Wyn held guildmistress Cennet over his shoulder as they, along with the makeshift bands of adventures, stumbled back into the guild, followed by the sounds of the heavy iron gates slamming shut. He glanced up and squinted at the morning sun, feeling it shouldn't be so bright.

Many of them collapsed the instant the gates closed, but a few others remained standing, and Wyn had spirit fire to keep him going.

"Wyn!" A familiar voice cried out, and Sadirah came running up, eyes raw with worry. "You're back—your wounds! And—oh spirits…" She gasped as she saw the guildmistress's hurriedly bandaged limb, severed just above the elbow.

"I'm fine," he assured her as he stumbled onwards. "I have to get her to the healers."

"Right, of course! I'll help." Sadirah's stance firmed, and she put Shani's upper arm over her own shoulder. The guildmistress muttered something, her eyes hazy, but Wyn couldn't make it out.

Together, they carried her into the healer's quarters. Wyn was already shouting as he kicked open the door.

One of the healers ran over, and her eyes went wide. "These injuries… Get that man! Someone find Elis!" She turned to Wyn. "Get her onto a cot—yes that one's fine. How long ago did she lose the limb?"

A barrage of other questions followed, and Wyn tried his best to answer, but it wasn't long before Elis strode in, his mismatched eyes calm as he surveyed the situation in an instant.

"Can you help her?" Wyn pleaded.

"Healing a whole limb is beyond me," the healer said with a touch of pity. "But I can stabilize her. She won't die. I'll need to be able to focus. Let's take her to a private room—there's one just down the hall."

They got her into a cot in what was essentially a large closet that had been emptied out after the siege began. While Wyn set her down on the bed, Elis muttered an incantation, forming a ball of white light in his palm that he then held above the bed. When he released it, it didn't fall, but rather suspended in the air, illuminating the room. After a moment, he nudged it to the side, unsatisfied with the previous angle, and its position seemed to lock again in the new location.

As his hands began to glow with a warm green light, Wyn stepped out of the room and shut the door. Then he sank down against the wall, closing his eyes and letting out a long breath. In the darkness, he saw Callithea's threads closing in, monsters flooding the streets, and the rotting leaf that had fallen from the branches so high above. He felt a weight settle onto him, but it wasn't from spirit fire, or the bonds he was still maintaining.

He heard a sound. Someone sat down next to him, then he felt a much lighter weight lean against his shoulder. She was warm.

"Are you alright Wyn?"

His eyes slowly opened, and he knew they burned with ghostly flames. "I failed. I was too weak, and so Miss Cennet got hurt. How many times will it happen?"

"I'm sure you did everything you could."

"I—I don't know…" Wyn grimaced, looking down. "If I—"

Two soft hands clapped against his cheeks, then gently turned his head to meet her own eyes. He got a good look at her for the first time, and realized her eyes were puffy. She'd been crying, but it seemed the tears had dried. Now, her eyes shimmered with something else, a kind of resolve. They reminded him, in their own way, of Corrin's, and it helped to prop up his own aching heart.

Through squished cheeks, Wyn spoke. "This is a weird habit of yours."

She smiled, and slowly removed her hands. "When I was younger, I had a friend. Her name was Nilou, after the lilies that grow on the river here. I'd forgotten so much about her… but since last night, the memories have been slowly coming back. I can remember her face again. I can remember her voice, her laugh too, and the way she used to clap people's faces, just like that, and tell them to stop thinking so much."

"She sounds nice." Wyn chuckled quietly.

"She was." Sadirah took a deep breath, clenching her chest. "I want to remember everything. No matter what that means, and no matter how much it hurts. If I don't, I'll never be able to move forward."

Wyn lowered his gaze, hands curling against his knees. "Remembering isn't so great. Every failure, every loss. I wish I could just leave it all behind. I wish I didn't have to feel it. You don't have to feel it."

"I don't think that's right," Sadirah said simply. "It might be comfortable, and maybe that's easier, but is that really the best way?"

"That's easy to say when you can't remember," Wyn muttered, then flinched at his own words. "Sorry. I didn't mean that."

She didn't seem to mind, looking ahead and smiling. "Father thinks the same way as you do. He always says life is such a cruel thing for all the pain it causes, like a rose, beautiful but painful to touch. Maybe you're both right, and maybe I am lucky to not remember. But I just can't bring myself to agree."

Wyn wasn't sure how to respond to that. He leaned his head back up against the wall, lost in his own thoughts.

A foreign thought entered his stream of consciousness, Eia's voice, drifting in like a boat along a river. He'd sent her to the Kaelburn estate to check on the results of the other group's efforts.

I talked to Kei. Corrin and the others got back about an hour ago. They succeeded in collapsing the entrance, but barely survived themselves.

He sat up, and Sadirah looked over at him.

"Is everything alright?"

"I just got news about the others—hang on."

Eia, what about Corrin? How is he?

He's alive, Eia confirmed. Though he's currently unconscious due to his injuries. He'll be alright, but they're not sure when he'll wake back up yet.

Wyn sighed in relief. Knowing Corrin, he'd find a way to pull through. What about Sloth?

There was a pause on Eia's end. Still alive. There was apparently someone else with him. Someone strong.

Another acolyte? Or something else?

Maybe? Luscien seemed to know him, but he didn't give Kei many details before passing out himself.

Wyn took a slow breath. I see. Thank you Eia. Let me know if you hear more, or when Corrin wakes up. He pushed himself to his feet, swaying unsteadily for a moment.

"Careful," Sadirah got up and grabbed his arm. "You shouldn't be moving around much yourself. Shouldn't you see a healer yourself?"

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Wyn gestured around the infirmary, choked with the injured after the battle. Everywhere he looked, healers were overwhelmed with patients, desperately trying to keep the most critically injured alive. It reeked of blood mixed with thick herbs.

"I need to get some fresh air," he said quietly. "And there are others who need treatment more than I do."

Sadirah grimaced, and found she couldn't argue with that, and the two of them stepped outside into the sun.

Despite it being the height of daylight, the atmosphere in the guild was decidedly dark. Only a few people were walking around, with most of the returnees sitting or lying in scattered pockets around the courtyard. In the wake of the failed attack, it was as though all the energy had been sucked away. Even atop the walls, the spell bombardment had dulled as the cultists briefly fell back to regroup themselves.

"Was the news bad?" Sadirah asked as they walked up a set of steps into one of the higher courtyards.

"No actually," Wyn shook his head. "They were successful, mostly."

She brightened. "That's good then! Isn't it?"

Wyn nodded. It was a good thing, there was no denying it. And yet, he couldn't shake the melancholy that gripped him. He knew the truth—the siege was just a distraction. The poisoning of the tree—and whatever was in the sanctum. That was what they were really after.

He smelled something cooking nearby, and his stomach rumbled at the thought of food. He hadn't eaten in hours, and fighting a battle left him starving.

"Let's eat," he nudged her over towards the stall where a few volunteers were handing out grilled vegetables and meats atop plates of beans. A line had gathered, civilians and adventurers alike, and soon enough Wyn had a plate in his own hand.

He sat down in the grass nearby—using a pair of tongs to shovel greedy portions into his mouth, finding himself too hungry to care for decorum. With each bite, he actually felt a little better. Spirit fire masked the symptoms of hunger and fatigue, but didn't eliminate the cause.

Sadirah was eating slower, watching him with a faint smile. When he almost choked on a piece of chicken, she giggled, and his face grew warm.

For the shortest time, everything seemed alright, and Wyn was able to relax, just a bit. Even if the world was falling apart outside the walls, he could still eat a meal. Sadirah was alive, Corrin had succeeded. It wasn't over yet. He tried repeating it to himself again, like a mantra.

It's not over yet.

Soon enough their plates were empty though. Wyn stood and sighed, setting his aside. "I'm heading back to the infirmary. I want to be there when Elis is done."

"I'll wait with you then," she said. "Somebody has to make sure you actually see a healer once it's possible."

He walked slowly beside her, lingering in the sunlight of the courtyard for as long as he could. But soon enough he was back inside, the smell of blood and herbs as thick as before. The door to Lady Cennet's room was still closed.

Wyn sat down just outside it again, back against the wall. Staring at the door anxiously did him no good though, so he closed his eyes and began the aura compression cycle. Strangely, the pain almost helped him to focus, the intensity of the exercise overpowering his worry and fear. Aura compressed, then expanded again and again, deepening his reserves by the tiniest fraction each time. He lost himself in the rhythm of his aura, and sat in complete focus, waiting for anything to change.

***

A few hours later, the door to the makeshift operating room creaked open. Wyn shot to his feet, every muscle taut.

"Is she alright?"

Elis stepped out, rolling his neck back and forth slowly. Green and gold eyes reflected the lamplight, calmer than Wyn would have expected. "She'll have to decide how she feels about missing an arm," he said, voice gentle, "but she is stable."

Wyn exhaled hard, shoulders sagging.

"Thank goodness."

Elis's gaze shifted to him in the next breath, sharp beneath its warmth. "What are you doing to your channels? You should be resting."

"My channels are fine," Wyn protested. "It's my body that's all beaten up."

Sadirah crossed her arms. "That didn't stop you from walking around earlier."

"The body and soul are more linked than you would imagine." Elis's tone was lecturing. "Deepening your reserves is useful, yes—especially considering your situation. But that sort of exercise is taxing. Don't make my job any harder."

Wyn raised his eyebrows. "You can tell what I was doing just by looking?" He could hardly believe the healer's insight.

Elis seemed to smile. "I've developed good eyes over the years, that's all. Come. Sit. You aren't without injuries yourself, and it does no good to simply ignore them."

Wyn obeyed, climbing onto a cot. At Elis's insistence, he stripped to his drawers. He wasn't shy about it, but Sadirah's quick, sidelong glances were tough to miss, along with her slightly reddened cheeks. He almost wanted to laugh, until Elis's voice drew him back.

"Breath steady. I shouldn't need the drug this time." His hands glowed, the soft green of life aura slipping into Wyn's chest as the now-familiar numbing sensation returned. Slowly, pain faded and torn muscles knit, as if Elis were stitching him back together with threads of mana.

"I'm surprised you still have stamina left," Wyn admitted, eager to fill the silence. "After Miss Cennet, and everyone else you've been treating, you must be channeling constantly."

Elis didn't look up, focused on the procedure. "Life mana is easy on the soul, and I have a large capacity to begin with, so I actually haven't needed to much. Though healing is more about skill than volume anyways. Throwing life aura at an injury can sometimes do more harm than good. Any sort of larger injuries have to be treated with care."

"How can more healing be bad?" Sadirah asked curiously.

"Well… think of a broken bone. Applying life aura by itself is kind of like ignoring it, and letting it heal on its own without setting it. It might heal back right, sure. But it could also grow back the wrong way, which isn't fun believe me."

Wyn nodded in understanding—he'd actually seen it happen in Straetum, minus the healing aura of course.

"Overapplying mana to a wound can cause infection too, if you're not careful, or worst of all False Bloom. Not to mention undue taxation on the patient's body." Elis laughed quietly. "That said, having more aura to throw at a problem never hurts, especially in combat."

"Aren't you a healer? How often are you forced to fight?"

Elis's hands slowed. "More than you'd think. Being able to defend oneself is important on the battlefield, no matter your aspect."

He didn't elaborate, and Wyn didn't press him as the treatment continued.

Most of the healer's time was spent on Wyn's chest, where he'd cracked two ribs. But the rest—shallow cuts and simple bruises—melted away like snow under the summer sun. Soon enough, the glow faded, leaving Wyn feeling whole, and oddly light.

Elis stepped back, and Wyn slowly got to his feet as well, then bowed his head low. "Thank you again sir. Truly."

"So. What will you do now?"

"I—what?" Wyn blinked.

The healer's two-toned gaze was faintly curious as the question lingered, and his eyes stared past Wyn's like he could see into his very soul. Actually, couldn't he?

"The acolyte threw you back, the dungeon entrance remains unbarred, and the siege continues. So tell me, Wyn. What do you intend to do now?"

Wyn looked over at Sadirah, and then towards the room where Lady Cennet was resting. "I don't know…" he admitted. Then he looked back to Elis, meeting his gaze. His fist clenched determinedly. "But I'm not going to give up."

For a moment, Elis studied him in silence. Then he let slip a small laugh.

"What's so funny?" Wyn frowned.

"Nothing," Elis said, smiling softly. "You just reminded me of someone, that's all. I do hope your ending is better than his."

Wyn's brows furrowed, unsure whether the words were a strange warning, or encouragement. "Mister Elis?"

Elis placed a hand on Wyn's shoulder. "Miss Cennet said she wanted to talk to you about something. You shouldn't keep her waiting any longer. And when you're finished, I recommend you sleep. This siege is long from over."

He turned for the door. At the threshold, he glanced back with a calm, unreadable expression. "I'm glad I met you Wyn. You're not at all what I expected. Perhaps that's for the best."

And then he was gone, his steps unhurried as the door swung shut behind him. Wyn stared at the handle for a moment, contemplatively.

"What a strange man…" Sadirah muttered.

Wyn couldn't help but agree.

"So," Sadirah shifted. "We should probably check on Miss Cennet."

Wyn gave her a small, reassuring nod. A little rat made of guilt gnawed on his heart as he gripped the handle, but whatever Shani had to say, he'd face it head on.

The door creaked open and he stepped inside the now lantern-lit room, Sadirah close behind.

The guildmistress was sitting up in her cot, back straight despite the weariness Wyn was sure she felt. Her iron-like hair had been let down, and it was longer than Wyn had imagined, falling just past her shoulders. Something about it seemed to soften her usually harsh features. She'd pulled on a simple white tunic, which hung limply off of her right shoulder, the sleeve slack, and she was looking straight ahead, lost in thought until they entered.

"You, girl, out!" Her voice came immediately. Wyn was relieved by its snappiness, even if it was a bit rude. "I need to talk to Wyn alone."

Sadirah deflated, letting out a small huff. She opened her mouth to say something, but her eyes flicked to the guildmistress's arm, and she bit whatever she was going to say back. Instead, she just bowed and stepped back outside, gently closing the door.

"So," the guildmistress said as the door swung closed. "Let's have a talk, you and I."

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