I waited for more. For anything.

  Instead, Doyle stood and turned for the door.

  “Hey. Wait.” I pushed myself upright. “You cannot just say something like that and walk away.”

  He stopped, one hand still on the latch, and looked back at me as if only now remembering I was there.

  “What exactly is a soul blade?” I asked.

  For a long moment, he said nothing. His eyes drifted to the sword at my side.

  He exhaled and crossed the room again, sitting on the edge of my bed. The mattress dipped ever so slightly under his tiny weight.

  “Fine,” he said.

  He rested his elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “A soul blade, or spirit weapon as some call it, is made when a spirit bound to this realm is transferred into a weapon. Sometimes willingly. Sometimes not.” His gaze flicked back to my sword. “What remains of that spirit does not vanish. Its nature lingers. Its blessings. Its instincts.”

  My mouth went dry.

  The pieces slid together with a sickening ease. The way the blade reacted. The way it learned. The way it chose.

  The sword hummed softly, a low vibration that felt almost defensive. Not pride. Not agreement. Something closer to denial.

  “Then the crystals,” I said slowly.

  Doyle nodded. “Catalysts are clear when they are empty... They are used to capture spirits and hold them stable long enough for the forging process.”

  The words landed hard.

  “That is why these crystals as you put it cost so much,” he went on. “And their size. Purity. Clarity. Yours are exceptional. Dangerous, in the wrong hands.” He looked at me sharply.

  “I wondered why the shop had kept them all the way at the top…”

  “You should treat them like loaded weapons.”

  I barely heard the rest. My thoughts were still circling the same point. I had traded one. Promised another. Without knowing what they truly were. Was that like trading a life? I didn’t want to dwell on it.

  Doyle stood again. “I need to prepare for tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” I echoed.

  “We’re expecting visitors,” he said, already moving toward the hall. “More aspirants. Some will be staying here.”

  His voice faded as he walked away.

  I stared at the door long after it closed, my eyes drifting to the empty rooms down the corridor. Doors shut. Beds untouched.

  Not for much longer.

  Soul blade.

  The words echoed, heavy and sharp. Not a title. Not a category. Something earned, or made, or taken. I turned them over while my fingers curled around the hilt, feeling the familiar weight settle into my palm.

  The sword hummed, low and steady.

  “Is that what you are?” I asked.

  No answer.

  I reached for the books again, flipping through pages with more urgency this time. Diagrams of runes. Marginal warnings. Old ink and newer corrections layered over one another. There was plenty about binding, about sacrifice, about cost. Nothing about my curse. Nothing about surviving a catastrophe that should have erased me.

  The silence between the pages pressed in.

  If answers lived in books, Jerald wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to keep me breathing. He wouldn’t have dragged me here at all.

  I closed the book slowly, resting my hand on the cover.

  Jerald and Doyle had both said the same thing in different ways. Books or at least the right books, were getting harder to find. The ones that answered the wrong questions or remembered things better left buried. It didn’t feel like neglect. It felt deliberate.

  Someone was deciding what survived on the page.

  Whatever had happened back then, whatever had left me alive and cursed while a city burned, it wasn’t just tragedy. It was something people were still afraid of. My cure had been the goal for as long as I could remember, but now it felt less like an ending and more like another thread in a much larger knot.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  I closed the book and set the others aside. The rune tome went into my pouch, the fabric accepting its weight without complaint while the others were left behind. I needed air. Movement. Something real. I decided to find Amelia and tell her about the elixirs.

  Her door didn’t answer my knock.

  I checked the training yard. Empty. The kitchen next. Warm, busy, far too much food simmering for just the few of us. When I asked Doyle, who was stirring a pot, he barely looked up.

  “She went out with Rob,” he said.

  I stayed in the kitchen, pacing, then sitting, then pacing again. I tried to distract myself by rereading a section on rune refinement, dense and expensive work that spoke of layering duplicates to strengthen effects. The words slid off me. I kept listening for footsteps.

  Then the door slammed open.

  “Doyle!” Amelia shouted.

  The sound of it snapped me upright. Doyle’s head turned, his expression already hardening. In the blink of an eye he vanished, the spoon clattering as the pot was abandoned mid-stir.

  I was already moving.

  Amelia stood in the hall, Rob slung over her shoulder like dead weight. Blood dripped from his mouth, dark and wet, spattering the polished floor. Her face was tight, jaw set, eyes burning.

  Doyle was already at Rob’s side, hands already glowing as he assessed the damage. Then he vanished again, faster this time.

  “Oh shit,” I breathed, the words tearing out of me. “What happened?”

  “Nick!” Amelia said.

  That was enough.

  I caught Rob as she shifted him, his weight sagging hard into me. Up close, the damage was impossible to miss. His right hand hung wrong, bones pushed out of alignment beneath torn skin, fingers swollen and purple.

  “Shit,” I breathed.

  Doyle reappeared with a sharp crack of displaced air, a basket already hooked over one arm, glass and clay clicking together. “Move,” he said, voice flat. “Set him there.”

  We hauled Rob into the chair that always sat forgotten in the hallway. He slumped back with a raw groan, head rolling as pain dragged him under. One side of his face was already puffing up, a dark bruise blooming under his eye. His lip was split, blood drying at the corner of his mouth.

  Doyle crouched in front of him, eyes quick, hands steady. “What’s broken?”

  “His hand, or maybe wrist?” Amelia said. Her voice wavered despite herself. “At least that’s all I saw.”

  Doyle nodded once. He uncorked a small clay bottle and tipped it to Rob’s mouth. The liquid went down in a reluctant gulp. Rob gagged, face twisting at the taste.

  Before he could protest, Doyle pressed a leather strap between his teeth. “Bite,” he said.

  Rob’s eyes widened.

  “Hold him.”

  I braced myself and leaned in, locking my arms around Rob’s shoulders and chest, careful to keep my grip on the padded bulk of his gambeson. Even through the layers I could feel him shaking, breath coming fast and shallow.

  Doyle did not hesitate.

  Bandages flashed in his hands, then his fingers were on Rob’s wrist, beginning to glow golden. There was a sharp crack as the bone slid back where it belonged.

  Rob screamed.

  The sound tore out of him, raw and panicked, his whole body bowing against me as his teeth clamped down on the strap.

  “The draught will dull it,” Doyle said, already wrapping the hand tight, voice steady despite the blood seeping through the cloth. “Not stop it.”

  “Got any more of that?” Rob gasped when he could breathe again.

  Doyle answered by uncorking another bottle and pressing it to his mouth. This time Rob swallowed without complaint, eyes squeezed shut.

  I looked up and caught Amelia watching, her face pale. Only then did I notice the thin cuts along her forearms, the swelling on her knuckles, the red mark standing out against her cheek.

  “Did Nick do this?” I asked quietly.

  She nodded.

  I exhaled through my nose. “Seriously? What the fuck is that guy’s problem?”

  Doyle finished his work and stepped back, giving Rob’s bandaged hand a final, careful check. Then he herded us into the kitchen, muttering something about shock and sugar. He produced a small stash of chocolate and pressed it into our hands like an order.

  We ate because he told us to.

  The sweetness barely registered. Rob’s breathing stayed uneven, pain still etched across his face. Whatever Doyle had given him helped, but only just.

  Doyle tipped his chin toward me. “You get them?” he asked. “The elixirs?”

  I nodded and moved to the counter. My fingers slipped into the rune pocket and came back with two glass vials, their contents catching the light as I set them down.

  “This won’t take the pain away,” I said, keeping my voice low, “but it should help speed it all up.”

  Rob stared. The fog of pain lifted from his face just long enough for disbelief to break through. “When did you get those?” he said, wide-eyed, as if he’d forgotten his hand entirely.

  Amelia’s breath caught. “Sean…”

  Heat crept up my neck. “It wasn’t a big thing.”

  Rob let out a shaky laugh that sounded one breath away from a sob. “That’s a lie,” he said. “That’s a miracle.”

  “And,” I added quickly, before they could say anything else, “there’s more coming. In about a week, if everything holds.”

  Doyle snorted from the stove. “If you don’t get robbed first.”

  I shrugged. “The smith seemed more interested in the green crystal than the one I paid with.”

  “The red one?” Doyle asked.

  I nodded.

  Amelia and Rob exchanged a look.

  The thought slipped out before I could stop it. I glanced down at my sword, then back at them. “Once he takes the green one… do you think he could make something for us?”

  Doyle leaned back, arms folding as he considered the idea. His gaze lingered on the injured two a moment longer than necessary.

  “Selling them isn’t really an option,” he said at last. “Not openly. The value alone would raise eyebrows, and anything that expensive leaves a trail. One you don’t want followed.”

  “So, was I not right to trade the red and green one?”

  “What’s done is done… but anymore and you might stir a dragon’s nest.”

  I turned the idea over in my head, then looked back at him. “And, if I don’t sell them. I’ll ask him to make them.”

  Doyle’s mouth twitched. “If he can do the work himself, he will. If not, he’ll know exactly who can.” He nodded once, thoughtful. “And with Jerald and I now involved; shipping and payment won’t be a problem. You already have the hardest part covered.”

  A flicker of excitement slipped through me before I could stop it. “Then it’s possible.”

  “Very,” Doyle said.

  Rob shifted in his chair, eyes darting between us. “Alright,” he said, suspicion creeping in. “What the hell are you two talking about?”

  I glanced at Doyle. He met my look, then smiled, slow and knowing.

  “Better if it’s a surprise,” he said.

  I couldn’t help but grin. “Yeah,” I said. “Definitely a surprise.”