She Chose the Wrong Hero

The second patient came in just before sunrise.

A guard knocked on Elira's door with shaking hands, whispering that the infirmary was "too quiet" and something was "wrong again."

She didn't ask for more.

She dressed in under a minute and left without her cloak, the early air stinging her skin like glass. Her boots slapped against wet stone as she moved through the outer wing of the academy. A strange chill clung to the walls, not cold from winter, but cold from something else—something that didn't belong in the living world.

She knew the signs.

This wasn't illness.

It was spreading.

---

The room stank of old blood and scorched herbs.

Two healers stood pressed against the far wall, their faces pale. A glowing ward had been drawn on the floor—sloppy, rushed—and in the center of it lay a young mage girl, body curled, face wet with sweat.

Elira stepped into the circle without hesitation.

"Aren't you going to—" one of the healers began.

"She's not contagious," Elira said without looking back. "She's cursed."

The girl was whispering something.

Words without shape. Language broken by pain.

Elira knelt beside her and pressed two fingers to the girl's wrist.

The pulse was wrong—fast, sharp, and uneven, like it was trying to run away from the body it belonged to.

Aeren's voice came from the doorway. "She was found this way an hour ago. Screaming. Then collapsed."

Elira looked up. "Any spell traces?"

He stepped in, lowering his voice. "No casting circles. No talismans. Just this."

He held out a glass shard.

Black. Iridescent.

Like obsidian soaked in oil.

Elira took it and turned it over. Her magic recoiled.

"Darkroot glass," she murmured. "It was used in old blood magic—ritual focusing."

"That's what I thought," Aeren said. "But there's no way she should've had access to this. The archives are sealed."

Elira touched the shard to her palm—just barely.

It stung.

Aeren watched her. "It's coming from the shrine, isn't it?"

She nodded. "The seal didn't just break. It's bleeding."

---

She healed the girl slowly.

It took over an hour to pull the corruption out. It had settled into the girl's bones, hiding deep, like it wanted to stay.

Elira whispered prayers she hadn't spoken in years. Not the ones the academy taught, but the old ones—passed down from temple to temple, the ones used when even the gods turned their faces away.

When it was done, the girl slept.

But the magic didn't leave the room.

It clung to the walls. To the beds. To Elira's skin.

---

They walked together after.

Elira and Aeren.

Past the training courts, through the frost-covered gardens, out toward the northern wall, where the view stretched across the snow-dusted valley. Neither spoke at first.

She could feel him watching her—not just curious, but carefully. As if weighing something important.

She didn't want to say it.

Didn't want to pull the past into this new timeline.

But the words came anyway.

"I've seen this before."

Aeren looked at her. "When?"

"In another life."

He didn't laugh. Didn't doubt her.

Just waited.

And maybe that was worse.

Elira turned toward the wall, wrapping her arms around herself.

"In the last timeline," she said, "the seal broke late. Months from now. By then, Kael had already taken command of the council. We didn't know what he was doing with the old texts. Or why the eastern wind felt so wrong."

Her voice grew quiet.

"He was listening to something. Something we couldn't hear. Not until it was too late."

Aeren didn't interrupt. He didn't move.

Elira went on.

"I thought I could stop it this time. That if I moved faster, warned the right people, changed the right moments... I could stop the world from falling apart."

She looked down at her hands.

"But I wasn't ready. I forgot how quickly the dark moves when no one's watching."

For a moment, the cold wind said nothing.

Then Aeren stepped closer.

"What about him?"

She blinked. "Kael?"

He nodded.

"Do you still trust him?"

Her lips parted. No sound came.

Did she?

She thought of the way he'd looked at her outside the hall. The bruises on his face. The voice in his chest she couldn't hear—but felt in the way he moved. The way the air changed around him.

"I want to," she said finally. "But I can't afford to be wrong again."

---

Aeren said nothing after that.

They stood side by side as the sun broke the horizon. Light touched the edge of the rooftops, casting long shadows behind the towers.

Below them, the city stirred.

But Elira could feel it in her bones:

Something old had already woken.

And no one—not even her—knew how to put it back to sleep.