Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

Zhang Xi finishes healing Kellan with less gentleness than she used on Rhayne.

Not out of cruelty. At least, it doesn’t look like cruelty.

Kellan is bigger, heavier, and his injuries have the stupid honesty of someone who tried to punch the ground with an active skill chained to his own arm. The right shoulder took part of the recoil, the elbow doesn’t look whole, and the muscle of his forearm trembles every time he tries to pretend he’s fine.

Zhang Xi rests two fingers near the joint and lets Susanoo’s Love run beneath the skin like a narrow current. Kellan tries not to react. He fails only at the jaw.

"Don’t use this arm with force for a few hours," she says.

"I’m fine."

"That wasn’t a question."

Freya glances at him sideways, and Kellan has enough sense not to say anything else. Mira stays close, silent, her weapons already stowed and her eyes still a little caught on Rhayne.

It wasn’t an open fear.

Mira has too much pride to let something like that breathe without a leash. But she saw the Void up close, and some things keep looking back in memory even after they vanish in the reality.

I wait for Zhang Xi to stand before I call everyone in.

The circle is wrecked in places. The Oxidrive Impact crater cuts the dirt like a memory of vandal students. The ocean sky above darkens slowly, blue over blue, and the academy around us feels too distant for a place still in the same world.

"Today was productive," I say.

Veric wipes a bit of dried blood still clinging to the edge of his nose, almost a nervous tic by now. "That’s a generous way to describe a sequence of supervised near-murders."

"Productive," I repeat.

Oliver lets out a low laugh. Rhayne stands beside Zhang Xi, healed but still pale. She isn’t trembling, but she keeps her arms close to her body, too small a posture for someone who just won four percent of experience. That sticks in me, but I push it to later. We have too many things to work through and no way to handle all of them at once.

"I want to repeat this for the next four days," I continue. "Same structure. Pairs drawn at the start. If the same two come up, we draw again. No public bets, no audience, no deaths, a healer present, a judge set before each fight. Anyone who doesn’t want in, say so now."

Kellan huffs but doesn’t speak. His right hand is still being reminded by his body that pride doesn’t help win fights.

Freya tilts her head. "You talk as if you’ve already assumed we’ll accept."

"I assumed you can recognize useful learning when it’s spelled out for you."

Her eyes narrow, but there’s no real irritation in it. Or if there is, it comes mixed with interest. Freya doesn’t seem to like admitting that anything outside the academy has worth. The problem is that the broken plaza, the cuts, the wins and the losses had just done more for everyone here than a full week of clean lessons.

"Don’t mistake this for enthusiasm," she says. "But hitting Veric was less boring than listening to teachers pretend survival is a purely theoretical subject."

Veric doesn’t offer his neck to the bait. He only adjusts his Tidebreaker armor and gives her a smile polite enough to be irritating. "Glad to serve the progress of your academic life."

Freya looks at him for a moment. Veric stays calm. That, for some reason, seems to bother her more than if he’d snapped back with arrogance.

"Four days," she says at last. "After that, we’ll see if there’s still anything useful here."

"There is," I answer. "But four days will do."

Mira accepts with a short nod. Zhang Xi only folds her hands inside her sleeves, as if she’s already calculated how many bones she’ll have to keep from turning to flour. Oliver agrees with no drama. Rhayne does too, though she avoids looking at the center of the arena for too long.

When the agreement dies in the air and turns into something practical, the tension starts hunting for another place to live. I don’t want to let it go back where it came from.

"There’s a bar near the Oathring," I say. "Private room, fewer ears, good food and drink. Let’s go. I’m paying."

Kellan lets out a short laugh. "Pass."

No one pretends to be surprised. His pride is worse off than his shoulder. Zhang Xi could heal one. The other would take more time, or more beatings. Freya doesn’t try to convince him. She understands him better than anyone here.

Oliver runs a hand over the back of his neck. "I have to close the factory."

I look at him. "Thank you. Really."

He shrugs, but the gesture carries an honest weight. "Someone has to make sure the workers and the alchemy don’t decide to start their own religion."

"I’ll put someone I trust on that soon."

"It’s fine. I’ll lock up and meet you after."

I nod. Part of me wants to go with him. The factory is money, security, scale, LDP, the future. But it can be closed by Oliver, supervised by someone trained. What I need to do with Freya can’t be delegated. I can ask someone else to adjust a component, check stock, lock a door. I can’t ask someone else to build the trust it’ll take to save Freya when the right line comes.

In the end, there are six of us. Me, Rhayne, Veric, Freya, Mira, and Zhang Xi.

The way to the bar runs through the wide streets around the academy, where the late-afternoon light falls on damp stone and old metal. No one talks much at first. It isn’t hostile silence. It’s social exhaustion trying to find the right moment to speak without sounding strange.

Rhayne tries to walk on her own.

Veric notices before I do. Maybe because he’s closer. Maybe because she hides it from me better out of habit. He slows his pace without announcing it, places himself beside her, and offers his arm as if it were just a coincidence of direction.

Rhayne looks at him. "I’m fine."

"Obviously," Veric answers. "I’m only using you as an excuse to walk slower. Freya nearly turned me into wall décor today."

Her resistance lasts two seconds. Then Rhayne takes his arm, light, almost weightless. Veric doesn’t smile like a winner. He only matches his rhythm to hers and keeps walking.

I watch the two of them ahead for a while. Rhayne just woke from something that could have killed us all, and Veric is being kind in a way that’s rare for him, with no stage. Some things get more dangerous when they’re named too early. And I like seeing the two of them together.

Freya walks beside me, but she’s watching them too. "Interesting," she says.

"Don’t start."

"I didn’t say anything."

"You thought loudly."

"Then maybe you should listen better."

The smirk she gives me says everything by saying nothing.

The bar appears past the corner of the Oathring, discreet from outside, with wide doors and a simple sign. It’s the same place as before, close enough to the formal violence of the Oathring. Maybe that’s why the food and drink are so good. When you take a beating, you want something to lift you; when you win, something to celebrate with.

I ask for a private room before anyone suggests the main hall. The attendant recognizes Veric first, then decides to recognize the rest with less expression. We’re led down a narrow corridor to a dark wood room, low-ceilinged, with a large table at the center and thick walls.

No one orders yet. Better that way.

When the door closes, the sound of the bar stays on the other side like a muffled tide heard from below a ship’s deck. Rhayne sits carefully. Veric stands beside her a moment before taking his own seat. Mira picks a chair where she can see the door and the window at once. Zhang Xi sits in silence. Freya stays on her feet a second longer, as if accepting the chair meant admitting she’d accepted the meeting.

At last, she sits right beside me. I can feel the cool of her skin from the closeness. The chill of her breath is nothing like an ordinary Diver’s.

"So," Freya says, propping an elbow on the table. "You dragged us here to pretend we’re friends?"

"No."

The word comes out more serious than I intended. Maybe that’s better. Freya notices. Her face loses a little of its irony.

I look at Rhayne for an instant, then at Veric, Mira, and Zhang Xi. They all gained something in that plaza. Some of them also lost the illusion of control. Finally, I come back to Freya.

"I want to talk to you."

"You’re talking."

"Not like this."

She doesn’t look away. I feel her eyes now looking into my soul. The room goes quiet.

I lean a little over the table, keeping my voice low enough not to turn this into a speech.

"Freya, from now on, you need to listen carefully."

Her gaze hardens. "Why?"

Because I knew enough to be afraid for her. Because trust was a bridge, and I didn’t have much time to build something that could hold the weight of the future.

But I don’t say that. Not yet.

"Because what I’m about to tell you could save your life."

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