Eva still smelled Greymark when she closed her eyes.

  Not the rot — that faded.

  It was the silence she remembered.

  The moment after Sei collapsed. After the light finally died down. After the wounded realized they were still breathing and didn’t know what to do with that fact.

  Someone had whispered his name.

  Not in gratitude.

  In uncertainty.

  She hadn’t told him that part.

  Eva stood near the narrow window of the keep corridor, watching Toradol move below. The city hadn’t stopped — it never did — but it had slowed. Repairs climbed the walls like scars being stitched shut. People worked in clusters, quieter than before, more deliberate.

  She glanced back at the room.

  Sei sat on the edge of the bed, elbows braced on his knees, staring at his hands like they might do something on their own.

  They hadn’t glowed since Greymark.

  That worried her more than if they had.

  “If you keep thinking like that,” she said, breaking the silence, “you’re going to dig yourself into a hole.”

  Sei looked up, startled. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Long enough.” She pushed off the wall. “Come walk with me.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “The city,” Eva said. “You’re being talked about whether you’re there or not. Might as well let them see something real.”

  Sei hesitated.

  Then nodded.

  Toradol up close felt different.

  The damage wasn’t dramatic — no smoking craters or shattered towers — just exhaustion layered into stone. Cracked masonry. Scaffolding braced where walls had bowed. Civilians hauling debris in silence broken only by shouted measurements and the scrape of wood on stone.

  Conversation dipped when they passed.

  Not stopped.

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  Eyes followed them.

  A woman pulled her child closer. A mason paused, squinting at Sei as if trying to reconcile rumor with reality. A guild runner whispered something and earned a sharp elbow to the ribs.

  Sei felt it all.

  He grabbed a fallen beam without being asked and helped lift it back into place. Took a bucket when one was handed to him. Passed tools. Stayed quiet.

  No light.

  No magic.

  Just hands that shook a little less each time he used them.

  “Some of them are scared,” he murmured as they moved on.

  “Yes,” Eva said.

  “And some of them are angry.”

  “Yes.”

  He glanced at her. “And the rest?”

  “They’re watching,” she replied.

  The incident happened near the south wall.

  A partially collapsed storefront, its upper supports cracked during the siege but never fully giving way. Someone shouted — a warning too late — as a beam slipped.

  A man went down with a cry, pinned awkwardly beneath the weight.

  Panic surged fast.

  “Don’t move him!”“Get help—”“He’s bleeding—”

  Sei was already there.

  He dropped to one knee, hands hovering as he assessed. The injury wasn’t catastrophic — broken leg, shallow breathing, pain threatening shock.

  Manageable.

  This time.

  His hands trembled.

  Eva said nothing.

  Sei took a breath.

  Pressed his palm lightly against the man’s chest — not flat, not forceful. Controlled. Intentional.

  The warmth answered.

  Soft.

  Measured.

  The glow barely escaped his skin — a pale thread, visible only if you were looking for it. The man’s breathing steadied. Color returned to his face. Pain dulled enough for him to stop screaming.

  Sei pulled back immediately.

  No collapse.

  No flood.

  Just enough.

  People stared.

  Someone whispered, “That’s him.”

  Another voice answered, quieter. “He stopped.”

  The man on the ground swallowed and looked up at Sei with unfocused eyes. “You… didn’t hurt,” he rasped.

  Sei nodded once. “You’ll heal,” he said. “But not all at once.”

  That seemed to matter.

  They made room for him after that.

  Not reverently.

  Cautiously.

  As Sei stepped back, he noticed the change — the way fear didn’t retreat, but adjusted. Less about what he could do.

  More about whether he would.

  Eva watched the crowd’s reaction carefully.

  No cheers.

  No kneeling.

  Just murmurs recalibrating themselves.

  “He didn’t glow like they said.”“He didn’t keep going.”“He stopped when it was done.”

  Sei wiped his hands on his trousers and exhaled slowly.

  “This,” he said quietly, “I can do this.”

  Eva inclined her head.

  By the time the sun dipped lower, he was carrying stone again — shoulders aching, hands raw, light dormant beneath his skin.

  A few people nodded as they passed him now.

  Not trust.

  Not yet.

  But acknowledgment.

  And for Toradol, that was how things began.

  Sei looked at the city — broken, breathing, stubbornly alive.

  “If I’m going to help,” he thought, lifting another beam into place, “then I’ll help with all of it.”

  The warmth lingered in his hands.

  Waiting.