Sei learned quickly that wounds didn’t end when bleeding stopped.

  They followed you.

  In the stiffness of his fingers when he woke.

  In the way his breath caught whenever his hands brushed together.

  In the faint, imagined pressure beneath his skin—like something remembering where it had been.

  He washed his hands three times that morning.

  The water ran clear each time.

  It didn’t help.

  The guild hall sounded the same as always.

  That unsettled him most.

  Mugs clinked. Laughter burst and faded. Someone cursed over a bad draw of cards. Life moved forward with the same careless momentum it always had, as if nothing had shifted at all.

  But when Sei stepped inside, the air felt… angled.

  Not hostile.

  Aware.

  A few glances lingered a second too long. Conversations dipped—not enough to stop, just enough to notice. Someone he didn’t recognize leaned in and murmured something to another adventurer, eyes never leaving Sei’s back.

  Eva walked beside him, unbothered.

  Or pretending to be.

  They reached the counter.

  The clerk didn’t ask for a report this time. He already had it.

  “You’re recovering fast,” the man said casually, eyes flicking to Sei’s hands. “No visible injuries.”

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  Sei flexed his fingers. They obeyed.

  “Yes,” he said.

  The clerk nodded, then added, “That thing you ran into out there—word is it was… clean.”

  Sei felt it then.

  That subtle drop in his stomach. The moment before nausea.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

  The clerk shrugged. “Neither do I. Just passing along what people say.”

  Eva’s presence shifted. Just slightly.

  “Careful,” she said.

  The clerk raised both hands. “Always.”

  They moved away.

  Outside, the city breathed.

  Repairs continued. People worked around damage instead of fixing it outright. A new normal forming around broken edges.

  They passed a woman sweeping debris from her doorstep. Her arm was wrapped in a clean bandage—too clean for how fresh the wound must have been. She paused when she saw Sei, eyes widening in recognition.

  “You,” she said.

  Sei stopped.

  She hesitated, then bowed her head. “Thank you. For yesterday.”

  “I—” He faltered. “I didn’t—”

  “You didn’t leave,” she finished. “That was enough.”

  She returned to her sweeping as if that settled it.

  Sei stood there longer than he meant to.

  Eva didn’t rush him.

  Training that afternoon was quieter.

  No drills. No blades.

  Eva had him run.

  Back and forth across uneven ground. Up broken stairs. Over rubble that forced him to watch his footing or pay for it. His lungs burned. His legs screamed.

  Good.

  Pain anchored him.

  When he finally collapsed onto the stone, chest heaving, Eva crouched nearby.

  “You’re slower today,” she said.

  “I’m tired.”

  “Yes.”

  That was all.

  After a moment, Sei asked, “Did I do something wrong?”

  Eva didn’t answer right away.

  “When you hesitate,” she said finally, “you see everything that could go wrong.”

  “And when I don’t?”

  “You only see the one thing you choose.”

  Sei swallowed. “Which is worse?”

  Eva stood. “That depends on what you can live with.”

  That night, sleep came in fragments.

  In one dream, his hands glowed green, but the light bled outward, soaking into the ground, staining everything it touched.

  In another, the glow never came—and the silence afterward was louder.

  He woke before dawn, heart racing.

  This time, he didn’t wash his hands.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at them instead.

  They looked the same.

  They weren’t.

  Somewhere beyond the walls, people were waking up alive because he had acted.

  Somewhere else, someone might not have.

  The thought didn’t accuse him.

  It waited.

  Sei closed his hands slowly, deliberately.

  Whatever he had become—whatever was growing beneath his skin—it wasn’t finished with him yet.

  And neither was this world.