Chapter 398: The Fading Ember (continued)
Nyra stood back, her arms wrapped around herself, a physical barrier against the overwhelming dread. She watched as Judit applied a cooling salve to Soren's chest, the pale paste hissing faintly where it met the fever-hot skin. The crimson tattoos didn't fade. They reacted. The lines darkened, swelling like bruises beneath the surface, pulsing once… twice… like a second heartbeat that didn't belong to him.
Soren's lips parted. A rasp dragged out of his throat, more smoke than breath.
"Don't…" he whispered, but it was lost in the low chaos of the room.
Judit's hands froze for half a heartbeat, then moved faster. She reached for a clay vial and poured a thin stream of liquid along the main artery of ink at his collarbone. The liquid flashed, evaporating instantly. The smell that rose wasn't herbal or medicinal.
It was burned iron.
Orin's jaw flexed. He pressed two fingers to the side of Soren's neck again, like he could will the pulse to behave through sheer stubbornness.
"This isn't a wound," Orin said, voice low and sharp now. "It's a… system failure. Like something inside him is chewing through the wiring."
Nyra stepped forward before she could stop herself. "Then fix it." Her voice cracked on the last word, fury and fear tangled together.
Judit didn't even look up. "I'm trying."
She peeled back the leather straps of Soren's forearm. Beneath, the tattoos crawled up the veins, branching like roots seeking water. His skin around them was hot to the touch, fever-slick and trembling.
Judit pressed her palm flat to his wrist and closed her eyes. Her Gift was subtle, the kind that didn't throw lightning or tear stone apart, but it was precise. It was a healer's Gift. A stitch in the fabric of a dying body.
A faint glow gathered beneath her hand.
Then it faltered.
Judit's face tightened. She inhaled sharply, like something had bitten her from the inside.
"Stop," Orin warned.
Judit pulled away. Her fingers were shaking.
"His Gift is… burning." She swallowed. "It's not draining him anymore. It's consuming him. This is the Cinder Cost, but it's past anything I've read. Past anything Valerius ever admitted was possible."
Nyra's throat went dry.
That word again.
Cost.
Like the universe was a ledger, and Soren Vale was always the one paying.
Soren twitched, a violent tremor that ran through his ribs, then down his legs. His back arched slightly as if something inside him was trying to claw its way out. A strangled sound escaped him. Not pain. Not quite.
More like… a furnace door cracking open.
Orin caught his shoulder and forced him back down, careful but firm, like you'd hold a man steady during an execution.
"Stay with us," Orin growled.
Nyra watched Soren's lashes flutter. His eyes didn't open fully. When they did, the pupils were unfocused, swimming in a fogged sea of orange and shadow.
His mouth moved.
Nyra leaned in automatically, like the sound of his voice might make this real again.
"…Elara…" he breathed.
The name hit her like a blade. Not because it was painful on its own, but because it wasn't hers. Because even now, while dying, he reached for the thing that anchored him.
Judit's eyes flicked up, and for the first time her calm fractured into something raw.
"That's it," she said. "That memory. That tether. That's what's keeping his resonance from snapping completely."
Nyra's chest tightened. "So we protect it."
Judit's mouth thinned. "No." She looked back down at the spreading ink. "It might be the very thing that's feeding the fire."
Silence slammed into the room.
Nyra stared at her like she'd just spoken her own death sentence.
Orin stood slowly, towering over the table, his shadow swallowing half the infirmary. He looked at the tattoos like he wanted to tear them off with his hands.
"Options," he said.
Judit wiped her palms on a clean cloth that was already stained dark with heat-sweat and residue. "I can sedate him. Keep his body from seizing itself apart. But that doesn't stop the burn."
"And stasis?" Nyra snapped. "Cryo. The League has tech."
Judit's gaze sharpened. "Stasis preserves flesh. It does not untangle a soul."
Nyra blinked.
That wasn't Judit talking like a healer.
That was Judit talking like someone who'd seen something she shouldn't have.
Before Nyra could push, footsteps slapped down the corridor outside. Fast. Urgent. Kestrel appeared in the doorway, breath fogging in the cold air, cloak half-off his shoulder like he'd been sprinting.
His eyes hit Soren.
For the first time, Kestrel didn't have a joke. Didn't have that sharp edge of smug certainty. His face went flat.
"Damn," he murmured.
Nyra's head snapped toward him. "Don't stand there. Say something useful."
Kestrel stepped inside, circling the table with quick, scanning eyes. He didn't touch Soren. He didn't have to. The tattoos were practically screaming.
"This isn't poison," he said. "It's not a blade wound, not infection. It's… a failsafe."
Orin's brows lowered. "Speak plainly."
Kestrel's eyes flicked to Judit. Then back to Nyra. "He's been running too hot for too long. Every time he pulls on that Gift, something takes a piece. Now there's nothing left to take but him."
Nyra swallowed. "Then how do we stop it?"
Kestrel hesitated.
That hesitation was worse than any answer.
Orin caught it too. His voice turned dangerous. "Kestrel."
Kestrel exhaled, then said the name like it tasted filthy.
"…Zara."
Nyra went still.
Even the air seemed to tighten around that name.
Judit's eyes narrowed. "No."
Orin didn't ask who Zara was. He already knew. Everyone in the sanctuary knew. You didn't forget a Remnant cultist walking into your home and offering "help" with hands that used to burn villages for faith.
Nyra's mouth went dry. "Where is she?"
Kestrel didn't look at her. "The lower catacombs. Orin keeps her tucked away like a bad conscience."
Orin's stare could've cracked stone. "She stays there for a reason."
"She stays there," Kestrel shot back, "because you're afraid the moment she's useful, we all become hypocrites."
Orin took a step forward and the whole room felt smaller. Nyra slid between them without thinking.
"Enough." Her voice shook, but it was sharp. "If she has a solution, I don't care who she prayed to when she was killing people."
Orin's jaw tightened. "And if her 'solution' is another kind of death?"
Nyra looked at Soren again.
His breathing had turned wet. Shallow. A bad rhythm. His lips were starting to pale, but the tattoos stayed dark, almost luminous against his skin.
He looked like a candle that had burned so long the wick was melting into the wax.
Nyra's throat squeezed. "Then at least it'll be a choice."
Judit stepped closer to Nyra, lowering her voice like she didn't want the mountain itself hearing it.
"If Zara is right," she said, "it won't be a healer's cure. It will be a spiritual severing. Those rites don't mend. They take."
Nyra's eyes didn't leave Soren. "Then we make sure it only takes what's necessary."
Judit's expression twisted in something between pity and dread. "That's the lie people tell themselves right before they lose everything."
Orin stared at Nyra for a long moment, measuring her. Not as an ally. Not as a strategist. As a person about to gamble the soul of the man at the center of their war.
Finally, Orin spoke, each word heavy.
"Move him."
Nyra looked up, startled. "You're letting us—"
"I'm not letting anything." Orin stepped to Soren's side and slid his arms under the stretcher straps with practiced ease. "I'm choosing the least terrible road available."
Kestrel grabbed the other side, face set hard. Judit quickly wrapped Soren's torso in warm cloths soaked in stabilizing tincture, as if bandages could argue with fate.
As they lifted him, Soren's head lolled slightly. His mouth moved again.
Nyra leaned in, desperate.
He whispered something, barely a breath.
"…don't… forget…"
Nyra's eyes stung instantly.
"I won't," she promised, too fast, too fierce, like words could bind reality. "I won't let you."
They carried him out of the infirmary and into the sanctuary's throat of stone corridors. The mountain swallowed sound, turning footsteps into soft thuds, turning fear into something private and thick.
The closer they got to the war room, the colder the air became. Not just temperature. The kind of cold that lived in old places where hard choices had been made for a long time.
Ahead, a faint violet glow seeped under a door.
Nyra's heart lurched.
That wasn't torchlight.
That wasn't ordinary flame.
It was Bloom-shard light.
They reached the war room entrance. Orin pushed the door open with his shoulder.
Inside, the table waited like an altar. The violet lantern on its surface pulsed softly, alive in a way Nyra didn't like. Shadows clung to the corners and moved wrong, stretching like they were listening.
And standing near the far side of the room, already arranging something small and deliberate on the tabletop…
…was Zara.
Her movements were calm. Ritualistic.
And when she looked up, the violet light didn't reflect in her eyes.
It disappeared into them.
Nyra's stomach turned.
Zara smiled, just slightly, like she'd been expecting this.
"The ember is fading," Zara whispered.
Nyra stepped forward, voice low and shaking with controlled violence.
"Save him."
Zara's smile didn't widen.
It sharpened.
"There is a way," she said. "But you will hate what it costs."
Nyra's hands clenched into fists as Soren's breath rattled once… twice…
…and the war room felt less like a place of plans and more like a place where something irreversible was about to begin.
The door closed behind them with a soft, final sound.