Through the weeks that followed, Elysia was questioned more times than she could count.

'Who is he?'

The Watcher.

'No, who is he?'

I don't know.

'Why was he here? What did he want? Why did he attack those travelers?'

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

The first question, at least, was fixable.

Under Allura's watchful gaze, she picked up a quill and drew glimmering ink through a series of letters she'd known to write from before she could read Yezin. The General paled with each stroke. And, as Elysia finished the last foreign letter, she could tell that the expression the woman wore was carefully constructed.

She knew the name.

"I see. Thank you, Elysia."

A dozen questions of her own laid on the edge of her tongue. They desperately demanded answers that she knew she had no right to. If Allura didn't want to tell her the Watcher's true name, it was likely for a reason. The tower had saved her--she couldn't, wouldn't question them.

So, she bowed her head, laid down the quill and left.

By the time Camilla returned to Whistrial, it was as if the encounter outside the village had never happened. Even Camilla didn't question her, although she could see the knowledge glimmering in the mage's eyes as she greeted first Elysia, then Rhom with warm, tight hugs.

"Sorrel?" Rhom questioned.

Camilla sighed. "We weren't stationed at the same camps, so my information might be outdated, but I believe he was only a week behind me. They wanted his squad to escort someone back to the capital, before returning here for their leave."

"Ah." Rhom's brow pinched. "...well, welcome home, Love. Come, I've bought everything needed to make a feast. Sit, sit."

The following days passed both at a snail's pace, and quicker than she wished. Each second that passed was another closer to the end of Camilla's precarious one-month leave, but also a step closer to Sorrel's return. News of the warfront spread like wildfire, telling tales of gained and lost ground, to the point Elysia could practically feel Camilla's mixed impatience and wariness.

Attempting not to think about what was soon to come, Elysia threw herself into a haze of classes, shopping trips--Camilla's favorite pastime--and nightly sparring.

The weight of war had settled along Camilla's sword.

It was visible in the new edge to her swings despite the woman's already impressive talent, and the fact that Elysia couldn't--at least, without intense effort--track her foster mother's sword dance with her bare eyes. At the very least, she had to grasp her mana and follow the blade's colorful trails. Gods how she wanted that for herself.

So, they fought.

Camilla was a fair, but hard teacher. Elysia was forced to once again familiarize herself with the feeling of failure. To being knocked to the dirt with a blade in her hand. When fighting, even falling was a skill. You had to twist your body just right to hit without injury and to avoid dropping your weapon. It wasn't something they taught at the tower--swordplay wasn't a skill, there.

She was bruised and exhausted at the end of each day, but more relaxed than she had been in months. Her bed felt like bliss--that was, until the nightmares would start.

It was quiet--near inaudible. But, nearly each night like clockwork--hours after she'd retired--Elysia would wake to the softest of sounds penetrating the walls of her bedroom. It would start with muffled thumps and thuds, then murmurs. Then, crying she knew she wasn't supposed to hear.

The promise of honor and recognition from war no longer sounded as sweet as it had coming from Idris' naive mouth. Not when Camilla greeted her each morning with red eyes and a faux smile.

Finally, the day of Sorrel's return rolled around.

Elysia found it near impossible to focus on her lessons. Restless energy burned her veins, causing silly, simple mistakes throughout the morning. Thankfully, her professor seemed to understand the reason, as a patient smile took their lips each time they had to correct her. Until, finally, they called an early end to the day.

She immediately gathered her things.

"Your brother should be arriving later, right?" Idris pressed. "According to the messenger?"

It should have been surprising he knew, but then again, his grandfather was always sharing information Elysia wasn't sure Idris was supposed to have. She nodded.

"Then, let's go to the gates! As long as we don't try to leave, they won't have a problem with it," he announced cheerily. "I bet he'll be happy to see you waiting for him. I know I would be excited if Sari was waiting for me when I got back."

For once, she couldn't find anything wrong with Idris' suggestion. So, Elysia agreed and they set out of the tower together. As they walked, Idris predictably fell into idle chatter.

"And so I to--"

Elysia felt the magic before she heard it.

The wave of mana that swept through the street was like nothing she'd felt before. Heavy and burning, as if a bonfire had been lit over the entirety of Whistrial. Even before the source had fully registered in her mind, Elysia was running.

"Wait! We shouldn't..."

Idris lunged for her arm. It did him no good as she let her mana flow, turning her form to smoke as she slipped past him and darted for the gates. Bodies cloaked in black flew past them, mana in their steps. Eclipse. She didn't see or sense Aarin amongst them, but for once he was far from her mind.

Sorrel.

It had to be a coincidence, right?

When she got there, it'd be nothing. He wouldn't be caught up in whatever had happened at the gates. There was no way.

Mana escaped her feet, surging into the earth as she ran. Echoing flares of colored signatures registered around her, some of them muffled, others unfamiliar and sharp. She sucked in a breath as she drew close enough to the edge that she could feel the spells flying beyond scorched and smoking gates. Oddly, the damage stopped there, at the feet of two familiar, kneeling figures.

Sir Ophir's hand seemed to glow as he pressed it to Sorrel's blistered back. The skin was red and angry, bleeding and seared in equal measure. Bile filled Elysia's mouth as she skidded to a stop.

"Breathe," Ophir ordered. "C'mon, Sorrel."

Her brother--as, in that moment, she couldn't deny that title--descended into bone chilling coughs. Impossibly, she could feel how his mana pulsed with each shudder of his body. It felt odd to sense anything from Sorrel. His signature was usually impossibly muffled, as if it didn't exist despite his status as a mage.

At that moment, however, it was overflowing.

Ophir's eyes caught hers, before immediately skidding over her shoulder. He jolted to his feet. "Idris!"

Her friend was running before she even realized that Ophir's shout had been a summons. She watched, still frozen, as he dropped to his knees at Sorrel's side, hands replacing Ophir's.

"Do you know how to transfer mana?" the mage demanded. "Has your grandfather gotten that far?"

Idris hesitated. "Not well. I'm better at pulling it from someone else than giving--"

Ophir grabbed his wrist. "Transfer everything Sorrel has to me. Now."

As Elysia forced herself to draw closer, Idris' hands lit up with a soft, white-gold glow. Sorrel flinched away from the touch, a ragged gasp tearing from his chest. Ophir wrapped the arm that wasn't in Idris' grip around Sorrel, steeling him in place as color seemed to drain from Idris' face.

Still, he didn't stop.

The fighting beyond the gates stilled. And, one-by-one as Idris continued to work, half-familiar and unfamiliar faces reappeared within the bounds of the scorched exit. One--a navy-haired girl with an oversized bow strapped to her back--pushed past the others as she skidded to a stop next to the trio.

"Is he okay?" she demanded.

Ophir grimaced. "Yas--"

"That was so stupid!" she interrupted. "What were you thinking, Sorrel? Who just throws themselves in front of a fireball like that?"

"I--" Sorrel gasped, before cutting off into coughs once again.

The girl's face drained of color as she dropped down next to them, hands fluttering uselessly in the air. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Make sure someone's gone to fetch a healer," Ophir ordered. "The hospital is a tall, warded building just past the marketplace. You'll sense the enchantments. Be quick, Yasmine, but don't hurt yourself."

She nodded, before leaping back to her feet and darting past Elysia. Her speed alone said she'd flooded mana into her steps. Her flight drew Ophir's eyes back to Elysia. He grimaced.

"You...go get your mother, will you? Bring her to the hospital."

She didn't move.

Ophir wanted Camilla. Sorrel needed his mother. But, she couldn't move.

What if she looked away and he was gone? That's what happened when people looked like that. When the blood drained from their skin, when their breaths grew shallow...they disappeared. The Others took them away and she was alone.

"It's what you can do, Applicant. Go."

Something about the urgency in his voice enabled her to find her feet. Elysia ran.

She tried their house first, tearing into the entryway and shouting Camilla's name to the point her throat burned. There wasn't a time in her life she could remember being so loud. When no one came, she ran for the tower. The wards around it and the training grounds would be strong enough to block anyone from sensing the fight. It was the consequence of creating a building so secure that even the emperor himself would have struggled with sieging it.

The guards pointed her to the training grounds, where she finally found Camilla alongside three half-familiar faces. Her apprentices.

"Sorrel's hurt."

At her half-rasped greeting, Camilla's warm smile fell to nothing. A certain, clinical blankness that was somehow worse than anything else.

"We'll be ending here."

The dismissal had her apprentices lingering, as if they weren't sure what to do, but Camilla was already moving. She grabbed Elysia's hand, squeezed it, and pulled her from the training grounds without another word. It was...different.

Before she had left, when Sorrel would cough too much, or Elysia would stay out too late, Camilla would panic. The expression on her face as she led her through the capital, however, felt more akin to something Elysia might have expected from herself. A detachment.

Was that, too, another consequence of war?

By the time they reached the hospital, Sorrel had already been relocated. A dozen mages milled in the hallway outside his rooms, only some of them actual healers--and even fewer still faces Elysia recognized. Idris' father was there, talking with his mother with an uncharacteristically serious expression. Ophir had his back to the wall, eyes closed as he concentrated on something unseen. Elysia could feel his magic reaching out, but not where it ended.

The archer girl from before, Yasmine, stood next to Sorrel's teammates, her pale face frot with worry. It wasn't until then that Elysia spied the pointed tips of her ears and the faint, tattoo-like markings visible along the sleeves of her blue-and-black military uniform. The sight sparked memories from the back of her mind--of lessons pertaining to the empire's other territories beyond Yezin's border. She's not human.

What, Elysia couldn't guess. Not that it mattered in the moment. Much more concerning was how Camilla pushed past them all, before jerking to a stop in front of Ophir.

"How is he?"

The mage's eyes peeled open. His coal-gray gaze felt cold, despite the worried grimace tugging on his lips. "Better than he might have been, had those two--" he nodded to Elysia, "--not been nearby. The Kazin boy was able to pull most of the overflow out of him before it burned through his..." Ophir's eyes dropped to her and he hesitated, before obviously curbing his language. "The healers had belief in a full recovery last they stepped out. And I can't feel his mana any longer."

She could feel the tension slowly slipping out of Camilla's death-grip on her hand. "What happened?"

Again, Ophir's attention shifted to Elysia before he answered. Each word felt measured, as if he were uncertain about what was allowed. She bit back the urge to point out that Sorrel was her brother--and not only that, she was a member of the tower. She might be no more than an applicant, but she knew more of injury than most apprentices would have before the draft. There was no need to tiptoe around her just because she was young.

"I was shortsighted. This far from the front, we were more lax with our patrol than we should have been while returning from the capital. I've no idea how long we were trailed, but the ambush outnumbered us three-to-one and hit around a mile out. I thought it best we lead them back to the gates given the wards and guards."

It was reasonable. As long as no civilians were milling around the entrance, it would have been the best way to counter their numbers with minimal losses. They could pose on the other side of the wards and fire out into the enemy until Eclipse or the city guard arrived to chase down whomever lingered or fled. It was practically a strategy right out of the tactic books their professor taught from.

"They must have anticipated it, however, because right before we reached the border they launched a 8th Ring spell."

Elysia's eyes flew wide. Once one reached that level of proficiency, they could be a mentor. And the tower didn't let just anyone instruct future mages. She'd never witnessed such power for herself--or, if she had she didn't know enough to measure it at the time--but, she knew Camilla barely qualified, and her foster mother was someone she was far from being able to truly face.

Camilla's face darkened. "And Sorrel decided to stop it."

"I believe he anticipated the wards wouldn't hold. Most of us had fallen back, but--"

"It's my fault."

Elysia's eyes cut to the side at the half-familiar voice. Yasmine, her fingers curled into the fabric of her uniform jacket, looked as if she were about to cry. Her sky-blue eyes darted between them, guilt obvious in each crease of her frowning face.

"I was injured...before, so I'm not as quick as everyone else right now. Not unless I'm focused on supplementing with magic. He must have realized I wouldn't make it and--" she cut off, dropping into a formal bow. "I'm sorry!"

Camilla studied her for a moment--to the point Elysia thought she might actually blame her, before sighing and dropping a hand on the girl's head. She ruffled her hair, upsetting the neat, chin-length strands as she sighed.

"There's no need for that. This isn't the first time my son has pulled something like this and it likely won't be the last. Our bloodline is riddled with martyrs. Sorrel, unfortunately, fits right in with the rest. Those are Kielan colors, are they not? Have you reported to the General?"

Kiela. A mountainous, snow-bound country at the southern tip of the empire.

Yasmine hesitated. Camilla gave a final pat of her head, before dropping her hand to her shoulder, squeezing, then pushing her towards the hall behind them. "I appreciate your honesty and your concern. We'll send someone to fetch you should anything change."

"I--"

"You're a knight, first, aren't you Miss?" Camilla prompted. "My son is in safe hands with the healers. Do your duty, then fret with the rest of us."

The girl swallowed, before bowing again and spinning away. "You're right. I'm sorry!"

Camilla's attention shifted to Rena and Leander, who were watching the hallway with pale faces. Elysia squeezed her hand, uncertain of what else to do. Her fingers were squeezed in return, Camilla's mouth opening as if she were going to say something more, but at that moment a door opened down the hall. A healer emerged, eyes skimming the hall, before they seemed to spot them.

"Mage Camilla. If I may..."

Camilla's eyes flicked to Ophir. His lids were closed again, but he merely nodded, head resting against the wall. "I'll watch her."

"Stay here, El."

She wanted to argue, but it wasn't her place. So, she bit her lip and let go of Camilla's hand. The woman immediately started towards the healer, expression taut. They said nothing, instead opening the door they'd emerged from to wave her inside.

She caught a glimpse of the room beyond--of Sorrel stretched out on a cot like she'd woken up on years before--before the door fell shut.

And they waited.