The air in the defunct triage ward smelled fundamentally different now. The underlying copper tang of ancient rust and the sickening sweet rot of dead mana were still present. They were baked into the concrete walls. But now those scents were overlaid with something sharp and electrifying. It was the ozone-and-loam smell of high-tier life and death magic crashing together.
It tasted like a thunderstorm trapped in a crypt.
Senna was awake. Vane had scavenged pillows from the other empty cots propping her up so she wasn't lying flat. She looked less like a patient recovering from a near-fatal event and more like a deposed queen sitting on a throne of wreckage. She dared anyone to comment on her weakness. Her skin was still the color of wet ash and the sweat on her forehead was cold but her eyes were clear. They tracked the movements in the room with a suspicious predatory intensity that suggested she was already calculating threat angles.
Isole Sylvaris stood near the rusted sink. She was a study in jarring contrasts. In her pristine white academy robes she looked like a marble statue dropped into a mud pit. She was methodically wiping a thin trickle of blood from beneath her nose with a linen handkerchief. Her demeanor was as cool and detached as if she were cleaning up a spilled inkwell rather than recovering from wrestling with a powerful corruption.
Vane stood between them vibrating with residual adrenaline. His uniform was soaked with sweat and rain. His hair was plastered to his skull. He felt like a circus ringmaster trying to keep two very different very dangerous apex predators from noticing they shared a cage.
"Explain," Senna croaked. Her voice was wrecked. It sounded like she was gargling gravel but the command tone was intact. Her gaze flicked from Vane to the High Elf narrowing. "Who is the lawn ornament? And why does the air in here taste like opposing polarities?"
Isole turned slowly. Her mismatched eyes assessed Senna with cold academic detachment. She didn't seem intimidated by the rank or the hostility. To her Senna was just a very complex very damaged arcanic equation.
"The lawn ornament," Isole replied her voice wind-chime soft but unyielding, "is the reason your necrotic saturation didn't achieve total systemic failure twelve minutes ago. You are welcome."
Senna bristled. It was a reflex action. Her hand twitched toward the side of the cot where her spear usually rested fingers curling around empty air.
Vane stepped quickly into the line of sight holding his hands up in a placating gesture.
"Okay let's skip the threatening aura phase," Vane said forcing a brightness into his voice he didn't feel. His heart was still doing double-time against his ribs. "Senna this is Isole Sylvaris. The Academy's resident prodigy of life and death magic and the only person on this island crazy enough to follow me out here. Isole meet General Senna Valerius. Formerly the unbreakable spear of the Western Front currently the angriest patient in Sector 4."
Senna ignored the introduction entirely focusing her glare on the elf. "House Valerius abandoned me. And I don't need a healer. I managed my own condition for two years. I need you to leave my sector."
"You needed a coroner," Isole corrected calmly. She stepped forward ignoring Senna's glare and hovered a glowing hand inches above Senna's chest. The air shimmered with latent power. "The dead mana corruption has advanced significantly since your last stable baseline. The localized containment you achieved five years ago has ruptured. The necrosis is no longer passive. It is actively aggressive."
Senna slapped her hand away. It was a weak clumsy strike barely connecting but the refusal to submit was absolute.
"Don't speak to me in textbook girl," Senna snapped though the effort made her breathless. "I know what is happening inside my own skin better than you do."
Isole didn't look offended. She looked mildly bored by the resistance. She stepped back folding her hands into her sleeves.
"Then you know that my intervention was a temporary stabilization of a catastrophic collapse," Isole said coolly. "I bought you time. Not a solution. The architecture of your soul is crumbling."
Vane saw Senna's jaw tighten. He realized they were speaking two different languages. Noble pride versus academic detachment. Senna couldn't accept help that felt like pity and Isole didn't know how to offer help that felt like anything else.
He moved to the side of the cot dropping to one knee so he was lower than Senna breaking her eyeline with the elf.
"She means," Vane translated quietly dropping the performance and catching Senna's eye with intense seriousness, "that the dam broke. The patch held for five years but the water pressure just got too high. She managed to patch the hole with high-grade magic but the water behind it is still rising. We are bailing out the boat with a teacup now."
Senna stared at him. The fight leaked out of her replaced by a crushing weariness. She sagged back against the pillows.
"How long?" she asked. The words were barely more than a breath.
Isole folded her blood-spotted handkerchief precisely. "Without further stress? Perhaps two weeks before the next critical event. If you continue to exert yourself at the levels indicated by the damage to your channels? Days. Maybe hours."
The silence that fell was heavy. Vane watched Senna process the timeline. Two weeks. It wasn't enough. Not for the art. Not for the foundation. Not for him.
Senna looked past Vane to Isole. Her gaze softened slightly recognizing something she hadn't seen through her initial defensiveness.
"You are bleeding girl," Senna murmured nodding toward the handkerchief in Isole's hand.
Isole touched her upper lip verifying the dampness. "The resonance required to push back that volume of such powerful corruption exacts a toll. It is manageable."
"Nobility," Senna scoffed though this time there was no heat in it only a faint bitter recognition. "Always pretending it doesn't hurt to spend capital." She gave a stiff jerky nod. "My house recognizes the debt. Though I doubt I will live long enough to repay it."
"Debt is irrelevant," Isole said. She looked at Vane her expression unreadable. "I did it because he asked. And because he was foolish enough to run through the main campus looking like a feral dog to find me. His desperation was… compelling."
Senna turned her head slowly to look at Vane. He was still kneeling beside her looking exhausted grimy and terrified.
She watched him as Isole gathered her few things to leave. Vane stood up and walked the High Elf to the rusted door. His entire posture changed as he spoke to Isole. The sharp street-rat edges softened into something deferential and gentle. He didn't try to charm her with banter. He spoke quietly and respectfully. He thanked her with a sincerity that lacked any trace of his usual performance.
He was careful with the delicate mage ensuring she navigated the broken threshold safely treating her like porcelain that had just been through a war.
Senna closed her eyes for a moment. The image seared itself into her mind. She realized with a sudden painful clarity what she was looking at.
Vane was a chameleon. He could be a ruthless cynical parasite with her matching her bitterness blow for blow because that was the language she understood and respected. He could be the jester to make her laugh when the pain was bad. And he could shift gears instantly to become protective and gentle with someone softer like Isole.
He knew exactly who he needed to be to survive any given room. And right now in this horrible room after thinking he had lost her he was choosing to be kind.
That adaptability... that bone-deep competence wrapped in a stolen uniform... was dangerously attractive to a woman who had spent five years watching rigid honorable people break against an unfair world.
Vane returned from the door after Isole left. He pulled up his usual stool and sat down slumping forward with his head in his hands the adrenaline crash finally hitting him.
"Don't ever scare me like that again," he mumbled into his palms his voice muffled.
Senna reached out a trembling hand. She rested it on his shoulder. The touch was light barely there but it felt like an anchor in the shifting fog.
"No promises rat," she whispered her eyes already closing as exhaustion pulled her under. "The wall is crumbling fast. You better start climbing."