Chapter 118: Mist Guardian
The day had slipped away quietly, like a heavy sheet slowly pulled from a body. The sky had turned copper, then ashen blue, until night finally took its place, without clamor or wind.
They had gathered in a narrow clearing, sheltered beneath a moss-covered rocky overhang. Nothing moved around them. No birds, no cries. The land had fallen silent, as though kneeling before the full moon preparing to rise.
This time, there was no crackling fire. They couldn’t risk lighting one.
Only a few smothered embers in a shallow trench dug into the ground. The important thing was not to signal their presence—but above all, to make use of the little time they had left before night transformed into something else.
Seated in a circle, the three figures did not speak.
Each had before them one or two anima gems—pale, vibrating crystals, torn from bodies they hadn’t had time to mourn.
They absorbed them in silence, taking turns, feeling the essence flow through their meridians, slowly reinforcing the invisible framework of their being. A dull warmth, sometimes painful, spreading all the way to their core.
Dylan had kept his back straight despite exhaustion. The pain in his right arm was still sharp. He didn’t speak of it. The wound he had taken in Élisa’s place was already fading, and the claw marks on his chest had completely disappeared. At least he could say he was in decent shape—for now.
Beside him, Maggie was digesting the absorption of the specter’s gem—the one that had clawed Dylan. She didn’t flinch, her eyes half-closed, arms crossed, as if reading her body’s reactions line by line.
Élisa, meanwhile, barely paid attention to her turn. No sooner had she finished absorbing one gem than she was already channeling the accumulated essence into the bracelet on her right wrist—a gift from Lady Ondine. A delicate piece of pale, almost translucent metal, etched with veins of an ancient language.
She frowned, lips pressed tight.