Lytharos didn’t answer at first. He was already halfway to the door, fingers brushing the handle before Towan had finished the question. The floor creaked under his weight, familiar, lived-in.
“The best healer I know.”
And with that, he pulled the door open.
The door creaked open on ancient hinges, groaning softly like the room itself exhaled. Moonlight spilled in first, silver and cool, followed by a figure cloaked in dusk-toned elegance.
She stepped inside with quiet assurance — a tall woman dressed in flowing robes of deep teal, embroidered with golden Essentia threads that shimmered faintly as they caught the light. The markings weren’t ornamental — they moved, tracing intricate patterns across the fabric like veins of living thought.
Her presence was calm. Measured.
Her gaze? Sharp enough to diagnose a fracture at a glance, but warm — the kind of warmth one might find at the edge of a long winter, just enough to believe spring would come.
“Selene,” Lytharos said with a breath that wasn’t quite relief, but close.
She offered him a small, knowing smile — the kind shared between old comrades too used to survival to bother with greetings that pretended things were normal.
“Hello, Lytharos.”
(A pause.)
“You still owe me a dinner. And four healing crystals. Don’t think I forgot.”
There was no edge to her voice. Just familiarity — and a quiet weight that said she’d show up again even if he never paid her back.
Then her eyes shifted.
She saw Rheon lying on the bed.
And the air changed.
The faint humor in her face vanished, replaced by a stillness that ran far deeper than professionalism.
She stepped closer.
“How’s Leon?” she asked, softly — as though saying his real name out loud might disturb the fragile veil between breath and silence.
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Lytharos moved aside, jaw set.
“He hasn’t moved.”
Selene didn’t nod. Didn’t sigh.
She just lowered herself beside the bed with the quiet reverence of a priestess approaching a shrine.
Her hands hovered over Rheon’s chest — not touching yet — and then settled gently. A breath. A whisper of motion.
Her fingers began to glow.
Not with brilliance or color, but with a steady, ancient blue — the hue of memory, of rivers that remembered every stone they ever passed. It wasn’t raw, like Towan’s. Not volatile, like Elliot’s.
This was Essentia wielded with purpose. With precision refined over years of healing instead of harm.
The room stilled.
Even the fire seemed to dim out of respect.
Selene closed her eyes, and her aura extended—not outward, but inward. Down. Into the spaces between life and rest.
She searched not for pain...
But for threads.
Essentia lines. Fractured, frayed, buried deep beneath layers of exhaustion.
And she read them like a scholar reading a forgotten story.
Carefully. One heartbeat at a time.
Selene’s hands lifted slowly from Rheon’s chest, her fingers trembling ever so slightly with residual light. The soft glow of her healing Essentia faded into the air like breath in cold air, leaving behind only silence—and the quiet sound of the fire crackling low in the hearth.
She stayed there for a moment longer. Still. Listening.
And then she spoke, her voice softer than before, shaped by something between reverence and sorrow.
Selene quietly said
“His body is broken…”
Her fingers flexed once, then curled into her palms as if even saying it felt like admitting failure.
“His channels are barely holding themselves together.”
“What’s left of his flow is fraying... unraveling inwards.”
“But the worst of it—he’s locked himself in deep.”
(She looked away, not at anyone. Just somewhere distant.)
“His soul is resting somewhere even Essentia can’t reach quickly.”
Towan swallowed, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Will he wake up?”
Selene didn’t answer right away.
She turned her head slowly, eyes meeting Towan’s—then Elliot’s.
And finally, she looked back down at Rheon, the man who had once stood against corruption itself.
Now he looked like something carved from stillness. A monument no longer breathing.
A long, weighty pause.
Selene answered with a soft voice
“I… don’t know.”
She let the words hang.
Then she stood, exhaling through her nose with that particular kind of weariness known only to those who regularly danced with death and called it by name.
She looked to Lytharos.
“May we talk?”
Lytharos nodded once, silently, and stepped toward the door. He didn’t touch it. Just moved past it like it wasn’t even there.
The door closed behind them with a gentle, definitive sound—not abrupt. Not loud.
Like the room itself understood the moment.
The fire popped once.
And then...
Silence.
The door clicked shut behind Selene and Lytharos, muffling whatever quiet words passed between them.
For a moment, the room was still.