The face in the mirror was red.

She had been crying without noticing and had only just caught up with that fact.

She stood there and looked at herself and let the memories finish arriving. The memories had been returning since yesterday morning. Small details first. Then larger ones. Then all of it at once.

She remembered the summoning circle.

The exact moment it crossed the point she had agreed to.

The cold of the transit space...

the feeling of the transit tearing itself apart around her and the forest floor coming up to meet her and the leg that would not hold and the blood she could feel drying in her hair.

And then.

She touched her cheek.

The reflection touched its cheek.

She remembered him saying hey. She remembered a hand tilting her chin up. She remembered the warmth of a healing potion delivered in the most unreasonable way she had ever experienced and the way she had been too stunned to cry anymore after that.

She remembered the piggyback. The way she had deliberated over it for thirty seconds like it was a contract with real terms. The way he had said you will not fall and she had believed him without knowing why.

She remembered calling him Mister.

She remembered the cave entrance in the early mornings, finding him on the way back, grabbing his sleeve because the alternative was standing in the forest alone.

She remembered the bed divided down the middle with a pillow and neither of them saying anything about it.

She remembered him leaving.

The thought of him leaving had been sitting somewhere in the back of her mind since morning. She had only just stopped avoiding it.

He had left.

He had put her here, in this house, with Aria who came by twice a day and the maid who did not ask questions and a guest room that was more comfortable than anywhere she had ever slept, and he had left.

She looked at her red face in the mirror.

Angry did not feel like the right word for it . She did not have a clear enough understanding of what she was feeling to attach a name to it yet.

For four days she had existed without knowing who she was.

The only consistent thing in all of it had been him.

Every morning. Every conversation.

Every quiet reassurance that she was still a person even when she could not remember herself.

And now he is gone.

She wiped her face with the back of her hand.

The reflection wiped its face.

She looked at herself for another moment Lina Vale, Spirit Sorceress, High-Rank Wind Spirit Bond, all of it returned at once.

She took a breath.

Then she turned away from the mirror and went to find Aria.

***

Aria was in the garden when Lina found her.

She was standing near the far wall with a cup.

She heard Lina coming and did not turn immediately.

"You remember," Aria said.

It was not a question.

"Yes," Lina said.

Aria turned then. She looked at Lina’s face with careful attention.

"Come and sit down," she said.

They sat on the stone bench near the garden wall. The morning was cold enough that their breath was faintly visible. Neither of them commented on that.

"He told me about your condition before he left," Aria said. "The summoning. The memory loss. He asked me to look after you and to make sure you reached the academy entrance examination."

Lina looked at her hands.

"He did not tell me much else," Aria said. "He said some of it was not his to tell."

Lina was quiet for a moment.

"He knew who I was," she said. "From the beginning. He checked."

"Yes," Aria said.

"And he still brought me here."

Aria looked at her. "Yes."

Lina thought about that.

"What is he like," she said. "To you. What do you think of him."

Aria was quiet for long enough that Lina thought she might not answer.

"I do not know yet," Aria said finally. "He is not what I expected. He is not what anyone expected." She paused. "He told me something before he left that I have been thinking about since. About how I use my affinity." She looked at the mountains. "He was right. Which is inconvenient."

Lina almost smiled.

"He has a habit of that," she said.

Aria looked at her.

"Of being right," Lina said.

Aria almost smiled.

"Yes," Aria said. "He does."

They sat for a while after that without talking.The cold settled around them.

"I want to reach the academy," Lina said eventually.

"I know," Aria said. "I am going to make sure you do."

Lina looked at her.

"Why," she said.

Aria considered the question.

"Because he asked me to," she said. "And because I think he was right about you too."

***

On the other side of the Northern Region, in the middle of a forest where nothing lived voluntarily, Kael was sitting against a cave wall with a wrapped hand and a mild headache from blood loss when the system notified him.

[Side Quest 1 Complete.]

[You attended Aria Ardyn’s birthday celebration. You were expected to decline. You did not.]

[Reward: 1000 PS.]

He stared at that for a moment.

Then the second notification arrived.

[Side Quest 2 Complete.]

[A certain prince attended the celebration. He has looked down on the Ardyn trash for years. You made it memorable.]

[Reward: 500 PS.]

[The higher beings found the training clothes particularly entertaining.]

He closed his eyes briefly.

"The training clothes," he said. "Of course."

[Goddess of Greed is laughing.]

[God of Thunder has sent his regards.]

"I do not want his regards."

[He sent them anyway.]

Kael opened the status window.

***

[STATUS WINDOW]

Name: Kael Ardyn

Title: Young Duke of House Ardyn

Level: 7

Class: [NONE]

Strength: D

Dexterity: D+

Agility: D+

Endurance: D

Magic: D

Active Abilities: Fireball / Wind Blade / Basic Mana Pulse / Hell’s Fire / Vector Authority / Aether Step

Passive Abilities: Infinity Mana Breathing (Mastered) / Pain Resistance

Traits: Mana Veins (Active) / All Elements Affinity

Aspects: Ether Authority / Villain Halo (Mastered)

Mana Heart: Silver → Mid Tier

[Title Effect → Fat Pig: INACTIVE. Condition no longer met.]

[Title Effect → Young Duke: Reputation weight increased in all noble interactions.]

[POWER STONES: 1847]

He looked at the balance for a moment.

"Two months," he said.

The warmth around him pressed in steadily.

"Let us make them count."