Chapter 19: Jered this, Jered that
"You’re still alive, right, buddy? Don’t leave me..."
Kaelen’s voice trembled, broken and barely above a whisper, yet desperate enough to echo louder than any scream.
His body hunched over Jered’s mangled frame, both of his hands glowing with weak healing light.
They shook violently, not just from fatigue, but from something deeper.
The once-proud and energetic boy was now a trembling mess of blood, soot, and tears.
Nobody could say for sure if the tears flowing down his dirt-smeared face were for Jered, or for himself.
Maybe even Kaelen didn’t know.
His hands blistered, swollen, and scorched pressed gently against Jered’s chest. The fire sword he had wielded earlier wasn’t his, and it had made sure he remembered that with every passing second.
It was a skill made out of another person’s mana and without its owner controlling it, had rejected Kaelen thus burning him as it had burned the monsters.
Yet he hadn’t let go. Not until Jered was safe.
That’s what mattered.