The deep sleep that claimed Elias was thick and restorative, a heavy blanket that smothered the usual chaotic hum of his eternally regenerating body. As the time passed, and the first pale light of morning struggled to penetrate the heavy velvet curtains, a flicker of awareness ignited within the darkness of his rest.
He found himself floating in a silent, grey space—the familiar preamble to lucidity. The memories of the night before, raw and sharp, played out on the canvas of his mind. He saw the blur of the forest, the flash of the Imbued Squirrel, and then, the terrifying, beautiful spectacle of Roric weaving his Lovers' bond.
'Roric.'
The name resonated with a deep, unsettling hope.
Elias had known Roric Thorne was a Saint, but seeing 'The Lovers' Trait in action—the ability to create and manipulate true spiritual connections, binding the very essence —shifted Elias's perspective entirely.
'He should be able to do it,' Elias thought, his dream self feeling a surge of frantic energy.
Roric possessed a Soulfire-class Trait, an ability that dealt directly with the fundamental, non-physical reality of existence. If his own cursed, automatic healing—his immortality—was rooted in the persistent, unyielding nature of his Soul, then a Soulfire Trait, applied with lethal intent, might be the only force capable of severing that constant regeneration,couldn't it?
'A bond of destruction,' he mused.
'If he could bind my Soul's resilience to something mutable, something that could be detonated...'
He shook his head within the dream, his brief hope dissolving into the cold reality of personalities. Roric was a paragon of loyalty and moral rectitude. He was a Hunter, a guardian, not an assassin. To ask him to use his formidable power to deliberately extinguish a life went against the code that Hunters lived by.
'Kill only for food and self defence, anything else is against the idea of life.'
That aside Roric, based on his personality would never take such a request seriously; he would assume it was nothing more than a joke and maybe scold him if he insisted on it.
A new thought snagged his attention.
'Wait, how did I know Roric's Trait was 'The Lovers'?'
He had never been formally taught the specifics of the Saints' powers. He knew the general classifications, but the evocative, intimate name—The Lovers—felt too specific, too personal to be generic knowledge. Yes, he did use Flow Perception to observe the Hunters Flow, He had simply known what Traits they were using based off of observation alone, like being able to recognise a song from a single tune being played.
'Wierd...'
The external world began to seep into his dream. The soft, incessant chirping of early morning birds, irrelevant background noise that his mind usually filtered out, now became the focus of his attention.
'The birds.' He focused harder.
'Wait, Its been morning for quite a while now,why hasn't Aina come to wake me?'
His usual routine was rigid. He was due for morning physical training while they were given a break from Hunter training with Roric. Aina was always there, precisely at dawn, but today he was getting a suspicious amount of sleep. Based on the warmth he helt on his face, the fact that the sun was clearly beyond the horizon. This suspicious luxury of prolonged sleep...felt wrong.
Speaking of warmth, he tried to shift his body, intending to sit up, but encountered resistance. Something warm and surprisingly heavy was draped across his chest. The weight adjusted itself, a soft groan escaping its owner, and the warm, slightly sweet scent of pine and crisp winter air moved closer, settling a soft, rhythmic breath against the back of his neck.
Elias's eyes snapped fully open. The room was dim, but clear enough.
He didn't move, his heart beginning a heavy, slow thud against his ribs. He turned his gaze slightly downward. A mass of dark purple-black hair obscured his immediate view, but he saw the shape of a shoulder resting across his sternum, covered in a simple, dark navy tunic.
'Who is this?'
The fleeting panic was immediate and absolute, a purely physical reaction to unexpected, intimate contact.
Then, the memory of the previous night, the ice path, the shared exhaustion, and the little silver ring on a small pinky finger rushed back.
'Oh,its Roric's daughter.'
The panic dissolved temorarily before returning with a newer fear at its core.
'What is she doing in my bed?'
His mind, which could map complex parameters, adjusting them like a computer, utterly failed to process this social catastrophe. He was a boy, she was a girl. Regardless of their actual age, a girl sleeping with him in his room was chaos waiting to happen.
He tensed, and the shift in his muscle tone was enough to wake her.
Jamie's blue eyes blinked open, startlingly bright in the dim room. She offered a relaxed, sleepy smile.
"Morning, Elias," she mumbled, pushing herself up and looking around the ornate room with genuine curiosity. "Where are we?"
"We are in my room!" Elias hissed, his voice low and tight, laced with a tremor of pure alarm.
'Crap, if someone sees this...'
She yawned widely, stretching her arms above her head with the casualness of someone waking up in their own home.
"Oh. I didn't get a good look last night. It's cozy. What's for breakfast?"
Elias ignored the question, scrambling to sit up and pushing the heavy duvet aside. He grabbed her by her upper arms—the contact startlingly firm—and began to guide her off the bed.
"You need to leave. Now. Before anyone sees." His mind raced, constructing excuses, defenses, and explanations for the inevitable scandal.
Jamie, still drowsy, allowed him to maneuver her slightly, though her own physical resistance was surprising.
"Aren't you over reacting? We're both tired. We fell asleep."
"It doesn't matter!" Elias insisted, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm.
"It matters what it looks like." He said grabbing her shoulders.
The word "looks" was the last one he managed to utter before the door to his chamber swung open without a knock.
Aina stepped through, her face a mask of slight exasperation. She was dressed, as usual, in her maid uniform and walked inside elegantly.
"Elias, I think you have over—"
She stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes, sharp and dark, darted instantly from Elias, half out of bed with his hair a mess, to Jamie, sitting on the edge of the mattress in her tunic.
"—slept." she finished as her eyes focused on Elias' hands on her shoulders before narrowing, focusing entirely on Jamie, taking in the strange purple hair, the blue eyes, and the lack of panic.
"And who, precisely, is your guest, Elias?" Her voice was low, cutting through the heavy silence like a razor drawn across silk. The question wasn't rhetorical; it was a demand for information, carrying the implied threat of immediate, severe consequences.
"Oh , um...before you over react, I can explain."
"The name's Jamie, Jamie Thorne." she replied.
"Thorne? Hmm, all right then, Jamie would you please remove yourself from this room?'' Aina asked in a condescending tone.
Jamie studied her for a bit then slowly lifted herself up,her countenance changing and her voice dropping to a low, rough timbre, losing all trace of its former musical quality.
"Hmm, that tone. I don't like it. Since you don't seem like the type to listen to anything but your own voice, I'll say this once: I'm not leaving." She stood up replying Aina's cold glare with one of her own, surprising Elias was her sudden change in demeanor.
She then began walking across the fine linen sheets, her feet sinking slightly with each step, closing the distance to Aina.
"Now, you," Jamie challenged, stopping directly at the foot of the bed and looking down at Aina with a sneer.
"Who the hell do you think you are, telling me where I can and can't be?"
Aina's eyes narrowed to slits of cold fury.
"I am Aina, Elias's elder sister," Aina replied, her voice remaining frigidly calm, the control unwavering.
"I am responsible for his development and his protection. And as such, I have his best interests at heart. That includes maintaining the proper decorum expected of a Noble Heir, which is clearly undermined by finding an unauthorized civilian corrupting him."
Jamie let out a sharp, derisive snort.
"His 'best interests'? Now I get it." She turned to Elias.
"This is the reason you snuck into the forest last night, isn't it?" She said, gesturing at Aina with her thumb.
Elias, who just sat watching the exchange froze. His face went instantly pale
'She didn't...' He thought as he clapped his hands over his head, a gesture of absolute defeat.
Aina's glare shifted instantly from Jamie to Elias, a white-hot flash that held the power of a thousand words. Elias winced, wishing the floor would simply swallow him whole.
Jamie pressed, capitalizing on the momentary rift.
"He was running from you. All your 'best interests' and 'proper decorum' is suffocating the life out of him! He wanted to get away from the Keep, and you're the main reason why!"
"J-J-Jamie pease stop this." Elias said timidly crawling over and tugging at her clothes.
The room trembled and groaned as Aina released her Flow.A low, resonant hum, far deeper than any mere sound, filled the chamber. It was the crushing sound of pure, controlled pressure. Aina's Flow Trait, The Star,had activated. The stone floor beneath them seemed to compress, the heavy curtains pressed inward against the window frames, and the massive gravity began to radiate outward.
The pressure reduced somewhat as temperature in the room plummeted with unnatural speed, the air becoming thin and bitingly cold. Dust motes instantly began to vibrate violently under the immense, invisible weight of two Energies clashing. Possesing a Trait similar to Aina's anti-flow ability. Jamie unleashed her intepretation of 'The Emperor'
"You don't knowwho you're challenging." Aina said in a starined voice.
Jamie didn't flinch. She met Aina's immense pressure with a contemptuous smile.
"Oh, I know exactly what I'm challenging, Big sister."
She stepped off the bed, landing softly on the floor right in front of Aina, the icy mist swirling around her boots. Her blue eyes glowed faintly. The temperature drop intensified, fighting against the crushing pressure, creating a terrifying equilibrium where the air was simultaneously heavy and brittle.
Elias finally found his voice, high-pitched and strained as the gravity began to pull at his limbs. "Stop! Both of you! You're going to tear the Keep apart!"
"Shut up, Elias!" Jamie and Aina roared in unison, their voices echoing differently—one a raw challenge, the other a dense command.
The confrontation reached its peak, the two Flow fields straining against each other, causing the ancient stone walls to emit a low, grinding sound—a sound that spoke of imminent structural failure.
Just as Aina seemed ready to fully unleash the gravitational force of herTrait, a knock, faint and timid, rattled the massive oak door.
"Young Lord, Young Lady!" a nervous male voice called through the wood.
"A thousand pardons for the interruption, but Lord Alaric has arrived at the Keep and demands an immediate audience with you both!"
The mention of his father seemed to snap the two girls out of it.
The crushing pressure vanished instantly. The low hum stopped, and the immense weight that had been squeezing the room lifted. The air was suddenly light, though still bitingly cold from Jamie's lingering influence.
Aina blinked, her pupils contracting slightly as she regained control. She gave Jamie one final, scorching glare and marched toward the door without another word. Jamie's cold mist receded into her body. She shrugged her shoulders, the bravado slipping slightly as the raw energy drained away, though the aggressive demeanor remained.
"Jeez," Jamie muttered, watching the door close behind Aina. She turned back to Elias, who was still standing mid-room, his hands shaking slightly.
"Is she always like that?"
Elias released the breath he'd been holding—a long, ragged sound of relief and total exhaustion. The energy crash after the stress was absolute. He fell back onto the mattress, his body sinking into the soft pillows. Jamie hopped onto the bed beside him, resting her elbow on his chest.
"Well, don't worry about her anymore," she declared confidently, her voice softening slightly. She settled into the pillow next to him.
"She won't pull that garbage with me around. I'm here now."
'I don't think thats good for my mental health.'