[OXI: 102 / 2,500]
The number appears on my HUD like something distant, almost unrelated to me.
I'm on the ground. I know it from the cold of the dirt against my face, the dust sticking to the side of my mouth, the weight of a dormant Eventide in my fingers. The rest comes in pieces. Voices. Footsteps. A patch of ocean sky above the arena. The gray shadow of Zhang Xi approaching too fast for someone so calm.
I try to breathe deep.
The body refuses.
The pain answers first, spread through my abdomen, my arms, the place where OXI was torn out of me by a thrust. That attack always charges a high price. This time, it charged a body already opened, bleeding, and insisting on fighting out of pure stubbornness.
"Dryden!"
Rhayne's voice enters my head as if it comes through thick water.
Then another line. Closer. More desperate.
"And Veric? Should I go to him first?"
