Sei didn’t sleep.

  He sat on the infirmary steps as night thinned into gray morning, counting breaths that weren’t his. Every sound from inside made his shoulders tighten. Every silence lasted too long.

  Waiting had weight.

  When the door finally opened, it wasn’t urgent. That frightened him more than shouting ever could.

  The medic stepped out slowly, hands folded like he didn’t know what to do with them. His eyes were red, not from crying—just from not blinking enough.

  “He’s fading,” the man said. “Not bleeding. Not fever. Just… fading.”

  Sei nodded once.

  “May I?” he asked.

  The medic stepped aside immediately.

  The soldier’s chest barely rose now.

  Color had drained from his face, leaving skin pulled tight over bone. Sei checked the pulse—faint, irregular. His training catalogued the signs automatically.

  Shock. Organ failure. Time.

  Not enough of it.

  Sei sat beside the cot, hands resting uselessly on his knees. He had done this before. Hundreds of times. The difference was that back then, there was always another tool, another test, another escalation.

  Here, there was only him.

  You don’t know what it’ll do.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  You don’t know what it’ll cost.

  He swallowed.

  Across the room, Eva leaned against the wall. She didn’t speak. She didn’t move.

  She trusted him enough not to intervene.

  That scared him more than doubt ever had.

  Sei placed his hands over the wound site, not to work—just to feel. The warmth of a living body. The shallow resistance of muscle struggling to hold together.

  “I don’t need certainty,” he murmured, so quietly it barely counted as sound. “I just need to try.”

  He didn’t reach for anything.

  He allowed it to come to him.

  At first, nothing happened.

  Then—a warmth bloomed beneath his palms. Not sharp. Not consuming. It spread slowly, like heat returning to fingers after winter.

  Sei gasped.

  It wasn’t power flooding in.

  It was connection.

  Pain echoed—not his own, but shared. The body’s quiet panic. The fear of slipping away unnoticed.

  Sei focused, not on fixing—but on supporting. On guiding the body back to a place it remembered.

  A soft light seeped through his fingers, barely visible. Pale. Controlled.

  Eva straightened.

  The medic stared, breath caught.

  Sei’s vision blurred, not from strain—but from emotion he hadn’t let himself feel in years. His hands trembled as the warmth deepened, then stabilized.

  The soldier’s breath hitched.

  Once.

  Then again.

  Color returned in faint, stubborn patches.

  Sei pulled back immediately, heart pounding, lungs burning as if he’d been holding his breath for far too long.

  He nearly collapsed.

  Eva was there before he hit the floor, steadying him with a grip that didn’t treat him like glass.

  “It worked,” the medic whispered.

  Sei laughed weakly. “Define ‘worked.’”

  The man checked the patient again, hands shaking now. “He’s stable. Actually stable.”

  Sei closed his eyes.

  The relief hurt.

  They stepped outside as the sun finally crested the walls, painting the city in gold that felt undeserved.

  Sei leaned heavily against the stone, staring at his hands. They looked the same. Felt the same.

  But they weren’t.

  “I didn’t feel stronger,” he said quietly. “I felt… responsible.”

  Eva studied him. “That’s because healing isn’t power. It’s a promise.”

  He nodded.

  “That’s the part I was afraid of.”

  She hesitated, then said, “You chose.”

  Not approval.

  Not warning.

  Recognition.

  Sei exhaled slowly, watching the city wake.

  Somewhere inside, the soldier breathed—steady, alive, waiting for a future Sei had pulled him back into.

  And for the first time since arriving in this world, Sei understood the difference between surviving…

  …and staying.