The air in the training plaza didn't just feel cold anymore; it felt like the concept of warmth had been deleted from the universe's source code. Sera lay on the obsidian floor, a broken masterpiece of white silk and jagged frost. The drop of blood from her nose was the only color in a world that had suddenly turned a terrifying shade of pale.
"Sera!" Lyra's voice was a jagged shard of glass.
The Grand Matriarch, usually the apex predator of the Canton, looked like she had just seen the sun go out. She didn't walk toward her daughter; she blurred, her movement so fast it left a vacuum in the air that knocked over several minor delegates. Within seconds, the estate's elite healers, a group of elderly men in robes that smelled of medicinal herbs and overconfidence had swarmed the area.
Jett stayed at the edge of the crowd, his heart doing a frantic tap-dance against his ribs. This was bad.
[Target: Sera Vane]
[Status: Collapsed / Core Fracturing]
[Warning: Traditional Prana Infusion will result in core detonation.]
Jett's eyes widened as he watched the head healer, a man who looked like a sentient raisin, began to glow with a bright green light. The old man reached out, preparing to pump his own energy into Sera's failing system.
"Wait!" Jett shouted, his voice cracking.
Every head in the plaza turned. Lyra's gaze snapped to him, her eyes filled with a lethal mixture of grief and fury.
"Out of the way, boy!" the head healer barked, his hands hovering inches from Sera's chest. "She is dying! Her core is a void; it must be filled!"
"If you fill that void with your Prana, you're not healing her, you're making a bomb," Jett countered, stepping forward despite the guards' spears crossing in front of him. "Her meridians are already fractured. You're trying to put high-pressure steam into a glass pipe that's covered in cracks. What do you think happens next?"
"He's a merchant's son! A man with no core!" a cousin jeered from the crowd. "Why is he even speaking?"
Lyra looked from Jett to the healer. For a second, she wavered. But the head healer scoffed, his green light intensifying. "I have studied the medicinal arts for sixty years! I will not be lectured by a political lubricant!"
He pressed his hands against Sera's shoulders.
The result was instantaneous. Sera didn't wake up. Instead, her body arched off the ground as if she'd been struck by lightning. A shockwave of pure, frozen Aether exploded from her skin, shattering the nearby stone tiles and sending the head healer flying backward. The frost on her skin began to thicken, turning into a literal layer of ice that was slowly encasing her neck.
"Enough!" Lyra screamed, a wave of her own power pinning everyone to the spot. She looked at her daughter, then at the frozen healers, and finally at Jett. "Everyone out! Clear the plaza! Take her to the infusion chamber!"
Jett didn't wait to be told twice. As the chaos intensified and guards began shoving delegates toward the exits, he slipped away. He didn't head for the infusion chamber. He headed for a dark alcove behind the library stairs.
"Okay, System," Jett whispered, his breath hitching. "You've been playing hard to get for a week now. I have 5.2 Essence and a wife who is currently turning into a human popsicle. Give me something I can use before I'm widowed and executed in the same afternoon."
[Primal Resonance Core Initializing...]
[Warning: Essence levels insufficient for permanent stabilization.]
[Alternative Detected: Resonance-Stabilizing Draught (Temporary Patch).]
[Cost: 4.0 Essence.]
"Do it," Jett snapped. "And don't give me the 'risk' warning. I'm already living in a risk. Just tell me what I need."
A translucent blueprint flickered in his vision. It wasn't just a recipe; it was a set of instructions on how to use the PR-C to refine raw materials. He needed Ghost-Flame Herbs. He remembered seeing them in the restricted section of the herbal stores during his "correspondence" rounds.
Jett moved with a desperate, frantic grace. He didn't have the muscle mass of a warrior, but he had the nervous energy of a man who knew he was about thirty minutes away from a very painful death. He bypassed the main herb stores, knowing they would be guarded by Lyra's personal sentries. Instead, he found a low-level kitchen servant named Mavis, the same one he'd quipped at earlier.
"Mavis," Jett said, cornering her in the pantry. He pulled a heavy gold ring from his finger a relic from the original Jett's inherited from his father. "I need Ghost-Flame Herbs from the shady alchemist who delivers to the back gate. Now. If anyone asks, you're getting them for my... persistent cough."
Mavis looked at the ring, then at Jett's intense, wild eyes. "The Matriarch will kill me, Master Jett."
"The Matriarch is currently busy watching her legacy melt," Jett hissed, shoving the ring into her hand. "Go. If you're fast, I'll make sure you're the head of the kitchen by next month. If you're slow, we're both going to be decorative rugs by sunset."
Mavis bolted.
Jett retreated to the abandoned wine cellar, the only place he knew he wouldn't be disturbed. He cleared a table, his hands trembling as he set out a small iron pot. Within ten minutes, Mavis returned, breathless, handing over a bundle of glowing, blue-tinted leaves.
"Now leave," Jett ordered.
He didn't have a Prana flame. He didn't have a cauldron. What he had was the PR-C. He placed his hands over the pot, closing his eyes.
[Initiating Forced Essence Refinement...]
[4.0 Essence consumed.]
A searing heat erupted from his palms. It wasn't the green light of the healers or the blue ice of the Vanes. It was a blinding, pale gold shimmer. The herbs didn't just burn; they dissolved into a liquid that looked like liquid starlight. Jett watched as the PR-C filtered the "impurities" which in this world meant the raw, unrefined Aether that Sera's body was currently rejecting.
[Refinement Successful: Resonance-Stabilizing Draught.]
[Duration: 72 Hours.]
[Note: This is a leaking bucket solution. Permanent Anchor formation is required.]
"Leaking bucket is better than a funeral," Jett muttered, pouring the glowing liquid into a small vial.
He waited for the shift change, a pattern he had memorized while cataloging the wine. The healers would be in a frantic meeting with Lyra, arguing over whose fault the "detonation" was. Sera would be left in the infusion chamber with only two guards at the door guards who were currently terrified of the Aether leaking from the room.
Jett didn't use stealth. He used his brains. He walked up to the chamber doors, the vial hidden in his sleeve, his face a mask of frantic worry.
"The Matriarch sent me for a status report," Jett barked at the guards. "Move. I need to see if she's stable enough for the Council's inquiry."
The guards, low-level men who knew Jett was now the Matriarch's personal secretary, hesitated. The cold air seeping from under the door made their decision for them. They didn't want to be in that room.
"Make it quick, Master Jett," one whispered, stepping aside.
Jett slipped inside and closed the heavy oak door. The room was a disaster. Frost covered the walls, and the medical equipment had been shattered by the earlier outburst. Sera lay on the central dais, her breathing shallow and ragged. The ice had reached her chin.
"Okay, Ice Queen," Jett whispered, his sarcasm failing him as he looked at her. "Let's see if you're as stubborn as I think you are."
He sat on the edge of the bed, his hands nearly numbing the moment he touched her. He lifted her head, his heart aching at how light she felt. She wasn't a goddess of war right now; she was just a girl who had been pushed until she broke.
He uncorked the vial and pressed it to her lips. "Drink. Don't make me do the 'here comes the airplane' routine. It's embarrassing for both of us."
He poured the liquid slowly. For a second, nothing happened. Then, a soft, golden light began to pulse from her throat. The ice on her neck didn't melt; it simply evaporated into a fine mist. Her breathing hitched, then smoothed out into a deep, rhythmic cycle.
Sera's eyes fluttered. They were unfocused, the blue hazy and distant. She looked up at the silhouette hovering over her, the scent of burnt herbs and something warm filling her senses.
"Jett?" she rasped, her voice a ghost of a sound.
"Don't die yet, Ice Queen," Jett whispered, his thumb brushing a stray hair from her forehead. "I haven't finished annoying you. And honestly, the wine list is a mess without you to complain about it."
A faint, microscopic trace of a smile touched her lips before her eyes closed again, falling into a natural, healing sleep.
[Bond Progress: 10% (Significant Increase!)]
[Status: Stabilized.]
Jett stood up, his legs feeling like jelly. He heard footsteps in the hallway, Lyra's voice, sharp and demanding. He didn't have time for an explanation. He scrambled to the window, glancing back one last time at the woman who was now officially his tether to this world.
"72 hours," Jett reminded himself, sliding out onto the stone ledge as the door creaked open behind him. "I have three days to convince a glacier to marry me for real, or I'm a dead man walking."
He vanished into the shadows of the estate just as Lyra's scream of confused relief echoed through the chamber.