I slowly and reluctantly fade back into awareness. The ground beneath me is soft, and my body doesn’t feel nearly as sore as I expected it to. When I crack my eyes open, I’m disoriented to find canvas overhead. I’m in a large tent. Where am I? How did I get here?

How did I get here alive?

[Check,] Echo says.

[Name: Nye]

[Species: Dhampyr]

[Class: Guardian]

[Level: 19]

[HP: 160/160]

[Mana: 75/75]

[Role: The Knight]

I groggily glance over all my stats. I leveled up.

Because of the people I killed.

The memories return to me fractured, more snapshots than complete scenes. The smell of blood had been overwhelming. Bodies had littered the street. Everything painted red. And my elation, my eagerness to perpetuate the violence. The Aegis—

The shield cheerily brushes against my mind. Ah! Finally. Now that I’m awake, can we go find something to fight again?

I jerk upright, fear seizing my chest, but the weight of the shield on my arm keeps me from rising. Its red bands of magic are still strapped firmly around my forearm, but my sleeve has been cut away, and the bloody threads of its Blood Ward are no longer embedded in my skin. In a desperate panic, I try to add it to my Inventory.

The shield is confused and disappointed. But why? It thought we—

[Crimson Aegis added to Inventory.]

The shield vanishes, its presence in my mind abruptly snuffs out. I collapse back into the bed mat, gasping for breath, heart drumming against my ribs. I shiver despite the heat of the air and try to get my breathing under control, but it feels like my throat is closing up. Instead of breathing slower, I pant faster—shallower. Static flickers over my vision, and darkness eats away at the edges. Blood rushes in my ears. It feels like I’m drowning all over again. Just breathe. Breathe!

The tent flap snaps open, bright light slicing through the dim. Even though all I can see is his silhouette, from his frame and stance I immediately know it’s Quell. His sight fills me with relief.

He takes one look at me, turns back to call, “Get Xamir!” then quickly comes over to sit by my side.

“Hey,” he says, clasping my shoulder. “You’re okay. It’s over.”

It’s over. My mind spirals around those words, trying to latch onto their meaning, but it seems just out of reach. I dig my fingers into the bedding beneath me and feel the fabric rip between my claws. This only summons more horrific memories of my claws likewise tearing through people’s flesh.

“I’m not okay,” I manage to gasp out, and I squeeze my eyes shut before they can tear up.

Quell gently squeezes my shoulder as he shifts into a more comfortable position, his leg brushing up against my side. I flinch.

“You’re right,” he says softly. “That was poor wording on my part. But you’re safe. I’m safe. We’re all here.”

I hear the tent flap open once more, hot light briefly spilling over my skin.

“If I may, my prince,” Xamireb says.

Quell pulls away, his presence vanishes from my side, and fear spikes once more. I turn my head, desperately looking for him, but he’s only stepped back to allow Xamireb to settle at my side. They splay a hand over my chest, faint light illuminating beneath their fingers.

[Your conditions have been identified.]

“They’re healthy,” they say. “Just disoriented. I can apply a sedative.”

“No,” I say, still struggling to catch my breath. But the panic that’s clutched my mind won’t let go, and it’s strangling all my self-control. I don’t want to be sedated. I don’t want anything done to my mind. I try to string this thought into words, but they crumble away.

“Don’t worry, it’s harmless,” Xamireb says. The light changes shape, blooming into a white ring that descends toward my chest. I let out a strangled cry, grabbing at the arachnoid.

Quell catches my hand instead, holding me steady. “Hold on,” he says. “Just a little longer.”

The light disappears into my chest, and a cooling wave ripples through my body. Involuntarily, the fight goes out of me. The tightness dissipates from around my chest. I drop my head back to my bed roll and finally gulp in a deep, full breath. The rapid beating of my heart fades, and my vision and hearing gradually clear.

[Soothing Spell complete.]

“That is all I can provide,” Xamireb says. “At least there is no physical damage that needs healing.”

I note the wording. Nothing physical.

“Thank you,” Quell says. “Please inform the captain they have awoken. That is all.”

He sounds so serious. So… regal.

Xamireb bows their head and departs.

I stare at the canvas overhead as Quell sits by my side in silence. The panic is gone, now replaced with weariness, but the pain of what happened remains. My mind is clear and calm enough to comprehend the horror without letting me fall into it. Even so, I turn my mind away, letting my thoughts go blank. For several minutes I just exist and think about nothing at all.

Finally I stir, and realize Quell is still holding my hand. “Sorry,” I mumble. I relax my grip, and he lets it drop back to the bed.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” he says.

I’m glad he didn’t tell me I have nothing to be sorry for.

Quell waits a moment when I don’t say anything else. “Well, I should let you rest.”

“No!” I object. I’m not ready to be alone with my thoughts. “Don’t. I need a distraction.”

“Of course,” he says. “I can stay. Is there anything in particular I can offer? As a distraction.”

The real question is, is there anything safe to talk about that won’t send me down another spiral? “How long was I out?” I ask.

“A night and a half,” Quell says. “We relocated after you found us. We’re still outside of the Oasis, but a comfortable distance away. Liz has been using illusions to help keep us hidden.”

“You had to lug me and the shield around with you,” I realize. “I’m surprised you guys didn’t…” I trail off, unable to voice the thought.

“We weren’t going to leave you out there!” Quell says, a tinge of anger coloring his words. I wonder if others had suggested exactly that.

But I’d actually been wondering why they didn’t kill me. After what happened, there’s no way Darian would have wanted to keep me or the Crimson Aegis around. She’s too practical for that—especially with Quell and Liz to protect.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I glance at my arm, the one that the Aegis had been attached to. “It didn’t try to hurt any of you?”

“It’s been inert the whole time,” Quell says.

I wonder why. It seems to know not to hurt Quell, due to the Role Requirement’s effect on me, but I have no doubt it wouldn’t distinguish the others from Moonfall soldiers. They’re all just potential victories to the shield.

I close my eyes for a moment, partly from fatigue, and mentally bring up the Crimson Aegis’s stats. Stats I'd never really looked closely at before now.

[Weapon: Crimson Aegis]

[Durability: 100%]

[Mana: 0]

[Blood: 0%]

[Influence: 2%]

So that’s why. It ran out of juice. Without mana to activate its abilities and blood to power its Blood Ward, it’s been nothing more than a conventional—if not enormous—shield. That’s a small relief.

I open my eyes once more to examine my arm, turning it over as I look for where it had stabbed its lines of blood into me. The same lines that had been used to force me into a Bloodlust. My stomach knots at the reminder.

“No scars,” I observe.

“No injuries of any kind, actually,” Quell says. “You had plenty when you stumbled into our camp. Your hand was… well, it was bad. And a nasty wound on your side that was bleeding quite profusely. They scabbed over that first night. Everyone assumed it was due to your blood Affinity. But then the scabs came off, and as of tonight, the scars were gone. I told the others it was due to the Aegis’s influence.” He raises a questioning eyebrow.

My lips twitch in the faintest attempt at a smile. Even now, he can’t help but indulge his academic curiosity. Somehow, that familiarity is comforting.

“It’s not the Aegis,” I say. “It’s part of the System thing I mentioned.”

“Echo and stats,” he recalls. “The Role of Knight.”

I nod. “And an ‘Inventory’ that I can put the Aegis in. Part of all this is that I have a passive healing ability as well. Health Regeneration.”

“Fascinating,” Quell says, again eliciting a small smile from me. He’s so predictable. “It’s like no form of life arcana I’m aware of. Healing magic is ultimately about speeding along natural processes, you see. Giving your body the resources to do what it does best. A healer could have closed your wounds that first night you sustained them, but you would have had scars after they were through. You don’t. What you’re describing is less healing and more like… undoing.”

I’d never thought about it that way before. I guess I’d just assumed it was no different from the other kinds of magic they have here. But the idea that this magic not only healed me but… rewound the injury itself is a little unsettling. Is it rewinding the microtears in my muscles after each workout?

Is it rewinding the effects of aging itself, second by second?

“Hold on,” I tell Quell. “I need to look into this.”

Echo, what can you tell me about passive health regeneration? I ask. What is it actually doing?

[Passive Health Regeneration regenerates the user’s Health Points.]

Well that’s useless. Okay, what is HP then? How is it determined?

[A user’s HP is determined by many physical factors, including species and individual vitality. It is representative of the amount of damage the user can sustain before System Access is revoked and supporting neuralarcanum networks disperse, inevitably resulting in the user’s death.]

That’s a long-winded way to say “it’s how much damage you can take before you die,” which makes me think there’s actually more to this explanation that I’m not understanding.

What about other people? I ask her. I can see Quell has HP. But he’s not in the System, is he?

[Stats applied to individuals who are not System users are approximate quantities representative of individual qualities.]

So HP works differently for people who are and aren’t in the System? I ask.

[Affirmative.]

Well that just got even weirder. And I don’t think it helped answer my initial question.

I repeat Echo’s words aloud for Quell’s benefit, who is all too delighted to gain insight into my strange abilities.

“She’s saying you’re stronger than someone like me,” Quell says. “You’re being… magically sustained, beyond the limits of ordinary biology. At least, until your HP hits zero, it sounds like. Then the supportive magic falls apart and you’re as dead as anyone else.”

“Lovely,” I grumble. But odd. It also leads to a whole new batch of questions. Ones I probably should have been wondering about before now. I’ve just been so tied up in finding my brother and ending my ties to Quell, I didn’t stop to think it all through.

Why am I part of this System? I ask Echo. How come Quell doesn’t have access? Why does it exist?

[The user met baseline requirements for System integration,] Echo says, effectively saying nothing at all. [This adapted iteration exists to assist in the progression of a user’s abilities.]

I mean, I can kind of see that with the Health Regeneration and stats and whatnot. But how does my Role fit into progressing my abilities?

[Role function established by #NULL.]

The fuck?

I relay all this to Quell, too.

He frowns. “Like, null arcana?”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “I think it’s more in the sense of something being blank. Like there’s a gap or error in Echo’s memory.” She’d blanked out when I’d tried digging about my Role when I was in the Lifespring, too.

“Curious,” Quell murmurs, frowning in thought. “We’re uncovering something I’ve never seen mentioned in any texts about any field of magic, from any country or culture. I don’t know if there’s anyone in the whole world we could speak with who might have insight on this affair.”

“I can think of one.” I recall the night I first arrived in this world. “Hans had access to the System, too. He also had a role.” I meet Quell’s gaze. “And that Champion knew what he was. I think the gods are trying to keep it quiet.”

Quell leans back, blinking. “That’s a… disturbing theory.”

“Do you think it’s wrong?” I ask.

He’s quiet for a long moment. “No.”

Goosebumps prickle over my arms. “What should we do?”

“We do… nothing.” He sighs. “At least, not at this moment. It’s an intriguing mystery, to be sure, but I’m not sure how to even start investigating. First we have to deal with the here and now.”

“Oh. Right.” I start to sit up, and Quell scoots back, concerned.

“Are you sure you should be getting up?” He pauses. “Well, I know we’ve just established you’re perfectly healthy, but really, there’s no need to push yourself.”

“I’m not pushing myself,” I say, pausing after I sit up. My head pounds from the motion, and I wince.

“See!” Quell says, catching the look.

“It’s just a headache,” I grumble. “I think I’m dehydrated. Get me some water and I’ll be fine.”

“Ah, of course.” Quell immediately hops up to retrieve a water skin from the other side of the tent. “You would be dehydrated, given…”

He coughs, ineffectively obscuring the fact that he trailed off, and hands me the water skin as he sits back down. I take it, a new pit settling in my stomach.

“Given all the bloodloss,” I say, completing his thought.

He nods weakly.

I pop the end off the water skin, eyes unfocused as I stare down into its funnel. Somehow, I’d managed to push all thoughts of that night away. Quell really had managed to distract me for a time. But I can’t pretend like none of it happened. I need to face what I did.

I take a sip of the water, but it seems to sour on my tongue. I cap it once more and look up at Quell. His gaze is sad, yet understanding.

“I killed people.”

“Yes,” Quell says. “You did. You killed people the first night we met as well. It saved my life. And the other night—I mean, it was basically self-defense.”

I wince. It didn’t feel like self-defense. It felt like a slaughter. “I still wish it hadn’t happened. I… I don’t know how to live with this, Quell. I feel like most of the time I just try not to think about it. And that helps make it feel more distant. But that’s not right, is it? I shouldn’t just ignore it and move on with my life. Those were people.”

“I don’t have answers for you,” Quell says softly. “I know many soldiers are said to struggle with similar thoughts. It’s not something that can be undone, so… I suppose it is something that you will always carry with you, one way or another. But Nye. You understand none of it was your fault, right?”

“I know,” I say, setting the water skin aside as I tuck my knees up to my chest. I rest my arms and chin on top, letting out a heavy sigh. “Rationally, I know. But it’s hard to feel that it’s true. I mean, I was still in there. I was still thinking and I was still me, sort of, everything was just… warped. So I have all these memories of doing terrible things and enjoying it. How am I supposed to come to terms with that?”

“I don’t have answers,” he repeats. But he doesn’t say it in a way that’s dismissive. The way he says it, it’s like he’s saying, “I’m sorry. I wish I could help.”

We watch each other in a strange, comfortable silence. A sort of comradery. If the Lifespring can’t sever my tie to Quell—in fact, I’m beginning to suspect no common magic will be capable of such a feat—then we’re going to be stuck together for a while. And I think, maybe, I can live with that.

It’s being stuck with the shield I’m worried about now.

The eye contact is starting to get uncomfortably long, so I break it off. My gaze falls to his neck.

Those memories rush back to me all at once.

“Oh my god.” Heat spreads across my cheeks and neck, and I quickly bury my face in my knees. “Oh my god. I—Did I really—”

“What?” Quell sounds concerned. “Are you alright?”

I desperately scrub my knuckles into my cheeks. Can dhampyrs blush? Is it obvious or invisible, given the gray skin?

“What is it?” Quell urges, now sounding genuinely worried. “Do you need Xamireb to come back?”

“No! No.” I look up at him, wishing I could sink into the ground.

“Then what?” he asks, baffled.

I swallow and try to blurt it out, but it comes out as a whisper. “I licked your neck.”

Now it’s Quell’s turn to die of mortification. His expression freezes, and then he’s looking anywhere but me. “Ah, yes, that, ah, was definitely… unnerving.”

I bury my face in my hands. “I could have killed you.”

“Yet, you didn’t,” Quell says. “Which I very much appreciate.”

I can’t look at him again. Oh god, and I’m stuck with him, too. There will be no escaping this.

Luckily, we’re both saved from digging our way out of that conversation when the tent flap opens once more, and Darian steps inside. She passes a cool look over us both.

“You’re awake,” she observes. “How do you feel?”

I will the blush to drain from my face, but I might as well be willing the moon to change phases. “Fine,” I say, refusing to look at Quell. “Healed. And… myself again.”

“Good.” The captain gestures for us to get up. “Then we need to get moving. There’s little time to waste.”

“Why?” I ask, already using the excuse to scoot away from Quell.

“Earnest has spotted Prince Constance’s troops,” Darian says. “They’re heading for the Oasis.”