Sten was not sure what happened, except to the extent that it was something unpleasant and abrupt.
It seemed that within a moment's space, the room had passed from being filled with fae to being plunged in a cacophony of sensations, to... how it was now.
The roof was missing, as if it had been ripped away, torn right off the walls that sustained it. The artificial lighting of the place was gone, leaving only the night sky and the moonlight to cast strange highlights on the remnants.
The bodies of the fae were strewn across the floor, contorted in pain, but dead and unmoving, despite presenting no apparent injuries.
"Wh-what happened?" Dyson asked shakily, as he looked around the room as well.
Sten did not bother to answer him. Instead, he stepped over Dhaonag's body and approached the pool. All the lyrium was gone, evaporated or used up, whatever it was that happened to lyrium. The remaining depression in the ground was no deeper than a foot and he had no trouble spotting Amell's crumpled form.
He stepped down next to her and brushed the hair away from her face. Removing a gauntlet, he touched her cheek; she was cold as ice. Alarmed, he pressed his fingers against her neck, searching for a pulse. He found it. Faint, but it was there.
He carefully picked her up in his arms, only to notice that she still had a grip on her staff.
"Boy," he called out to Dyson.
"Y-yes?" Dyson responded.
"Take her staff," he instructed.
Dyson clumsily made his way over the corpses of the fae and approached. He grabbed the staff, but it took him several tries to pry Amell's fingers off it.
"She's cold," Dyson remarked. "Is she dead?"
"No," Sten answered harshly.
The boy shrunk back.
"Dawn is approaching. We should hurry back to the caravan."
Dyson nodded obediently.
* * *
The first rays of light were already filtering over the horizon when they arrived at the campsite and many of the travelers were starting to wake and move about.
Sorrel, on the other hand, looked as if she'd been awake the entire night. Her face was drawn and her eyes were red from crying, but she lit up immediately upon seeing Dyson. She ran across the campsite and pulled her brother into a smothering hug while he vocalized his embarrassment.
Finally, she looked to Sten and froze once she saw Amell's prone form in his arms.
"What-- what-- is she dead?" Sorrel stuttered, shocked.
Sten felt only mounting exasperation at being asked this again.
"No. She..." He realized he had no actual idea of what was happening to her. "She is very ill," he said in the end.
"Oh." Sorrel wrung her hands worriedly. "We'll be leaving in an hour, so... Wait here."
She sprinted off to the wagon. Sten could hear crates and chests being rearranged, but didn't know what to make of it. She reappeared, poking her head out of the wagon, and gestured for him to come over.
He did so, reluctantly, but to his surprise, Sorrel had made a bed on the floor in the back of the wagon. How such a frail woman had had the strength to lift and rearrange the heavy crates, he did not speculate, but he was fleetingly grateful as he placed Amell down on the sheets.
"Umm... so, what happened to her?" Sorrel asked.
"I... do not know for certain," Sten confessed. "We were in a desperate situation. Whatever she did, it was to save your brother's life."
Sorrel bit her lip nervously and nodded. The message was clear: Be grateful for this... or else.
"I could ask around, see if there's a healer in the caravan," she suggested.
"Do so, then."
She scurried off.
* * *
Sorrel found a healer, an old herbalist who was completely mystified by Amell's condition and did scant little to help.
The caravan started on the road again and by evening, Amell was no longer cold; she began running a fever, shaking and sweating. The herbalist finally came to some use, as he made various poultices to treat her. A fever, at least, was a clear-cut problem he could try to solve.
It worked, somewhat, because her fever lessened, but did not disappear completely. Amell was no longer shaking, but she frowned in her sleep and thrashed, as if gripped by some nightmare. She remained in this condition for two days.
Then, one evening, she finally opened her eyes.
Sten was by her side when she blinked awake, looking at the sky in vague confusion. She opened her mouth and tried to speak, but only a harsh, broken sound came out, her throat too dry. He took a flask of water and, helping her raise her head, tilted it over her lips.
"Drink," he told her, unnecessarily. She emptied nearly half the flask before she fell back again.
"The ceiling is missing," she murmured, her voice threadbare and her eyelids falling again. "The dormkeeper is going to be angry."
"Kadan."
She opened her eyes properly, this time looking at Sten. Her gaze was unfocused, as if she was still half-asleep and not completely aware of her surroundings.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"Tired," she replied. "What happened?"
"You are the only one who could know that, kadan," Sten said. "What is the last thing you remember?"
"I..."
She looked up to the sky again and her eyes glazed over. She was silent for a long time and Sten didn't think she'd answer, but eventually she started speaking again.
"I was looking up and I was seeing the Black City." She closed her eyes and sighed. "I used to have a painted skyball. I wonder what happened to it?" she asked idly.
"Do you remember what you did in that room? To the creatures?" he asked.
"I killed them. I remember. It popped. I pulled the Veil right through them and they just split apart with a pop..." she murmured.
"You nearly killed yourself in the process," Sten said, even though he understood nothing of her answer.
"I owed the world a death, anyway..." she said faintly, as she began slipping into sleep again.
"No," Sten stated firmly, touching her forehead. Her fever was subsiding. "You do not owe the world anything."
But she was already asleep.