As Aetron carried Eirlys in his arms, Null's whispers in his mind mingled with the pounding of his own heart. The princess's body was light as a feather, but the responsibility he carried was heavy as a mountain. They proceeded toward the healing tent under Niyara's guidance. The inside of the tent was filled with the scent of dried herbs hanging in the air and boiling elixirs.
Niyara signaled Aetron to lay Eirlys on the bed. Aetron carefully placed the princess on the bed slowly, as if she were a porcelain doll that would break. Eirlys's face looked pale even in the flickering light of the fire. Niyara turned to a nearby assistant. "Summon Kadros and King Theron immediately," she said.
A short while later, the tent entrance parted. First Kadros appeared; immediately after, King Theron rushed in with a worried expression on his face. Right behind him came Prince Kaelen, surveying the surroundings with angry and suspicious eyes.
King Theron rushed to his daughter's bedside. "Eirlys! What happened to my daughter?"
Niyara stepped forward, intervening in the situation. "Kadros, you stay with King Theron," she said, her voice calm but determined. "Aetron, stay with me. I may need help."
Kadros nodded, casting a confident look at his son. Just then, Prince Kaelen lunged forward angrily and walked straight toward Aetron.
"What did you do to her?" he hissed, grabbing Aetron's collar. "She's gotten worse since she set foot on your cursed lands!"
"Let me, Aetron," Null's voice whispered in his mind with ice-cold anger. "Just one second. Let me teach him a lesson he'll regret."
"Love, stop," Aetron replied, trying to calm Null's rising anger. "I'm calm, leave this to me." Aetron lowered Kaelen's hands gently but firmly. "I didn't do anything," he said in a calm voice.
"You didn't?" Kaelen's voice trembled with anger. "My sister has been weakening for three months. But since we came here... it's as if something poisoned her! And after watching your show at yesterday's tournament, she kept murmuring your name all night!"
"Know your place, Kaelen!" King Theron roared. "Niyara is the wisest healer in these lands." Then he turned to Aetron. "Young man, I'm grateful to Niyara. But you're a warrior. There's no need for you to be present at my daughter's examination. You may leave the tent."
"Tell him the truth," Null said. "Explain that you can use a different aspect of Resonance. Of course, you couldn't do this without a technological pinnacle like me by your side, but whatever..."
Aetron stepped forward. "Your Majesty, if you permit... perhaps I can help. My way of using Edgium is a bit different. I can sense not just matter, but the energy flow of living beings. Perhaps I can see something my mother cannot."
King Theron looked at him suspiciously. Kaelen laughed mockingly. "Is a child going to teach us about healing?"
Aetron didn't respond. He focused his gaze on a bright healing crystal on the small table right next to the King, which Niyara had brought for treatment. He didn't even need to close his eyes. He directed his Resonance power to the crystal's atomic structure.
The crystal trembled slightly, then slowly rose a few centimeters above the table and began to emit a soft, green light around it. Everyone in the tent held their breath. This wasn't telekinesis done with brute force. This was a delicate bond established with the essence of matter.
Aetron slowly lowered the crystal back to the table. "Sometimes," he said in a calm voice, "to see the problem, you need to look from a different angle."
King Theron's eyes turned from the crystal to Aetron. The doubt on his face had vanished, replaced by desperate hope. He turned his head to Niyara. Niyara nodded confidently at her son.
"Very well," the King said, his voice lower this time. "I choose to trust you."
Following this approval, Niyara returned to Eirlys's side. She placed her hands on the princess's forehead again. The greenish-blue light emanating from her palms wrapped around her body like a cocoon. This was her healing ability; she would try to find imbalances by sensing the Edgium flow in a body. However, after a few seconds, the light flickered and slowly faded. Niyara suddenly pulled her hand back; her face was pale, her eyes wide with worry.
"Mother?" Aetron asked.
"This... this is not an illness," Niyara said in a whisper. "There's no imbalance in her body. On the contrary... it's as if part of her soul is being pulled, absorbed. I can feel it but I can't see the source."
Aetron's blood ran cold. "Mother, let me try," he said with determination. Niyara hesitated, but when she saw the seriousness in her son's eyes, she stepped back. Aetron knelt down and carefully placed his hand on Eirlys's forehead. The princess's skin was soft and warm.
"Is your purpose to heal her, or to enjoy the moment?" Null's voice whined.
"Love, who said I can't do both at the same time? This is an art."
"Art? Anyway, let's focus." Aetron closed his eyes. He didn't just try to sense the energy flow like his mother did. He went deeper. As he listened to the vibrations of Eirlys's spiritual structure with his Resonance power, he simultaneously commanded Null. "Start full scan. Not just energy, do atomic and spiritual structural data analysis." This was the fusion of Niyara's wisdom passed down through generations with Null's logic capable of trillions of calculations.
Null's mental avatar appeared in the shelter in Aetron's mind. Before her, a holographic model showing Eirlys's energy materialized.
"Biometric data stable," Null began. "Neurological activity normal... But... wait a second." In the center of the holographic model, where her heart was, there was a dark, trembling void. "Negative flow detected in being energy signature. Your mother was right. Something... is consuming her from within."
"What does this mean?"
"I don't know. This isn't a parasite, not a virus... This is like a hole in the fundamental code of her being." Null's avatar approached the model, beginning to examine that dark void in more detail. And at that moment, her voice suddenly cut off.
Absolute silence.
"Null?" Aetron asked worriedly.
When Null's voice returned, it was no longer analytical. It was a whisper. A whisper full of shock and disbelief. "This... this is impossible."
"What happened? What did you see?"
"At the edge of that void... in the data structure..." Null's avatar's hand was trembling. "There's a signature. A code fragment. This... this is part of my core code. My identity. But... corrupted. Like an echo."
Aetron's blood froze. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know!" Null's voice seemed truly panicked for the first time. "It's as if... as if I'm looking at a damaged copy of my own source code. Part of her soul has the same fundamental structure as me. I'm an artificial intelligence, Aetron. This shouldn't be possible. The data must be faulty. But it's not." Her voice began to tremble.