It took Laia all of seven minutes to file her leave paperwork, track down Lord Thorne to notify him of her plans, and pack her scuffed travel satchel for the abyssal border.
She found the old war god in his private office on the edge of the training grounds, polishing the dented iron head of his cane. When she told him she was taking three months of leave to hunt abyssal spawn for merit points, his hand stilled mid-stroke. He looked up, his sharp scarred face slack with a surprise so genuine it was almost comical, and stared at her like she'd grown a second head.
When she offhandedly mentioned she already had inherent Abyss Resistance, making the whole trip far less dangerous than it sounded, he set his cane down entirely and just stared. For a long, quiet minute, he said nothing at all. When he finally spoke, it was with a quiet, disbelieving huff of laughter, and a murmur about youth and impossible surprises.
Then his gaze shifted. There was something else in it now. Not surprise. Not admiration. Pity, soft and heavy, like he was looking at someone carrying a weight they didn't yet understand.
Laia blinked. She was just going there to earn enough points for a fancy crystal-generating box. Why he was looking at her like she was marching to her own funeral, she had no idea.
He did not argue. He did not forbid her from going. He just nodded slow, and said one strange, unprompted thing as she turned to leave: "They say the Far Shore lets you speak to the dead. It is true that it brushes the edge of the underworld. But when a god fades, Laia, they are gone forever. There is no coming back. No loophole. No bargain."
She stared at him for half a second, confused, then nodded politely and headed for the academy gates. She had no idea why he was bringing up the Far Shore. She was just there for the Box of Avarice. Old men and their cryptic sayings, she thought, shrugging it off.
She made it to the transit station just in time to catch the last shuttle to the outer border garrison.
The rickety divine shuttle rumbled off down the sky-road, and the two men stood in the office doorway, watching it shrink into the distance.
"Still thinking about your boy?" Corvin said quietly, stepping up beside Thorne. "After all these years, you still haven't let it go."
Thorne shook his head, his gaze still fixed on the horizon. "I let go a long time ago. Memory is not the same as clinging. It would be more of a lie to pretend I feel nothing at all."
Corvin sighed. "Abyss Resistance, at her age. How? She's barely twenty. Most gods spend decades chasing that trait. Most never get it at all."
"Everyone carries secrets," Thorne said, a faint, grim smile tugging at his mouth. "But resistance alone is not enough to unlock the depths of the abyss. I wonder what price she paid for it. What she's already lived through. So young, and yet she carries that same tight, anxious quiet—like she's always bracing for the next bill, the next storm, the next disaster. Hiding it behind a blank face. She has seen things, that one."
Corvin nodded slowly. "She is one of the hardest working students in the academy. Always busy, always keeps up with her coursework, never draws attention to herself. Her old advisor mentioned it more than once. What I cannot fathom is why—with subjects that strong, traits that rare—she hides. Why she stays so quiet. And this trip to the abyss? I cannot tell if it is fortune or folly waiting for her out there."
Thorne's fingers brushed the frayed edge of his sleeve, where the fabric covered the thick, twisted scar coiled up his forearm. The corruption seeped from it even now, slow and steady, eating away at his divine essence and his lifespan, one day at a time.
"The greatest virtue a god can have is knowing what to take, and what to leave alone," he said, quiet. "Failure is just starting over. But when you bet everything on one desperate hand? You have to be ready to lose everything. I learned that the hard way."
Corvin glanced at the scar, and said nothing.
He knew the story. Everyone who'd been around the academy long enough did. When Thorne's son had fallen in a void skirmish, the old general had charged into the deep void alone, chasing rumors of the Far Shore, convinced he could bring the boy back. When he'd learned the waters could not raise the dead, he'd thrown himself into the abyss instead, trying to twist corrupted abyssal essence into something that could stitch a shattered divine core back together.
He had failed. The corruption had eaten into him, permanently. He'd lost his claim to his true name, his strength had faded, and the healers had given him barely a decade left, decades ago.
But he had not come back empty-handed. He had found something down there, buried in the dark— a secret about the abyss, about the way it fed, about the slow, creeping collapse of the border wards. A secret he intended to pass on, before the corruption finally finished him.
Corvin gave a quiet sigh and turned to walk back toward the academy grounds.
He thought of that quiet, scruffy scholarship student, always hurrying from one class to the next, always counting coins, always keeping to herself. Most divine children spent their teens sheltered, coddled, only learning of realm hardship once they came of age at eighteen. Laia was nothing like that. There was an old, tired practicality about her, the kind you only got from years of worrying if you could afford to keep your realm running another month.
What kind of life had forged a girl like that? he wondered. And what would she become, once she stepped into the abyss?
---
The shuttle jolted to a stop at the edge of the border badlands, and Laia stumbled down the steps, already fuming.
"Five whole divine crystals," she muttered to herself, kicking a loose rock across the dusty ground. "Five. For a one-way shuttle ride. That's an entire honey milk tea back in the city. Highway robbery. Disgraceful."
She glared at the retreating shuttle for another full second, then hefted the long hunting rifle slung over her shoulder and squinted at the distant outline of the garrison, half-buried in the rocky hills. Of course the shuttle didn't go all the way. Of course she had to walk the last three miles. Ridiculous.
Whatever, she thought, adjusting her satchel and setting off at a brisk walk. It'll be worth it once I get that Box of Avarice. Financial freedom, here I come.
The tight, careful mask she wore around the academy was already slipping. Back there, surrounded by noble brats whose families could erase her and her whole realm with a flick of the wrist, being cold and distant was a survival tactic. Indifference eliminated eighty percent of unwanted trouble, and keeping to herself took care of the other twenty. She was careful. She was quiet. She did not draw attention. It was how she'd survived three years at the academy without getting tangled up in noble drama.
Out here? None of that mattered. Out here, there were just abyssal spawn, merit points, and a garrison that supposedly served all-you-can-eat meals for two hundred merit a month.
Her mouth watered a little just thinking about it. She could still taste those glazed tarts from the tournament. If the garrison food was even half that good, the two hundred merit fee would be the best money she ever spent.
She patted the crumpled letter of recommendation Lord Thorne had given her, tucked safely in the inner pocket of her coat. At least she wouldn't have to argue her way past the gate guards.
She picked up her pace, her boots kicking up puffs of red dust on the rocky trail.
Just a few months of hunting, she told herself. Just a few months, and she'd never have to worry about rent again.
Almost there.