Lysara hadn't slept in thirty-six hours.
Kaela mentioned it, which meant it was a hard, unavoidable fact. Kaela's a warrior; she doesn't gossip, she states tactical realities. And the reality was, Lysara was breaking.
I found her in the restricted section of the library. It smelled like old paper, dust, and... panic.
Her table wasn't just messy. It was chaos. Not Lysara-chaos, which was always meticulously organized, but real chaos. Books were piled in jagged stacks, scrolls were held open with paperweights, and in the very center, inside a pulsing containment crystal, was a fresh shred of void residue.
She looked... wrecked.
"I was wrong," she whispered, without even looking up. Her hair, which was never out of its braid, was coming loose and falling around her face. "About... everything."
She shoved a map across the table. It was our expedition map, but she'd drawn on it. Lines. Geometric lines, connecting the red corruption zones.
"It's a pattern," I said, the blood draining from my face.
"It's deliberate," she whispered, her voice shaking. "It's not random, Ren. It's not the cult spreading it. They're... they're just squatters. This is... something else. Something bigger."
The implications hit me like a physical blow. The cult wasn't the fire; they were just roasting marshmallows on it.
"I... I missed it," she said, and I finally saw the tear tracks on her cheeks. "I'm... I'm the researcher. I'm the smart one! And I missed it!" She hit the table, a weak, defeated thump. "I failed! All our plans, your test, everything... it was all based on... on wrong data!"
I started to reach for her, but she snapped, "Don't! Don't... comfort me. I don't... deserve it."
The door creaked.
It was Kaela. She was carrying a tray with a skin of water and a chunk of bread. She just... stood there, taking in the entire scene. Lysara, a wreck. Me, useless. The map.
She just... nodded. Like this was a new kind of enemy to assess. She set the tray down on the only clear corner of the table.
"Okay," she said, her voice calm and steady. "Tell me."
And Lysara... she told her. The words just... spilled out. The patterns, the fear, the crushing weight of her failure. Kaela just listened, her face set, her amber eyes never leaving Lysara's.
When she was done, Kaela sat down. "Right," she said. "So. It's worse than we thought. Okay. Good to know."
Lysara just stared at her. "I... I failed..."
"No," Kaela said, her voice firm. "You found something. That's your job, isn't it? Finding the scary crap? 'Should have' is stupid. It's useless. We know now."
"I'm... scared," Lysara whispered. It was the smallest, most broken sound I'd ever heard from her.
"Good," Kaela said. "Fear's appropriate. Means we act scared."
And then... she just... pulled her. Yanked her right into a hug.
And Lysara... just... broke.
She folded. She buried her face in Kaela's shoulder and just... cried. All the exhaustion, all the fear... it just... came out. Kaela held her, one hand resting on the back of her head, her expression fierce, like she was guarding her.
I moved closer, sitting on Lysara's other side, putting a hand on her back. We just... sat there. A weird, broken triangle of... us.
"...Stoneheart," Lysara finally mumbled, her voice thick. "We... we tell Stoneheart."
"Tomorrow," Kaela said, her voice rough. "You sleep first. You're a mess."
Lysara didn't even argue. "Thank you," she just whispered.
Kaela's hand found mine, over Lysara's shoulder. Her grip was iron. We're okay. We're in this.
Elder Stoneheart listened. He just... listened. He looked at the map for a long, long time, his ancient eyes tracing the geometric lines Lysara had drawn.
He wasn't surprised.
"I suspected," he said, his voice a low rumble. "It was too... organized. But... suspicion... and proof..." He looked right at Lysara, and his gaze was kind. "This is... brave work, scholar. Good work."
We walked out, and Lysara was... in the middle. She was pale, her eyes were red, but she wasn't crying anymore.
And she was holding both our hands. Just... holding them, like anchors.
"What now?" she asked.
"Now," Kaela said, "we keep looking. We find out what it is."
"And... if we can't?" Lysara whispered.
"Then we try," I said. "And we try together."
Lysara squeezed our hands. Tighter.
We knew, now. We knew it was bigger than us. Bigger than the cult.
And knowing that... was so much worse.