The pain wakes me before the sun does.
Not with a jolt, not with a dramatic gasp—just a slow, awful awareness that my entire body is wrong.
It feels like I'm made of splinters and embers. Every breath drags across raw edges. My chest is a knot of barbed wire. My limbs are filled with wet sand and broken glass.
The HUD, apparently sensing that I might need context, helpfully flickers to life.
GOOD MORNING, FLAME THAT FEELS!
Pain Filter: OFFLINE (permanent)
Baseline Pain Level: 63% (moderate-to-severe)
Source:
– Terminal Arterial Necrosis (Primary Illness)
– Residual Authority Burn (Recent Overuse)
– Emotional FIRE Genre Tax (Atmospheric)
Recommendation: Do not get up.
"Noted," I croak.
I try to roll onto my side.
Every muscle protests like I've been beaten. My ribs flare with sudden hot agony—sharp enough that for a second I genuinely wonder if they've cracked.
"Fia?" Mira's voice is immediate, sleep-blurred but alarmed.
Of course she's here.
She's curled on the small sofa again, blanket around her shoulders, holy emblem still looped around her wrist like she fell asleep praying. At the sound of my breath hitching, she's up and at my side faster than an alarm could ring.
Her hands hover over me, a soft glow already forming.
"How bad?" she asks, voice small.
I open my mouth to say "fine."
What comes out is a strangled Noise, and screams, "Everything."
Her eyes shimmer.
"All right," she whispers. "Stay still. Just breathe. I'll…soften it."
Warm light sinks into my chest, my limbs. It doesn't erase the pain. Nothing is that simple anymore. But the sharpest edges sand down a little, spikes turning into deep, throbbing aches.
The HUD adjusts.
Mira's Blessing Applied: Pain -18%, Calm +12%
Warning: Excessive reliance may exhaust caster.
Mira is already a little pale.
"Hey," I rasp. "Don't…drain yourself before breakfast."
She tries to smile. It wobbles.
"You're more important than breakfast," she says.
"Objectively untrue," I mutter. "Breakfast is sacred."
She actually giggles, the tension in her shoulders easing a fraction.
"Seraphine will be here soon," she says. "And Lyriel. They were up all night in the tower."
"Please tell me," I wheeze, "they are inventing a new, improved, ethically sourced pain filter."
Her expression turns complicated.
"…They're trying," she says.
Later in the Day.
Fiametta's scream tore through her room like a blade—raw, ragged, and utterly without dignity. It wasn't the kind of sound heroes made in ballads; it was the kind that came from a body pushed past endurance, from bones splitting under invisible pressure, from a heart that had been flayed open one too many times. She arched off the bed, fingers clawing at the sheets until they ripped, her spine bowing as if some cruel god had hooked a chain beneath her ribs and was pulling, pulling—
Mira was there in an instant, her hands glowing with desperate light, but the blessing slid off Fiametta's skin like oil on water. The pain wasn't just resisting—it was devouring. Lyriel's sigils burst into the air, frantic equations scrolling too fast to follow, her voice sharp with something that wasn't quite panic but damn near close. "It's retroactive," she hissed. "The genre's punishing her for every second she spent *not* feeling it before—"
Elira didn't bother with diagnostics. She just climbed onto the bed, straddling Fiametta's thrashing hips, and pinned her down with all her weight. "Breathe," she snarled, close enough that Fiametta could taste the iron on her breath. "You don't get to fucking leave us like this." Seraphine's fingers tangled in Fiametta's sweat-slick hair, pressing their foreheads together as if she could siphon the agony through sheer will.
And then—
A whimper.
Not another scream. Just a broken, wet sound, the kind that happened when there was nothing left to tear out of a person's throat.
Fiametta went limp, gasping, her pupils blown wide with shock.
The HUD flickered weakly.
**PAIN EVENT: TERMINAL OVERLOAD**
*Duration: 11 hours, 42 minutes*
*Peak Intensity: 98%*
The HUD throws up another, more depressing window.
MAIN QUEST (TEMPORAL SUB-ARC): A WEEK OF FLAME
Objective: Survive 7 days of unfiltered illness while party attempts to create a Pain Modulation System that doesn't violate FIRE Genre rules.
Difficulty: "Absolutely Ridiculous"
Rewards:
– Not dying.
– New relationship flags.
Awesome.
Day One: Patch Notes
By the time Seraphine and Lyriel arrive, I've had time to catalog my body like a bug under glass.
Lungs: ache with every breath.
Heart: heavy, pounding too hard for too little movement.
Limbs: sore, like I ran a marathon in armor, uphill, backwards.
Skin: oversensitive—sheet against my legs feels like sandpaper.
Head: dull throb, occasionally sharp if I move too fast.
Terminal illness was much nicer when it was a vague concept and the occasional dramatic fainting spell.
The door opens without a knock; Seraphine strides in still wearing yesterday's clothes, hair yanked into a messy braid, the "I have not slept but I am powered by rage and coffee" look in full effect.
Lyriel, beside her, looks worse. Dark smudges under her eyes, hair hastily tied back, ink stains on her fingers. A half-dozen faintly glowing paper sigils float lazily behind her like exhausted butterflies.
"You're awake," Seraphine says, crossing the room quickly. "How are you?"
"Imagine," I say, "if my entire circulatory system was a bad design choice."
Mira makes a wounded noise. "Fia…"
Lyriel exhales through her nose. "Accurate," she says.
Seraphine glares at her.
"You're supposed to say something reassuring," she snaps.
"I'm supposed to say something truthful," Lyriel replies. "Reassurance comes after data."
She steps closer, the floating sigils fanning out around her.
"Fia," she says gently, "may I scan you again?"
"Scan away," I say. "Just don't install any new software without asking."
She rolls her eyes, but her lips twitch.
The sigils drift down, settling over my chest, head, limbs. I feel a faint tingle as they sink in, threads of cool magic weaving through the heat and ache.
Lyriel's eyes unfocus slightly as she reads whatever arcane diagnostics she's seeing.
"…as expected," she murmurs. "The illness was always this bad. The filter just…lied about it."
"I preferred the lie," I mutter.
"Of course you did," she says softly. "We all did."
Seraphine sits on the edge of the bed, close but careful not to jostle me.
"My father has officially banned you from anything more strenuous than walking to the window and back," she says. "He put it in writing. There's a seal."
"Wow," I say. "Properly grounded."
"House Ardentis sent their own addendum," Lyriel adds. "Helena says if you so much as attempt a light jog she will personally tie you to the bed with enchanted ribbon."
Mira's cheeks go pink. "She meant…for safety," she says quickly.
The HUD throws up a side note.
NEW DEBUFF: Overprotective Parental Edicts
Movement Speed: -80%
Rebellion Impulse: +20%
Seraphine reaches into her satchel and pulls out a rolled parchment.
"We also got this," she says, waving it like a threat.
"What is it?" I ask.
"The official founding document of the Fire Genre Mitigation Committee," she says. "Ratified overnight."
I groan. "That's not a real thing."
"It is now," Lyriel says. "It has a crest. And a motto."
"What's the motto," I ask, dreading the answer.
Seraphine unrolls it, clears her throat, and reads:
"'We burn the script, not the girl.'"
I stare.
Mira hides a smile behind her hand.
Lyriel looks like she'd like to set the parchment on fire on principle, but she doesn't.
"It's stupid," I say.
"It's ours," Seraphine says softly.
For a moment, the pain recedes under a wave of something else.
I look between them.
"Okay," I say. "So what's the plan? For the week? For me? For this…'flame that feels' situation."
Lyriel taps one of the hovering sigils, sending it spinning away.
"Phase One," she says. "Observation and stabilization. No large spells. No Authority. No emotional catastrophes."
"Working on that last one," I mutter.
"Phase Two," she continues, "is experimentation. Pain modulation, not elimination."
"Because FIRE genre won't let us just turn it off," I say.
Her eyes soften. "You're learning."
"I hate that I'm learning," I say.
Mira squeezes my hand.
Seraphine leans closer. "Our job this week," she says, "is to keep you as comfortable as we can while Lyriel and Mira build something that doesn't break you, and Elira makes sure no one bothers you while we do it."
"Elira's on guard duty?" I ask.
"As of an hour ago," Seraphine says. "She's terrorizing the palace staff in your name."
Somewhere in the hallway, there's the muffled sound of Elira shouting, "You don't barge in on her just because you're a duke! This hallway is now a boss room!"
I smile, despite the ache in my chest.
The HUD dings.
WEEK STATUS: Day 1 – "Patch Notes"
Party Focus:
– Seraphine: Shielding you from politics.
– Lyriel: Researching Pain Proxy & Authority Dampers.
– Mira: Continuous stabilization.
– Elira: Physical security & distraction.
Your Role:
– Survive.
– Be honest when it hurts.
"Being honest," I say, "is going to be the hard part."
Mira's fingers intertwine with mine.
"We'll help," she says quietly.
Day Two: Fire in the Bones
Pain is stupidly mundane.
That's the part that surprises me.
I expected drama. Flare-ups only when I did something heroic, or ominous spikes when a flag trigger hit.
Instead, it's…sitting.
Sitting and hurting.
Little things: the way my lungs protest when I laugh. The way climbing three steps to the balcony makes my thighs feel like they've been beaten with clubs. The way my heart flutters in my chest at random, then slams hard enough that I see black at the edges of my vision.
The HUD updates like a slightly-too-honest fitness tracker.
ACTION: Stood up from bed.
Heart Rate: 132 → 148 bpm.
Pain Spike: +9%
Mira's Worry: +27%
"Back to bed," Mira says, scandalized, every time I try to pretend I'm fine.
"If I stay in bed all week, I'll fuse with it," I argue.
"That is medically inaccurate," she says sternly.
"Emotionally accurate," I say.
She huffs, but she lets me take a few slow laps around the room, staying at my side like a living crutch, ready to catch me when my knee threatens to buckle.
Halfway through the day, an especially nasty wave hits.
No warning. One moment I'm sitting on the couch, trying to read a book Isolde sent. The next, a white-hot spike lances from my chest up into my jaw and down my left arm.
I drop the book.
"Fia?" Mira's voice.
I can't answer. My breath won't come right. It's shallow and sharp, like my lungs forgot how to expand.
The HUD flashes in sickening red.
ALERT: Cardiac Pain Surge
Cause: Illness flare + residual Authority scar tissue.
Recommendation: IMMEDIATE INTERVENTION.
Hands. Warm, cool, solid. Mira's palms on my chest, magic flooding in. The door slamming open—Elira, sword half-drawn, eyes wild. Lyriel skidding in a moment later, sigils already spinning around her. Seraphine, breathless, hair in disarray, as if she ran here from wherever politics had her trapped.
I hate that look on their faces.
"Can't…breathe," I gasp.
"Count with me," Mira says, voice shaking but steady. "In—one—two—three. Out—two—three—four."
Her magic doesn't erase the pain, but it steadies my heart. Slows the panicked pounding. The burning in my chest recedes from "spear through the sternum" to "smoldering coal."
Lyriel's sigils settle over me, humming.
"Pulse stabilizing," she says. "But this is what we were warned about. The illness isn't…gentle anymore."
Seraphine is at my side, one hand braced on the couch, the other on my shoulder.
"You tell us immediately if it spikes like that again," she says. "No trying to 'see if it passes.' No being brave. No minimizing."
"Brave is…overrated," I manage.
Elira exhales slowly, tension bleeding out of her shoulders.
"I nearly cut a guard in half getting here," she mutters. "You're banned from sudden pain events."
"I'll…try to schedule them," I say weakly.
Mira's laugh is watery. "Please don't," she says.
Later, when they've all calmed down and I'm back in bed, wrapped in blankets and shame, Lyriel stays behind while the others go argue with healers and recheck orders.
She sits at the foot of the bed, notes hovering around her, pen tapping against the air.
"I wish," she says suddenly, "that I could punch the genre."
I blink. "That's new."
She scowls. "Pain filters are basic. Even the old gods allowed for them, in myths. Heroes suffered, yes, but not like…this. Not constantly, not just from existing."
"Maybe this world's writers were edgy," I say.
She actually snorts.
"I've been analyzing the Authority's structure," she says, gesturing, and a little three-dimensional sigil tree appears over the bed—a hologram of my own stupid power. "Your fire isn't just destructive. It's…interpretive. It rewrites reality locally. The pain filter was a patch someone added after the fact."
"Someone?" I echo.
She presses her lips together. "You," she says. "On some level. Or the thing that woke up in you. Either way, it wasn't natural. And when you overused the Authority, the patch cracked."
"So you can't just…reinstall it," I say.
Her eyes soften.
"No," she says. "But I can try to build scaffolding. Something to catch the worst of it. A buffer between you and the raw edges."
"Like…what?" I ask.
She hesitates.
"Pain sharing," she says finally. "Distribution. You're carrying it all alone now because the system thinks you can. We can…disagree."
I stare at her.
"You think I'd let you hurt just so I hurt less?" I ask, a little horrified.
"I think you'd refuse," she says calmly. "Which is why I'm talking to the others about it before presenting you with something already built."
"Lyriel," I protest.
She leans closer, eyes intent.
"Listen to me," she says. "Pain is not virtue. It's not currency. It's not something you owe the world. It's a sensation, and right now it's louder than your life. If there's a way to share it—safely, controlled, minimal—I want that option."
My eyes sting.
"Why," I ask quietly, "are you all like this?"
"Bad taste," she says. "We fell for a walking disaster."
I laugh, and it hurts, but I don't stop.
The first warning comes in the form of heat—a sudden, spreading warmth that floods Fia's thighs before she even registers the need. Her breath hitches mid-sentence during Elira's rant about palace guard incompetence, fingers digging into Sir Fluffsalot's plush fur. The HUD flickers, too slow to warn her:
**BLADDER FAILURE IMMINENT**
*Cause: Nerve degradation + pain-disrupted somatic awareness*
*Severity: 85% voided*
She doesn't gasp. Doesn't jerk. Just goes terribly still as the wetness soaks through the thin linen of her borrowed sleep pants, pooling beneath her on the mattress. The shame is sharper than the arterial necrosis ever was.
Mira notices first. Always does. Her nose wrinkles not in disgust, but in *calculation* as she catches the faint metallic tang beneath the floral room fresheners. Without breaking stride, she steps sideways to block Seraphine's view.
"Lyriel," Mira says, crisp as a scalpel, "assist me with the *pillows*."
Lyriel's gaze darts down. Sees. Understands. "Ah. The *lumpy* ones." She snaps her fingers, and three illusion sigils flare to life around Fia's lap dazzling, distracting swirls of aurora light.
Elira, bless her, barrels into Seraphine with a sudden, exaggerated stumble. "Whoops! Sword arm's twitchy today *come spar with me RIGHT NOW*"
Seraphine's protest is cut off as Elira bodily hauls her toward the door. Fia squeezes her eyes shut. The mattress shifts as Mira and Lyriel work in tandem Lyriel muttering a drying charm beneath her breath, Mira already sliding clean Fia's trembling legs.
"It's *fine*," Mira whispers, pressing a kiss to Fia's clammy forehead. "Just another stupid system failure."
The HUD, chastised, updates:
*Embarrassment Level: 94% → 63%*
*Party Efficiency: MAXIMUM*
Day Three: The World Keeps Moving
Pain does not pause the empire.
I learn this when Seraphine comes in late afternoon, still in formal attire, smelling faintly of ink and steel.
She's exhausted. I can see it in the slump of her shoulders, the way she kicks off her heels with more force than necessary. But her eyes brighten when she sees me sitting up, propped against cushions.
"You're up," she says, crossing the room quickly.
"Relative term," I say. "Up-ish."
She sits on the edge of the bed and takes my hand, thumb rubbing absent circles over my knuckles.
"How is it today?" she asks quietly.
"Milder than yesterday," I say honestly. "More…background knife, less surprise spear."
She exhales. "Progress."
"Or I'm just getting used to it," I say.
Her jaw tightens. "Don't."
"Don't what?" I ask.
"Normalize it," she says. "Let it become something you think you have to endure without complaint. You're allowed to hate this."
I shrug. The motion pulls at something in my chest. I hiss.
Seraphine's eyes flash.
She lifts her free hand, and a faint golden light wraps around my ribs—one of the simple supportive spells they taught royal heirs in case they had to keep themselves together on the battlefield.
The spell doesn't heal, but it braces. The pain lessens a fraction.
"Better?" she asks.
"Yeah," I say. "You finally found a way to physically hold me together."
She smiles, but it's tired.
"How was your day?" I ask.
She groans, dropping her head briefly to my shoulder.
"There are nobles," she mutters, "who genuinely suggested we codify 'acceptable levels of calamity deployment' in law, as if you're a siege engine we can roll out on a schedule."
Anger cuts through my haze.
"Name them," I say. "I just want to talk. With some mild fire."
She laughs, muffled against my shoulder, then sits up.
"I told them," she says, "that any law treating you as a resource would be vetoed before the ink dried. I may also have threatened to redirect our entire military budget to public healthcare."
"Wait we have public healthcare?" I ask.
"We're…working on it," she says. "You're not the only one in pain in this kingdom, Fia. You're just the one my heart breaks over first."
I swallow.
"Sorry," I say. "For…making your life harder."
Her hand tightens on mine.
"You are the only reason I'm not drowning in this role," she says, voice low. "Don't you ever apologize for existing."
My eyes sting again. This week is turning my tear ducts into overachievers.
"Okay," I whisper.
She brushes a kiss across my knuckles.
"Also," she adds, a bit lighter, "Princess Elenora sent another letter."
"Oh no," I say. "Did she hear about the battle?"
"She heard that you 'went boom again,'" Seraphine says dryly. "She drew a picture."
She pulls a folded paper from her sleeve and opens it.
It's—honestly impressive. Crayon, yes, and a bit wildly scaled, but she's captured me in a big red dress with ridiculous amounts of fire around my hands. Tiny stick figures lie on the ground, some with little X's for eyes.
Underneath, in big careful letters:
BIG SISTER FIA NO MORE BOOM OR I'LL GET MAD!!!!!!!
I laugh despite everything, then wince.
"Ow," I say.
Seraphine smiles, even as she looks worried.
"She also added," Seraphine says, flipping the paper over, "that she wants to move the teddy bear tea to your rooms until you're 'less breakable.'"
"That's…sweet," I say. "And a little ominous."
"She loves you very much," Seraphine says. "As do we all."
She leans forward and rests her forehead against mine.
"I know this week feels endless," she whispers. "But it's just a week. After that, we'll have something. Lyriel promised me."
"Big promise," I murmur.
"She doesn't make small ones," Seraphine says.
Day Four: Research & Resistance
By midweek, the pain has settled into a terrible sort of routine.
Mornings: worst in my chest and joints. Afternoons: heavy fatigue, like someone has turned gravity up. Evenings: head throbs, random organ lottery spikes.
The HUD helpfully graphs it.
PAIN PATTERN – DAYS 1–4
Peaks:
– 06:00–09:00 (chest, lungs)
– 14:00–16:00 (muscular, fatigue)
– 21:00–00:00 (neural, headache)
Recommendation: Stagger interventions. Don't let Mira do everything.
We build a schedule.
Mira insists on morning and evening rounds: gentle healing, breathing exercises, pain-dulling blessings that don't mess with Lyriel's readings.
The palace healers, once they stop fainting at my charts, contribute herbal mixtures and strange salves for my joints. Some help. Some just smell bad.
Lyriel commandeers the afternoons.
She arrives on Day Four with dark circles under her eyes and ink on her jaw, trailing papers and a small, intricate, silver bracelet.
"Elira caught me trying to haul an entire runic plate up the stairs," she says, tone offended. "She made me…condense."
Elira, hovering at the doorway like a guard wolf, grins. "She was going to bring a full altar into your room," she says. "You need space to breathe, not trip over magic furniture."
"What is it?" I ask, nodding at the bracelet.
Lyriel's expression shifts into something like hope.
"A prototype," she says. "Pain Proxy v0.1."
"Lyriel," Mira says sharply. "We agreed to discuss"
"I'm not activating it yet," Lyriel says. "I just want Fia to see it. And I want you here when she decides."
That…makes my stomach flip.
Lyriel sits on the edge of the bed and holds up the bracelet.
It's beautiful, in a terrifying way delicate runes etched along the band, little, red tinged crystals set at quarter intervals. It hums faintly, like a heartbeat.
"I can't rebuild your old filter," she says. "It was a cheat—the Authority hid half your own state from you. But I can create channels." She taps the crystals. "These resonate with your signature and if linked others'."
"So it…splits my pain," I say.
"Modulates it," she corrects. "Takes spikes and shaves them, distributing a fraction through linked wearers. You would always feel the most. We would feel…echoes."
My chest tightens, and not because of the illness.
"I don't want—" I start.
Mira takes my hand.
"Let her finish," she says softly.
Lyriel swallows.
"This is not a tool for everyday aches," she says. "We all agreed on that. Pain is information; numbing it entirely is dangerous. But for the surges—the ones like Day Two, where your heart nearly stopped, I want a way for that overload to not hit only you."
Her eyes, usually so composed, are raw.
"I have watched too many patients die from shock," she says quietly. "I will not add you to that list because my ethics were too…pure to allow sharing."
"And you're all…okay with this?" I ask, looking between them.
Mira nods. "If I can take even a little of it," she whispers, "gladly."
Elira, still at the door, steps forward, jaw set.
"You think a little chest pain will scare me?" she scoffs. "I've taken arrows for you. This is nothing."
Seraphine walks in just in time to hear that, eyes narrowing.
"It is not 'nothing'," she says. "But I agree. You're not the only one who gets to bleed for this kingdom, Fia."
I look at the bracelet.
I think about the way my vision went white on the plains, the way my body screamed.
I think about four women's faces twisted in terror.
I think about fairness. About damage.
"I don't want to hurt you," I say.
Lyriel's mouth quirks.
"You already do," she says. "Every day. This would just make it…less metaphorical."
"Not helping," Seraphine mutters.
Mira squeezes my fingers.
"It's our choice too," she says. "Let us make it."
The HUD offers an option.
NEW SYSTEM FEATURE AVAILABLE: Shared Burden (Prototype)
Enable Pain Sharing?
– YES (You are not alone)
– NO (You carry it all)
Warning: FIRE Genre will not permit complete transfer. Suffering cannot be erased, only redistributed.
I close my eyes.
Breathing hurts. Heartbeat hurts. Existing hurts.
But the worst part of this week hasn't been the pain itself.
It's been the looks on their faces when I tried to pretend it wasn't there.
"Okay," I whisper. "On one condition."
Four heads tilt.
"You don't hide it from me," I say. "If it hurts you, you say so. No pretending you're fine just because you think I'll feel guilty."
Seraphine huffs. "You're learning our tricks," she says.
"Unfortunately," I say.
Mira nods earnestly. "I promise."
Elira shrugs. "I complain all the time anyway."
Lyriel smiles, small but real.
"Then say it," she says. "Consent matters. The system respects words."
I swallow, then nod at the HUD.
"Enable Shared Burden," I say quietly.
The bracelet warms in Lyriel's hands.
She fastens it around my wrist.
For a heartbeat, nothing happens.
Then there's a sensation like…breathing out. Not of pain vanishing, but of the room widening around it. The tight fist around my lungs unclenches a fraction. The ache in my ribs spreads, thinning, less a sharp point and more a broad, dull band.
Mira inhales sharply, hand flying to her own chest.
Elira winces, rubbing her sternum.
Seraphine's jaw tightens.
Lyriel exhales through her teeth. "That's the echo," she says. "I kept the ratio low. Ten to one at most."
"How bad?" I ask, panic flaring. "Tell me—"
"Like…a mild stitch after running," Mira says. "Nothing like what you've described."
"Annoying," Elira says. "Manageable. I've had worse from bad ale."
Seraphine nods. "I've taken blows that hurt more."
Lyriel taps another sigil in the air.
"That was just baseline," she says. "The real test will be the next spike. But—" she looks at me, eyes shining with cautious hope, "—does it feel…lighter?"
I scan myself.
Still hurts. Still heavy. But the edges are blunter. The sense of being crushed under it all is…less.
"Yeah," I say softly. "Like the world…shifted. Just a little."
The HUD flashes.
SHARED BURDEN: ACTIVE
Pain Distribution:
– Fia: 72%
– Seraphine: 7%
– Elira: 7%
– Lyriel: 7%
– Mira: 7%
Note: Ratios adjustable. Genre allows partial mitigation if love is stupid enough.
My eyes burn.
"Thank you," I whisper.
Mira smiles through her own faint grimace. "Always," she says.
Elira squeezes my ankle lightly through the blanket. "Told you," she says. "We're in this together."
Seraphine leans in, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
"I will never," she whispers, "let you carry everything alone again."
Lyriel exhales, shoulders sagging in relief.
"Good," she says. "Now we iterate."
Day Five: Fire, Shared
We don't have to wait long for a real test.
Late afternoon, right on schedule, my heart decides it's time to reenact a boss battle in my chest.
The pain hits, but this time it's…different.
Still sharp. Still frightening. But the spike that would have taken me from "functioning" to "curling on the floor" instead rises, then flattens, like a wave hitting a seawall.
I gasp.
Mira, who's sitting right beside me with her knitting, stiffens, hand flying to the same place on her chest.
"Oh," she says softly. "There it is."
Elira, leaning against the wall doing lazy sword drills, sucks in a breath and swears.
Seraphine, reading at the desk, flinches, hand pressing to her ribs.
Lyriel, halfway through a diagram, hisses in pain.
"Report," she says, voice tight.
Mira squeezes my hand. "Seven out of ten for her," she says, glancing at my face. "Maybe…two for me."
"One and a half," Elira grunts. "Could fight through it."
"Two," Seraphine says. "Annoying, not incapacitating."
Lyriel exhales slowly. "And you, Fia?"
I ride the wave, focusing on the numbers, on the rhythm.
Not nothing. Not even close. But instead of feeling like my heart is being skewered, it feels like it's constricted by a too-tight band—a deep, horrible ache, spikes blunted.
"Five or six," I manage. "Down from…an eleven."
Mira's magic flows, smoothing the worst, and it feels like it actually has room to work now that I'm not at absolute capacity.
The HUD scrolls.
PAIN SURGE EVENT – SHARED BURDEN TEST
Previous Spike (Day 2): 96% | You: 100% | Others: 0%
Current Spike (Day 5): 78% | You: 70% | Others: ~8% each
Result: You did not scream. You did not black out. You are still here.
I exhale shakily.
"Okay," I whisper. "I can…live with this."
Mira's eyes fill with tears, but she smiles.
"We can too," she says.
Elira flexes her shoulder, rolling out the phantom ache. "I've had training injuries worse than that," she says. "This? Easy."
Seraphine nods, though her jaw is tight. "We'll adapt," she says. "We always do."
Lyriel scribbles notes in the air, numbers and sigils swirling.
"The system isn't fighting us as hard as I expected," she says. "FIRE genre wants you to feel it, but it doesn't care if we feel it too, as long as you're still the main target."
"How generous," I mutter.
Mira leans her forehead against my shoulder.
"It's okay," she says. "Let it be unfair. We'll just be unfair back."
Day Six: Quiet Moments
Pain, shared, makes strange spaces.
Because the spikes are softer now, there are quiet pockets. Not normal—never normal—but moments where the ache is background instead of center stage.
In those spaces, life sneaks in.
Princess Elenora is allowed a supervised visit.
She bursts into the room like a small, glitter-covered hurricane, dragging a stuffed bear that's missing one eye.
"BIG SISTER FIA!" she yells, then stops dead when she sees me propped up in bed, color drained, hair messy.
Her lower lip wobbles.
"Oh no," she whispers. "You're…crumpled."
I can't help it. I laugh.
It hurts, but less than before. The shared burden bracelet warms around my wrist, some of the spike shaving off to the others—Mira winces faintly, Seraphine rubs her side, Elira swears, Lyriel sighs—but it's…manageable.
"I've been crumpled for a while," I say. "Just…invisibly."
She marches up to the bed, bear clutched tightly.
"I brought Sir Fluffsalot," she declares. "He is very brave and very soft. You can hug him when you hurt and he will bite the pain."
She thrusts the bear at me.
My throat closes.
"I thank you," I say, taking the bear carefully. "He looks…fierce."
"He eats nightmares," she says solemnly. "And stupid illnesses. And mean people."
"Good diet," I say.
Seraphine hovers near the door, watching with fond exasperation. Lyriel pretends to be absorbed in notes, but I see her soften around the eyes. Mira is openly teary. Elira has retreated to a far corner, because she knows if Elenora calls her "Aunt Elira" again she'll melt.
For half an hour, the princess chirps about her day: about a cat she saw, about her tutor being boring, about how she'll grow up and make laws that say "no more hurting Fia."
"Ambitious," I say.
"I'm a princess," she says. "It's my job."
She eventually has to go, dragged away by a harried nurse. She leaves Sir Fluffsalot on my pillow like a guardian.
When the door closes, the room is quiet.
I clutch the silly bear to my chest.
"It helps," I say, to no one in particular.
Mira smiles. "Good," she says.
Seraphine nods. "If your illness doesn't fear us," she says, "maybe it'll fear him."
Elira snorts. "I do."
Lyriel clears her throat. "For the record," she says, "I have confirmed that stuffed animal proximity has no measurable effect on pain."
"Blasphemy," I say, squeezing Sir Fluffsalot. "He's clearly giving +10 to morale."
The HUD obliges.
TRINKET EQUIPPED: Sir Fluffsalot, Bear of Vengeance
Effect: Morale +10, Hope +15, Reason To Keep Living +??
(Values unstable, but significant.)
I smile.
It hurts.
I keep smiling anyway.
Day Seven: Patch 1.0
By the time the seventh day dawns, I am bone-tired.
Pain, even shared, is exhausting. It grinds down edges. It eats patience. It turns simple tasks sitting up, eating, laughing into mini boss fights.
But I am also…still here.
Not in a vague, "I guess I survived" way.
Here, with clearer eyes. With a sharper sense of my own limits. With four women and one small princess and an overbearing family and a whole committee of idiots trying to rewrite the world around me.
The HUD gives a little fanfare.
CONGRATULATIONS!
You have survived:
– 7 days of unfiltered, non-trivialized illness
– 3 major pain surges
– 47 overprotective interventions
– 1 teddy bear appointment
Shared Burden System: STABLE (v1.0)
Pain Filter: PERMANENTLY DISABLED (but buffered)
Genre Compliance: Grudgingly Accepted
I wake to the sound of quiet arguing.
"—still think we should turn the ratio up," Elira is saying. "She's barely sleeping."
"And I still think you're an idiot," Lyriel replies. "If we take too much, the system will just punish her more to compensate. It has a sense of drama."
"I can handle more," Elira insists.
"I know," Mira says gently. "But should you?"
Seraphine sighs. "We have to respect her pain too. It's hers. We're here to keep it from killing her, not to steal it."
I clear my throat.
They all turn.
"Morning," I say. "You all look like you've been discussing me instead of letting me sleep through it."
"Guilty," Seraphine admits. "How are you?"
I take stock.
Chest: still heavy. Still achy. But less like I'm being strangled.
Limbs: sore, but I can imagine walking to the window without collapsing.
Head: dull throb. Manageable.
Pain is still here.
So am I.
"Baseline…forty?" I say. "Down from sixty-something."
Lyriel checks a floating sigil. "Forty-two," she says. "Close enough."
"Meaning?" I ask.
"Meaning," she says, "the combination of rest, Mira's consistent work, and the Shared Burden bracelet has taken you from 'constant emergency' to 'chronic but survivable.'"
Mira smiles, tired but radiant. "Your heart rhythm is less erratic," she says. "Your lungs are still scarred, but they're…adapting."
"We got you through the week," Elira says. "You didn't die. Therefore, we win."
Seraphine leans in and brushes hair back from my face.
"This doesn't mean we're done," she says. "We still have laws to pass. Systems to build. Battles to fight without you burning yourself alive."
"And tea parties," Mira adds.
"And one very delayed mana-discussion meeting at the Arcane Circle," Lyriel says. "In a controlled environment. With me watching you like a hawk."
The HUD pings one last time.
ARC COMPLETE: Week of Pure Pain
Unlocked:
– Shared Burden (Pain Distribution System)
– Deeper Bonds (Everyone saw the worst and stayed)
– New Main Quest:
"Live Long Enough To Be Bored By This"
Genre Note: FIRE satisfied. Pain acknowledged, not erased. Love allowed to cheat, slightly.
I exhale slowly.
It hurts.
It also feels…okay.
I look at each of them in turn.
Seraphine, eyes fierce and soft.
Elira, solid and wild, a wall at my back.
Lyriel, sharp and fragile, hiding hope behind data.
Mira, gentle and stubborn, hands still warm on my chest.
"I'm not…better," I say. "This still sucks."
"Yes," Lyriel says.
"Absolutely," Elira agrees.
Mira nods, eyes wet.
"But," I continue, "I'm…not alone. And that makes it…less impossible."
Seraphine smiles, and it's like sunlight breaking through stormclouds.
"That," she says, "was the point."
She leans down and kisses me, soft and careful, like I'm made of glass and flame.
Elira groans. "Not fair," she says. "She's in bed. I want one too."
Mira blushes. "Elira…"
Lyriel sighs. "If you all start climbing into bed with her we'll tangle the IV lines."
"I don't have IV lines," I protest.
"Yet," Lyriel says darkly.
They bicker, gently, around me.
The pain hums under my skin, a constant, unwelcome companion.
But over it, through it, around it, there is warmth.
Hands. Voices. Laughter.
Sir Fluffsalot staring down any nightmares that dare come close.
The world outside my window, messy and dangerous and alive, waiting.
I tighten my fingers around the shared burden bracelet.
"Okay," I think, as the week's quest log fades and new ones appear.
"Genre: Fire. You wanted me to feel it. I do. I won't forget.
But I'm still playing."
And somewhere in the background, the HUD quietly, stubbornly sets a new reminder:
Upcoming Event:
Teddy Bear Tea Party – Rescheduled.
Difficulty: Low.
Reward: Joy.
For the first time in days, the ache in my chest is joined by something else.
A spark.
Small.
Stubborn.
Hope.