For a moment, no one moved.
The Lady of the Lake loomed above them, a vast silhouette woven from mist and memory, her presence laying over the water like a veil. Her laughter had faded, but the echo of it lingered in the air, like ripples that refused to fully settle.
The lake itself remained perfectly still.
Kel stood at its edge, boots half-ringed by mist. His coat, damp at the hem, clung to his legs with faint weight. Strands of dark hair, heavy with moisture, fell across his eyes, tracing chilled lines along his cheek. Beneath his ribs, the curse pulsed—a slow, steady gnawing, as familiar to him now as his own heart.
He lifted his gaze.
For the briefest instant, he saw his reflection in the grey water.
Thin.
Tired.
Alive.
He drew in a breath that tasted more like stone and old rain than air.
Then he stepped forward.
The unseen ground near the shore gave slightly beneath his boot, as if he were stepping onto something that did not quite want to hold him. Mist curled around his ankles, swirling up, coiling higher, tasting him.
The Lady above tilted her head.
Kel looked up into that vague, enormous face, half-lost in fog.
His fingers trembled once at his sides.
He stilled them.
"I…" His voice came out softer than he expected. He swallowed, the motion tight in his throat, then tried again. "I have a death curse."
The words hung there.
Heavy.
Undeniable.
"I do not know how I received it, or when," he continued, each syllable deliberate. "I only know what it does. It takes my life from me—slowly, deliberately—twisting everything that should sustain me into another way to feel pain."
His hand lifted, resting flat over his chest.
Beneath the leather and cloth, the curse flared as if reacting to being pointed at.
"When I read about Scarder Lake in ancient books," Kel said quietly, "when I heard stories of its miracle water… I could not stop myself from coming here."
His mouth twitched upward at one corner in something that wasn't quite a smile.
"I want to live," he said. "At least… not as a worthless cursed boy, waiting to be mocked by his own ending."
The words left him, stripped bare.
He held the guardian's gaze, or the suggestion of where it might be.
"So I ask your permission," he finished, voice steady, "to use Scarder Lake's water. To lift my curse."
Silence.
Reina's hand tightened slightly around her spear, her knuckles paling beneath the leather of her gloves. Her gaze slid to Kel's back—straight, still, too slim against the vast, indifferent lake.
Landon's jaw clenched.
He did not move, but something in his eyes hardened, as though he were engraving this moment into the stone of his memory.
Sera took one step forward.
Mist parted around her as if reluctant to hinder.
Her cloak shifted, pale patterns flashing; her hair, still damp at the tips, clung to her cheeks. Her eyes shone with a light that was not wholly the reflection of the guardian above.
"I know how I got my curse," she said.
Her voice was soft—but each word struck like a falling stone.
"I know when. I know who. I know what was traded and what was promised."
Her fingers curled at her sides.
"My curse gives me extraordinary power," she continued, "but it consumes my life force. Every time I call upon it, I feel my days burn away."
A faint tremor crossed her lips.
She did not look away.
"I ask your permission," Sera said, looking up at the towering mist-figure, "to use Scarder Lake's water to lift my curse. Because I want to live… as long as I can live."
The Lady was quiet.
Mist shifted, drawing in, as though the entire lake leaned closer to listen.
Then her veiled head turned—slowly, fluidly—toward the left.
Toward Reina.
"And you?" the guardian asked. "Do you have anything to save?"
Reina straightened, the motion subtle but sure. The fur at her shoulders shook a few droplets loose, falling soundless into the mist at her boots.
"I…" She exhaled once. Her eyes held no fear. "I bear no curse. Not like theirs."
Her gaze flickered briefly toward Kel, then back to the Lady.
"But I carry scars," she said. "On my body. In my mind."
A faint smile—not soft, but resolute—touched her lips.
"I do not ask to be healed of my past," she finished. "Only… if the lake offers strength to keep walking alongside him, I will not refuse it."
The mist-Lady's form rippled.
Then she turned her head toward Landon.
"And you?" she asked. "Stone that walks behind another. Do you have anything to save?"
Landon's hands, loosely at his sides, tightened once.
His voice came low, steady.
"I have no curse," he said. "No mark of death placed upon me. Only limitations I was born with."
He lifted his chin slightly.
"If the lake chooses to strengthen me," he said, "I will accept that. Not for my own sake alone. For the sake of the path I have chosen to support."
The Lady was silent for a long moment.
Below her, the lake remained perfectly flat.
No ripple.
No gleam.
Only depth.
Then—
She laughed.
It was softer this time. Less amused, more… curious. Intrigued. The sound rolled over the water and through the air, wrapping around them without crushing.
"Kel. Sera," she said. "You come craving release from death laid upon your bones." Her voice shifted, like mist passing over different stones. "Reina. Landon. You stand yet unmarked by curses, but still raise your names when I ask who has something to save."
The mist-lady's many veils stirred.
"You all have passed the trial," she said. "Do you think that was for nothing?"
Her voice deepened, resonating from the water itself.
"Curse or no curse, the right to touch Scarder Lake does not depend on my will alone," she said. "It depends on whether you walked through your shadows and did not lie about what you found there."
Mist tightened around their ankles, then loosened.
"You did not lie."
She raised an arm—its shape long, elegant, trailing fog—toward the lake's surface.
"Kel and Sera," she intoned. "You may bathe in Scarder Lake and lift your curses."
Sera's breath hitched audibly.
Kel's fingers dug briefly into his palm.
The Lady's attention shifted.
"Reina and Landon," she continued, "you will also bathe."
Reina blinked once.
Landon's brows drew together.
The guardian smiled, though her face was only half-formed.
"This lake lifts curses. That much is true," she said. "But if one without a curse steps into it… their body and mind are remade in smaller ways. Wounds knit. Scars quiet. Their entire physique and mental power are improved—greatly, if their will does not break."
Reina's eyes widened a fraction.
Landon's held a flicker of something like surprise—or perhaps, reluctant gratitude.
"This is an opportunity for you as well," the Lady said. "Do not pretend it is not."
Her words settled over them like snow that chose where to land.
Kel felt something loosen, very faintly, inside his chest.
Hope.
Terrifying.
Fragile.
Real.
He exhaled slowly.
"…Understood," he said.
Reina glanced at him, then at Sera.
Color touched Sera's cheeks under the pale chill of the mist. She cleared her throat softly.
"It would be… inappropriate," she murmured, looking away, "for us to all bathe together."
Reina's lips flickered.
"Yes," she agreed. "We divide the shore. Right and left." She gestured with her spear toward the far side of the lake's left curve, where the mist swirled a little thicker. "Sera and I will take that end."
Kel nodded once.
"Landon and I will go there," he said, indicating the right, where the lake's margin curved gently into deeper shadow.
Landon inclined his head.
The Lady of the Lake said nothing.
She only watched.
They moved.
Not hurriedly.
There was a solemnity even in the practical motions of removing outer layers—folding cloaks, unstrapping belts, placing weapons within reach but away from water's edge. Their movements were careful, almost ritualistic, as if they understood that in this place, even the smallest gesture wrote itself into the lake's memory.
Kel shrugged off his long coat, revealing the lean line of his frame beneath the damp tunic. His chest rose and fell with controlled breaths. The marks of strain along his wrists and collar, pale and thin, were visible for a moment before he turned away, respecting the distance Reina and Sera were already taking.
Landon, nearby, undid the ties of his heavy coat with slow, deliberate fingers. He peeled away wool and leather, revealing solid muscle lined with bruises from their journey. He did not complain. He never had.
Across the lake's curve, Reina and Sera disappeared into thicker mist, their silhouettes fading—two slim figures, cloaks lifted, hair unbound, outlines dissolving behind a curtain of vapor.
Kel did not look their way.
He stepped instead to the water's edge.
Up close, the surface seemed even more unreal.
It did not reflect him.
Nor the sky.
Nor the towering guardian.
It reflected nothing.
It was as though the lake refused to acknowledge anything until it had the right to touch it.
Landon came to stand beside him, bare feet leaving clear impressions at the border where unseen ground met impossible water. The stone beneath was strangely smooth, neither slippery nor rough.
They exchanged a glance.
Kel's eyes were strangely calm.
Landon's were firm.
"…Ready?" Kel asked quietly.
"No," Landon answered truthfully.
A faint curve touched Kel's lips.
"Me neither."
And then, together, they stepped in.
The first touch of the water was… wrong.
It was not cold.
Not warm.
It was aware.
It slid over their skin in a way that made every nerve flinch, not from temperature, but from contact. As if the lake itself were tasting them, layer by layer—flesh, bone, memory, thought.
Kel stiffened.
His breath caught.
The water rose slowly up his legs, his knees, his thighs. His body, thin and battle-weary beneath the quiet dignity of his movements, shivered—not from chill, but from something deeper being… touched.
He stepped forward again, deeper, until the water reached his waist.
Behind him, Landon moved as well, the lake lapping at his broader frame with equal, unrelenting intimacy.
Then—
Kel exhaled.
The sound shook.
But then his face smoothed.
His shoulders eased.
The water held him.
It was as if the constant pain he had carried for so long—the gnawing, the grinding, the clawing at his lifespan—was being… recognized.
Not eased.
Not yet.
Recognized.
I know you, the water seemed to say without words. All the tiny ways you suffer. All the little deaths tucked into your breaths.
Kel closed his eyes.
He let himself sink a little further, the water climbing to his chest, lapping at his collarbone. Each drop that touched his skin seemed to drag something out of him—threads of invisible poison, strands of fate-flavored rot.
And then—
A sound.
Not in his ears.
Behind his eyes.
A chime that was not a chime—an internal resonance, like a string being plucked inside his mind.
His status window opened.
Not by his will.
By the lake's.
Translucent text hovered at the edge of his consciousness, overlaid upon the mist and water, his own form, everything.
He saw it.
[Status Anomaly Detected.]
His breath hitched.
The knot in his chest—the place where the curse had coiled and lived like a second heart—burned. For one heartbeat, the pain was worse than anything he had ever felt.
He bit down on a cry, teeth sinking into his lower lip.
The lake did not relent.
The text shifted.
[Death Curse – Origin: Unknown]
…Analyzing…
Kel's fingers dug into the water, underwater, as if he could grip it and steady himself.
Something inside him snapped.
Not like bone.
Like a chain.
Pain, white and blinding, surged up his spine, stabbed into his skull, burst along his nerves.
He heard his own ragged inhale as if from very far away.
Landon, beside him, moved instinctively closer—ready to catch him if he fell—but did not reach out. Something told him that in this water, help given at the wrong moment could become harm.
Kel's lungs seized.
The text burned into his mind.
[…Judge.]
[Verdict: Eligible for Release.]
[Death Curse – LIFTED.]
The pressure broke.
Just—
Broke.
The constant crushing weight around his core, the breathing that had always felt like pushing against invisible hands, the dull ache that shadowed each heartbeat—
Gone.
Not eased.
Gone.
He drew in breath.
It flooded him with such clarity that, for an instant, he swayed.
His chest rose easily, pausing only in disbelief.
No sharp stab.
No choking.
The absence of pain was so vast it felt like a kind of pain on its own.
Kel opened his eyes.
The mist seemed sharper, edges clearer. The world did not glow. It did not transform. It simply… existed without squeezing him.
His status window shifted subtly at the periphery of his awareness.
[Cursed Condition: None]
[Life Force: Stable]
His lips parted.
A sound escaped him—almost a laugh, almost a sob. He covered it with a slow exhale, the breath leaving his lungs in one smooth, unbroken line.
Landon, watching, saw his shoulders loosen in a way they never had before.
"…Young master?" he asked, voice low.
Kel turned his head slightly.
His eyes were different.
Not in color.
In depth.
He smiled.
A small, quiet thing.
"I can breathe," he whispered.
Landon stared at him.
Then—for the first time in longer than he could remember—Landon's own lips tugged upward, rough and unsure.
"Good," he said.
He did not say more.
He did not need to.
The lake embraced them both, now working more subtly at Landon's flesh—easing old bruises, knitting micro-tears in muscle, smoothing jagged strain carved into bone. His body felt… lighter. Less like a weapon worn thin, more like something freshly forged.
On the far side of the lake, hidden by mist, Reina and Sera slipped into the water as well.
Reina tensed at the first contact—but then, slowly, allowed herself to relax, burying the reflex to reach for a spear that wasn't there. The lake's touch seeped into scars carved long ago across her back and arms. Places where blade and betrayal had left their signatures.
The water did not erase them.
But it quieted them.
The ache that had become part of how she held herself began to soften. Muscles long forced into tension loosened, ever so slightly. Her mind, always calculating exits, threats, escape paths, found—for a few heartbeats—nothing to guard against.
Sera sank deeper, long pale hair fanning around her shoulders beneath the surface.
Inside her, her curse—frost-touched power wrapped in threads of life-force—thrashed like a cornered beast. It clawed at her veins, at her bones, at the fragile thread tying her to the end of her own story.
The lake answered.
Not gently.
But with purpose.
Her breath hitched; her hands clenched into fists beneath the surface. Light—not visible, but felt—flared through her body.
The knot of curse within her chest convulsed.
Then—
Unraveled.
She gasped, water rippling around her shoulders.
For the first time since childhood, her chest felt like her own.
No cold blade of power pressing outward, demanding cost.
No constant awareness of a ticking, burning limit.
Her life-force, thinned but durable, settled.
Tears mingled with lake water at the corner of her eyes.
She did not let them fall.
She simply closed her eyes.
"…I am still me," she whispered into the mist.
The lake did not answer.
It already had.
Time blurred.
Minutes stretched, then folded.
The four remained in the water until their bodies had drunk everything the lake was willing to grant and no more.
When Kel at last stepped back toward the shore, water sliding from his skin like reluctant fingers, he felt… strange.
Lighter.
Not stronger—not yet.
But unshackled.
He emerged from the lake, droplets tracing paths down his chest and arms before vanishing into mist. Each breath came easily, instinctively. The familiar stabbing ache was gone so completely it felt unreal.
He looked down at his hands.
Curled them into fists.
Opened them.
No tremor.
Landon stepped out beside him, rolling his shoulders experimentally. His joints popped once, then moved more smoothly than they had in years. Old pain along his spine had faded to a distant, forgettable echo.
Across the lake, Reina and Sera returned to the shore as well, silhouettes reappearing from the fog. Reina walked with the same measured grace—but something in the set of her shoulders had changed. Less burden. More balance.
Sera's gaze was… luminous.
She pressed one hand flat over her chest, feeling the steady, unhurried rhythm beneath.
No answering devour.
Just heartbeat.
They dressed in silence, each motion more mindful than any before.
When they gathered again at the same stretch of shore where they had first stood, they met each other's eyes.
Kel's gaze moved from Sera, to Reina, to Landon.
"You're alive," he said.
It was a foolish statement.
It felt necessary.
Sera smiled then—truly smiled—for the first time since he had met her. Small. Sharp. Real.
"So are you," she replied. "For once, more than before."
Reina exhaled, a faint laugh caught at the edge of it.
"We should thank her," she said, glancing up at the towering mist figure still watching in silence.
Landon nodded.
Kel turned toward the Lady of the Lake.
He bowed his head—not deeply, but with a sincerity that bent something internal instead of just his neck.
"Thank you," he said.
The Lady regarded them.
Mist swirled. Her veils shifted.
"You stood before your own truths and did not turn away," she said. "I simply cleansed what needed cleansing."
Her gaze lingered on Kel.
"Your path is no longer shortened by another's hand," she murmured. "What you do with the rest of it… that is your next sin or miracle to choose."
Kel's chest rose.
Fell.
"I will choose it myself," he said quietly.
She hummed.
"See that you do."
Her form began to fade, dissolving back into the mist rising from the lake's surface.
"Leave this place when you can still remember what it gave you," she said. "Mortals were never meant to linger too long where curses are born and broken."
The last of her veils unraveled.
The lake stilled again.
Yet now…
When Kel looked at it, he did not see an ending.
He saw a beginning.
Somewhere, at the edge of his awareness, his status window flickered again—no longer a list of limitations, but an empty place where something new could be written.
A space where a path—one without constellations, without shackles—might one day take shape.
A thirteenth road.
Unmarked.
Unknown.
Possible.
Kel drew in one more effortless breath.
Then he turned away from Scarder Lake.
Behind him, three sets of footsteps followed.
For the first time since awakening in this world, as he walked forward…
there was no whisper of death waiting patiently beneath his ribs.