Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

I find Veric in a care station set up near the fighters’ exit.

He’s sitting in a wide chair, his torso bandaged, the arm on his wounded side held in a sling. Even so, three stream windows stay open in front of him.

Two Azurea guards wait for orders.

"Close the east corridor when the last number goes in," Veric says. "Anyone left outside gets the list of official shops. Don’t push the crowd toward the main exit or we’ll have another riot."

The guards confirm and step away.

I stop in front of him.

"You should be resting. There was a hole in you."

Veric looks at the chair.

"I’m sitting."

"And running an all-out military operation?"

"Still sitting."

There isn’t enough energy in his voice to turn that into a real jab. His skin is pale, and he breathes carefully to avoid moving the wounded side too much.

"What did they say?"

"The point didn’t hit any organs. A few layers of protection did the work before I decided to use the rest of my body. Zhang Xi healed me."

"Wagering your life doesn’t mean handing your body to any weapon that comes along."

Veric closes one of the stream windows.

"I knew where the spear would go in. White Wake had to keep her arm extended to stop Oliver. If I’d pulled back, she’d have had time to turn."

"You still could have been wrong."

"I could have. But I wasn’t."

He doesn’t try to downplay the risk. That makes the answer harder to argue with.

"Don’t make a habit of it."

Veric holds my gaze.

"That part I learned watching you."

I take the hit without answering.

Rhayne is on a care bed nearby, behind a partial screen and two healers. The traces of blood have been cleaned away, but thin red lines still mark the white of her eyes. She keeps her head resting back and avoids looking straight at the runic lights.

The bond’s HUD appears when I get close.

[Soul Link: Suspended][Linked Soul Recovery in Progress.]

I still don’t understand why the System shows me the notices, but Rhayne notices my presence because of them.

"You took your time."

"I woke up somewhere far off."

"You were carried away and I couldn’t do anything about it."

The way she says it tells me someone told her more than she needed to hear.

"How are you feeling?" I ask.

"Like something tried to tear my eyes out from the inside."

One of the healers throws her a disapproving look, but Rhayne goes on.

"The pain is dropping. My OXI still isn’t responding right."

I sit on the edge of the bed.

"You managed to close Void Monarch."

The tension in her shoulders eases.

"I did."

"At ninety-nine percent. I’m proud of you."

"Am I supposed to say thank you?"

"Next time, we stop sooner. Okay?"

Rhayne turns her face enough to watch me.

"You say that after summoning an entity that nearly brought down an ancient Oathring barrier."

"Different matters."

"Running away like always, Den."

There’s no humor in her expression. Only exhaustion, and the quiet satisfaction underneath it. She faced her own limit and came back.

She studies my face for a few seconds.

"Did you talk to Freya?"

"I did."

"And?"

I look at the curtains of the screen.

"I told her the truth. The same one I told you."

Rhayne understands the conversation didn’t end well. She doesn’t ask anything more.

Oliver shows up carrying an empty crate on his shoulder. He’s still wearing his armor from the fight, though he’s taken off the chest plates. A few people nearby recognize Bone Crusher and start pointing his way.

He sets the crate on the floor and tries to ignore them.

"Richard says to tell you the coach ran out of stock."

"You were the MVP," I say.

Oliver looks at me, then at Veric, a few feet off.

"He handed me both of them."

"And you finished both of them."

"That doesn’t make me the best in the fight."

"No. It makes you the man with two kills."

Oliver doesn’t answer. The crowd’s attention seems to bother him more than the blows he took in the arena. I hold out my fist to him, and he answers with a bump.

Veric closes the last window and comes over to us.

"Take it while you can, big guy. Tomorrow everyone goes back to talking about Uncle Den and the archer."

Oliver shoots me a look.

"I hope so. I hate attention."

A guard approaches before the conversation can continue. His uniform carries the formal details of the men tied directly to Rahul, without the common marks of the arena security.

He stops at a respectful distance.

"Mr. Sands, Lord Sharma requests your presence."

"Requests?"

The guard doesn’t change his expression.

"That was the word he chose."

Rahul had burned the contract. He could no longer summon me as someone bound to an obligation, but men like him rarely needed paper to make an invitation hard to refuse.

"About what?"

"The prize for winning the Team Battle remains in Lord Sharma’s possession. He also wishes to discuss the arrangement mentioned earlier."

’He can’t wait even a single day?’

I look at Rhayne and Veric. Neither of them is in any condition to come along. Oliver needs to stay with them and with Richard until the crowd thins out.

"Where is he?"

"In the tower."

I stand.

When I leave the care area, Leona’s voice fills the Oathring again.

"Last twenty units. Anyone who hasn’t gotten a number will find the LDP in the official shops as soon as production restarts."

The crowd’s reaction confirms that a good part of it doesn’t like the news. Even so, nobody walks off right away. Many stay to watch the last bottles leave the coach, as if they were witnessing something they’d want to talk about later.

The orange light has come down over the stands. The Silver Fang sigil stays lit against the ocean sky, stronger as the rest of the city goes dark.

Two thousand five hundred bottles.

Seventy thousand Scales.

A line that would keep existing after the stock ran out.

That was bigger than the money we made that afternoon. The LDP had gotten into people’s heads. Now we needed to keep it there.

The guard waits by the passage.

I follow him toward the west tower, not knowing whether Rahul means to hand me a prize, collect another debt, or find a more polite way to do both.

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