Aisha watched three knights slowly carving the necessary runes to stabilise the summoning circle. The withered apple tree was at the centre, surrounded by a circle of El dust. They had to be very stingy with the raw materials, but she figured she could always increase the potency of her spell if the mana flow began to implode on itself.
"Done," the blue-eyed knight to her left said. He scratched his short, wavy brown hair and clicked his tongue as he stepped back. His other two comrades followed, one of whom was Elsword. "This looks kinda clumsy… You sure it's gonna work?"
The Sanderian mage nodded, looking at the minute details of the circle. The penmanship of Elsword's runes had a lot of room for improvement, but they were distinct enough to avoid a misfire. She raised her staff, which she had embedded with a few small El Stones. Reviving flowers was easy, but a tree could use more mana. Aisha took a deep breath, slowly focusing on the El Energy within her staff. It was cold like snow, yet warm like the flame of a candle at the same time.
The soft fire that crawled in her veins spread into a wave of heat within her body that sharpened every sense. Heartbeats, breathing, the sandy feel of the dust-filled ground under her feet, the stale, biting wind that entered her lungs yet could not damage them because of the warmth that protected her… It was only through magic that one could experience the bountiful beauty in the world, even when it was dying.
The purple-haired girl opened her eyes, and a wave of mana spread around her, lighting up the runes the knights traced in charcoal with a vivid blue light. Aisha channelled the wave, making it swirl and converge around the tree. The soothing, almost dream-like sensation of time itself coursing through her, slowing down everything around her, was exhilarating. Voices around her distorted, mana warped into finer and finer threads as the tree absorbed it. Grass began to bloom again where the runes had been. Life was regaining its foothold as the tree started to recover its foliage. Wildflowers even began to bloom against her feet.
Ice-cold fingers grabbed her shoulders, and dark swirls twisted the flowers, transforming them into pitch-black ribbons that crawled up her legs.
Aisha's eyes widened, and she immediately cut off the mana flow, but the energy did not stop. The fingers around her shoulders became the same ribbons of darkness that felt slimy on her skin as they crawled up her neck and cradled her face. A foetid breath tickled her ear as the ribbons continued to crawl all over her figure, forcing her mana to flow into her staff. Life and death mixed into a distorted piece of time she was trapped in.
She had overdone it. The spell would go out of control and disfigure her if she did not find a way to stop the foreign energy from coursing through her veins.
The mage remembered Mathi's warning. She scrambled to get the pendant of El she carried and crushed the stone with her mana-enhanced fists. An unnatural, ear-piercing screech rang loudly in her head, and a brief yet piercing sensation in her ears followed before everything turned to normal. The apple tree was in full bloom, and so was a small patch of grass around it. The El Energy was stable, stuck at the level it had been before the Withering took hold.
"Why did you stop?" Leyla's voice sounded muffled, as if Aisha was underwater.
The Sanderian mage turned around and saw the new de facto leader of the El Search Party looking at her work with her arms crossed.
Aisha touched her ear and felt it was full of liquid. When she looked at her fingertips, she saw it was blood. The mage showed her bloodied fingers to the female knight, and she furrowed her brow.
"Figures it wouldn't be that simple. There's…"
The mage could no longer hear very well, and although she could sense that Leyla had asked her something, all she could distinguish was an incoherent mumble. Aisha tilted her head at the female commander, and she sighed. Her black eyes turned towards someone behind her, and she gestured towards the left. The mage blinked and felt someone poke her shoulder from behind. It was Elsword. He made a sign for her to follow him.
The mage nodded, but before heading away, she called out to Leyla. Even if she could not hear her own words, Aisha had a duty to inform everyone about the hidden danger of their only salvation.
"Leyla, the weakest mages should be the ones to cast this spell. It doesn't need much mana, and it'll be safer for those who haven't unlocked their full potential to not overdo it."
Though the newest captain raised an eyebrow at her, she ultimately nodded, acknowledging her counsel.
Elsword glanced apprehensively at Aisha's bleeding ears as the head of the healers, an older pink-haired woman, slowly treated her. He had heard a blood-curdling scream coming seemingly from thin air before Aisha stopped her spell, but no one seemed to react to it. In fact, they all seemed overjoyed at the miracle and the glares some of his fellow knights threw at her…
'I must've imagined it,' Elsword told himself, shaking his head, 'Of course, everyone would get mad… It almost looked like she could've revived the entire garden.'
The red-haired knight looked around the room, tapping his fingers over his lap. The kind of situation they were in was surprisingly empty. A sick girl was lying to his left, being treated by a young, blonde healer whose green eyes were red and puffy, as if she had done nothing but cry all the tears in her body. Still, at least ten other healers were working for the El Search Party, and they all followed Leyla to the village.
"Where could they be?" he asked aloud, drawing a glance from the woman healing Aisha.
"Who are you talking about, child?"
Elsword blushed a little, realising he had spoken loudly enough for the old woman to hear him. "Oh, uh…well, the other healers. You guys are like a dozen, right?"
"We are twenty," the old healer calmly said, "And, right now, most of us here are helping set up the barriers around the El Stones like Aisha wants." She shrugged. "It's quite a foolish task, but beggars can't be choosers…"
"Saving lives isn't foolish," the boy argued, clenching his fidgety fingers into a fist. "Why would you say that?"
Aisha furrowed her brow at them, but the older woman waved her off before continuing. "I had a friend, quite a few years ago, who was desperate for a miracle. She used time magic in a very similar way to what Aisha showed us. Some shady people later got to her and made her disappear. They weren't Steel Crosses, that's for sure," The old healer paused, briefly licking her lips as she strengthened her spell. "They wore black robes and covered their faces behind black masks. But that said, I would rather deal with the possibility of disappearing with those masked fellows a few years from now than be killed by the Withering."
The hands of the healer stopped glowing, and she took a deep breath. "That should do it for today. Can you hear me?"
"Yeah," Aisha said, giving the healer a grateful nod, "I can hear you, Lady Rosalie."
The older woman chuckled. "Oh my, it's been quite a few years since I've been called Lady. You make me feel younger already, young lady."
The mage blushed, which prompted the healer to ruffle her hair as if it were her granddaughter's. Aisha's gaze widened, but before she could get a word in, Rosalie told her to take better care of her ears next time and to go back outside because she had to help the others with the other patients.
"I can stay to—" Aisha offered, only for Rosalie to shake her head.
"You'll be way more useful helping the knights organise. We can manage the sick here."
The door closed, and Elsword got back up, grabbing his bastard sword before sliding it back around his hip. He was ready to leave when he noticed Aisha was still sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at her staff.
"I will go," he told her before turning away.
"Hey, Elsword," Aisha yelped out, making him worry that she had somehow not fully healed or had injured herself again. She shivered, and he rushed back to her side, only to see her clench her staff so tightly that her knuckles turned white. She let the silence linger between them for a second that seemingly stretched for hours as her eyebrow furrowed, and she opened her mouth only to close it and bite her lip.
"What is it?"
At last, her eyes turned towards him briefly before she looked back at her staff. "Have you ever been afraid of what your weapon can do?"
The question caught him off-guard. He raised an eyebrow, pondering for an answer. Perhaps she knew that her method was dangerous, or maybe she had heard what Rosalie said. Still, she could not give up because of it.
'But what should I say?' he wondered.
All he could think of was what others had said about swords and the magic one could wield with them.
"I mean, it's a weapon," he slowly began, scratching his head. "It's made to hurt people…" His words only deepened Aisha's frown, so he raised his arms slightly, gesturing to her to calm down as he scrambled for something more positive to say. "Ah, but, uh, it's also good when you're taught to use it for the right cause! Like, uh, protecting the weak!"
All that earned him was a light tap on the head with her staff. He glared at her even if it did not really hurt.
"Hey!"
"You said something so stupidly obvious, you dummy," Aisha sighed, "that it helped me stop worrying about it. Thanks."
"You're welcome?" the boy guessed, watching her get up and straighten her dress.
"Come on. Let's go," the mage said as she led the way back out of the empty yet small local tavern Ann used to manage before it got turned into an impromptu infirmary.
The boy followed, and silence awaited them outside. Elsword tried to tell himself that it was all temporary, but he still struggled to accept that no more kids would play in the plaza, nor would theatre troupes or bards entertain the locals. It was nothing but a blank space in the withering village.
The thick fog quickly barreled in. Aisha raised her staff while he unsheathed his sword.
A single figure appeared in the distance; barely a shadow that cut through the unnatural fog. It approached them, but after a dozen steps, it remained there, tilting its head before something whistled in the air. Elsword raised his sword defensively. A wave of heat rushed next to his ear, and he saw a fireball intercept and burn an arrow. The remains were a black and blue sandy yet gooey substance.
"What is that?" Aisha asked, slowly approaching the remains before crouching to look at them more closely. "What in Behemoth's name is this?"
Elsword was reminded of that half-eaten, deformed bird he had seen with Rena the first time they met. He wanted to believe that it had only returned because the El was no longer there. Rena had no reason to lie about the state of the curse.
"It's that curse again," he mumbled before rushing forward, all senses focused and enhanced by his shallow mana reserves. That shadow was surely the cause of the curse. He had to defeat it before it brought even more trouble to the village.
"Hey, Elsword, wait!" Aisha's voice rang in the distance as he raised his weapon, sparks flying as he channelled his mana into a focused burst.
"Mega Slash!"
A copper light covered his blade, igniting his weapon with the speed and destructiveness of thunder. The curved edge of a scimitar parried his strike. The clanging noise of metal against metal rang loudly in his ears, and his nearly invisible opponent's fierce, almost supernatural strength made the strike vibrate in his bones. The gigantic shadow deviated his strike; the blades screeched as they scraped against each other, and sparks flew.
With no other target to hit, Elsword's spell cleaved the ground when the blade hit it. A long, rodent-like paw stepped on his weapon, making him stagger as his fighting stance crumbled. He tried sliding his sword away, but his opponent was too strong. His only option was to step away and evade.
Elsword released his weapon and leapt back, barely avoiding a lethal slash. He could not see the entirety of the sword nor what his opponent looked like, but he could surmise they were as tall as two grown men and that their blade was old and chipped.
The wind whistled as the strike passed, and a new one came from his left. The claw still held his sword on the ground, but it moved slightly. All he had to do was lure the enemy away before dashing back to get it and use Flame Geyser to burn the giant to a crisp.
The second time the giant struck, he dodged the strike as quickly as the first, glancing at the weapon. Elsword had to lure the giant just a little forward and…
His muscles began to feel tense, almost painfully, especially his legs. Elsword only strengthened his body with more mana. He could not falter. He had to stop the curse. He was the only one who could.
The young knight feigned to draw the giant to his right before banking left. He slid on the ground, reaching out for his sword, grabbed it and tried to quickly rise back on his feet in a single jump. He managed to get up, but a jolt of piercing, unbearable pain in his left knee made him collapse to the floor.
Time seemed to crawl down to a halt, and all sound was fading except for his heartbeat. Elsword watched, horrified, as the rusty, chipped scimitar got closer and closer to his throat. That blade had to be as long as a tree trunk. Not even the Captain could have lifted such a monstrous thing.
He remembered his fight against the Glitters and how similar this was. Neither Wyll, Liam, nor Lowe would be there to save him now.
It was the end.
The blade began to cut through his messy hair, getting closer and closer to his ear. Even now, he had misjudged where the hit would land. His father had always told him to take a deep breath and think more about where his opponent's blade could reach. If only he had thought about it this time…
If only he had not trained so much, his body would never have failed him right when it should not have.
"Chain Fireball!"
A wave of increasingly big fireballs barrelled in the direction of the shadow. An unnatural screech rang next to him, similar to the one he had heard last time he had seen Ain, Lu and Ciel.
'It… almost sounds human.'
The fire briefly cleared some of the fog, just enough to see Aisha come rushing by his side, asking him if he was doing alright. He nodded when she was next to him and tried getting up, only for a deep, stabbing pain in his left leg around his knee to force him back down. Aisha frowned and gave him a hand to help him up, which he took.
"Let's get you back to Lady Rosalie's," the Sanderian mage suggested.
They slowly crossed the thick wall of fog, only to run into some invisible wall. The plaza was right ahead, but they could not advance any further. The Sanderian mage clicked her tongue and began charging her staff with mana. Unknown runes began to appear on the invisible wall. They all had the same black and blue shade as the arrow Aisha had burnt. They swirled and expanded until they formed the shape of a person, an elven woman, perhaps.
The woman's silhouette tilted her head at them as Aisha lowered her staff, and it lost its mana glow. The woman's shadow spread into a whirlwind and finally dispersed, leaving nothing but the fog behind. Elsword reached out and found no longer an invisible wall impeding them from continuing. The red-haired boy looked at the mage, and after a second, she gave him a weak nod.
They stepped out of the fog, wary of any danger ahead, but there was no such thing. Instead, the first thing that hit them was a weak breeze of fresh air. Its warmth and slight humidity were a strange summer breath Elsword had almost forgotten about.
In front of them, a stone-paved path led to a very recognisable wooden gate with a sign that read 'Spirit Falls'. The wood was still alive, and while some grass had begun to erode, the area beyond the gate seemed as green as it could ever be, given the circumstances.
"Where are we?" Aisha muttered as her gaze widened at the desertic landscape around them. She slowly took him further into the only patch of forest spared by the Withering. Powerful blue crystals hung around the fence, and the El Energy within them was so palpable that Elsword began to wonder if they were parts of the stolen El. However, their vivid blue shade did not match the aquamarine colour of the El.
"That's the local hot springs," the young knight explained as he continued to slowly limp forward. "And our main source of water."
The mage glanced at him, raising an eyebrow, "How come hot springs are your water source? The water comes in as cold as ice."
Elsword sighed. "It doesn't. It comes from nearby rivers, but it's all managed by the owners of Spirit Falls."
"I see," Aisha mused. "Do they have beds or somewhere I could leave you to rest?"
"There should be some, but I'm not climbing any stairs like this."
The Sanderian mage began to charge her staff, and a slight wind current began to crawl over his feet; it spun and strengthened until it was a whirlwind strong enough to carry him yet small enough not to affect the surrounding area too much.
Aisha flashed a smirk at him. "Now you can."
"Yeah, I guess so," Elsword grumbled, turning his attention away from her.
They ventured into the last living piece of the forests and the deathly quiet establishment ahead.
Despite all the powerful El Shards around, there was nobody home. Still, there were some half-eaten plates of food, which were still warm. Perhaps the hot springs owners had left in a rush and would be back soon. When Aisha helped him lie down in one of the bedrooms, Elsword noticed that on the bed frame, there was a battered, black cavalier hat.
The young knight stretched until he got it and looked at it closely. Despite the mud and the bullet hole that ruined the top, he could recognise it immediately. Even a few golden strands of hair tangled around the now rough edges. Aisha gasped softly at the hat, her violet gaze wide, reaching her hand out timidly as if she, too, yearned to have it.
"They're alive," Elsword said as he passed Wyll's hat to her.
The Sanderian mage took the accessory as if it could shatter in her hands. She looked at it from every angle, and her shock soon softened into a content smile.
"Yeah, they must be," she muttered before turning her attention back to him. "Let me see your knee. I'm not much of a healer, but I can at least give you a prognosis."
"A what?" Elsword asked, tilting his head at the word.
Aisha huffed, putting Wyll's hat on before crossing her arms. "I can tell you how bad it is."
"I think it's not looking good," the red-haired boy mumbled as he rolled up his shorts, revealing a swollen knee that had begun to bruise. "Yeah, it's not that great, is it?"
He threw a glance at Aisha, who had immediately put a hand over her mouth, but her shock was short-lived. The purple-haired mage shook her head and looked around the room, tapping her foot as she furrowed her brow.
"Give me a sec. I'll look for materials to make you a healing potion," she told him before dashing away.
Now alone, Elsword let out a long sigh. His knee still hurt deeply, as if someone was pulling it apart with pliers from the inside. Though it had been a long time since then, he remembered that his mother had put his leg up with a couple of pillows when he broke it. The bed was big enough for two, meaning he had a spare pillow to use. Perhaps that would help. When he pulled out the pillow to his right, a notebook rolled to his side. The boy raised an eyebrow at it but first focused on using the pillow to elevate his injured leg. Carefully, he lifted it, despite how much it hurt and shook under the effort, but once he rested it over the fluffy pillow, he felt slightly better.
The silence only made the room feel gigantic and yet smaller than a trap. He looked down at his injury, calloused hands and sword resting next to the half-open door, forever out of reach in his current state. He was so weak and stupid for training to the point that he made his body much more fragile than usual. He laid down on the bed, letting out a frustrated sigh as he slammed his closed fist on the mattress.
His right hand met the notebook's hard cover, and his crimson gaze set on it. He could use it to avoid reflecting on decisions he could not change. He grabbed it and opened it, and a bunch of old, yellowed notes began to fall from its pages. Though initially surprised by the sheer amount – enough to form a small pile and make the notebook far thinner – the boy grabbed the closest note to his heart.
It was a letter.
Elesis forced herself to recall that day, especially now that Liam was no longer there. She closed her eyes and focused, muttering his name, the date of the battle, until she was fully immersed in her memories. She remembered waking up with bandages all over her body, or at least as far as she could see. The smell of ash and the heat of the explosion still lingered on her skin, even if she could recognise that she was weeks away from the disaster that she failed to stop in Feita.
The young, red-haired girl looked to the side and saw his peaceful, sleeping face. One she wished she could have seen more often before he parted. Though she never understood why he cut his hair and dyed it black, in her memories, Elesis only saw a young, blond Hamelian prince with bandages on his face, and his right arm was covered in plaster up to his shoulder.
Even with all his injuries, in her memory, the young prince held her hand as he slept. She clasped his hand tighter to silently thank him for all he had done for her, the Cronwells and the kingdom of Velder. But especially for her. Perhaps she had stared too much at him, or she had held his hand too hard, but Elesis remembered he woke up a second later. She still felt guilty about interrupting his sleep.
When his sapphire eyes met hers, he immediately looked down and apologised, calling himself a useless traitor. Those were the words her father had used when the prince had failed to use his position to recall the incoming attack from the joint fleet of Sanderian and Hamelian ships onto Feita.
She regretted not standing up against Elkashu then. Elesis hated herself for suggesting an almost suicidal mission to try and prevent a siege the small, fortified city could not stave off for more than a few weeks if left alone. Her plan had miraculously worked, but she miscalculated the real aim of a tiny, elite Hamelian force of mages who wore black robes and masks. They snuck into the small El Temple and completely destroyed the El Shard in a matter of hours. The explosion razed through the forests, vaporised rivers and made the sky pitch black, swallowing the stars for days, but that was only the beginning of the catastrophe that followed. The demons came soon after.
Elesis knew that both of them had left whatever remained of their innocence there, buried along the bloated bodies of those they could not save. Nobles, wealthy merchants, peasants, beggars, vagrants…the calamity came to claim their lives all the same. Those they could save from that were often killed by the demons. Maybe even Elkashu had perished, too. She had never found him after he went alone to close the portal the demons had opened.
But none of that was the prince's fault. He was too young, as she was. Why would the enemy commanders, all those old men with their warring traditions and agendas, ever listen to a fourteen-year-old boy whose blood was, as they called it, tainted by the Cronwells?
She regretted not finding the time to say those words to him in person. Writing them out in a letter was perhaps cowardly, but it was the only way she had left to reach him.
Even if no answer came, even after all these years, she still had to try. These letters were the little pieces she clung to whenever she finished training with the Divinus Manus. As much as she initially liked how it made her forget all the pain, she was also starting to forget the good. She had returned to Ruben recently, and somehow, she had taken a few minutes to fully recognise her younger brother. She had last seen him when he was five, but that did not explain how numb she felt when he came running to hug her. He almost felt like a stranger, and the Felfords had noticed she was acting differently towards him. Seris tried to probe her further into the matter, but Elesis could not tell her anything.
Perhaps it was not proper to tell him through a letter either, but if she left it all to herself, maybe she would reach a point where she would read her own words and mistake them for someone else's. That was the only reason she kept writing to him.
Please, Liam, she concluded in writing. If nothing else, please find a way to always make me remember who I am. Or, if I can't remember anything at all, keep whatever letters have reached you. That's all that will remain of me.
Aisha returned to the room at dusk with a bowl of barley soup and a weak healing potion for Elsword, only to find a mess of papers all over the bed and around the floor, with Elsword seemingly sleeping in the midst of it, covering his face with an old notebook.
"What in the—?" She gasped as she walked in, trying to evade the loose and clearly old sheets of paper. She frowned and raised her voice when she saw Elsword take the notebook off his face and toss it aside like rubbish. "Elsword, what are you doing with Wyll's stuff?"
"It's not his. It's a stupid book and a bunch of stupid letters," the boy grumbled as he opened his eyes, almost glaring at her. "If he's mad about it, he can tell me himself. Why do you care?"
The Sanderian mage frowned at him. "Because I have this thing called empathy, meaning I know he'd be mad about it because if it was done to my stuff, I'd be mad, too!"
She set the tray aside, putting it on the desk before picking up the letters. She glanced at some of them, the names and the dates. Some had the characteristic stamp of "return to sender" plus a date added in black ink. Others were signed with a woman's name, Elesis, though the most recent letters had her full name and rank: Elesis Sieghart, Captain of the Red Knights. The ones returned to the sender had a signature, but it was hidden away by a spell. It was not a hard one to crack, but Aisha knew better than to snoop around someone else's mail for too long. Each letter seemed deeply personal.
Once she had collected all the letters, she put them on the desk in a neat pile and put the book Elsword had torn through on top of it. Without a word, she left the food on the injured boy's lap and walked away, trying to put her anger aside. As childish as he was, they still had to find a way back to Ruben, if only to get him proper treatment. The potion would do little else but soothe the pain without a healer to treat the injury.
The mage walked downstairs and let out a deep sigh, looking at Wyll's hat, which she had set on the counter in the lobby.
"When are you going to come back?" she muttered. "You, your brother and the Captain aren't too far, right?"