The life force he had violently harvested from Malphas, Grand Chieftain Bruga, and the others had already done its work. Bones that had been shattered were neatly welded back together. Internal hemorrhaging had sealed itself.
Torn muscle and bruised organs had been rebuilt until his physical frame stood at an absolute, flawless peak once more.
Even the deep fatigue that should have lingered after such a brutal battle had been washed away, leaving only a clean, humming strength beneath his skin.
Kira blinked, her hand hovering inches above his chest, her mouth slightly open in disbelief.
"W-What...? But... Vane smashed his fist straight into your chest! And Bruga kicked you through solid rock!" Her voice trembled with a mixture of residual fear and sheer confusion.
Only hours earlier she had watched him take blows that should have left any normal Layer 3 warrior dying or crippled. Yet here he sat, skin unmarked, breathing evenly, as if the entire war had been nothing more than a dream, a particularly vivid one..
Sol let out a low chuckle, looking down at her wide, disbelieving eyes. He raised his hand, lightly tapping his own collarbone with a knuckles-click.
"Didn’t I tell you?" Sol smiled, his crimson eyes glinting playfully in the moonlight. "I’m alright. I’ve got a strong body. Injuries like that are nothing once I get a little rest."
Zeyra’s sharp eyes narrowed as she reached out, her fingers pressing firmly against his ribs where she had explicitly heard the bone snap earlier.
When Sol didn’t even flinch... there was no swelling, no tenderness, not even the faintest residual bruise... she let out a quiet, disbelieving huff, shaking her head.
"You really are a monster," Zeyra muttered, though the subtle tension that had locked her shoulders all evening finally dissolved entirely. "A completely unreasonable, unkillable monster."
"I’ll take that as a compliment," Sol replied dryly.
Without another word, Sol unbuckled his shoes and stepped off the stone ledge into the cool, crystal stream.
The water came up to his knees, its icy temperature a refreshing shock that instantly cleared the lingering fog of battle fatigue from his mind.
The current tugged gently at his legs, carrying away the first traces of dried blood and dust.
Kira and Zeyra followed him in, rolling up the sleeves of their tunics and stepping into the shallow pool with clean, woven cloths and a small bowl of fragrant paste made from crushed mountain herbs.
"Turn around," Kira instructed softly, her voice carrying a warmth that mirrored the gentle ripples of the water, though a faint tremor of leftover emotion still lingered beneath it.
Sol complied, sitting back on a smooth underwater boulder so the stream reached his waist.
Kira dipped a coarse cloth into the flowing water and began gently wiping the dried blood and white limestone chalk from his shoulders and back.
The dark purple stains dissolved easily into the current, swirling away downstream into the dark, swirling away downstream into the dark.
Her hands moved with careful attention, as if she needed the simple, repetitive act of cleaning him to convince herself that he was truly still here and whole.
Zeyra knelt at his side, washing the blood from his arms and chest. Her hands were firm yet surprisingly gentle, She cleared away the grime of the day with precise strokes, her sharp eyes focused on every inch of skin as though searching for any hidden injury the healing might have missed.
For several minutes, the only sounds filling the quiet clearing were the soft splashing of the stream, the rustling of grass in the night wind, and the distant, faint crackle of the funeral pyres burning on the far ridge.
The moonlight silvered the water around them, turning the three figures into quiet silhouettes against the dark mountain.
"It feels strange," Kira said quietly, breaking the silence as she washed a streak of dried mud from behind his neck. "Just a few hours ago... I thought our entire tribe was going to be wiped out. I thought my mother was gone, the High Shaman was dead, and we’d all be either captured or dead."
She paused, her cloth hovering over his skin as she looked up at the moon.
The silver light caught the faint sheen of unshed tears in her eyes. "And now... it’s over. The Coalition leaders are dead, Thorne is gone, and the enemies are kneeling in the dirt. It doesn’t even feel real."
"It’s not entirely over," Zeyra added, dipping her cloth back into the sparkling water. "Tomorrow we will march back to the main settlement.
There are still almost a thousand prisoners to handle, tribal borders to redraw, and the surrounding sectors to claim before the smaller clans realize what happened and try to scavenge what they can."
She looked at Sol, her sharp eyes searching his face in the moonlight. "Though I suppose none of those smaller clans will dare move once they hear what you did to Bruga and Vane."
Sol leaned his head back, resting his elbows against the rock behind him as he stared up at the starlit sky.
"Let them talk," Sol said calmly, his voice smooth and steady. "Fear is a useful leash. It keeps ambitious fools from making stupid decisions that force me to put my armor back on."
Kira let out a soft, melodic laugh... a sound so pure and free of terror that it seemed to heal the lingering heaviness in the air. "You make it sound like you hate fighting, yet you walked into an army of thousands of warriors without blinking."
"I don’t hate fighting," Sol replied, a faint, dark smirk touching his lips as he turned his gaze back to her. "I just prefer the rewards that come after."
Zeyra raised an eyebrow, splashing a small wave of cool river water directly against his chest. "Keep talking like that and we’ll leave you out here to dry in the night wind."
"Now that would be truly cruel," Sol chuckled, shaking the water from his hair.
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