Foria had found that showed that Tristane had been backed by funding by Inheritance. With the ongoing bluster going on and on, Renglan’s expression turned merciless, the predator behind the mask coming to the fore.

“Drustan Lethei.”

The Archmage had not raised his voice in the slightest, but it cut through Drustan’s yelling like a knife, silencing the guildmaster mid-sentence.

“Let me get this straight. Inheritance guild planned and executed the kidnapping of the registered member of another guild, the first Source known to Oslethia in over fifty years, during the Mage Games, on the sovereign territory of another nation, and you refuse to ‘overlook things’?”

“That’s—”

“I’m tempted to open a public inquiry just to see how quickly your guild would crumble,” Renglan continued, the threat in his voice quiet and deadly.

“While you’re at it, Renglan, please authorize duelling between our guilds,” Ariela added. “I promised someone that we would do so if he messed with one of my guild members.”

Drustan was nothing if not a coward. Under the cold gazes of the two most destructive mages in the Seven Kingdoms, he paled and fell silent.

With Drustan properly understanding who was going to control the situation, Renglan proceeded to lay out the course of action. Inheritance guild was going to be forced to pay huge reparations to Eterna, the Roswan branch of the Guild Association, and Sery herself, as well as being banned from recruiting any new members for the next five years. The public reason for the punishment was going to be listed as merely ‘illegal smuggling’, but the loss of prestige and inability to grow was going to cause many of its members to leave, and the guild was going to quickly fall down the rankings and lose most of the lucrative contracts it held. Veltyen wanted the guild entirely gone, but he thought having it languish in obscurity would actually be more painful to its guildmaster.

As for Veltyen himself, the Archmage merely extracted a promise that he would ensure his magic was entirely under control, even in resonance, within a year. Veltyen knew Renglan was far too canny to believe the story that Tristane’s death had been an accident, but the Archmage did not seem inclined to investigate the matter further.

After Drustan left the call, Renglan said, “I would like to speak to Veltyen alone.”

Ariela made a wry smile at being kicked out of her own office but left without comment, Devlin and Foria filing after her.

Veltyen met the Archmage’s gaze through the communication crystal, the man’s usual affable expression back in place.

“Mr. Indei, have you given any thought to my previous proposal? I can’t guarantee I could have completely prevented this incident – it’s quite hard to predict what people will do when they’re stupid enough – but it does illustrate why you might want Ms. Holdei to have greater protections than she does now.”

Veltyen did not have any doubts. “I definitely appreciate your offer, but Sery and I would like to stay with Eterna.”

“Oh? So you asked her?”

“I did.”

Renglan sighed but did not seem particularly surprised or upset at his answer. Veltyen had been bracing himself for veiled threats and insidious logic, but the Archmage gave every indication that he was going to let the matter be. It occurred to Veltyen that not everyone who played political games did so with malice or greed.

“The offer does remain open, but I won’t hold my breath.”

“Thank you, my lord. I owe you a favour. If there’s anything I can ever help you with, please let me know.”

At the offer, Renglan suddenly smiled like a satisfied cat, making the hair on the back of Veltyen’s neck stand on end. “I don’t think you’re ready yet for what I want from you. Contact me when you figure it out.” The screen went blank.

Veltyen frowned in confusion as he collected Foria’s communication crystal and slowly left the office. How would he know what the Archmage would want with the likes of him?

Downstairs, Ariela and Devlin were chatting with Foria as they sat by the front desk.

“So? What did he say?” Ariela asked as Veltyen returned Foria’s crystal to her.

“He repeated his offer for me and Sery to join the Guild Association headquarters. He didn’t seem particularly surprised or upset when I said no,” Veltyen commented, wanting the guildmasters’ input on the Archmage’s intentions.

“Renglan’s a fox, but one that only uses people the way they want to be used,” Ariela said, clearly having dealt with him before. “He’s going to get whatever benefit he can from Sery being here rather than try to force her to move.”

Veltyen nodded, glad that her assessment matched his own.

The conversation lapsed into contemplative silence. They were all back home, the Mage Games a distant memory and the threat of Inheritance guild settled, yet nothing felt the same. It would take weeks for Taine to finish treating Sery’s burn scars, and while Veltyen very much doubted anyone would try and pull off such an unhinged plan as kidnapping, she would always be a vulnerable target.

“Why can’t Sery charge mana crystals?” he asked Devlin.

The craft-mage exhaled and ran his hand through his hair. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about this problem in exhaustive detail.

“A regular mage’s enna is like… a container with organic walls that keep mana particles from escaping while also capturing new ones from the environment. It’s attached to a ‘valve’ so to speak, the shape of which determines the kind of magic they can manifest. It takes a certain amount of ‘pressure’ to force the mana particles through that valve, which the mage generates by ‘squeezing’ with the walls of their enna.

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“Sery’s enna is like… a pool. Well, more like an ocean in size, but it doesn’t have walls that keep mana particles in. Obviously not, which is why just being around her helps us recharge faster. All the mana particles she generates eventually overflow from her enna and spill into her surroundings. She can direct the flows to a certain extent, but she can’t generate enough ‘pressure’ to manifest magic, nor does she have a ‘valve’ to shape it.”

“I can see why she can’t actively use magic, but why can’t she charge mana crystals? Shouldn’t it be the same thing as recharging someone’s enna?”

“A mana crystal’s walls are entirely impermeable to mana particles. When you charge one, you are essentially forcing them backwards through the valve they come out of, which requires the same ‘pressure’ as casting a spell. Of note, she actually can charge crystals patterned after her Source magic, since they aren’t blocked by a valve, but of all the people in the world, she’s the last person to need extra magic stores.”

“There has to be a way to create mana crystal that can absorb particles through its walls,” Veltyen said, though he was far from certain this was actually true.

“You can certainly give it a try if you want. The current form of mana crystal is by far the most stable and magic-efficient to create that’s been discovered, but the need for magic efficiency is completely out the window for you.”

Veltyen was reminded of the feeling of limitless enna stores that never fully left his mind. Sery kept up the resonance all the time now; it appeared to give her a sense of security, a connection between them that could not be severed by any magic known to man, so it was not even a consideration for him to think about whether he wanted the power or not. He thought he had known what it was like to not have to conserve magic when she first came into the guild, but now it took conscious effort not to cast spells. He might as well put the power to use to create something that might help Sery. “If you could teach me how to make basic mana crystal, I’ll do some experimenting.”

***

Sery’s skin tingled and itched as Taine’s magic caused it to grow many times faster than its natural state. She rubbed at her face, grimacing as flakes of dead skin came off as new skin grew underneath it.

“Don’t rub,” Taine commanded, applying a soothing cream that both calmed the itch and helped ‘exfoliate’ the dead skin, whatever that meant.

She washed off the cream and looked at her face in the mirror. Compared to the thickened, raised scarring that had affected the left side of her face and left arm in the immediate aftermath of the magical explosion she had caused by overloading Tristane’s enna, it was much better, just some fine, white lines marking the edges of where skin had torn or blistered, barely noticeable with her pale complexion unless you looked very closely. Still, Taine believed he could completely erase the scars with a few more weeks of treatment, and she wanted them gone if possible; unlike the one on her arm from when Veltyen had saved her life, which she bore with pride, the idea of being permanently marked by Tristane left her stomach churning.

She looked up and smiled at the door just before Veltyen came through to pick her up from the healer’s temporary infirmary in Eterna.

He brushed his fingers across the cheek that had just been treated, his concern for her well-being palpable. “How is it going?”

“The fibrosed scarring is resolved and we’re moving on to correcting the hypopigmentation,” Taine reported. “At this point, we should go down to weekly treatments to allow the skin to rest from all the forced growth I’ve put it through. Use this cream every night and wear sunscreen as well as a hat and gloves every day.”

Sery nodded and accepted the jars of products that Taine gave her to use at home. She was lucky that Taine actually had a specialization in advanced burn and scar treatment; the fact that he had been able to start the healing process in the right way had minimized the initial damage and sped her progress to this point in mere days.

“Are you heading back to Nottagan, then?” Veltyen asked. “Your practice there must be hurting with you gone for so long.”

“Actually… I’ve been considering leaving the Nottagan clinic to Melayna and moving back to Eterna.”

Sery’s eyes widened. “…Because of me?” she asked, not wanting her troubles to influence the healer’s decisions.

Taine smiled. “No, dear. I never really wanted to live in Nottagan in the first place, but there was a shortage of healers there compared to its population size. I’m getting to the age that being woken up in the middle of the night to deal with bar fights and stabbings is tough on me, and Melayna is going to pass her final exam for independent practice this summer. I’m much more suited to a smaller town like Eterna, and any advanced cases that require my expertise can be referred over given that it’s still relatively close to Nottagan.”

Veltyen clapped the healer on the shoulder. “We’ll be glad to have you back full-time. It’s always a bit unsettling not to have a specialized healer around and have to rely on other types of life-mages for emergencies.”

She and Veltyen made their way back home, their usual comfortable silence slightly strained by the fact that they were both trying to avoid thinking too much about recent events.

“Are you sleeping okay?” Veltyen suddenly asked. “I know repeated healing sessions can wear you out, so rest as much as you need to.”

She was not sleeping well at all, her rest interrupted by vague dreams of feeling trapped and helpless that left her waking up in a cold sweat. When it happened, she needed to leave her bedroom for the larger living room, sometimes stepping out into the hallway just to remind herself that she could leave the apartment whenever she wanted to.

More than once, she had needed to stop herself from reaching for Veltyen’s door. She did not think he would be annoyed if she woke him up, but there was no need to ruin his sleep as well. He had been in a state of hypervigilance for nearly two weeks now, slowly returning to normal but with a residual leashed tension that was wearing on him. If anything, he needed to rest more than she did.

She nodded, to acknowledge his advice rather than confirm that she was sleeping well.

Veltyen always seemed to read her almost magically well. He scoffed to himself. “‘Are you sleeping well?’ What a dumb question.”

He wrapped her in a hug, the warmth and strength of his arms feeling like the safest place in the world.

“Anything I can do to help?” he murmured in her ear. “Would it help if I stayed with you until you fell asleep?”

She shook her head. “It’s just that I keep waking up,” she confessed.

He paused. “Would it help if I stayed with you overnight?”

She was certain that she would sleep soundly with Veltyen next to her but she said, “You don’t have to.”

***

Veltyen was not particularly religious, but he felt like a character in an old parable being tempted into sin when he saw Sery in a nightgown.

Designed by Evodie, the garment was not sheer or low-cut, meant to be comfortable and functional rather than seductive. Nonetheless, it highlighted her delicate beauty in a different way than her daytime clothing, made her look soft in a way that his fingers itched to touch.

They had gotten into the closest thing to an argument they had ever had over their sleeping arrangements. Sery flat out refused to let him stay with her if it meant he stayed awake overnight, her eyes steely with resolve regardless of what he said to try to convince her.

They had settled upon him bedding down in her living room on the couch, her bedroom door open, with the hope that the closer proximity would be enough to keep the nightmares at bay.

Physically, he was comfortable enough, the cushions of the couch soft but supportive. It was the awareness of where he was that kept him awake, ingrained propriety and etiquette clashing with what Sery needed from him, all confused by the attraction he could resist but not ignore, one that grew whenever she demonstrated that she could hold her own against him.

He was finally dozing off when a sharp gasp from the bedroom snapped him awake. “Sery?”

She stumbled out of her bedroom as if escaping from a prison.

He sat up and opened his arms and she came into his embrace, a measure of tension leaving her body as she did so. He rubbed her icy hands, trying to warm her up.

“Sorry,” she murmured.

“This is why I’m here. Have you been having this happen every night without telling me?”

“It will stop eventually,” was her non-answer.

He sighed, not wanting to scold her when fine tremors shook her frame. Thankfully, they stopped within a few minutes, her body warming up in the same period and the tension entirely leaving her body.

“…Sery, are you asleep?”

Only slow, even breathing answered him, exhaustion clearly pulling her back into slumber as soon as fear abated. She had fallen asleep sitting up, her head leaning trustingly against his chest.

“I’m either going to be nominated as a saint or go to hell,” he muttered to himself as he gave in to the inevitable and lay back down, pulling Sery with him and tucking her under his blanket.