The healer's wing smelled of crushed moonwort, antiseptic salve, and the faint metallic tang of spent magic.
Elara sat on the edge of a narrow cot, sleeves rolled up while a third-year healing student carefully spread pale blue ointment over the shallow claw marks she hadn't even noticed during the fight. They stung now—hot, angry lines across her left forearm and ribs.
Drakon lay on the wide stone platform built specially for larger companions. Two healers worked on him at once: one applying regenerative salves to the deep gouges Seraphina's tiger had left across his flank, the other channeling pale golden threads of light directly into the worst of the wounds. Drakon's breathing was slow and even, but every so often his tail-tip twitched in discomfort.
Across the room, Kairos sat bare-chested on another cot while Head Healer Maris herself treated his burned right arm.
The lightning strike had left a vicious mottled pattern from shoulder to wrist—red and black and already blistering in places. Glacia rested beside him on the floor, one wing draped awkwardly, the tips of her primary feathers charred. She refused to let anyone but Kairos touch her.
Elara kept stealing glances at him.
He hadn't said much since they left the arena. Just curt nods to the marshals, a quiet order to the attendants to bring both their pets here immediately, and then silence.
Now he caught her looking.
Their eyes met.
Neither of them smiled.
But something wordless passed between them anyway.
Healer Maris finished wrapping the last layer of cooling gauze around his arm and stepped back.
"You'll need to keep it immobilized for at least three days," she told him sternly. "No training. No sword work. And if I see you trying to channel ice magic through that arm before it's ready, I will personally break the other one."
Kairos inclined his head. "Understood."
Maris turned to Elara next.
"You're remarkably lucky, Miss Voss. Those vines you summoned took most of the strain that should have gone into your body. But don't mistake luck for invincibility." She tapped Elara's bandaged arm. "Rest. Both of you."
When the healers finally left them alone—save for the softly breathing pets—the room felt suddenly too quiet.
Elara slid off the cot and crossed to Drakon. She rested her forehead against his snout for a long moment.
You scared me, she admitted silently.
You scared me more, he answered. When you stepped between me and the lightning.
She swallowed hard and pulled back.
Then she walked over to Kairos.
He looked up at her, expression unreadable.
She didn't sit. She just stood there, close enough that their knees almost touched.
"You didn't have to do that," she said quietly.
"Take the hit?" He lifted his bandaged arm slightly. "Someone had to."
"You could have dodged."
"And let it hit your dragon?" His voice was flat. "We'd be having a very different conversation right now."
Elara's throat tightened.
She reached out—hesitant—and brushed her fingertips very lightly along the edge of the bandage on his shoulder. Not quite touching skin. Just close enough to feel warmth.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Kairos exhaled through his nose. Something in his posture loosened.
"You're welcome."
A long silence followed.
Then he spoke again, quieter.
"That lightning wasn't normal."
Elara nodded slowly. "I know. It felt… wrong. Heavy. Like it carried something extra."
"Corruption," he said. "The same signature I felt in the archives the night you were chased."
She looked at him sharply. "You were there that night?"
"I arrived after you left. I saw the scorch marks. The broken wards." His jaw tightened. "And I found one of these."
He reached into the pocket of his discarded jacket with his good hand and pulled out a small, charred fragment of black feather—identical to the one that had appeared on her windowsill.
Elara's stomach dropped.
"They're escalating," she said.
"Or they're getting desperate." Kairos turned the feather fragment between his fingers. "A public tournament is the worst possible place to expose themselves… unless they're confident no one will believe what they saw."
"Or unless they don't plan to leave witnesses," Elara finished.
They looked at each other.
The weight of that possibility settled between them like cold iron.
Glacia made a small, pained sound and nudged Kairos's knee with her beak.
He laid his good hand on her head.
"We need to find out who 'they' are," he said. "Before the next round."
Elara nodded.
"But tonight…" She glanced at the bandages, at the exhausted pets, at the way Kairos was trying—and failing—to hide how much pain he was in. "Tonight we rest. We heal. We plan tomorrow."
He studied her for a long moment.
Then, very quietly:
"Agreed."
Later—after the healers had dimmed the lights and left only low-glowing mana-lamps—Elara dragged a spare cot over so it sat beside Kairos's.
Neither of them spoke about it.
She just lay down.
He shifted slightly so their cots were close enough that their hands could brush if either of them reached.
They didn't reach.
Not yet.
But the possibility hung there.
Drakon curled on the wide platform, tail draped protectively near Elara's cot. Glacia tucked herself against Kairos's side, injured wing carefully folded.
For a long time no one spoke.
Then Kairos's voice came out of the dark—so soft she almost missed it.
"I didn't expect to care this much."
Elara turned her head toward him.
"About winning?" she asked.
"No." A pause. "About whether you walked out of that arena."
Her heart gave a hard, uneven thump.
She swallowed.
"Me neither," she admitted.
Another silence.
Then, even softer:
"Get some sleep, Voss."
"You too, Valtherion."
She closed her eyes.
But sleep was slow in coming.
Because every time she drifted close to it, she saw that lightning again—aimed straight at Drakon's heart.
And every time, she saw Kairos stepping in front of it.
Without hesitation.
Without regret.
She didn't know what to call the feeling that rose in her chest at the memory.
But it was warm.
And it was dangerous.
And it was growing.
Outside the window, high above the healer's wing, a single black feather drifted past on the night wind.
It didn't land.
It simply watched.
And waited.
(to be continued…)