The girl was about eight. She lay on a narrow bed, blue light trembling beneath the skin of her chest.
Beside her lay a healing beast curled like a fox made of clear glass. His body had become almost colourless. Every breath the girl took drew a little more light out of him.
The father held the animal by the neck and repeated the command:
"Keep going. Keep going, do you hear me?"
The fox tried to crawl away, but the man kept dragging him back to the bed.
Mira struck his hand.
"Let go."
"She'll die!"
"If you don't let go, they'll both die."
He did not believe her. The old bond seal still carried the command the father had used for seven years. Only the Crown no longer reinforced it. The fox trembled in pain and went on giving up his energy out of habit.
I could ask Styx to enter the beast and force his muscles to move. The System even displayed the familiar parasite option.
Arden surfaced in my memory again: fingers forced open against their will.
I closed the panel.
Mira removed the old collar. The light in the girl's chest immediately weakened. Her father lunged for the fox, but Lenny held him back.
"Three minutes," Mira said. "Then her heart will stop."
Four light spirits from the academy were in the room. They had previously been used for minor wounds and training. None could fully replace the healer.
Lily asked their owners whether the spirits were willing to enter the circuit.
The students began issuing commands.
"Not you," Mira cut in. "Let them come forward themselves."
The first spirit hid behind a student's shoulder. The second approached the bed, touched the blue light and darted away. The third remained by the girl's hand. The fourth settled beside the exhausted fox.
There was still not enough energy.
The father sank to his knees.
"Take mine."
He was not a healer. But the pact allowed part of his life force to pass through the former bond.
"If the fox agrees," Mira said.
The man held out his palm without trying to seize the beast.
The seconds slipped away. The light beneath the girl's skin trembled more and more slowly.
The fox raised his head. He sniffed his master's hand and turned away.
The father closed his eyes. I expected him to reach for the collar again.
Instead, he placed his palm on the edge of the bed.
"Then take it straight from me."
Mira connected him to the three light spirits. The circuit was weak and uneven. The man screamed when his daughter's heart tried to draw more energy than his body could endure.
The fox watched.
After the second heartbeat, he approached the bed of his own accord. He did not lie beneath the seal or restore the old bond. He touched his nose to the girl's hand and added a brief pulse.
Her pulse steadied.
Mira broke the circuit at once. The father fell but remained conscious. The fox retreated to the wall and slept for the first time in many years.
Nobody in the room celebrated. The girl still needed treatment, and voluntary help now required three spirits, two people and constant shifts in place of one tormented beast.
Lily sent the city not a speech but a list: how much energy was required, where volunteers were needed, which hospitals would lose the support they had relied on.
Within minutes, the districts began to answer: the academy sent light spirits, and the dyers brought hand-operated generators. The wealthy quarter opened its private stock of healing crystals only after the residents at the gates threatened to break into the storehouse.
The city had not grown kinder; it could simply no longer hide the cost of healing inside one silent beast.
The alarm bell struck on the wall.
Cole looked at the map of the Wildlands. Blue markers were moving towards the northern gates in a dense band.
"A herd," he said. "Forty minutes."
A white line glowed on every marker.
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