Awakener's Guide to Climbing the Tower

Elyes clasped his hands together and lowered his head slightly. For a few seconds, he did not react at all. He only sat there with his shoulders drawn tighter than usual. Then he said, "Continue with what you were saying earlier."

Misha blinked once, seeing he had completely stepped over her past. Or perhaps, he had simply placed it aside for now because something else mattered more.

Nyxie mattered more, she had always mattered more for him.

That realization did not sting exactly. It landed softer than that, more like a truth she had already known and finally heard out loud.

She nodded once before she continued and told him about her skill. She also told him about what happened after he left, after he had no choice but to use the return stone, and how she had to face Yara alone, and how her soul possession managed to defeat her. Though not totally defeated since Yara managed to escape.

Then she told him the part that mattered the most for him. Nameless, the constellation soul in her Leo chamber, forced the System so Nyxie and Gerbaut had not been fully erased. Their souls were now archived and were pulled into her Soul Inventory.

She explained what little she properly understood about her ability and the parts she still had to guess around. Every sentence felt incomplete somehow, like she was trying to explain the shape of a storm with only a handful of sparks.

"Right now," she said, choosing each word carefully. "I can’t do Soul Implantation... My level’s too low. I don’t have enough authority for that yet. But... I confirmed it while I was with Gerbaut back then. It’s possible."

Elyes went still for a moment, too many thoughts had rushed in him at once. Then his hands clenched. "You need a body."

Misha pressed her lips together and nodded. "Yes."

That was the cruelest part of it. Hope with conditions, with requirements. It was hope that still demanded things from the living.

The room fell quiet again.

Elyes stared at the floor for so long that Misha wondered if he had stopped hearing her at all.

"If what you’re saying is true..." his voice trailed off. He lifted one hand and pressed his fingers lightly against his mouth, his eyes shut for a second as if holding himself together had become a physical task.

When he looked up again, something in his face had changed, his gaze looked decided. "Alright."

Misha blinked a few times. "Alright... what?"

"I’ll help you."

The answer landed so fast she did not know what to do with it.

Did he not suspect her? No ’you lied to us, so why should I trust this?’

Maybe those questions still sat somewhere in him. Perhaps they would come out later, when Nyxie’s name stopped shaking inside his chest.

Still, he had answered. He would help.

"Why?" Misha asked before she could stop herself.

That made his expression flatten again. He looked almost insulted by the question.

"Because," he said, his voice dry despite the redness still haunting his eyes. "I’m not stupid enough to ignore the first useful thing I’ve heard from you."

Misha almost smiled. That’s Elyes, all right. Sharp-tongued even now.

"And because if there’s even a small chance she can come back..." His fingers tightened. "I’m not sitting here and doing nothing."

Misha lowered her eyes and nodded slowly. "I understand."

"I know you do."

The answer came too quickly, it made her look up.

Elyes was watching her again, not with distrust exactly, but not with the easy acceptance from before either. Something more complicated sat there now. He knew what she lost, he knew the shape of it now because it had settled onto both of them. The room felt full of that understanding, heavy and awkward and far too honest for the middle of the night.

His gaze shifted toward the cloak on the bed. "You really came from outside."

Misha gave a small nod. "Yes..."

He let out a tired breath. "That explains some things."

"Like what?"

"You ask stupid questions in very original ways."

"..." She stared blankly at him.

Then, against all odds, a tiny sound escaped her. A laugh. It came out small and disbelieving and strange in the middle of all this, but it came out anyway.

Elyes unfolded the note in his hand and looked at the words again, even though by now he had surely memorized them.

’Nyxie and Gerbaut are alive.’

Misha watched his face as he read it, the way his jaw tightened and his eyes briefly shut. She watched the way hope and grief fought each other without either side winning.

Then he refolded the paper with much more care than he had unfolded it. "What do you need?"

"Huh?"

"To make this happen," he said. "Levels, bodies, information. Whatever it is. What do you need?"

Misha stared at him for a moment. For one horrible second, an image flashed through her head of him calmly digging up graves with the same exhausted face of his because she said the word body out loud.

She shoved that thought away immediately.

"For now," she said. "I need sleep."

Elyes narrowed his eyes. He was being serious with his question.

"I.need.sleep." She repeated, emphasizing each word like she was speaking to a particularly annoying child. "And you need to recover. I can’t carry you like Nyxie. You’ll only drag me down."

His face twitched. "Rude."

"It’s true though."

"I hate that you sound more awake than me."

"That’s because my trait is helping."

He looked unimpressed. "That sounds fake."

She shook her head. "It’s not."

"How unfortunate then." He pushed himself up using the staff, slow and careful and still trying to pretend the movement did not hurt.

Misha noticed and decided not to comment on it. That would have only earned her a glare and some insult about minding her own broken body.

When he reached the door, he paused. Not long, only enough to say, without looking back, "Don’t disappear before morning."

Misha stared blankly at him, then she snorted. "You came here in the middle of the night demanding answers, and that’s how you treat me?"

"Yes." The answer came so dry and immediate that it almost felt automatic. Then, just before stepping out, he said in a lower voice. "If this is real..."

He did not finish, he did not need to since Misha knew.

"It is."

Elyes stood there for one more second, then he nodded once and left.