Greg got to her first.

  He didn’t remember deciding to move, just that one moment he was standing in the ruined antechamber and the next he was on his knees beside the broken pillar, fingers hovering uselessly over Elowen’s shoulder because he was suddenly terrified that touching her would make something worse.

  She looked smaller out of her robes. Not fragile, exactly, but stripped down to bone and will. Her pale hair was dusted with stone grit, one braid half-loosened, a smear of soot across her cheek. The front of her tunic was scorched and torn where the blast had caught her; beneath it, bandages had been wrapped hastily around her ribs, already dark with blood. One leg lay at an angle Greg didn’t like at all. Her lips moved without sound, still forming the shapes of prayers even in unconsciousness.

  “Don’t just stare at her,” Violet snapped, shouldering past his frozen bulk. “Move.”

  Greg jerked back, making room. Violet dropped her satchel with a thump, already fishing inside. Her hands were steady in a way Greg had only seen when she was dissecting something. This time, the something was Elowen.

  Nars arrived a heartbeat later, sliding in on the opposite side. He knelt with a grace that somehow seemed habitual and unpracticed, eyes flicking quickly over Elowen’s injuries. He glanced up at Greg once, reading the panic there, then his expression firmed.

  “Doran,” Nars said, voice quick but calm. “Water, clean cloths, and the cheapest alcohol in our packs. We’ll need to flush and bind.”

  The dwarf grunted and trudged off without argument, rummaging in their packs.

  “Can you fix her?” Greg asked, hating how thin his voice sounded.

  Violet ignored the question, fingers already at Elowen’s wrist, counting. “Pulse is there,” she murmured. “Weak, fast, but there. Breathing’s shallow. Ribs aren’t supposed to do that, but they’re not broken all the way through. Leg is… a situation.” She frowned, prodding gently along Elowen’s thigh until the cleric twitched. “Right. Not ideal. Still fixable.”

  Nars pushed Elowen’s sleeve back with surprising gentleness, checking for broken bones and hidden cuts. He moved like someone who had done this too often for too many dying people. “She braced herself for the blast,” he said. “Took most of it on one side.” His fingers brushed a swelling bruise along her ribs. “Still a dumb play but at least she did it smart.”

  “She’s stubborn,” Violet muttered. “She’s given us a chance.” She sat back on her heels and met Greg’s eyes at last. “We can stabilize her,” she said. “Probably. But if we throw my magic at her while she’s like this, we might scramble her worse. So, we do this the old-fashioned way first. Bandages, splints, pressure, water. Then, if she wakes up enough, her magic… is better suited to the task at hand.”

  Greg nodded, even though half the words slid past him like water. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Hold her,” Violet said.

  Greg slid his hands under Elowen’s shoulders and upper back, careful of the bandages. Her skin felt too cool through the thin fabric, her weight terrifyingly light. When Violet took hold of the ruined leg, Elowen jerked, a small, strangled sound tearing from her throat. Her eyes fluttered but did not open.

  “Not like a lover, like a clamp. I need her still when I set the leg.”

  Doran returned with a waterskin, a rag that was only medium filthy by dungeon standards, and a small clay bottle of something that smelled like it could strip paint. Nars uncorked it, sniffed once, and hissed softly.

  “Oh, that’s horrible,” he said. “Perfect.”

  “Easy,” Greg murmured, pulling her just tight enough against his chest to keep her from thrashing. “It’s okay. You’re okay. We’ve got you.”

  “On three,” Violet said. “One. Two.”

  She pulled on two.

  There was a wet, grinding pop as the bone slid back into place. Elowen gasped, a harsh suck of air that turned into a half-swallowed cry. Her fingers clamped around Greg’s forearm with surprising strength. He let her crush him, glad to feel anything from her at all.

  Nars poured a careful trickle of the harsh alcohol over the leg. The smell washed over them, burning Greg’s nose. Elowen hissed, face turning toward the sensation, then away.

  “If it’s any consolation,” Nars said quietly. “It doesn’t taste any better than it feels.”

  They worked fast. Violet cut away scorched fabric with a small, wickedly sharp knife, exposing the bruise blooming across Elowen’s ribs. Doran tore long strips from a spare cloak and handed them over. Together, he and Violet wound a tight bandage around her chest to keep everything in place. Nars fashioned a splint for the leg out of broken bits of Warden and one of Greg’s discarded belt straps, hands efficient and sure.

  Greg focused on breathing with Elowen, matching the shallow rise and fall of her chest. Every time her face tightened in pain, he murmured wordless nonsense into her hair, anything to keep her anchored: “You’re alright. You’re safe. I’m here. We’re here. You did amazing. Of course you did. I’m gonna write Totth a letter.”

  “Water,” Violet ordered. Greg held the waterskin while she tipped a few drops into the corner of Elowen’s mouth. Most of it spilled, but some went down. Elowen swallowed reflexively. Her lips moved faster now, silent prayer growing more urgent, like she was arguing with someone only she could hear.

  “Corruption,” Violet said quietly. “Body’s screaming, nerves are fried, brain’s trying to pretend none of this is happening. But that’s just the start of it. The Vault’s corruption is getting inside her. Stabilizing her won’t mean squat if she gets infected.”

  “What do we do?” Greg asked.

  Violet was already digging through her satchel. Glass clinked, metal rattled. She came up with a squat little bottle full of something the color of old honey and swamp water, the liquid inside clinging sluggishly to the glass.

  “We cheat,” she said. “Analgesic, mild sedative, little bit of Sun-reactive tonic. If we can get this into her, it’ll dampen the worst of the corruption and give her a foothold to work from.”

  Nars eyed the bottle. “That looks like it violates at least three Alchemist Guild ordinances. Not to mention basic decency.”

  “I’ll violate your mother,” Violet said primly. She turned back to Greg. “Prop her up. I need her throat clear.”

  Greg slid an arm behind Elowen’s shoulders, lifting her gently until her head lolled against his chest. Up close, he could see the fine tremor running through her muscles, the sweat at her hairline despite how cold her skin felt.

  “This is going to taste awful,” Violet warned the unconscious cleric as she worked the cork free with her teeth. “Try not to die just to spite me.”

  She tipped the bottle to Elowen’s lips and let a thin stream of the thick liquid trickle into her mouth. For a second it just pooled there. Then Elowen gagged, coughing weakly, body jerking.

  “Easy,” Greg murmured, tightening his hold, keeping her from twisting the wrong way. “Come on. Swallow. Please.”

  Violet pinched Elowen’s jaw lightly, thumb stroking the hinge to coax the reflex. “Come on, priestess,” she muttered. “Don’t leave me alone with these bozos.”

  Elowen swallowed. Once. Twice. The line of her throat worked, the potion disappearing a little at a time. Some dribbled out the corner of her mouth; Violet wiped it away with the edge of her sleeve and gave her a few more sips for good measure.

  “That’s it,” Violet said more softly. “Good girl.”

  Nars arched an eyebrow. “What do I have to do to get told I’m a ‘good girl’?”

  “Shut up, I’m doctoring,” Violet shot back, but there was relief in it. She recorked the now half-empty bottle and sat back, watching Elowen with a wary, professional focus. “Give it a minute. If it works, the shaking should ease and she might actually be able to hear us over the screaming of her nervous system.”

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  Greg kept holding Elowen, feeling the tremors slowly lose their edge. Her breathing, which had been sharp and irregular, lengthened by degrees. Some of the tightness in her jaw relaxed. The crease between her brows smoothed, just a little.

  He swallowed. “Elowen,” he said quietly. “If you can hear me… you’re not done. Not with me. Not with any of this. You wanted someone to stand between people and the darkness? I’m here. But I need you standing with me. Please.”

  For a long moment, nothing changed.

  Then her lips stopped moving.

  Her eyelids fluttered once, twice, then opened.

  Her eyes were unfocused at first, dark irises rimmed with pale gold, reflecting the strange Vault light. She blinked slowly, pupils adjusting, gaze skating across the ruined chamber before finally landing on Greg’s face over her.

  He realized belatedly that he was still holding her like a very large, very anxious teddy bear. He set her down, gently, so she could sit. And rest.

  “Hi,” he said stupidly.

  She stared at him for a heartbeat, as if confirming that he was real. Then, very faintly, she smiled.

  “I died?” she whispered, voice raw.

  Greg’s laugh came out half-sob, half-snort. “Only a little,” he said. “You got better first.”

  She frowned, trying to sit up. Pain hit her like a wave; she hissed and sagged back against him. “Warden…?” she asked.

  “Dead,” Doran rumbled. “Very dead. Pieces.” He nudged a chunk of stone with his boot demonstratively.

  “Elowen,” Violet cut in briskly. “Before you pass out again, I need you to do that thing you do where light pours out of your hands and miracles happen and the crippled walk again. But gently. Your magical reserves are a bigger mess than your body.”

  Elowen shifted her gaze to Violet, seemed to see her properly, and managed another small smile. “You always ask so nicely,” she murmured.

  Violet snorted. “Flirt later, heal now.”

  Elowen drew a slow breath. Her hands trembled as she lifted them, fingers curling in a shape Greg had seen once before, just before the golden light had dragged him back from nothing. This time, the glow that gathered between her palms was smaller. Not a blinding sunburst, but a soft, steady radiance, like the first light of morning through a shutter.

  She pressed her hands lightly to her own chest. Greg felt the faint warmth spread from her ribs outward, washing over his arms where they supported her. The bruises along her side faded from angry black to greenish yellow, then to nothing. Her breathing eased. Some of the tightness around her eyes smoothed away.

  She lowered one hand to her leg, fingers brushing the splinted limb. The light flared there for a second, then dimmed again, leaving the bone knit but the muscles still sore. She stopped before she reached for anything else, lank strands of hair sticking to her forehead with sweat.

  “That’s enough,” Violet said firmly. “Save some for emergencies. Which, knowing us, will arrive in the next five minutes.”

  Elowen let her hands fall, shoulders slumping in exhaustion. But when she looked up at Greg again, her gaze was clear. Tired, yes, and lined with pain, but fully present.

  “You look different,” she said. "Did you do something with your hair?"

  Greg smiled and stood up straight, letting her get used to the sight of his new body. He was still adjusting to it, himself. "You like it?"

  "I can't believe you came." Strength was returning to her voice, slowly.

  “Of course I came,” Greg replied, suppressing the urge to say That's what she said! “You still owe me that drink. Plus, you saved my life. Least I could do.”

  Nars snorted softly. “He fought a Warden,” the half-elf said. “Took its heart apart with a very large sword and his very small brain.”

  Greg shot him a look. “Nars helped a little,” he said grudgingly.

  Nars gave Elowen a small half-bow where he knelt. “We were still in the area,” he said lightly. “When Thunder Thighs here came stomping by to rescue you, we’d thought we’d lend a hand, so everyone didn’t die.”

  Elowen’s eyes flicked between them, taking in Doran standing guard, Violet hovering with clinical worry she tried to hide under irritation, Greg still braced as if the world might fall on her again at any moment. Something like relief crossed her face, quick and fierce.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” she said softly. “But I’m very glad you did.”

  “You're welcome,” Violet said. “Thank Greg. I warned him against coming here, but you can see how well that turned out.”

  Greg eased Elowen up into a seated position, letting her lean against the broken pillar instead of his chest. Her movements were stiff, but no longer shaky. When she winced, it was from lingering soreness, not fresh damage.

  “What happened?” he asked. “Why did you go with them? One minute you were dragging me back to life in the tavern. The next, Petar’l has you chained to his dungeon train.”

  Elowen let out a slow breath, gaze drifting past them to the empty space where the Warden had stood. “He brought me here,” she said. “Because I am useful and because I am a symbol. He enjoys both.”

  “We gathered that much,” Nars said. “We were hoping for more… specifics.”

  She nodded once. For a long moment she seemed to be choosing where to begin, fingertips tracing absently along the torn edge of her cloak where Greg had tucked the scrap away.

  “Petar’l Velyar is Moonborn,” she said at last. “Not just any Moonborn. His family holds one of the oldest lines devoted to Velyun. For centuries, they were keepers of lore, watching the Vaults from a distance. Guardians, in theory.” Her mouth twisted. “Guardians who long ago turned to plundering what they swore an oath to protect.”

  “Old money cultist,” Violet summarized. “Got it.”

  “He’s nowhere near the direct line of inheritance,” Elowen continued. “Seventh son of a cadet branch. When he was younger, they gave him just enough education and authority to feel important and just enough scorn to make him furious. He was clever. Ambitious. Too much so. He wanted power, not stewardship. So, when the Cataclysm weakened Totth’s seals, he saw opportunity.”

  Nars shifted, resting his elbows on his knees. “So, he started raiding Vaults,” he said. “Saying it was in the name of the Moon.”

  “At first, he wasn’t entirely lying,” Elowen said. “The Velyar elders… encouraged him. Quietly. They believed the Vaults contained knowledge Totth had kept hidden... or stolen... from Velyun, when the Gods were still in balance. If that knowledge could be reclaimed, they argued, the balance between sun and moon might be... changed.”

  “And by ‘changed’,” Violet said dryly, “they meant ‘tilted in their favor forever.’”

  “Of course,” Elowen agreed. “But even zealots have lines. The elders told him to be cautious. To use only companions trusted by the faith. To seal what he did not understand. He interpreted that directive more… loosely, and they are content to turn a blind eye.”

  Greg remembered Nars’ earlier description: fewer of us come back every time. “And the adventuring parties?” he asked.

  “Petar’l needed warm bodies,” Elowen said. “Bodies to spring traps, to hold the line, to bleed in his place. So, he began hiring mercenaries, selling them on the promise of treasure and glory in the Moon’s service. Some were true believers. Most just wanted gold. All were disposable to him.”

  Her gaze flicked to Nars and Doran. “Few of them are worth the price they command.”

  Nars shrugged one shoulder, unwilling to meet her eyes for a moment. “So, I can be bought,” he said lightly. “Doesn’t mean I have to stay bought.”

  “Why did you go with him?” Greg asked, trying not to let accusation creep into his voice and failing a little. “If you knew what he was doing.”

  Elowen did not flinch. “Because I was na?ve,” she said simply. “And because I was afraid.”

  She folded her hands in her lap, staring down at the faint shimmer of sunlight that still clung to her fingertips. “I grew up with stories of Totth as a distant warmth,” she said. “A memory fading. By the time I took my vows, Sun temples were closing. Altars were cold. The Moon was ascendant and people were… adapting. But when I started hearing reports of Moon curses and other warped things, I knew something worse was happening. The Vaults were bleeding into the world. The balance wasn’t just shifting; it was breaking.”

  She looked up at Greg. “I thought if I travelled with Petar’l, I might convince him to change course. To seal what he opened, to leave certain doors closed. He listens to power. And for a time, what I could do impressed him.”

  “And when it stopped impressing him,” Nars said quietly, “he decided to take it anyway.”

  “Yes,” Elowen said. “The deeper we went, the more he changed. Every Vault we cracked, every relic we unearthed, fed something inside him. At first it was just arrogance. Then cruelty. The last few times… he started talking about destiny. About the Moon’s true face. About how the world was… misarranged.” She shivered slightly, despite the warmth of her own light. “He stopped asking me to bless the wounded and started asking how long they could survive with certain limbs missing. What could be animated from the remains.”

  Violet grimaced. “Lovely.”

  “I left,” Elowen said. “Not just his party. His path. I told him I would not be part of it anymore. I thought if I took my power out of his hands and came here first, I might find a way to bar the way. Seal something. Warn someone. Anything to slow him down long enough for the elders to see what he was becoming. That was… optimistic.”

  Greg frowned. “But he still showed up. Fast.”

  “He always does,” Elowen replied. “Petar’l has a talent for making the world clear a path for him. Scouts, informants, people who owe his family favors they can’t afford to ignore. By the time I realized how quickly word of my movements reached him, he was already at the Vault. I thought I was getting ahead of him. I was only marking the trail.”

  She looked around the room, at the fractured sigils of sun and moon carved into the walls. “When he found me in Blucliffe, he didn’t bother with pretense. His terms were simple: come with him and try to mitigate the damage or stay and watch him tear open the Vault without any restraint at all. I thought, wrongly, that if I was there, I could at least shield some of the worst.”

  Greg remembered her face in the tavern, the resignation beneath the calm. “That’s why you went with him,” he said. “Not because you trusted him, but because you were trying to limit the damage.”

  “I have made a vocation out of standing between people and the worst things in the dark,” Elowen said. “It is a terrible habit. Hard to break.”

  “And this time?” Nars asked. “Here. What was his goal?”

  Elowen’s jaw tightened. “The same as always,” she said. “Power. But not just for himself. Petar’l is not digging at random. The Moonborn elders gave him a task and he embraced it with… enthusiasm.”

  Violet leaned forward. “What task?” she asked.

  Elowen met Greg’s eyes, then Violet’s, then Nars’ and Doran’s in turn. When she spoke, her voice was very steady.

  “The Vaults are not just tombs,” she said. “They’re anchors. Each one holds a shard of the old Order, hammered into the bones of the world. Totth used them to fix the Sun’s path in the sky, to keep day and night in balance. Velyun wants that chain broken. The elders set Petar’l to finding and corrupting enough Vault-hearts that the mechanism will fail.”

  She drew a breath.

  “If he succeeds,” Elowen said, “the sun will fall out of its course. The world won’t end in fire or flood. It will sink. Into permanent twilight. No dawns, no true days. Just one long, endless dungeon where the Moon’s power never wanes and everything living is slowly twisted and corrupted. The world will die.”

  She held Greg’s gaze, and he felt the weight of it all settle on his shoulders.

  “That,” Elowen finished quietly, “is what they want him to do.”