Minutes passed.
Each second stretched like an eternity.
Kaelen didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. His hands moved on instinct, pushing out every healing skill he could muster, even the inefficient ones. The mont one finished casting, another replaced it, layered and chained with ruthless precision.
Alira’s body lay there, silent.
Her chest barely rose. Her pulse was faint. Her aura, nearly indistinguishable.
But her life force... it hadn’t vanished.
And that was the only thread Kaelen held onto.
"Co on," he whispered. "I know you’re still in there. You’re the strongest person I know. You can’t leave now. You can’t... not like this."
Neal knelt nearby, hands balled into fists on his knees, his expression tight with guilt and helplessness. He had stepped in too late.
He should have shouted sooner, pulled Kaelen back harder, done sothing.
They were stuck. Any pause might cause the flicker of life in Alira to fade completely. But even continuous healing had limits. Her spirit could still slip away before their eyes.
Then.
A sound cut through the silence.
Footsteps.
Heavy. Deliberate. Each one a asured thud that resonated like a funeral drum across the white expanse.
Derek erged from the sound of footsteps.
He stepped into view from the far edge of the void, his silhouette stark against the eerie glow. His face was darker than storm clouds, his expression carved from pure grim resolve, gloomier than Kaelen or Neal had ever seen.
But the mont his gaze locked onto them, Kaelen, battered and bloodied, Neal, slumped and gasping and Alira, lifeless on the ground.
Sothing in him shattered.
His face twisted, shadows deepening beneath his eyes, his jaw clenching so tight the muscles stood like steel cords.
He moved, rushing towards them.
His boots crashed against the luminous floor, each stride eating the distance like a man charging into war.
His eyes scorched over the scene like a commander’s gaze, sharp, calculating, lethal, taking in every wound, every drop of spilled blood, every sign of the battle they’d barely survived.
Then his voice cut through the air.
"What happened?"
The words were razor-edged, commanding, but at the end, when his stare landed on Alira’s still form, it fractured. Just for a heartbeat. Just enough to betray the storm beneath.
Just enough to tell them he was barely holding on.
But no one answered.
Kaelen couldn’t.
Neal looked up and simply said, "She was possessed."
Derek’s breath hitched. His shoulders tensed, but he didn’t say a word. Instead, he dropped to his knees beside her, his hands hovering above her body and frowned.
Kaelen looked up, face pale. "I didn’t know... I thought...she was a doppelganger. I didn’t know it was really her. I...I wouldn’t have.."
His words broke apart as guilt strangled his voice.
Derek didn’t scold him. Didn’t bla him. He simply closed his eyes and muttered, "Damn this realm."
A silence settled. Then Derek stood.
"Her soul... it’s tangled." His tone was low. "She’s caught in between. If we don’t stabilize her aura soon...she won’t co back."
"We need to begin soul anchoring. If we’re lucky, we can pull her back."
He looked at the two boys.
"Prepare yourselves. From this point forward... every mistake could cost her everything and even ours."
Kaelen was exceptionally obedient this ti, not his usual rebellious and nonchalant attitude. He swallowed hard and nodded.
This was war now, against the boundary between life and death.
And they have to fight it together if they want to save Alira.
Derek’s hands moved quickly, yet with a strange gentleness, as he reached down and unclasped the necklace from around Alira’s neck.
A delicate chain of old star-forged silver, crowned with a pale-blue gem that shimred faintly, still warm with protective energy.
The sa artifact that had once shielded her from Ashmane’s deathblow.
He closed his fingers around it, staring down at the heirloom like it carried the weight of centuries.
"It’s you again," he muttered, voice low.
This was more than a relic. An item that was passed down from the firstborn line of her mother’s family for generations. It was a family Heirloom.
Kaelen blinked. "Wait, what are you doing with it...?"
"No ti." Derek’s tone snapped like iron. "This can help find her soul, of what remains untouched by the spirit’s corruption. But it’s a gamble. And if I fail..."
He didn’t finish the sentence.
Instead, he stood over Alira, holding the pendant above her chest.
His free hand hovered inches from her sternum, his eyes starting to glow with an ancient light, sothing deeper than mana, older than spellcraft. It was the soul itself. The air began to vibrate.
Then Derek turned to them, face solemn.
"If I don’t wake up in five minutes... if I don’t open my eyes..." He took a long breath. "You kill ."
"What—?" Kaelen looked up in surprise. "You can’t be serious."
"I’m deadly serious." Derek didn’t flinch. "If the spirit inside her latches onto through the ritual, it will possess instead. And I can promise you, you don’t want that thing in my body. You’ll never be able to stop ."
Neal’s voice cracked. "But what if we can’t"
"Then you run." Derek’s gaze burned into them. "You run and you don’t look back. Warn the world if you must. Burn this place if you can. But don’t stay."
The white expanse felt colder suddenly.
Neal’s fists clenched. "Five minutes. That’s all you get?"
Derek nodded.
Kaelen, pale and visibly shaken. Begged his father. "Wait there has to be another way I can’t lose both you and Alira."
Derek looked at him sternly in the eyes and told him. "We don’t have ti for chit-chat and you’ve got to grow up, son."
Kaelen gritted his teeth, so hard that it was bleeding.
Derek offered them one last smile, a tired, weathered curve of the lips that carried the weight of a man who had made peace with death long ago.
Then he dropped to his knees, placed the necklace over Alira’s heart, and closed his eyes.
And began to descend.
The gem lit up like a dying star being reborn, trembling, flickering, humming in tones not ant for human ears.
A deep wind rolled across the white floor.
And ti began to count down.
Five minutes that was all they got and it will determine whether they save a friend or lose both Alira or Derek.
Kaelen and Neal were left in nothing but death silence.
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