Chapter 195: New Allies
He lowered his gaze, hands still clenched, the edges of his fingernails digging hard into the curve of his palm. The crystal at his wrist pulsed once more—quick, sharp. Almost like it was flinching.
Faye knelt a few paces from the edge, her knees sinking into the smooth, shifting surface of the liminal platform. The material wasn’t quite stone, but it didn’t yield like sand either—something in between, soft enough to absorb weight, firm enough to hold the pain. Her bird-like Ikona hovered behind her shoulder, its wings trembling mid-hover. The melody that normally chimed like wind through glass faltered now, hanging in the air like a note that didn’t know where to land.
Her breathing was shallow. Each inhale pulled at something sharp inside her chest. Red strands clung to her damp cheeks, stuck there by sweat and something else—tears she didn’t remember shedding. Her eyes were locked on Elias’s form, the way his edges seemed to blur, his outline turning translucent, fading into the pale light that never seemed to come from any one place. Blood spread beneath him, black where it met the liminal floor, soaking outward in silence.
Faye’s hands trembled in her lap. She didn’t try to stop them. For once, she had no mask left to hold. No performance to play. The words came without thinking—quiet, broken. "Elias..."
It was all she managed. Just his name. The moment it left her lips, her voice cracked like ice under weight, and she folded forward slightly, arms wrapping around herself. Her Ikona drifted lower, letting out a barely audible chime that didn’t resolve, a suspended tone that made her chest tighten even further.
He was gone.
The realization didn’t come all at once. It seeped into her bones, slow, steady, like cold water. She could still feel him—his presence, his will—but it was slipping. Like a current pulling him further away with each breath she took. It made no sense. He’d survived worse. He’d dragged them all through hell, clawed his way back from the brink over and over again. And now... this?
The Announcer’s voice broke through the silence like a nail across glass.
"—a shard of Radiant Stability, as per the realm’s decree," he said, tone clipped, almost bored. He held a glowing fragment aloft in one hand, golden light spilling across the platform, casting long shadows from the kneeling forms around him. "A fitting reward for the survivor, wouldn’t you agree?"