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After a couple of days passed, and much to my appreciation, I stopped feeling pain, sitting, sleeping, walking, or even doing anything.

“Yeriel,” I said, “I think it's enough.” I tried to move up from the seat, but a firm hand held me to the seat.

“Don’t even think about moving a muscle,” Yeriel said. The arm was stronger than anything you would expect from a woman who did nothing more than meditation and yoga. I even wondered if she noticed that.

"Fine,” I said instead. “Do it faster. I've got someplace to be.”

I grunted, but didn’t remind her of the changes in her body. The other power had left her body after she used all of it, but the ritual did something more to her body and soul. That won’t go away just by spending the energy. Magically speaking, the other power tainted her soul, broadening it to a higher degree so that if Yeriel tried enough and wanted enough, she could become a Grand Magus in no time.

By no time, I meant about a couple of years at least. Unfortunately, I don’t think she had any intention of taking the power, especially when it has taken away something precious from her. The most precious thing she worked so hard for.

Yes, after the incident, Yeriel found she was incapable of providing her spiritual energy as a price for healing. Well, she could still patch up wounds in them with spells, but they were not healing in any way. It was just a faster and more convenient process of what a surgeon could do with his instruments.

So, simply, Yeriel couldn’t restore wounds or injuries that she used to do, like to do, live and breathe to do.

I kind of felt like I failed her as her warm palm touched my back, adding ointment. Yeriel worked in slow and soothing motion as if afraid to hurt me, which was not really a problem. Most of the pain went away after the first day, mostly.

“Yeriel,” I called hesitatingly. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” Her answer was one word. After all that went on, she didn’t talk as much as she used to, more so on this topic. Most of the time, she got herself busy with work so that she didn’t have to think about it.

I guess denial is a way, but it's only for the short term. After that came the other four stages: bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance. I don't know if Yeriel could come to the last step in her life, nor could she skip them as I do. Healing meant all the life to her.

“I’ve talked to Jon, Noyar and my aunt,” I intoned. “They won’t report about this.” At least not so soon. But big issues like these need to be reported at some point if something goes wrong.

As far as I’m concerned, Noyar and Shailyn won’t be a problem. They were more emotional people, passionate individuals. They feel they failed this poor girl, and so they would keep their silence on the dark ritual part for the time being until something goes wrong with Yeriel.

The concern was about Jon. The thing with Jon Al’born II was that he was too righteous for his own and sometimes everyone else’s good. That fool would do the right thing even when his head was on the line—I expected nothing less from him. Fortunately enough, he was not there when the dark ritual took place.

Even though he had seen those unnatural antlers on Yeriel's head, he saw them vanishing into mists. So with a little more effective talking and a little blackmailing, saying how I saved his life, I managed to shut him up. Well, let’s not call it blackmailing, that makes me a bad person for no reason at all. Let’s just say I had leverage over him and used it effectively.

Sometimes it's just too easy to fool uptight, righteous people when they think you’re the same.

Anyway, the problem with the ritual on Yeriel was solved for now. Nobody would question her excessively about it, with just regular inquiries from the warder, the Victorian justice department and the academy. I guess she deserved peacetime.

However, Yeriel didn’t seem to care much about that as she only answered with a slow “Mmm.”

She moved in front of me and without looking into my eyes, especially overlooking them, she added the ointment. The front side was not that even burned, providing most of the steam thrusters were in the backs and on the limbs. But Yeriel worked like it was the most delicate of all things.

After doing my chest, she moved to my right arm—the only arm without bandages.

“The medicines were doing fine,” I said. “A few more weeks and they wouldn’t even be a scar.”

For a spiritual practitioner, most skin injuries were of slight consequences. After some time, they all heal and even the scars vanish over time. Though that would only be limited to the degree of the wound. Yes, I have burned my skin well, but there won’t be a mark in a couple of months, I’m sure of that.

That reminded me of another scar. Unconsciously, I drew my arms from Yeriel as she almost finished and touched the scar on my forehead.

My eyelids closed instantly, and a couple of images flashed in my head in an instant too fast to make anything for most people, but I was not like most people. Ground dried with blood and then a woman, pale sword gutted to her chest, blood oozing out all over her side and . . . on my arms.

Electricity chilled my mind, and I came out, gasping for breath.

Yeriel touched my arm and shot me a worried look.

“I’m fine,” I said and stood up. I spent a little energy drying up the ointment on my body before sliding on a shirt and then wrapping a shawl around my upper body to move out.

* * *

Yeriel didn’t follow me to the warder’s office. I walked in slow strides, watching the scenery in the surroundings. The sunset in about half an hour as the sky was drawn in a golden yellow glow. I halted on the bridge over the unfrozen river, Ikami, and looked to her source.

The mountain was covered in white, only slightly greener as it went down. Just two days ago, I . . . we was running around on the snow like a bunch of crazy people while the city people slept in peace, mostly. Well, I could understand everyone’s pain.

Drawing a sigh, I moved towards the main warder’s office of Victoria. A bunch of familiar faces greeted me on the way, most of them were there when everything was solved. Nodding to them, I went inside to find Noyar sitting in her office, reading files with her utmost attention.

I knocked on the open door as she lifted her head. “Come in.”

“Shailyn’s not here?” I asked.

Noyar shook her head. “An arbiter had much to worry about after a job is done.”

I nodded and got closer to take a seat. My aunt, Shailyn was in charge of this department. No, she was not employed by the Royal family of Victoria, or the empire, but the Starlight Academy, the Order of the Magi, to be exact.

Other than taking care of warlocks and their schemes, and all sorts of twisted matters, she has to work as the mediator between the many forces. Oh dear, that must be exhausting.

“What you’re reading?” I asked.

Noyar answered by pushing the files to me. It was filled with the full report of the whole incident. My eyes moved from page to page before I rested the files.

“No news on William’s trails?” I asked.

Noyar shook her head. “We have men employed every route where he could get away, but so far we have found no trails.”

On that matter, no, we haven’t got all the pieces of the puzzle together. One piece was still missing, which could be turned out as a pain in the ass in the long run. We have captured Rojar Iker, who was the mastermind of this event. We captured Rial, a rogue Ruthalynian knight, and Kiea, the warlock’s apprentice.

That actually came with quite a surprise after I figured out the piece. In the book, the leader of Dark Dear wasn’t supposed to be Rojar Iker, but a woman. And after I read her statement, I figured out it was she, who was supposed to be in charge of everything.

It was her. who was supposed to be in place of Yeriel in the middle of the ritual. Zashin burn her, Just thinking about it makes me sure that it could be worse if it was her in place of Yeriel.

I think it was only because it's Yeriel that she didn’t use that power to do whatever she wanted.

So the conclusion: The Warlock's apprentice was the medium in the ritual, she got the power instead Yeriel in the original storyline and used it to kill her master, took control of the organisation, and she came a year later again to harness that power again and got mugged by Edward.

That’s the only conclusion I could come up with, considering how Yeriel came with the same antlers on her head and then the reindeer freed her from it. Luckily, this time around the warlock’s apprentice got captured before she could do any damage.

That left William.

Who is he? Well, we found out he was the original son of Rojar Iker, but that didn’t answer my question. The way he operates, he should be someone with a capital S in the original storyline, and more importantly, how the hell did he escape and remain hidden?

I closed my eyes and remembered all the pieces. From the beginning, from that moment, I laid eyes on that mugger.

It all clicked inside my head within a few seconds, and my face darkened.

“Holy hell!” I swore and looked and took back the file. “It's because of Harth. Rojar Iker wasn’t a master in Neuromancy, but it's William.”

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