The request didn’t come with ceremony.

  It came with hesitation.

  A young runner from the guild found Sei near the outer wards, where stone still bore the spiderweb scars of siege magic. The boy stopped a few steps away, shifting his weight like he wasn’t sure whether to approach or retreat.

  “Sir,” he said, then winced at the word. “Um. They said you might… be able to help.”

  Sei looked up from where he’d been sitting on a broken crate, watching workers reset a collapsed barricade. “That depends entirely on what ‘help’ means today.”

  The boy swallowed. “There’s a soldier. Stable, they said. But not improving.”

  Sei stood immediately.

  The room smelled familiar.

  Clean linen. Iron. Old herbs crushed into poultices. The kind of place where hope lingered just long enough to be dangerous.

  The man on the cot couldn’t have been more than twenty. A spear wound to the abdomen—angled wrong, pulled free too quickly. Someone competent had already done the first steps: cleaned, packed, bound. The bleeding was controlled.

  Textbook.

  Sei exhaled slowly through his nose. “You did well,” he said to the medic hovering nearby.

  The man nodded, relief flickering across his face. “That’s what I said. But he keeps… slipping.”

  Sei rolled up his sleeves.

  “Alright,” he murmured, voice dropping into that steady cadence he didn’t remember learning. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

  He worked carefully. Fingers pressed, measured, adjusted. He listened—not just to breath and pulse, but to the body’s quiet resistance. The patient stirred, brow furrowing, lips parting in a shallow groan.

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  “Easy,” Sei said softly. “You’re doing fine. Just stay with me.”

  A faint smile tugged at the corner of the soldier’s mouth. “You’re… funny,” he slurred.

  Sei snorted. “That’s one word for it.”

  The room breathed with them.

  Minutes passed.

  Then longer.

  The pulse weakened—not dramatically. Not enough to panic anyone else in the room. But Sei felt it. The subtle lag. The hesitation between beats.

  His hands stilled.

  No.

  Not again.

  He adjusted the bandaging. Rechecked pressure. Changed position. Did everything right.

  Still—nothing changed.

  The medic watched him closely now. “Is it—?”

  “It’s holding,” Sei said. The words tasted wrong. “For now.”

  Eva stood near the doorway, arms crossed, expression unreadable. She said nothing.

  That made it worse.

  Sei straightened slowly, wiping his hands on a cloth that came away clean. Too clean. He hated that most of all.

  “I’ve done what I can,” he said. “Keep him warm. Monitor closely. If he worsens—send for me.”

  The medic nodded, grateful. Hopeful.

  Sei avoided looking at the soldier as he stepped back.

  Night fell quietly.

  The city didn’t cry out. No bells rang. No screams echoed through stone halls.

  That somehow felt crueler.

  Sei sat on a low wall outside the infirmary, elbows on his knees, staring at his hands. They were steady. They always were.

  “You didn’t fail,” Eva said behind him.

  He huffed a weak laugh. “That’s a generous interpretation.”

  “You acted within what you’re willing to use.”

  “That’s the problem,” he muttered.

  Silence stretched.

  Inside, someone coughed. Wet. Weak.

  Sei closed his eyes.

  He could feel it again—that coil beneath his chest. Not sharp like the scalpel. Not hungry.

  Just… waiting.

  He stood abruptly.

  Eva straightened. “Sei—”

  “I need air,” he said, already moving. “Before I do something stupid.”

  He paced the courtyard once. Twice. Breath shallow, jaw tight.

  If you don’t know what it’ll do, don’t use it.

  If you can’t control it, you shouldn’t try.

  What if you make it worse?

  The questions piled up like they always did.

  Inside the infirmary, the coughing stopped.

  Too abruptly.

  Sei froze.

  A heartbeat passed.

  Then another.

  The door opened.

  The medic stepped out, face pale—not panicked. Just tired.

  “He’s alive,” the man said quickly. “But… it’s not good. We’re waiting now.”

  Waiting.

  Sei nodded.

  That word followed him as he turned away, walking blindly until the stone wall pressed against his back.

  Waiting was what came after you’d done everything right.

  Waiting was where hope went to thin itself into something fragile.

  Waiting was where patients died quietly so no one had to feel responsible.

  His hands curled into fists.

  “I hate this part,” he whispered.

  Eva didn’t answer.

  Inside, the soldier breathed—shallow, uneven, uncertain.

  And for the first time since arriving in this world, Sei didn’t walk away because he was afraid.

  He walked away because he wasn’t ready to choose.