Tom’s expression was a mask of calm as he watched Zirel place his palm on Aleph’s exposed back as she lay face-first upon her cot. Her expression was tense as she bit onto a towel, to prevent her from accidentally cutting her tongue depending on how painful it got.
Zirel knew how to use the Severance Glyph, that was true. However, the fourth prince had gotten little reason to use it on another person or for that matter, himself. Acquiring a card higher ranked than your own was a fleetingly rare occurrence on the surface world and each time it happened, a new legend would be born.
“In all likelihood,” Zirel began, his expression a little tense. “This will hurt. A lot. But when it does, you need to remember that the pain isn’t a physical phenomenon. There will be no consequences to it, it will be an empty pain. A false pain as what you believed to be a part of yourself, is ripped away from your soul.”
Tom didn’t bother hiding his own expression at all. He was scared for Aleph, scared for his friend.
If he didn’t have a good idea of Zirel’s character, Tom might have refused to let Aleph go through with it. Zirel wanted power, that was true. He wanted, desperately even, to beat the Nottrakon Family. But if he were to allow himself to become a monster in that pursuit, then what exactly would separate him from those that he loathed?
Nothing.
‘Zirel might not go out of his way to recompense Aleph for his family’s sins, but he wouldn’t consider stealing from a Longstradia. Not after what happened. Not after Zirel experienced first hand, what it was to lose people you cared about due to Noble politics,’ Tom thought in an effort to reassure himself.
“Are you ready, then?” Zirel asked, his hands perfectly still despite the beats of sweat coalescing on his forehead.
Aleph nodded, her eyes carrying that smouldering defiance, a burning flame that kept her going. Through the pain. Through the uncertain odds. Through it all, until now.
Aleph would endure, Tom knew.
Zirel closed his eyes and Tom’s gaze sharpened, watching his every moment with intense concentration.
He saw nothing except Zirel’s palm resting on Aleph’s back, yet the change came without warning. Her face turned a pulpy red, her arms and legs trembling, no, shivering, as she fought the instinct to kick and punch outwards, punch away the intense pain.
Tom shuddered, hardly able to imagine how much she was suffering in those moments, to elicit such a reaction from a woman who seemed unfazed even before the greatest of challenges.
A tear streaked down her chin, followed by another.
Before Zirel made his move. A card that seemed to come from nothingness was yanked out of Aleph’s back, a flicker of an instant before Zirel swapped it with another. Swapped it with Aleph’s Rare card, the greatest of the inheritance the Longstradia family had left behind.
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Zirel finally let go of the breath he was holding on, placed the now-Deck Card on her open palm and took a step backwards.
He had done the job he was compensated for the best he knew how.
The shivering ceased. The heavy breaths she was taking, eased. The excess blood drained away from her visage.
Her eyes, however, remained shut.
Just as Tom began to worry, Aleph’s azure eyes snapped open.
Slowly, gingerly, Aleph returned to her seated position. She held onto her new yet familiar deck card carefully, allowing Tom to notice the crystal aegis painted on its face up side.
The last of the doubts Tom held towards Zirel, evaporated in his heart. Though as a keeper of an Uncommon Soul Card himself, Zirel could not have claimed Aleph’s unnamed crystal card and thus invalidate all her statistics, there were still innumerable ways in which he could’ve had the surgery deliberately paid.
It had been a gamble on both Tom and Aleph’s end, but…
“Are you okay, Aleph?” Tom asked, his tone laden with concern.
“Okay?” Aleph asked, her tone still shaky but with a playful tinge to it. “By the Divine System, no. I feel invincible”
“It’s not that good of a card,” Zirel feigned a snide reply. “Sure, sure, you get to come back from certain death once a week. But that doesn’t mean anything if you just die right back, now does it.”
Aleph just flashed Zirel a grin, before replying, “Thank you, Zirel. I… I’m grateful to you. Beyond words, really. You may not consider yourself a member of the Nottrakon Family but if my father were still here, he would have been incredibly grateful to you as well. I’ll still consider the King an enemy to be destroyed, but… I don’t think it would bring me much joy,” She spoke with an earnestness that Tom, regardless of what appearance he took or who he chose to feign to be, could not imitate.
“Hmph,” Zirel grunted, even as a slight, just a slight flush of red coloured his cheeks. “I did it for the payment, Longstradia. And it is quite the payment. It’ll save me years of travel, well, if any of us manage to come back alive”.
“Sure you did,” Aleph replied, rolling her eyes before bursting out into a giggle that made Tom’s heart flutter.
Zirel turned his gaze away from her, suddenly finding the ramshackle basement walls an object of interest.
“So guys, uh…,” Tom trailed off. “The mood seemed too heavy before so, uh, I didn’t exactly get an opportunity to ask. What exactly are those paper cards?”
Both Aleph and Zirel tried to answer at the same time, their voices overlapping. Zirel conceded to Aleph a moment later and let her explain.
“Oh,” Tom muttered reflexively. The true realisation hit him a moment later. “Ohhhhh,” He repeated with far more enthusiasm this time.
“Yeah,” Zirel replied. “This makes your boneheaded princess-rescue plan far more viable.”
“Hey, come on man,” Tom protested.
“You just can't stop yourself from helping pretty women, can you?” Aleph jokingly asked.
Tom moved to protest again, but then his retort sputtered out before he could lend voice to it.
‘Damn,’ He thought. ‘That’s kinda true.’