Hero

The group had been following Aldridge through the research chambers for what felt like hours.

The hum of the Vault grew louder; Velena could feel it through her cane. The map from the Codex was incomplete– fragments of ancient script that Aldridge squinted at through his spectacles. He muttered about pre-Imperial grammar and the architectural incompetence of whoever had designed the labyrinth. The research chambers were connected, and they didn't shift like the corridors. They led deeper, toward the center, towards whatever was waiting.

"Left here," Aldridge said, snapping his pocket watch shut. The crystalline interior had been pulsing more frantically the further they went, the hands spinning in erratic circles. "The resonance is strongest in this direction. Whatever's at the center, we're close."

"How close?" Velena asked.

"I don't know. The map cuts off after the seventh chamber. The rest is-" He hesitated. "The rest is uncharted. No one's ever been this far and come back to draw a map."

"Wonderful." Velena swept her cane ahead of her. "Everyone stay close. Don't let go of each other!"

They would lose no one. Velena had to make sure of that. Every student who'd joined their mismatched caravan was still here as she did another head count.

She wasn't going to let that change.

Aldridge pushed the two large doors in front of them. The corridor opened into a vast chamber. Not a research room; those had been cramped spaces filled with stone doors and ancient script. This was something else entirely. The ceiling arched high above them, lost in shadow. A cathedral of old magic and older stone, built to house something that had been waiting for four centuries.

And at the center, floating above an altar of black stone, was the ancient Conduit.

A sphere of pure golden light, pulsing like a heartbeat, the Echo of Creation. The Wish. The thing that had been waiting for four centuries.

"There it is," Aldridge breathed. His voice was shaking. "The Codex was right. It's real! All of it."

"It's beautiful," Sera whispered.

"No, it isn’t! That’s terrifying!" Fenra crossed her arms at the sight of it.

"It's a bit of both really," Maya said quietly.

Her cane swept the floor ahead of her, mapping the space. The Vault's hum was pulling at her. Something in her Key Tone was answering the call. The bell inside her, the one she'd been holding back for fourteen years, was straining against its leash.

"Professor." Beatrice's voice was sharp. "There's blood on the floor."

Velena stopped. Her cane swept to the side. The metal tip tapped against something wet. She knelt. Her fingers found the stone—cold, smooth, and slick with something that was still warm.

"It’s fresh," she said. "Someone else was here recentl-"

Velena stood up. Her grip on her cane was so tight it dug into her skin.

She didn't finish because her cane had just tapped against something soft.

A body was lying on the floor a few feet behind the altar.

This person was bleeding.

"No," she whispered. "No, no, no—"

Velena dropped to her knees beside him. The blood was warm as it soaked through her skirt. Her hands found his shoulder, his chest, the wound—a jagged gash across his side that was still seeping, still pulsing with every faltering heartbeat. She reached for his face; his mask was cracked, the beak splintered down the middle. His coat was soaked through, the dark fabric glistening wetly in the golden light. His rifle lay a few feet away, the resonance channels still sputtering weakly, the barrel scorched from whatever blast had caught him. His medical case had skidded against the far wall, lying on its side like a fallen soldier.

"Kräh-Krähe, stay with me!" Her hands pressed against the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. "What happened?! Who did this?!"

His eyes flickered open. Unfocused. The pupils were dilated, the irises pale– too pale, even for a vampire. "Figure... mask...was waiting for me..."

"A masked figure?! Who was it?!"

"Don't know…voice was... distorted…magic." He coughed. Blood flecked his lips, dark against the pallor of his skin. "Said the Vault was...unstable…if someone took the Wish without... without the right resonance...the whole thing would.. would detonate l-like what happened before…"

Velena's blood went cold. "S-stop talking! I get it already!"

Krähe shook his head in response. "...was there…I…” his voice was fading, each word costing him more than the last. "...have to bond with the Vault first…to stabilize it…then he'd take it from me…no one else had a Key Tone that matched the Vault's frequency…I was the only one who could...who could keep it from destroying everything."

"You’re talking like you’re going to die here! You’re not-" Velena said. Her voice was shaking as she pressed into the wound.

"Don’t want...to be a weapon again." Krähe's eyes were closing. He gripped Velena’s arm weakly. "Spent years...being a weapon…I don’t want... to do it anymore..."

Krähe’s hand fell to his side.

"Y-You're not a weapon!" Velena's voice cracked. "You were never a weapon- I-I'm not letting you die!"

She turned toward the doorway. "MAYA! I need everyone in here now! Form a perimeter around us- whoever did this might still be close!"

The group poured through the threshold. Maya took one look at the scene, and her expression darkened.

"Fenra, Roran- watch the left corridor. Beatrice and William to the right! Kaelen, you're at the entrance! No one gets through!" Velena yelled.

"What happened to him?!" Sera's voice was high with alarm. She pressed her hands over her mouth, her half-elven features pale. "Professor Krähe– he's- there's so much blood-"

"Is he going to be okay?!" Fenra's ears were flat against her head. Her claws were extended, not in aggression. "Who attacked him?!"

"He's our professor too," Roran said. His dragonkin bulk was rigid, his gauntlet crackling with a barely suppressed fury. "He's been training us all semester. Who would-"

Aldridge knelt beside them as he examined the wound.

"We'll find out!" his voice broke out in worry. "Right now, I need to stop the bleeding. His medical case…even just bandages or tonics...something to stop the bleeding. We need to get it open!"

Aldridge reached for the case. It was old leather, worn soft with age, the brass fittings gleaming dully in the golden light. Sera was already beside him, her fingers trembling as she traced the brass fittings.

"It's locked with resonance, Professor Ashworth! Only someone with the right Key Tone can open it. Or someone who knows the frequency. It's like a...a musical lock." Sera stammered.

“We can’t open this without Krähe…” Aldridge muttered to himself.

"Krähe…" Velena leaned over him, her bloodied hand cupping his cheek. His skin was too cold. "Krähe, I need you to open the case…Can you hear me? The case. I-I need you to open it...please-"

His eyes were closed. His breathing was shallow. Each exhale was a wet rasp. "...resonance channels are dead...too weak..."

"Then tell me how! Tell me the frequency. I'll do it! Just tell me what to do…"

No answer. The blood kept spreading, a dark pool that reflected the golden light like a mirror.

"No, no, no- stay with me!" Velena pressed harder on the wound, but it wasn't enough.

Behind her, she heard Terren's voice, hoarse and panicked. "He's not- he's not going to die, is he?! Professor Krähe can't die. He- he's the only one who makes combat class bearable. He's the only one who–"

"Shut up, Terren!" Fenra snapped, but her voice was shaking. "He's not going to die. Professor Ashworth won't let him!"

Kaelen said nothing. His hollow eyes fixed on Krähe's still form. He highly respected Krähe as the only other vampire in the group.

Beatrice's parasol was fully open now, the fabric singing with agitated magic. "Whoever did this is still out there. William and I will hold the corridor. No one gets past us!"

William nodded, his pen-dagger conduit already in hand, his composure cracked. "We'll keep watch. Just…save him, Professor Ashworth. Please…"

“Sera, please press into the wound I need to-”

The ground shook.

The chamber around them lurched. Velena felt the stone shifting beneath her knees; the walls moved as they rearranged themselves.

"What's happening?!" Terren shouted, his voice cracking with panic.

"The maze- it's moving again?! B-but why?! This is unusua-" Aldridge disappeared behind the wall with Terren, separating them from everyone else. They disappeared behind it.

"Everyone stay together!" Maya called out. "Don't let it separate-"

The floor split.

The stone beneath Velena and Krähe suddenly wasn't connected to the stone beneath everyone else as the floor broke into several pieces. The light around them brightened to a blinding degree, and the rest of the group– Maya, Beatrice, William- all of them seemed to slide away, pulled backward by the floor under them. Maya lunged forward, her hand outstretched.

“MAYA WAI-” Velene yelled.

"VELENA!" The current caught her, pulled her back. "VELENA, HOLD O-"

The cathedral hall with its columns and glass paintings vanished as they fell. The altar and the floating sphere of golden light melted into the light above them.

Crap! What do I do?! I don’t think there’s anything that can stop the fall!

Velena switched their positions mid-air to make sure she would hit the ground first. In a split-second decision while holding onto him from below, the professor used her cane to create a slash on the ground. A huge crater formed below them, sending the debris flying through the air. She hummed as a gust of wind surrounded them. The air spread around them like a blanket below to shield her.

The two hit the ground with little to no impact at all. Velena fell to her knees beside Krähe in a narrow corridor, the medical case still locked, the blood still spreading, the rest of the group somewhere far away above them.

"No," she whispered. "No, no, no- thi- this can’t be happening!"

The walls around them flickered. Her blindfold fell from her eyes as tears streamed down her face. All she could see now was the blur of another dark corridor.

But before she could wallow in despair any further, a recreation of a distant memory never seen before was shown to her.

---

They weren't illusions, not like the ones the maze had shown her before. These were different. She looked around her in a daze as the scenery around them changed from darkness to a shade of dark blue and white.

Snow fell from the sky and surrounded them.

A boy was standing at the border of Nocthyr, struggling to walk through the snow. A carriage was wrecked behind him.

He was so small. That was the first thing Velena noticed of that blurry figure, and it hit her like a physical blow. She'd always remembered him as larger than life—

He was the same boy who argued with her about pastries, who invited himself on her quests, who made up a signal for them to remember. But here, in this memory, he was just a child. Thin and cold. His hands raw from the ropes that had bound him during the exile procession. His eyes red from crying. His lips blue from the cold. He was standing in snow that came up to his knees, and he was alone.

No one had come for him. No one had been there either. The rest died from an accident in the snowstorm.

Orev’s voice, younger and unbroken: "Are you going to kill me, you vampire?!"

A woman stood before him with a black parasol, her voice cold and familiar: "No. I'm going to give you a choice."

Velena watched as Elanor found him in the snow. She crouched in front of him, her head tilted, studying his face with an intensity that should have been unsettling but wasn't. It looked almost like recognition, like she was seeing something she'd lost a long time ago.

"I see now! You're the boy from the workshop, the one who blinded that girl."

"It was an accident…"

"I’m aware. I was watching." She tilted her head and smiled.

“So you’re the one who did this?!” Orev’s voice rose in anger.

“Oh no, I would never!” Elanor shrugged. "But I’ll let you in on a little secret, boy. The cane was my idea. I commissioned it under an alias…I said it was for a lord's son. I found a forgemaster in the lower city who did excellent work. I asked him to leave it untempered as the client wanted to finish the bonding himself." She paused. "I didn't know it would detonate. I just thought it would be a powerful conduit. Something worthy of a princess's attention…"

Velena's blood went cold. "It wasn’t her?" she whispered. "...But she…was the original owner of the cane…"

The memory kept playing. She couldn't look away.

Orev stared at Elanor. His face was blank with shock. "You made the cane?"

"I commissioned it. The detonation wasn't my doing. Something else reacted to it. I didn't expect it at all." She smiled. "Your Key Tone is very loud, boy. I could hear it from across the border. It's what drew me to you."

"So?! I can’t even control it- what’re you going to do about it?!"

"I'm going to give you a choice." She stood up and offered him her hand. "You can stay here and die in the snow. Or you can come with me and live."

Orev looked at her hand. It was pale, the hand of a monster.

“I would refuse but…I’ll accept under one condition.”

Elanor was amused by the human that groveled before her. “What is it?”

The boy hesitated for a long moment.

“I want to see Pa and Velena again…make me into someone important…important enough that I can find her in the future.”

“Hm…like a general perhaps?”

Orev smirked. “Yes, exactly like that.”

Velena's throat was closing. "No…don’t-," she whispered.

“Well then, I must say you are quite impressive…Welcome to Nocthyr, my dear.” She extended her hand closer towards him.

He took her hand in his.

He had no other choice, after all.

The corridor flickered, another memory.

He was now a teenager. Standing in a castle of black stone, surrounded by vampires who looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and contempt. He was the only human in a court of monsters, but he wasn't the same boy from the snow. Something in him had changed.

"You've been here for six years now," Elanor said. She was sitting on a throne of obsidian, her chin resting on her hand. "You've trained well, but you're still holding back on your true potential."

"I'm not holding back."

"Yes, you are. You're afraid of your own power, my dear. You think your Key Tone is a curse…You think you're dangerous.” She tilted her head. "But you're not wrong. You are dangerous for a human. That's what makes you valuable. Why not let yourself loose?"

Orev's voice was flat and hollow. "I just don't want to hurt anyone else. The last time I did that, I already-" He swallowed. "I blinded her…she was my friend...The only real friend I ever had…my Key Tone set off the cane…It took her sight. It ruined her life- i-it ruined everything…"

Velena's chest tightened. "No…" she whispered. "No, that's not what happened! It wasn't your fault! It was never your fault-"

But the memory kept playing, and the boy kept talking.

"Every time I use my Key Tone, something bad happens," Orev explained. "The glass in my father's shop used to hum when I walked past it, the lantern in the workshop flickered, the cane- the cane rang like a bell before it exploded. It answered to me…It answered my Key Tone! I'm the reason it detonated…I'm the reason everything went wrong!"

"So you want to be rid of it," Elanor said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes. I want it gone. I want to be empty. I never want to hurt anyone again."

Elanor leaned forward. Her eyes were bright; she was intrigued by this human. "There is a way. We call it the turning. If you become a vampire, your Key Tone will be silenced. Not erased- it will always be a part of you, buried somewhere deep, but it won't be able to hurt anyone anymore. You'll be quiet, but you'll be something else entirely, an entirely different being from what you are now. You’ll become one of us, my dear."

"I heard. Will it be related to my memories?"

"The turning takes those too. Most of them, at least. It's a mercy. You won't have to remember what you did, so you won't have to carry the guilt."

Orev was quiet for a long moment.

Then: "Do it. Turn me. Make me forget…I…I don't want to remember. I don't want to feel this anymore..."

Velena was shaking. Her hands were pressed against Krähe's wound, but her eyes– her blind, useless eyes- were fixed on the memory before her as a useless, blurry mess of different colors. The boy who'd believed, with every fiber of his being, that he was the monster.

"He wanted it," she whispered. "He didn't just agree to the turning…H-He asked for it…He thought he was too dangerous to exist… and I never told him otherwise…I never had the chance- I never-"

The memory kept playing.

Elanor stood and walked towards him. She placed her hand on his cheek. "Are you sure about this, my dear? Once it's done, there's no going back. Your Key Tone will be silenced. Your memories will fade. You'll be someone entirely different.”

"I'm sure," Orev said. His voice didn't waver. "I-I don't want to be myself anymore..."

Elanor stood up from her throne.

"I understand...then lie down. Close your eyes and let me give you a new name."

She slit her hand with the blade beside her. The vampire princess poured her blood into a chalice.

Another flicker, another memory.

The turning.

Orev screamed as his Key Tone loudly rang across the throne room. Velena covered her ears in terror. His back arched off the altar, hands clawing at the stone.

The sound of a bell shattered into a thousand pieces and went still.

Elanor's voice resonated through, soft and steady, telling him it would be over soon. She held her hand in his again.

"It's done," Elanor said. She was standing over him, her hand on his forehead. "Your Key Tone is silenced. You're safe."

He stared up at the woman beside him, his eyes hollow. The boy could not attach a name to that face at all. He simply stared lifelessly into her red eyes.

"I…" the boy whispered. His voice was hoarse. “...W-who are you?”

“No…Who- who am I?” the boy continued.

Elanor put a hand on his head to soothe him as she ruffled his hair lightly. She paused.

"It’s nice to meet you…my dear Krähe."

The memory flickered and died. The corridor was back to normal. Silence filled the room as the stone walls surrounded them. Krähe was barely breathing now. His face was slack. The blood was everywhere, pooling beneath him, soaking into Velena's skirt, spreading across the stone in a dark, gleaming mirror of the golden light above.

Velena couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. She was kneeling in the blood of the boy she'd been searching for for fourteen years, and she'd just watched him beg to be erased.

She lifted her hand from his chest, away from the wound, over the silence where his bell used to be.

She grabbed his shoulders, then shook him. "Wake up…WAKE UP! Are you stupid?! You don't get to die thinking your Key Tone was a curse! It wasn't…It was beautiful! It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard! I'm not letting you go until you know the truth, you selfish idiot!"

He didn't respond. His eyes stayed closed, his breathing even more faint now.

Velena pressed her forehead against his. Her tears were falling on his face, mixing with the blood, tracing clean lines through the grime.

"This was my fault…" she whispered. "The accident and the detonation! It was my Key Tone that triggered it- not yours…You were just standing there holding a lantern and I- I reached for the cane! I wanted to touch it….It was my fault, Orev…It was always my fault, and you've been punishing yourself for fourteen years for something I did...so…"

“Don’t die…”

Her voice shattered completely. She couldn't speak anymore. She could only kneel there in the blood and the silence, holding onto him, waiting for him to wake up, feeling the warmth of his body slowly fading beneath her hands.

"Well, well. This is quite the emotional scene."

Velena's head snapped up.

The phantom was standing at the edge of the corridor. Dressed in a formal gown with fluttering sleeves, the same gown she'd worn the day of the accident. Bright eyes and a smile that hadn't learned how to break yet. Her younger self, the same phantom the maze had thrown at her before.

But something was different now. The phantom's smile felt wrong. The voice was hers, but it was off.

It was like something was wearing her face without understanding how it worked.

"You again!" Velena yelled. Her voice echoed through the corridor. "Haven't you tormented me enough?!"

"Never." The phantom tilted its head. The gesture was almost birdlike. "Look at you. Kneeling in a pool of his blood, crying over a man who doesn't even remember your name. And you call yourself a professor? You think you’re a hero to your students? A princess of Lumina? What would they think if they saw you now?"

"Get out!"

"You are the great Professor Ashworth! The blind duelist and the woman who believes she can change history, are you not?!" The phantom stepped closer. Its smile widened, stretching too far, showing too many teeth. "But underneath all that, you're still that same twelve-year-old girl. The one who wasn't good enough to be a princess, wasn't good enough to be a daughter, and definitely wasn't good enough to save her friend. You put on the blindfold and the tailored jacket to act like you're untouchable, but inside you're falling apart. You always have been!"

Velena's grip on her cane tightened until her knuckles ached. "I’m completely aware."

"You're just weak! Physically, sure- you trained until your body could match anyone in the two kingdoms. You might even be the strongest caster alive, but mentally?" The phantom laughed. It was a cold sound. "You haven't changed at all. You've just gotten better at pretending."

Velena lunged.

The cane activated mid-swing, its light flaring as she brought it down in an arc aimed at the phantom's head. The phantom raised its arm to block, and the blade connected. It did not disappear.

The impact went up Velena's arm, sending a shock of pain through her shoulder. The phantom's forearm had stopped her blade cold. No blood came from it, but the resistance was real. The vibration of the strike still hummed through the metal.

Velena stumbled back, her mind racing. "You're not- you're not a phantom…"

"Took you long enough!" The phantom smiled.

It moved faster than anything that looked like a twelve-year-old girl had a right to move. Its hand closed around Velena's throat. The grip was cold. Her fingers felt like iron bands, pressing into her skin with a bruising force.

It slammed her against the wall. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs. Pain exploded through her back, her shoulders, the base of her skull where it struck the stone. The memories were now playing again around them— Orev in the snow, in the castle, screaming as his Key Tone was torn away- but Velena could barely see any of them. All she could focus on was the hand at her throat and the face inches from her own and the terrible, dawning realization of what she was actually fighting.

"The other phantoms," she gasped, clawing at the phantom's fingers. "They’re manifestations of my own fear- but how- how can you hurt me? You can–"

"Yes, I am capable of hurting you," the phantom said. Its voice was completely cold. Nothing of Velena was left in it. "The maze shows people their fears, their guilt, and their worst memories. But I'm not part of the maze! I'm not a test!" It released its grip on her throat a little to keep her awake, but Velena's vision started to go dark at the edges. "I’ll let you in on a hint- I'm the thing the maze was built to protect! Now answer, what do you think I am, Professor?"

"You’re- you’re the..." Velena's voice was barely a whisper, squeezed through the pressure on her throat. "You're the Vault! A fragment of its consciousness, wearing my face!"

The phantom's smile widened. "Correct! Clever girl. It took you long enough to figure it out."

"The Vault isn't just a conduit- i-it's been alive this whole time. And you- you're its voice. Its will-" Velena's hands were prying at the phantom's fingers, trying to break the grip again, but it was like trying to bend iron. "What do you want?! Why are you so desperate to keep him from me?!"

The phantom's grip loosened even more, just slightly. Its head tilted, the same birdlike gesture, but slower now. "You think I want to hurt him? Do you think this is about power? About control?" It laughed. "You don't understand anything, do you?"

"Then explain it to me!"

The phantom released her. Velena slumped against the wall, gasping, her hand going to her throat. The phantom stepped back, its form flickering, the golden light around them pulsing in rhythm with its words.

"I am the Vault," it said. "Not a piece of it, or a fragment. I am what the first casters created when they poured their hopes into the Echo of Creation. I have been here for four centuries, waiting and watching. I have seen kings, generals, and the most powerful mages of every generation try to claim me. I have rejected them all."

"Why show up only now then?!"

"Because you humans wanted power. You all wanted to control me. People wanted to use the Wish to conquer, to dominate, to reshape the world in their image." The phantom's voice was cold with contempt. "They came to me with full hearts and full hands. They had kingdoms, armies, ambitions. They didn't need me; they wanted me.”

Velena stared at her. "And Orev? What makes him different?!"

"Because he has nothing." The phantom's voice softened just slightly. "His Key Tone and memories were taken from him. His name, his past, his future- everything he was, everything he could have been- was stripped away. He is empty. A hollow vessel waiting to be filled." It paused. "Someone who has nothing is the only person who can truly appreciate having everything. That's why I was drawn to him. Not because he's powerful, not because he's special like you, but because he's empty. Emptiness is the only thing that can hold a wish without breaking."

Velena's throat ached. "...So you’re saying that you don’t want to hurt him?"

"I want to make him whole." The phantom's voice was almost gentle now. "I want to give him back everything he lost. The Wish can make him Orev again. All he has to do is accept it."

"Then why did you attack him?! Why send the maze after us to put us against our own fears?!"

"Because I had to be sure. He can’t be the only one who’s worthy enough." The phantom's form flickered. "The ones who can't face themselves would never survive bonding with the Vault. The Wish would destroy them. But the ones who keep walking...they might be worthy." It looked at Velena. "He kept walking, and you did the same as well. You faced your worst fears, and you didn't break. That's why I showed you his memories. Not to hurt you, but to make you understand."

"Understand what exactly?!"

"To understand what was taken from him. The Wish could give back." The phantom stepped closer. "I have no nefarious plans or any political schemes. I am not like the first casters who built me, with their wars or their treaties, and their endless hunger for power. I am just...a vessel. A wish waiting to be made. I am simply drawn to you two casters."

Velena looked at Krähe- at Orev- lying in a pool of his own blood. "But...I don’t think he wants The Wish…"

"I know..." The phantom's voice was sad. "That's why I'm showing you all of this, because he won't listen to me…but…he might listen to you."

"You want me to convince him to bond with the Vault?!"

"I want you to understand what's at stake. The Wish can only be used once. If he bonds with me, he can have his Key Tone back, even his memories and his name. Everything Elanor took from him- everything the accident destroyed." The phantom paused. "But if someone else bonds with me first…someone who wants power, or control, or conquest, then the Wish will be wasted. And he'll never get back what he lost. Neither of you will."

Velena's hands were shaking. "...Why are you telling me this all of a sudden like you’re an ally?"

"Because I believe you can save him." The phantom's voice was almost gentle now. "You're the reason he kept walking. He chose emptiness over power because he didn't want to become something that might hurt you." It tilted its head. "Don't you think someone who loves you that much deserves to be whole again?"

Velena didn't answer. She couldn't. Her throat was too tight, her chest too full with emotions.

"The masked figure who attacked him," she said finally. "Who was that?"

"It’s someone who's been waiting just as long as I have." The phantom's form flickered. "They wanted him to use your friend. I do not like him at all. They would take my Wish from him if he bonded with me."

"That person set him up?!" Velena said. Her voice wavered. "That can’t be-"

"Yes. And when he refused, they tried to kill him. They couldn't let him leave." The phantom paused. "You need to stop him."

"Then help me save him!"

"I can't. I'm not a healer. I'm a vessel. I can only give the Wish to someone who bonds with me. But you-" The phantom looked at her. "You can save him. Your Key Tone is strong enough. Your blood can stabilize him. Long enough for him to make his own choice at least."

The phantom began to dissolve into golden light, the same light that pulsed through the Vault. It hovered for a moment, flickering.

"Wait!" Velena said. "Why- why did you not kill me?!"

"I changed my mind." The light pulsed gently. "I have concluded that I do not mind you at all, Professor. You truly can be a hero who can change the world as she said you would be. Keep going, Velena Dushana."

“Who- who even are you talking about?!”

The girl smiled as she disappeared into the light.

“You’ll know in the future.”

The light faded. The corridor was silent again. Krähe's breathing was a faint, wet rasp.

And then another female voice spoke through the silence.

"A hero, it says? How intriguing."

Elanor was standing at the end of the corridor. She looked tired. The mask of cold amusement was gone, replaced by something almost sad.

"Did you hear all of that?" Velena asked.

"I heard enough." Elanor stepped closer. Her eyes flicked to Krähe's wound, to the blood pooling beneath him. "The Vault isn't wrong. He's dying. You're the only one who can save him now, girl."

"Give him your blood. He’s your kin, is he not?!"

"I can't. He's not my kin anymore. He stopped being my kin the moment he chose you over the Vault." She paused. "But you can. You know how. Your blood is strong enough to resonate with what's left of his."

Velena looked down at the boy she'd been searching for since she was twelve years old. Then she looked back at Elanor, the woman who had left her conduit in Kael Doure's forge.

"You!" Velena said. Her voice was shaking. "-You commissioned the cane! You put it there!"

"I did."

"You didn't plan for it to explode, but you still put it there. You still left an untempered conduit where children could find it! You-" Her voice cracked. "You still ruined our lives- the both of us! You took everything! He gave up everything because he believed he was the monster!"

"I know." Elanor's voice was quiet. "But I didn't force the turning on him. I simply offered it." She paused. "He was a child, yet he wanted to die. The turning was the closest thing I could offer him to salvation."

"It wasn't his fault!" Velena's voice shattered. "It was my Key Tone that triggered it. Not his! It was my fault! It was always my fault! Why…" her composure shattered.

Elanor was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was softer than Velena had ever heard it.

"Then tell him that when he wakes up. Tell him the truth, that he was never the monster he thought he was." She paused. "I've done terrible things. I won't deny it. I took his memories, but you- you can give him something back. The real truth. Not the lie he's been carrying all this time."

Velena stared at her. "...Why are you helping us like The Vault?"

"Because the both of you remind me of someone. The way you chase each other reminds me of myself and another human I used to admire." She paused. "He was my friend. The only real friend I ever had, and I let him go."

Velena's heart clenched. She wasn’t sure, but she could guess that it was her brother with the way he carried that pendant everywhere. He changed the subject whenever someone mentioned Nocthyr's vampire court; his voice had shifted when Elanor said his name in the inner chamber.

“Are you perhaps referring to Mikha-”

She turned away. "Give him your blood before it's too late, Professor. Don't make the same mistake I did. Don't let him go, not when you still have a chance to hold on."

She was gone. The corridor was silent again.

Velena looked at her own hands that had been fighting for fourteen years, searching for someone she'd lost, trying to fix something she'd broken.

She was strong physically and magically. But strength wasn't what she needed right now; what she needed was to stop pretending.

To keep being the professor her students believed in, even when she felt like falling apart. To keep being the princess her kingdom deserved, even when she hadn't been allowed to be one for fourteen years.

That was what being a hero was.

She couldn't lose him. Not now, when she'd just found him.

She retrieved her cane from where it had fallen. Her fingers closed around the familiar metal, the conduit's hum steadying her. She activated the blade. The light flared in the darkness.

She pressed the edge against her palm. The pain was sharp and immediate. Blood welled up, dark and warm, running down her wrist in a continuous stream.

She knelt beside the vampire below her and pressed her bleeding hand to his lips.

"Don't you dare die on me," she whispered. Her whole body was shaking. The blood dripped into his mouth, slow and steady. "I didn't wait fourteen years for you to tap back just so you could bleed out on the floor of a magical labyrinth. You hear me?! You don't get to leave. Not yet. Not ever!"

The blood kept flowing. Her palm was throbbing. She could feel her own Key Tone resonating in the blood, the bell inside her ringing out across the silence where his used to be through her conduit beside her.

"It wasn't your fault," she said. "I'm going to tell you everything. So you can't die. You’re not allowed to die before I get the chance to say I'm sorry!"

The blood dripped into his mouth.

For a long moment, nothing happened.

His hand twitched, fingers curled against the stone. His breathing steadied slightly. The bleeding slowed, the wound beginning to slowly knit itself at the edges.

And somewhere in the silence where his Key Tone used to be, something rang.

A bell. Faint, almost imperceptible, but it was there.

Velena pressed her forehead against his and wept.