Total pages in book: 214
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
"How long?" I manage when I finish, my voice still raspy.
"Two days," Raith answers, his voice rough with exhaustion. "You've been drifting in and out."
Two days. I try to sit up, but my arms tremble beneath me, refusing to support my weight. Raith's hand at my back steadies me, warm and solid.
Two fucking days? We're not allowed to simply miss classes here. Missing a single day is enough to earn punishment that ranges from extra physical training to remedial lessons, and, of course, marks against our evaluation score. I can tell I'm not in the healer's room, either, so what the hells are they telling our instructors? The panic must show on my face, because Raith's expression softens slightly.
"Voss is handling it," he says, answering my unspoken question. "He told the instructors you were injured in a training accident and are recovering under his supervision. No one's going to question him. They aren’t counting the missed classes against you."
I remember dimly that Voss was there when the siphon attacked, though now the memory feels distant, dreamlike.
"Crucible?" I ask, struggling to piece together how much time has passed. I can't even remember if it was more than two days away. "Have I missed it?"
"Still coming," Raith says. "Just a few more days. But you need to rest now," he says, gently pressing me back down when I try to sit up straighter.
Something about Raith tugs at my awareness until it finally clicks. I remember now. I see his face—his thick tangled scars are little more than a shadow of what they were. He's watching me with an intensity that makes my heart quicken despite my weakness. The ruined left side, the patchwork of scar tissue that had marked him as a survivor of something terrible, I could almost imagine someone missing it now at a glance.
"Your scars," I whisper, reaching up to touch his cheek before I can stop myself. The skin is smooth beneath my fingertips. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"
He catches my hand, holding it against his face for a moment before lowering it back to the bed. His touch lingers longer than necessary, a gentle pressure that sends a flutter through my chest. It also sends wisps of his fire essence into my body, warming me from the inside out.
"You saved my life," he says. "You have nothing to apologize for. And they were just scars."
"But they were part of you." I can't keep the guilt from my voice. I had no right to change him like that, to alter something so fundamental to his identity.
Emotion touches his expression—grief, maybe, or resignation. "They were a reminder of what I lost. Maybe... maybe it's time I stopped living in that moment."
"He does not speak all that he feels," Typhon observes, his voice clear in my head for the first time since I've woken. "The fire human harbors deeper thoughts on this matter."
"You've been quiet. Are you all right?" I ask silently.
"I have been conserving my strength to aid your recovery. The void energy that sought to consume the fire human infected you as well when you drew it out. It has been... taxing to help your body purge it."
I look around the room, realizing for the first time that we're in Raith's quarters. I've never been here before. It's sparse, utilitarian, with few personal touches beyond a small table with supplies for cleaning his blade, a few weathered books stacked neatly on a bedside table, and a faded tapestry hanging on one wall. The tapestry catches my eye—a scene of mountains and forests in shades of red and gold. It looks old, and somehow out of place in the otherwise austere room.
Most different of all is the brick making up the water. Instead of the cool blues of my quarters in the water tower, his are dark gray with glowing veins of orange and red at the seams. The whole place smells faintly of smoke, reminding me of camping trips I used to take with my brothers back in Saltcrest.
"Why am I here?" I ask. "Why not the healer's?"
Raith's jaw tightens. "After what happened with the siphon, I didn't trust anyone else to watch over you. And we couldn't exactly explain why you're in your current condition, could we?"
The memory of the siphon sends a shudder through me. The way it had taken Raith's form so perfectly, how it had known exactly where to find me. How it had spoken of using me as bait.
"Voss," I murmur. "He saved us, but then he just... left."
"He did," Raith agrees, his tone neutral but his eyes sharp. "I've heard the Empire Council is trying to remove him as Rector."
There's something he's not saying, questions he's holding back. I can sense it in the tension of his shoulders, the careful way he's watching me.