Elira returned to her room in silence.
She paused by the tall window, just long enough to see Erin's figure disappear beyond the gates, his back straight, his steps steady as he made his way home. For a moment, she simply watched the empty path he left behind, as if expecting it to ripple or fracture once he was gone.
Only when he was truly out of sight did she move.
Her fingers curled into her palm, nails biting softly into skin as her other hand drifted to the Mark at her wrist. Three stars. From the outside, it looked perfect, balanced, calm, stable. A healer's Mark, they said. A blessing.
Inside, it burned.
The pain did not flare suddenly. It never did. It spread instead, slow and merciless, starting from the Mark and threading through her veins like liquid fire. Each pulse felt deliberate, as if something beneath her skin was waking, stretching, reminding her that it was there.
Every time she forced her power outward, every shield, every regeneration, every miracle she performed for others, the backlash followed. Quiet. Invisible. Punishing.
No one saw it.
No one heard the nights she screamed without sound, teeth clenched so hard her jaw ached, fingers digging into fabric just to stay grounded. No one knew how, after missions, she would lie awake for hours while her essence burned itself thin, her body trembling as if rejecting its own purpose.
The recent incident had been the worst.
Her reserves were scorched. Her control frayed. Days of constant, gnawing agony had followed—an unending pressure that whispered at the edges of her sanity.
But she endured.
She always did.
Elira crossed the vast expanse of her bathroom, marble cool beneath her bare feet. Her shawl slipped from her shoulders, pooling soundlessly on the floor. Slowly, she lifted the hem of her gown and turned away from the mirror.
Then stopped.
Black tendrils traced across her back. They looked almost unreal, like living ink beneath translucent skin: raised, textured, crawling in slow, deliberate paths. Veins, but wrong. They spread from her nape, branching down her spine and fanning across the small of her waist, as if mapping something ancient and primodial.
Her breath caught when she remembers something. She had seen something like this before. In her dreams.
Endless darkness, thick and fluid, moving not chaotically but obediently. Dark matter that coiled and parted at her will, responding to her presence as if she were its center. In those dreams, the tendrils did not hurt. It was comforting and warm even.
And they answered whatever she will.
Elira pressed her hand against the marks on her back, her fingers trembling. The pain intensified, sharp and immediate, as if her body rejected the touch.
A healer's power was meant to soothe. To mend. To restore.
So why did her Mark punish her every time she used it?
Why did it feel as though her body itself resisted the role she was forced to play?
Her reflection stared back at her, golden eyes calm, composed, unchanged. No trace of the storm beneath the surface. No hint of the truth buried inside her blood.
Elira closed her eyes.
Somewhere deep within, something stirred—dark, endless, patient.
And it whispered a truth she was not yet ready to accept:
She was not meant to heal what was broken. She was meant to decide when it should end.
Elira drew a slow breath and carefully lowered the fabric of her gown back into place.
The silk slid over her skin, hiding the blackened veins once more, as though concealing them might convince her they were never there. She gathered the shawl from the floor and wrapped it around herself, fingers trembling just slightly before she stilled them.
It was only a dream, she told herself. Nothing more, she added in assurance.
The memory lingered anyway, dark matter moving at her unspoken command, folding and stretching like a living thing, obedient and eager. The same texture. The same sensation. The same wrong sense of familiarity.
She forced the thought away and left the bathroom.
Her bedroom was dim, curtains drawn against the late afternoon light. Elira sat on the edge of her bed, then lay back fully, staring at the ceiling. Her amethyst eyes remained wide open, glassy but unblinking, as though tears hovered just out of reach.
Yesterday's conversation surfaced unbidden.
Her mother's voice had been calm. Gentle. Too gentle.
An engagement.
A promise already made to someone Elira had never met, never spoken to, never chosen. Her mother had said it was for her safety. That in times like these, alliances mattered more than feelings. That the future was uncertain, and this was the surest way she knew to protect her daughter.
"I only want you safe," her mother had said. "Always."
Elira believed her.
She loved her mother. Respected her. Understood her fears. In a world tearing itself apart, caution was not cruelty it was survival.
And yet…
It broke something inside her.
Her body was already failing her, held together by discipline and silence. Her essence burned each time she used her power, punishing her for daring to heal when healing was never what she was meant for. Now even her heart felt spoken for, bound by decisions made far above her reach.
She could not rebel.
Rebellion would be foolish. Pointless. Cruel, even.
There was no justification for defiance when the one she cared for most existed beyond possibility, standing in a world she was never meant to cross.
Elira turned her face slightly to the side, eyes still open, breathing slow and measured.
Outside, the city moved on.
Inside, something ancient and patient waited—quietly counting the moments until pretending would no longer be enough.