The silence of the moss-covered hut was shattered by a violent, frantic thud from behind the wooden door.

  Aiven didn't wait. He surged off the bench, the Armvil Mark 3 whirring with a sharp, startled click as he threw the door open. Rysa and Aelira were a heartbeat behind him.

  Virelle was on the floor, her lavender skirts tangled around her legs and hair splayed across the wooden planks like spilled ink. She wasn't posing or acting; she was trembling, her hands clawing weakly at the air as if trying to catch a disappearing dream.

  "Virelle!" Aiven knelt beside her, his right hand reaching for her shoulder while his brass hand steadied her waist. "Easy, easy. I’ve got you."

  Virelle’s eyes snapped open, but they were unfocused, darting around the emerald-lit room with a raw, animalistic panic. When they finally landed on Aiven, the terror didn't vanish—it transformed into a heartbreaking confusion.

  "Master?" she whispered, her voice barely a rasp. She let him help her up, her weight leaning heavily against his chest. "Where... where are we? Did I fail? The red thread..." She looked at him, searching his face for injuries. "Was it you? Did you save me?"

  "You're alright," Aiven said firmly, his heart aching at the lack of smugness in her tone. "That's all that matters right now. We're safe."

  Aelira stepped forward, radiating a calm, grounding energy. "You are in my home, child. Within the Painted Woods of Aerilis. This place is veiled by a separate dimension; no malicious shadow can find their way in here."

  Virelle looked at the forest spirit, then back at Aiven. Her lip trembled. She didn't offer a dramatic or witty remark. Instead, her face simply crumbled. Small, hitching breaths escaped her as tears began to spill over, hot and fast.

  "I'm the reason," she choked out, her fingers clenching into his shirt so hard her knuckles turned white. She looked at him with a gaze so shattered it made Aiven’s throat tight. "I'm the problem, Master. He was right. He was right about everything. I’m bringing them all to you."

  She began to sob, her words coming in a desperate, frantic rush. "I was supposed to be the one who protected you. But I was the one who was helpless. You’re human... you’re just a human, and you had to... I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for being the burden. I'm so sorry..."

  Aiven didn't know what to say. The invincible mage was gone, replaced by someone who sounded like they were drowning. Without thinking, he pulled her into a hug, his brass arm wrapping around her back with a gentleness that defied its industrial origin. He held her in silence, letting her cry until her breaths became steady.

  Rysa watched them for a moment. She shifted her weight, then looked at Aelira. "I think it’s better if I excuse myself for a bit. Fresh air and all that."

  Aelira nodded solemnly. "Indeed. Let us give them the space the soul requires." The spirit followed Rysa out, closing the door softly behind them.

  For a few minutes, the only sound was the muffled rhythm of Virelle’s weeping. But just as she seemed to settle, her body suddenly jolted. Aiven felt her muscles lock tight.

  "Virelle?"

  She let out a sharp, ragged gasp, her hands flying to her head. She wrenched herself away from him, curling into a ball on the cot. "No—no, stop—make it stop!"

  "Virelle, look at me!" Aiven grabbed her wrists, trying to steady her.

  "The light!" she choked out, her eyes staring at nothing. "Too bright... everything is white... the screaming... why are they screaming?"

  She began to pant, her words coming in jagged, disconnected stabs. "The marble... it’s breaking. It was me, it was me!"

  "Virelle, focus on my voice!"

  "It’s that girl again..." Virelle’s voice turned into a thin, pained thread. "Blonde hair... the blue scarf—no, brown... it’s brown. She’s waving. Why is she crying?"

  Aiven felt the blood drain from his face. The air in the small room suddenly felt very thin.

  Honey-blonde hair. A brown scarf.

  He was not sure of it, but the image of the girl he had used to meet whenever he made deliveries to Hearthport appeared in his mind.

  "Lyra..." Aiven breathed, the name escaping him like a ghost.

  But how could Virelle see her?

  Virelle let out a sharp cry of agony. The door barged open, and Aelira rushed back in, her hands already glowing with a deep, pulsating emerald light.

  "The untanglement is not yet complete!" Aelira shouted over the hum of rising mana. "The blood-weaving left a lingering toxin in her psyche. I must dive deeper to stabilize her."

  She looked at Aiven, seeing the shell-shocked expression on his face. "Aiven, stay if you must, but do not interfere. Her mind is a labyrinth of glass right now, and one wrong move could shatter her completely."

  Aiven nodded, his brass hand tightening into a fist. He sat by the bedside, his eyes fixed on Virelle’s pained face, wondering if the girl in her head was the same one who still appeared in his dreams.

  The air in the small bedroom grew heavy with the scent of crushed herbs and ozone. Aelira moved with a focused, rhythmic grace, her hands weaving patterns of warm, golden-green light over Virelle’s forehead. A trio of pixies—tiny flickers of pink and silver—flitted around Virelle’s head, their miniature hands performing complex, frantic gestures as if they were stitching together the air itself.

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  Virelle’s spasms had slowed, but her face remained tight.

  "The tampering was more malicious than I first believed," Aelira said, her voice strained as she maintained the flow of mana. "The thread didn't just pull at her memories; it tore the fabric of her consciousness. A regular process of tidying her thoughts will not suffice. Her brain has recognized these shards of memory as something vital, something she must recall, no matter the cost."

  Aiven watched from the corner, his brass arm clicking softly as it rested against his chest. "You mean she can't just forget again? Even if it hurts her?"

  "The mind is a stubborn thing, Aiven," Aelira replied, a pixie landing briefly on her shoulder to chirp a warning. "I cannot force her to forget what her soul has already decided is essential. The most I can do now is minimize the agony when those memories resurface. I am smoothing the edges of the glass so it doesn't cut her so deeply."

  Aiven looked at the pale, unconscious Virelle. "If those are her memories... does that mean she suppressed them? Did she choose to forget?"

  Aelira paused, the emerald light in the room dimming for a heartbeat. "There is no definitive answer here. Perhaps she buried them to survive. Or perhaps someone else suppressed them, sensing that her old self was too dangerous to be left awake."

  Aiven stayed silent, but his mind began to spiral. He couldn't stop thinking about the words Virelle had gasped out just moments ago. The marble is breaking. It was me, it was me.

  The phrase echoed like a death knell in his head. In her visions, there was destruction. Fire. Falling white marble. If she was the one saying "It was me," did that mean she was the cause? Was the theatrical, playful elf he knew actually a weapon of mass destruction? She certainly had the capability for destruction.

  And then there was the girl. The honey-blonde hair. The brown scarf.

  His mind flashed back to Hearthport—the salt air, the docking airships, and the girl who always made him laugh when he was just a clumsy delivery boy. He tried to tell himself it was a coincidence, that there were a thousand girls with brown scarves in the world, but the his mind couldn’t help but drift back to the girl that rekindled his dream of being an adventurer.

  There were so many questions clawing at his throat, but he knew he couldn't ask them. Not while she was like this.

  His thoughts were a messy, tangled storm that he couldn't quiet. Was Virelle truly the one who had destroyed his wish to be with Lyra? Had she been the cause of his biggest regret? If so, he thought he should have hated her. He should have felt a burning, righteous fury toward the being that had turned his past into cinders. But as he sat there, there was barely any hatred to be found. Instead, he felt only a suffocating confusion and a hollow, aching pity for the broken soul laying on the bed. He was more afraid of the truth than he was of her, and that realization only made the mess in his heart harder to untangle.

  "How long will this take?" Aiven asked, his voice sounding hollow even to his own ears.

  "The resonance is stabilizing," Aelira said. "Probably another thirty minutes."

  Aiven nodded, feeling a sudden, desperate need for air that wasn't filled with the scent of magic and old secrets. "I'll...step outside for a bit."

  He turned and walked out of the room, his boots making no sound on the mossy floor. As the door clicked shut behind him, he leaned against the dark wood of the hallway.

  Stepping out into the main living area of the hut, Aiven found Rysa lying casually on the floor, her hands behind her head as she stared up at the leaf-covered ceiling.

  "Is she okay?" Rysa asked without looking over.

  "Aelira says she will be," Aiven replied, letting out a long, weary breath. "But it's going to take at least another thirty minutes to finish... whatever it is she's doing."

  He looked down at Rysa. "Why are you lying on the floor?"

  "Felt like relaxing," she said with a dry shrug. "And there's exactly zero sofas in this botanical paradise. The floor is surprisingly cool."

  Aiven hesitated, then slowly lowered himself down, lying on the wood beside her. The ceiling above was a complex weave of emerald leaves, and for a moment, the quiet of the forest felt heavy enough to drown in.

  Rysa turned her head slightly toward him, a playful glint in her eyes. "What's gotten into you? Are you making moves on me now?"

  Aiven didn't laugh. He just kept staring up. "What if Virelle is hiding a secret?" he whispered. "Something that... I might not be ready to face."

  Rysa stayed silent, the typical witty retort dying on her lips as she sensed the genuine weight in his voice.

  "It’s barely been two weeks since I met her," Aiven continued, his voice sounding small. "Two weeks. In that time, I’ve almost died twice, lost an arm, and now... it feels like I’ve been dragged into something much larger than just being a rookie adventurer. It feels like the world is splitting open."

  Rysa remained quiet for a long beat before asking, "What does she mean to you, Aiven? Virelle, I mean."

  Aiven closed his eyes. "I don't know. Honestly. But the way she's so insistent on protecting me... the way she got so attached to me from the very first moment... it made me happy. I'm not used to people caring that much. But the truth is, I don't know why she feels that way. I'm just a former clerk."

  "So, she just appeared and got attached to you like a chick seeing its mother for the first time?" Rysa asked.

  "Well... it’s something like that," Aiven admitted.

  "Look, Aiven. You might be confused about what she means to you. But a few hours ago, you dashed into a burning village to save her against things that were way stronger than you. You didn't think twice. That usually means someone is important to you."

  Rysa exhaled slowly, her gaze drifting up to the dim rafters as if she were sorting through a feeling rather than a thought. “And… I don’t know much about her,” she admitted. “I don’t know where she came from, what she really is, or what kind of secrets she’s hiding. But I’ve seen the way she looks at you.”

  Her lips twitched into a small, knowing smile. “That’s not the look of someone playing a role. That’s real. Maybe a little too real.”

  “She watches you like the world might fall apart if she looks away for even a second. And the way she throws herself in front of danger—half the time it feels less like confidence and more like fear. Like she’s terrified something might happen to you.”

  Rysa shrugged lightly. “Call it instinct. I’ve been around enough liars and mercenaries to know when someone’s pretending. Whatever she’s hiding… that part isn’t fake. She cares. A lot.”

  She paused, then shifted, turning onto her side to face him. "People might barely know each other, but sometimes, time spent doesn't equal a bond's strength. Things just happen sometimes. You don't need a ledger to prove you care about her."

  Aiven turned his head, and suddenly they were side by side, their faces barely a foot apart. Rysa’s eyes widened slightly, a faint, unexpected blush creeping up her neck as she met his gaze.

  "W-what?" she stammered, her usual coolness faltering for a split second.

  Aiven just looked at her, his expression soft and genuinely grateful. "Thanks."

  Rysa blinked once, then twice, as if rebooting her usual composure. She turned her face away with a quiet huff, rubbing the back of her neck as the blush deepened.

  “You’re welcome,” she muttered, then shot him a sidelong glance, a crooked grin tugging at her lips. “I’ll bill your psychology consultation fee later.”

  Aiven let out a faint breath that might have been a laugh. He turned his gaze back to the leaf-woven ceiling, the uncertainty still heavy in his chest—but no longer crushing. Everything felt fragile, unresolved, and frighteningly vast… yet beneath it all, there was a quiet sense of direction. Like stars hidden behind clouds, waiting patiently.

  The path ahead was dark and tangled, but somehow, he felt they would shine when he needed them most.