Chương 105: Chapter 38: Under the Moonlight

As she walked aimlessly, she knew with certainty that she needed to anchor herself in the tangible, in that which was not tinged by silent will and prices paid in years of life. The first thing she did upon reaching her quarters was to go to the thermal baths accompanied by her slaves, and there she approached Samira. —Speak to me of books —she asked her, in a soft Sahric. Samira, the scholar with the deep gaze, blinked and then, as if a floodgate were opening, began to ramble.

She spoke for a full hour, with a contained but palpable passion, about the best methods for classifying volumes: by theme, by chronology, by school of thought, by the origin of the parchment, by the complexity of the binding… Her voice, monotonous but precise, was a lullaby of academic normalcy that washed part of the residue of Valerian's lesson from Selena's mind. Then, she turned toward Fjora.

Without a word, she planted herself in front of the warrior, extended her arm, and with a jerk of her head, challenged her to an arm-wrestling match. Fjora, with her impassive expression, nodded once and took her hand. Selena lost. Seven times in a row, her arm was bent down to the table with an ease that bordered on the humiliating. But on the eighth, after gritting her teeth and concentrating all her strength, all her frustration of the day, she managed to maintain resistance for a couple of seconds more.

Fjora, finally, pushed and won, but when she let go of Selena's hand, a fleeting, almost imperceptible flash of recognition shone in her glacial blue eyes. It was not approval, but the simple registry of a minimal improvement, of an effort that had not been there before. That small victory, that spark of non-verbal connection, was the last comfort she needed. Upon reaching her room, exhaustion completely overcame her. She put on her usual linen nightgown, an automatic gesture of normalcy, and dropped onto the bed.

There were no dreams that night. There were no visions of the Void, nor echoes of battles, nor whispers of ineffable creatures. She fell into a well of deep and restorative darkness, a total oblivion that her mind and body were screaming for. Until she awoke and knew, immediately, that something was horribly wrong. There was no sun. Only the cold, pale light of the full moon, filtering through a gap in some wooden boards that rocked with a constant rattling. She was not in her bed.

The sensation beneath her body was rough, of dirty straw and unpolished wood. A sudden lurch shook her, and she understood she was in a moving wagon. She tried to sit up, but her limbs did not respond. Her hands were tied tightly behind her back with a rough rope that bit into her wrists. Her ankles were equally bound. The worst part, without a doubt, was: a thick rag tasting of earth and sweat filled her mouth, held in place by a leather gag that cut into the corners of her lips and pressed down on her jaw.

Only a guttural, muffled sound could escape her throat. Before her, with his back turned, driving the cart, was a man. Dressed entirely in black, from the hood that concealed his head to his dusty boots. The silhouette was broad, impersonal, a smear of darkness against the nocturnal landscape that paraded, blurry, behind him. Selena struggled, but the bonds were expert, designed to immobilize without harming, at least, not yet. Panic, cold and sharp, flooded her chest. It was not a dream.

The roughness of the straw, the pain of the ropes, the disgusting taste of the rag, the rattling of the wheels over an uneven road… everything was too real, too visceral. Where am I? Who is that man? How did I get here? Where are Fjora and Samira? She questioned herself, but there were no answers.

The moon, an indifferent witness, shone over the deserted road, illuminating the cart that carried her, bound and gagged, toward a darkness that was not that of sleep, but that of a very real, and now more than ever, very dangerous night. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, all of Selena's senses vanished. The rattling of the cart, the nocturnal cold, the pain of the bonds, the taste of earth in her mouth… everything disappeared, swept away by a silent and absolute force.

Only sight remained, a narrow and desperate channel fixed on the scene unfolding before her. It was a deprivation so abrupt, so total, that for an instant she believed she had died. Then, with the same suddenness, everything returned. Sound was the first: a splintering of wood, a shriek of animal terror. The six-legged titanopod pulling the cart, a beast normally docile and powerful, broke free from its harness with a desperate movement.

Its enormous, insect-like eyes reflected a primal, visceral fear before something Selena could not see. With a guttural bellow that tore through the night, it bolted, its six legs striking the earth in a wild flight, disappearing among the trees like a terrified specter. The cart stopped dead, jolting her brutally against the wooden floor. Next came the sounds of steel. The metallic screech of swords unsheathing, the blunt impact of metal against metal, the muffled cry of a man.

Selena, still bound, crawled like a worm toward the edge of the cart. With one final effort, she tumbled onto the cold, stony ground, the impact rattling her bones. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. The scene unfolding was a dance of shadows and death beneath the moon. Soldiers with the royal coat of arms of Erabergh embroidered on their epaulets fought with desperate ferocity against a group of men dressed in solid black.

The attackers wore no heavy armor, but flexible black leather armor, and they wielded a lethal combination: a short sword in one hand, a dagger in the other. Their style was efficient, brutal. She saw a royal soldier block a sword blow, only for the attacker's black dagger to plunge into his flank with the movement of a viper. The soldier went rigid, his eyes bulging, and began to convulse, a horrible spasm that shook him until he collapsed, motionless, on the ground. It was poison.

A silent and rapid assassination. In the midst of the chaos, a figure moved with a fluid and deadly grace. Valerian. He did not wear his usual tunic, but dark, tight-fitting clothes that did not hinder his movements. In his hand gleamed a fine and precise rapier, a dancing needle of steel. He fought against one of the men in black, deflecting his blows with an exasperating ease, looking for an opening. Selena's vision was abruptly interrupted.

Strong hands grabbed her by the shoulders and lifted her from the ground. A man in black, his face hidden beneath a hood, gave her hair a sharp yank backward, exposing her neck. With another rough movement, he ripped the gag from her mouth. The rag came out, leaving her mouth free but numb, with a taste of blood and leather. Instinct, stronger than fear, took control. Without thinking, with the desperation of someone drowning, Selena formed a word in her mind and tried to project it, to impose it.

A mute word, a mold of will be focused on a single thing: Stop him! Absolutely nothing happened. There was no light, there was no strength, there was no change whatsoever in the man holding her. Only a dull, deep, and sudden pain exploded in her left hand. A pain that was not external, but internal, as if something had torn from within and vanished. She looked down, toward her hand bound behind her back. She saw it clearly in her mind, a sharp and horrible image.

Where before there had been five fingers, now only a pulsating and bloody stump remained. The flesh was smooth, as if severed by the finest blade in the world, yet there was no blade, no visible cut. Only absence. And the blood that was beginning to soak the bonds and drip onto the dark earth. A rebound, she thought with a frozen and desperate clarity. A rebound from a failed spell, from trying something without understanding it, without the necessary control.

She was trembling uncontrollably, as if she were in a naked blizzard against the elements; it was the tremor of one who knows themselves to be lost. The man in black holding her noticed the blood dripping faster. —Damn it, what did you do to yourself, you whore? — he muttered with a grunt of impatience, not of compassion. Then he dragged her toward a tree at the edge of the clearing.

He left her there, propped against the rough trunk, a bleeding wrist and a consciousness that was beginning to cloud from the pain and the shock. From her position, she saw the man who had brought her there, the driver of the cart, now also unmasked as one of the attackers, confronting Valerian. The man wore a strange black glove with barely visible patterns. He began to move his hand over it repeatedly, a rapid and nervous gesture. Then, before Selena's incredulous eyes, his arms transformed.

The muscles swelled, growing to double their previous size, distorting the fabric of his black tunic. They became monstrous limbs, disproportionate to what they had been and filled with an unnatural strength. With a roar, the man lunged at Valerian, who was still fighting another opponent. But Valerian, in a movement of supernatural agility, deflected a blow from the first man, spun on his heel, and with a precise thrust of his rapier, wounded the one who had transformed his arms in the thigh.

Blood gushed out, dark beneath the moonlight. Valerian did not wait. He ran backward, moving away from the wounded man. But it was not a retreat. The blood on his rapier, the blood that remained on the fine blade, seemed to vibrate with a sinister sound. Valerian, while running, formed a word with his lips. There was no sound, only the final movement of his mouth. Immediately, the blood streaming from the wound in the man's thigh stopped dripping.

It began to shoot out, flowing with a violent and directed force, as if an invisible siphon had been inserted into his flesh. The man screamed, trying to cover the wound with his enormous hands, but it was useless. The blood erupted in a thick, constant jet, draining him in seconds. His body, previously bloated with power, deflated, turned pale, and sank to its knees before collapsing, dry and empty, onto the dirt. Selena's sight began to fade.

The contours grew blurry, the sounds became muffled, as if a thick gray fog were descending over her mind. The pain in her stump was now a distant throb, an echo of a catastrophe that belonged to her but that she could no longer feel clearly. With the last vestige of lucidity, with the ultimate effort of a will accustomed to fighting against the impossible, she raised her wounded arm into the air. She could not see her hand, but she felt it. She felt its absence and remembered the endless medicine classes.

The bones of the hand: carpals, metacarpals, phalanges. The tendons that bound them, the muscles that moved them, the intricate tangle of blood vessels that nourished them. The detailed drawings on the parchments, the monotonous explanations of the professors, the eternal wisdom of Anselmo. It all came back to her, not as abstract knowledge, but as a blueprint, a perfect anatomical map of what ought to be there.

As she moved her stump in the air, as if tracing an invisible shape, her own blood, the blood dripping from the wound, stopped falling. It vanished into the space before her, absorbed by a silent force. Selena did not see what was happening. She only felt, on the very edge of unconsciousness, a strange tingling, a deep tug at the stump, as if something were being reclaimed. Then, darkness took her completely, a black well without dreams, without pain, without anything.