Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

Zoe realized what she’d said a second too late.

Her face flushed to the tips of her ears, and her hand rose toward the eye patch as if she could hide half the world behind her fingers. The door was still open only enough for her to appear in the gap, small against the marked wood and the shadows of the Central Tavern.

Freya went still.

For an instant, the Ice Valkyrie looked more unprepared in front of that sentence than she had in front of anything else. Her smile came slowly, almost against her own reputation, and the cold in her eyes softened without losing its color.

"Thank you," Freya said.

Zoe dropped her gaze at once.

I let the moment breathe for two seconds, then returned to what mattered. "Zoe. Where’s your father?"

She opened the door wider and pointed to the back of the tavern, toward the service counter. The gesture was small, careful, as if any large movement might call the men back.

Freya crouched in front of her.

The move caught me off guard. Not the gentleness itself, but how natural it was. Freya lowered until she was at Zoe’s eye level, then seemed to notice she was treating a sixteen-year-old like she was half that age. A faint embarrassment passed over her face. Even so, her voice stayed low.

"What’s your name?"

"Zoe."

"I’m Freya." She held out her hand. "Can we come in?"

Zoe looked at me first.

I nodded.

She put her hand in Freya’s, and Freya led her inside with a gentleness almost strange in a body built for war. It wasn’t theatrical. It didn’t look like an attempt to seem good. Freya simply passed her hand over Zoe’s fingers with care and guided her to a side table, away from the door, speaking too low for me to catch the words.

Veric watched the scene with one eye half-closed. "Record the event. The Ice Valkyrie has suffered thermal failure."

Freya didn’t even turn.

That, for some reason, made the joke better.

I came in after her, with Rhayne, Oliver, Veric, and Zhang Xi right behind. The place was the same as I’d left it. A few tables crooked. Broken chairs stacked near the wall. The low light gave the hall the look of somewhere that had already given up pretending to be safe.

Crossing the floor, I glanced at Freya and Zoe.

Freya spoke to her with the ease of practice, the way you calm a frightened child. That was exactly the problem. Zoe wasn’t a child, and I knew no account, in the other life, of Freya having someone small waiting for her back on Earth. Considering how her family practically sold her off for debts, maybe the question was more complicated than it looked.

I filed it away.

It wasn’t the time to open another door inside someone.

Richard was behind the counter.

Sitting on a low stool, one hand braced on the wood and the other pressing his ribs. His face looked worse under the indoor light. There were dressings on his shoulder, his forearm, and the side of his neck, all made with effort and little skill. The Ocean’s Law mark still worked on him; I could feel the OXI being drained like a tap left open inside an empty house.

He tried to stand when he saw me.

"Don’t get up," I said.

"What else would I do? All that’s left is for you to rob me."

"I’m tired today."

Richard let out a hoarse laugh that died halfway. His hand went back to his ribs.

Zhang Xi was already looking at the dressings. Her face stayed serene, but her eyes had sharpened.

I turned to her. "Zhang Xi."

My voice came out smaller than I meant it to. I looked at Richard before continuing. The man had been beaten, bled, lost OXI, protected his daughter, and was still trying to look like the owner of his own counter.

"Please. Heal him."

Zhang Xi looked at me for a moment.

Then she smiled. "Of course."

She walked to Richard and knelt in front of him with a calm that didn’t match the wreck of the place. Richard went rigid, more wary than ungrateful. Zhang Xi raised her hands without touching him yet.

"The Ocean’s Law penalty will continue. That, I can’t remove."

"Figured," Richard answered.

"But your wounds, I can."

Zoe, across the hall, had stopped talking. Freya was watching in silence too.

Zhang Xi examined the shoulder dressing first. The bandage was crooked, too tight in one spot and loose in another. A scrap of cloth had been folded several times to try to soak up blood.

"Zoe," Zhang Xi called.

The girl lifted her face a little.

"Was it you who tended your father?"

Zoe nodded, ashamed.

Zhang Xi opened a small smile, very different from the one she used to negotiate or hide strength. "You’re a wonderful daughter."

Richard turned his face to the side.

Zoe pressed her fingers on the table’s edge. Freya put a hand over hers, saying nothing.

The healing began.

Susanoo’s Love rose like a clear current between Zhang Xi’s hands, descending over Richard’s shoulder and entering through the edges of the wounds. There was none of the violent desperation of arena healing, when seconds decided life and death. Here the work was slower. Zhang Xi undid inflammation, corrected tissue the body’s own fibrin had already patched wrong, erased deep bruises in layers.

Richard tried to bear it in silence.

He failed twice.

"Recent wounds obey faster," Zhang Xi explained, without stopping. "After a few hours, the body starts solving things on its own. It doesn’t always solve them well. I have to convince the tissue to step back before I redo the path."

"Hurts..."

"I know."

"Worse, even."

This time, Rhayne smiled a little.

The healing took time. The hall went quiet enough for me to hear the outside: wind against the old sign, water dripping from some roof, distant footsteps that never fully stopped in Red Squid. When Zhang Xi finished, Richard breathed deep for the first time without wincing.

He looked at his own hands, then at his shoulder. "Should I ask how much it costs?"

"Today?" I answered. "No."

Richard stared at me from under his brows. "Dangerous, leaving a debt with no number."

"Then pay me by working right."

He accepted that with a grunt.

"How long until the mark lifts?" I asked.

Richard checked his own HUD. "Thirty minutes."

I went to the door and looked through the gap between the wood and the frame. Night had fallen over Red Squid. The streets were darker, but no emptier. The central district had the kind of silence that didn’t sleep.

When I came back, Richard was already on his feet behind the counter, pulling bottles from a high shelf.

"Since this dump is closing, I can pour the good stuff without pretending to be thrifty."

He set glasses on the wood, one by one. Different drinks, some clear, some amber, one dark red that looked made for regrets and sad days. He poured even for Zhang Xi, who accepted with a polite tilt of the head.

Richard raised his own glass. "To life," he said. His voice was still rough, but firm. "And to the fight for it."

We drank.

The liquid burned the right way.

Oliver stepped up to the counter after the first sip. He took a shot of something like whiskey, threw it back all at once, and set the glass down hard enough to make Richard glare.

Then Oliver leaned in a little, looked the man dead in the eye, and said, "If you can drink, you can talk. When do you start at the factory?"

Richard looked at him as if he’d just discovered a new species of rudeness.

I looked at Oliver.

Then at Richard.

And that night, I wasn’t sure which of the two was about to cause more trouble, without even understanding what the quarrel was about.

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