A girl with pale blonde hair knelt beside a group of fallen guards, her white robes stained with dirt and blood that wasn't hers.

Her blue eyes were wide with worry as she raised her staff, the tip glowing with soft golden light as she channeled healing magic into the wounded man before her.

The glow spread across his injuries, knitting torn flesh, easing pain. His breathing steadied.

She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Her shoulders sagged slightly.

One more. Just one more and I can rest.

"Lady Aria!"

A guard rushed toward her, his armor dented, face pale with urgency. "You're needed at the front line. Please, hurry!"

The relief drained out of her instantly. She stood, ignoring the way her legs protested after kneeling for so long, and followed without question.

When she reached the forward position, the words died in her throat.

The sky above was red. Not sunset red, but the sickly crimson of corrupted mana bleeding into reality, staining everything beneath it the color of old wounds. Wind howled across the battlefield, carrying the stench of blood and something else, something that made her skin crawl and her stomach turn.

Bodies littered the ground.

Knights in holy armor, white plate etched with protective sigils that were supposed to keep them safe, lay twisted at unnatural angles. Some still moved, crying out weakly, hands reaching toward nothing. Others were already still, eyes open and glassy.

Aria's breath caught in her chest.

She'd seen wounded before. She'd seen dying.

But this was different.

Move. Don't think. Just move.

Her staff raised automatically, muscle memory taking over where her mind had frozen. Golden light flowed from the crystal at its tip as she dropped to her knees beside the nearest knight. His chest piece was cracked clean through, and beneath it dark veins spread from the wound like roots burrowing under his skin.

Corruption.

The healing light touched him and he gasped, back arching, body going rigid.

She gritted her teeth and pushed more mana into the spell. The golden glow brightened, intensified, and slowly, agonizingly slowly, the veins began to recede.

His breathing eased.

Thank the gods.

Next one.

She moved to another knight. Then another. Each time the same process. Channel the magic, watch it fight against the corruption eating through them, pour in more mana until either the darkness retreated or...

Or it didn't.

Some responded. The golden light drove back the demonic essence and their eyes cleared, their breathing steadied.

Others didn't.

One knight died while she was healing him. She felt it happen, felt the exact moment his life slipped away beneath her hands. One second there was warmth, a living presence she could anchor her magic to. The next, nothing. Just emptiness and cooling flesh.

Her hands froze on his chest.

No. No, wait, I can still...

But she couldn't. He was gone.

She pulled back slowly, staring at his face. Young. Younger than her, maybe. There was dirt on his cheek and a thin scar through his eyebrow.

There are others too...

She forced herself to stand, forced herself to turn away from him and find the next wounded knight.

Her staff glowed brighter as she knelt again, channeling everything she had into the healing spell.

The corruption resisted. She pushed harder.

CRACK!

The crystal at the staff's tip shattered into fragments that scattered across the blood-soaked ground. The wood splintered in her hands, sharp edges biting into her palms.

She stared at the broken pieces.

No.

Nearby knights gasped. Someone said something about demonic essence, about the staff's durability, but the words slid past her without sticking.

This can't... I still need...

She looked around. At the destruction. At the bodies. At the knights still crying out in pain, still dying while she knelt here holding useless broken wood.

Her heart hammered against her ribs.

What do I do? What am I supposed to...

Her gaze fell on the knight in front of her. His breathing was shallow, labored. Dark veins crawled up his neck toward his jaw.

He doesn't have time for me to find another staff.

Without letting herself think about it, she dropped the broken pieces and pressed her bare palms against his chest.

Raw mana flooded out of her, unfiltered, unstable.

Then suddenly... pain exploded behind her eyes.

White-hot and all-consuming, like someone had driven molten spikes through her skull and was twisting them deeper with every heartbeat. Her vision went white, then red, then black around the edges.

She tried to scream but couldn't draw breath. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything except feel the agony tearing through her head and the hot rush of blood pouring from her eyes, her nose, the corners of her mouth.

Stop. Stop. STOP.

Hands caught her before she hit the ground. A woman's voice, urgent and frightened, calling for help, calling her name.

Aria couldn't hear the words properly. Just the high-pitched ringing in her ears and the pounding behind her eyes and the taste of copper flooding her mouth.

She might have passed out. She wasn't sure.

When the world came back into focus, she was sitting against a supply wagon with a damp cloth pressed to her face by a healer's assistant whose name she couldn't remember.

"Breathe, Lady Aria. Just breathe."

She did. Slow, shaky breaths that tasted like blood.

People moved around her, giving her space but watching with expressions, concern. Pity. That particular kind of worry reserved for someone who'd done something stupid and nearly died for it.

Someone had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.

She looked past them, toward the battlefield, and started counting without meaning to.

Seven.

Seven knights had died. Seven that she'd knelt beside, poured her magic into, tried desperately to save. Seven faces she could still see if she closed her eyes.

I lost seven.

The thought sat in her chest like a stone, heavy and cold.

Her gaze drifted further, to the thing that dominated the horizon.

A portal.

Massive. Pulsing with that same sickly red light that stained the sky. It hung in the air like a wound torn into reality itself, and from within came the sounds of the real battle. Weapons clashing. Mana detonating. Tremors that shook the ground even from this distance.

The Rift.

Beyond it, in the corrupted lands on the other side, the strongest fighters were holding the line. People powerful enough to survive in that hellscape.

She wasn't one of them.

That's why she was here, on this side, healing the wounded who made it back.

I should be grateful. I'm alive. I'm still breathing...

But they're not.

"Here you are!"

The voice cut through her thoughts like a blade. She jerked her head up sharply, ignoring the way it made her vision swim.

A man approached, his robes pristine white despite the chaos around them, grey streaking through his dark hair. His presence commanded immediate respect. Knights straightened. Healers bowed.

Archbishop Matthias.

Aria's stomach dropped.

She tried to stand, to kneel properly the way she was supposed to, but her legs wouldn't cooperate.

He raised a hand, stopping her before she could try again. "You're a saintess in training. You don't need to kneel before me."

She bowed her head instead, unable to meet his eyes. "Archbishop."

"How are you feeling?" His tone was gentle, but there was something assessing underneath it. Clinical.

"Good," she said.

The lie tasted worse than the blood.

His eyes narrowed. He looked at her, really looked, taking in the blood still drying on her face and soaking into her collar, the trembling in her hands that she couldn't quite stop, the exhaustion carved into every line of her body.

Then he sighed.

The sound was heavy with disappointment, and it made something twist painfully in her chest.

"We sent you to the Academy so you could gain experience," he said quietly. "So you could learn control, refine your abilities, prepare for the battlefield where your powers will be needed most. But you still..."

He trailed off, shaking his head.

She flinched, looking down at her bloodstained hands in her lap.

He's right... He's right and you know it.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Tears welled up hot and shameful. She tried to blink them back but they fell anyway, cutting clean tracks through the dried blood on her cheeks.

"I'm really... I'm sorry, I just..."

"Where is your staff?" he interrupted, his voice sharper now.

She swallowed hard. "It broke. The corruption was too strong, and..."

"Did you use your magic with your bare hands?"

The question came out cold. Flat.

She nodded weakly, still not looking at him.

"How many times have I told you not to do that?!"

His voice rose and she shrank back against the wagon, shoulders hunching instinctively.

"Staffs are designed to filter and stabilize raw mana! They protect you from backlash! Using your magic directly, especially against demonic corruption, is..."

He stopped himself. She could hear him breathing hard, controlling his anger with visible effort.

"You could have died, Aria. Do you understand that? Your brain could have hemorrhaged. Your mana channels could have ruptured. You could have..."

"I know," she whispered. The tears came harder now, hot and relentless. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. There were so many wounded, and I thought... I thought I could..."

Save them. I thought I could save them if I just tried hard enough.

But she couldn't say that out loud. It sounded stupid even in her own head.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling slowly through his teeth.

Then he reached into his robes and pulled out a staff. Simpler than her previous one, the wood less ornate, but well-crafted. The crystal at its tip was clear and intact, already humming faintly with latent mana.

He held it out to her.

"Don't do that again," he said firmly. "If you don't want to die before you're even ordained, you will use a staff. Always. Do you understand?"

She took it with trembling hands, gripping it too tight. "Yes, Archbishop. I understand."

He studied her for another long moment, his expression unreadable.

Then he turned and walked away, robes billowing behind him as he moved to inspect the other wounded.

Leaving her alone.

Aria sat there clutching the new staff, feeling its weight in her hands. Solid. Real. A reminder of her limitations wrapped in polished wood and crystal.

Seven dead.

Even with all this power. All this training. All these years of preparation.

I still can't save them.

The thought burned in her throat.

Minutes passed. The chaos continued around her. Healers worked. Knights were carried to medical tents on stretchers. Orders were shouted. The world kept moving.

She wiped the blood from her nose with her sleeve, adding another stain to the ruined white fabric.

Her mind drifted back, almost against her will, to what had happened when she'd used her bare hands.

The overwhelming backlash. The pain that had nearly killed her.

It always happened. Every single time she tried to channel magic without a focus.

Others could do it. She'd seen mages cast spells with nothing but their own hands, seen healers place palms on wounds and channel energy directly. They managed just fine.

Why can't I?

She'd tried for years. The result was always the same. Pain. Blood. Collapse.

The healers had explanations. They said it was a limitation of her particular gift, that her saintess-class healing magic was too pure, too powerful to channel without a proper focus. That she should accept it and stop trying.

Use the staff. Don't question it. Be grateful for what you have.

But then her thoughts caught on something.

A memory.

Recent.

A boy lying in the infirmary, writhing in pain, dark veins spreading across his skin.

Her hands on his temples.

She'd healed him.

With her bare hands.

And nothing had happened.

No pain. No blood. No backlash that left her choking and half-blind.

Just clean, pure healing that had worked exactly the way it was supposed to.

Her eyes widened slowly.

How?

She stared down at her hands, turning them over. There was still blood under her fingernails.

Why was he different?

The question settled into her mind and refused to leave.

What was different about him? About that moment?

She looked back toward the portal, where the real battle raged in the corrupted lands beyond.

Then down at the new staff in her lap, its crystal glowing faintly.

Then at her hands again.

When I return to the Academy...

I need to find Jin again.

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