Pure silence. It filled the entire space and muffled my ears, only to comprehend the weird echo discerning from the rest was my pitiful sharp inhales. My fingers were shaking, my palms crushing my eyes into my orbit to the point where it gave me a headache. My members were terrifyingly trembling and my heart cracked again. As death around me petrified my being. As I recognized how fatal and traumatizing my whole life had been. Like I’d never really be the one doing all these things, but a spectator of my own journey. Like the burden of my mercenary career and the monster that lurked in the shadows of my soul only weighted right here and right now on my shoulders, like I’d only grasp my involvement in my own misery and depression. How could I be so stupid?

“Nolis.”

The voice spoke but I couldn’t bear to hear my name. That terrible name that brought so much pain and despair into the lives of so many. The name Hidram had chosen and kept screaming, shouting or pleading. The name I’d heard too much and didn’t want to recognize anymore. I didn’t want the responsibilities, didn’t want to fight, didn’t want to be here, to observe the horrifying picture I would witness once my hands would come off my face.

I went elsewhere. In my dreams, in the paradise I had imagined, with the girl I wished that could exist for me, the one that would know what to do with me, how to make me stand up in situations like this, that would have known how to reassociate with my being as I wasted my potential, frozen with fear.

She reassured me, grazed her fingers through my hair, stroked my nose and lips, which my teeth hadn’t resisted biting them. She laughed, that harmonious sound I couldn’t get enough of, and planted a kiss on my chest, my shoulders, my neck. She hummed me lullabies so I would relax, caressed me until my heartbeat faded into a steady rhythm, until my breaths would follow and my features would soften. She wanted me to close my eyes, but I only wanted to see her, look at her and welcome the feeling of losing track of time, embrace the hours without moving as the sight of her alone could drive me toward eternal bliss.

“Nolis.”

I shook my head. No. I don’t want to see. But the voice insisted. “Please, no,” I begged. Please, leave me alone. Please, let me forget about all this.

My fingers grabbed my curls firmly on the top of my scalp and I shut my lids so strongly I could see patterns and symbols float inside the darkness. My upper body almost touched the ground, folding around my own self. “Hey.”

This time, Kâl talked. And I wondered if I had joined the other side yet. But the pain inside and out was so excruciating, it was just impossible I had reached the relief of death. Her light stroke over my shoulder finally cleared up my mind and I grabbed the little piece of courage handed to me to get my face up to her. She was still clenching at her wound at her side, but she didn’t seem to have any more of them on her body. She reached out to me, kneeled beside my whimpering body and without another word, embraced my neck and patted the back of my head, putting her own sadness aside to lovingly reassure my pathetic self on the floor. I had seen her glittering eyes, the tears on the verge of leaping, and I had so many questions stuck inside my throat, the latter filled with the ever-growing lump, I couldn’t say anything.

My gaze fell over Samay, spiritually standing in front of the dais, the blue lines mirroring his cold fire, shaping his body, large and long, dressed with a layered robe, draped with what seemed to be fine pieces of clothing, his straight hair reaching his earlobes that wore extravagant jewelry, matching with the swirling crown over his head, round spirals twirling near his temples. Although he wasn’t really physically present, I could recognize the emotions that traversed his wise, beautiful and aging features. His slightly stretched mouth, one of his eyebrows shooting up, he was seeing a young man, with inhuman muscles, kneeling on the floor, his face all red, and he judged my incapability. Disdain and pity. It didn’t matter. He was right.

My eyes continued to trace around the room and besides Hei-Tria, and few other Maors, even the numbers low, the weight of their disappearance crushing my shoulders on the ground, the situation had been controlled in an impossibly strange way. Kâl reached for my chin and I asked my questions without speaking. “They joined the fight when we arrived.” She explained, her hair all tousled and her face covered in sweat and blood.

Shay-In and the Protector of Maorat were crouched near the casualties, their heads bowed and hands joined. I imagined they prayed for their souls to find their way towards whatever place they hoped to reach. My heart stinged only more at the sight of all their pain. I wanted to say so many things, starting with sorry, but the words couldn’t find the right path to my mouth. I didn’t even know the right words to use, to express the importance of the ire I was feeling against myself. I had let them down. All of them. I had failed. In front of something I was so sure I couldn’t fight. I hadn’t even tried.

Kâl winced at her flank and she extended her legs down, sitting beside me. The cut wasn’t gushing blood anymore but it wasn’t healing either. Wasn’t even properly sealed. I only frowned my brows, and quickly erased the fear off my face. Again, she answered seeing my expression, “I’m not sure what is happening. But I can’t feel my powers.” Her gaze turned to Hei-Tria, on our left, deadly still and she sighed. “I couldn’t help him while fighting the Arzallis, and I couldn’t even heal myself to properly defeat it.” She then exchanged one glance my way and her visage tore into a horrifying truth.

She had spent three consecutive hours restoring my chest, cauterizing the fibers, reconstructing every cell that had been destroyed so I wouldn’t bleed to death and gasp for air until my body would fail me as well. And because of that, she had drained the last drop of her abilities. I bared my teeth at the anger rising inside me, but she reached for my arm and kept me on the ground, when I was ready to stand up, shout until my throat was sore and explode everything around me, starting with myself. “It’s alright. It’s only transitory. It will come back.” She nodded, as much for me than for herself, and I bit the inside of my cheek to avoid saying anything stupid.

Samay finally moved, deciding he had witnessed enough and bent over Kâl, his eyes glittering with fascination and curiosity. “It is a miracle you are not dead, lady.” His voice had an echo that reminded his spiritual presence, as if he was far away from us, far in the sky.

“He spoke inside my head. Said his name was Trisska. And he ripped apart the space between us and vanished inside the pockets of the world.” She said all that with undeniable pain on her face and I finally stood, realizing what was the most important thing to do at the moment.

“You need care.” My words seemed rash and barely audible. Kâl ogled my way and held out her hand for me to catch. In one swift motion, she was back on her feet and in another one, I was scooping her legs so she would rest against my arms.

“That really isn’t necessary,” she breathed but as I was seeing her laceration up close, we had to be quick about it. I advanced close to the Maors and their Protector and asked, as gently as I could. “Do you have an infirmary?”

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Krolea answered. “Yes, we have. Please, gather the wounded in Grinis’ tent.” They added, gesturing their kin to lead the ones still remaining. Kâl wiggled in my embrace, her flank hurting.

“Grab my neck,” I said, desperately holding on to the opportunities to repent myself after the way I executed. Or really didn’t execute. She lifted her arms and awkwardly rested her hands on my nape, her body no longer twisted and pressed on her injury. “You’ll be fine,” I whispered.

“I know,” she answered, but I was mostly saying it for myself.

֍

I couldn’t find sleep. Or sleep didn’t want me anymore, either way I was exhausted, my lids heavy and my eyes hurting, watching the regular ups and downs of Kâl’s chest laying in a bed with a thin sheet against her skin. Grinis had done incredible work on her, had managed to clean the cut, get rid of the blood clot that had formed at the surface and closed the wound with their long and slender white fingers with such precision and fluidity, it had been satisfying to witness.

They had given her a liquid to reduce the pain she was experiencing but the needle that punctured the tissue had made her wince and gasped each time it planted in her flesh. I stayed close, a hand away for she needed to grab mine and squeeze as hard as she could fighting the pain, I would have been here. Since, I had decided to be stationed by her side, on an uncomfortable chair next to her bed, and had watched her finding sleep while I prayed for it. It never came.

Maors had blinked and gawked at Samay, his spiritual form sometimes floating, sometimes walking among the rest of us as if he could live and breathe and eat like humans or any species. He explained how odd it was to come back, to see and feel things he had not seen and feel for so long. Kâl and I tried to ask more questions about what had happened to him, and when was all of this, specifically, but the Orb had only restored his powers, not his memory. And even for his magic, he could sense the restraint his non-physical form was holding against him. It was still important to him to have the Orb, it was channeling a great deal of his capacities, but without his true presence unleashed, he would never be able to gain his full excellence.

He then mingled among the Maors and answered their questions, at least the ones he had the answer for and I waited besides Kâl, while she recovered at her speed, although I didn’t still grasp the full meaning of the time passing under the dome, it seems like around two days had gone by.

My head was resting against my own shoulder, my eyes finally closing as I enjoyed the wave of resting rushing to me when Kâl grunted and tried sitting on her bed. I was standing in a heartbeat. “Nolis! What are you…” she started, but was cut short when I almost passed out on her, my forehead buried in her neck, my hands on each side on her hips, and my vision blurred by the stars. “Are you alright?” she asked, the genuine concern in her tone spiked my heart. My lids shut themselves off and I realized I had not drunk anything in a long time, let alone eat.

When Grinis had brought Kâl’s plate, they noticed I wasn’t leaving my spot, and grabbed one plate for myself the time after. But since, Kâl had been sleeping, recovering from all that happened, and besides a couple of checkups from the Maors, there hadn’t been a lot of visits. They considered me enough to take care of her. But I was wondering about myself. “I’m sorry,” I answered while trying to get up, supporting myself at the top of the bed. “I should be the one asking you that.”

“You look… terrible,” she said, but her expression had cleared the real meaning of that sentence. “Did you stay here since I was admitted?”

I nodded, managed to straighten up and pulled the chair closer to her. “I’m alright,” I insisted. “How are you feeling?” her cheeks had lost their usually pink tone, and the sleep she had didn’t erase the bags underneath her eyes. But I supposed my face was so much worse.

“Good. I’m good.” She shook her head and laid a hand over her mouth, wiping the drool that had escaped during her rest. One corner of my mouth lifted with amusement. “You should go to sleep, too.”

“Don’t worry about me,” I waved her off and leaned on the chair, my arms crossed.

“I do, worry. What happened to you?” And she was ready to explain herself but I already knew what she was referring to. Because I couldn’t think about anything else, although having to keep an eye on her had helped, I had been mostly alone in my thoughts. We just watched each other for long seconds and we understood one another all too well.

“I’m not like you. Like them,” I whispered, unable to talk louder than this. “I only have my weapons, my gadgets.”

“You fought monsters, Jalyons, you killed Vishan, you could have been useful,” her answer was like a hit in the jaw.

“I know, Kâl. But magic is very foreign to me. I wasn’t capable, I was forbidden.” All of this had been deeply traumatizing, and I had frozen. I had dissociated, there had been too many things in my head and they enveloped me until I was them and they were me and I forgot about all the rest.

“Do you think the Tiara would have responded to you if you were truly non magical?” her questions echoed in the limits of my mind and shattered the barriers. My brows frowned in impossibility, but my heart started racing, like it had kept a secret from my consciousness.

“What do you mean?” I asked. My arms were still very crossed against my chest.

“You might not have powers but you’re not insensitive to magic,” she rested her head against the pillow, her eyes closing again. “You can talk with the Maors, you used the Tiara’s capabilities, you spoke with Samay in your head. And you have that strange light behind your eyes. Red piercing light replacing your dark pupil, when you feel too much.” She continued rambling and I understood she was too tired and was saying nonsense.

I stood up, and waited, as she closed her mouth, her muscles loosening, her chest moving in the familiar rhythm of sleep and dreams. My fingers stroked her head and that light strand of hair, before I motioned toward the exit. But when I was about to turn around, she grabbed my wrist and murmured so quietly I had to bend over her. “Thank you, Nolis.”

I knew what she meant. Thank you for staying with her while she was recovering. I smiled again, and dared planting a soft kiss on her brow. But she shouldn’t be the one thanking me. I didn’t deserve any thanks.

Outside, the tombs were erected. In a small garden, a bit secluded from their living place, around smaller trees, bushes, a round flourished eras where lots, and lots of little stones were piled up. It had been centuries since they had been sent off to this planet, and a numerous amount of years since they had lived under this dome. Inside Maorat.

The rocks had been shaped, polished and carved into squares. It didn’t reach a particular height but there were so many, the cracks of my heart moving echoed inside my rib cage. Krolea monitored as two other Maors were shaping the freshly picked rocks, and their expression alone could have brought tears into my eyes. They were terribly sad. Shay-In harbored the same features and they grabbed each other’s hands in comfort.

Five of them died in the battle. The Maors stood once they were done with the work and let their heads fall down, their chin reaching their torso and closed their eyes. Silence, again, besides the insects flying all around us in harmony. Krolea’s stare fell on mine and their faces were unreadable. But, for whatever reason, I didn’t feel like I belonged there. So, after a few more seconds, my gaze discreetly watching the trapped souls of the ones that were gone, I dismissed myself.