Chapter 137: Home

Astrid Vale

I woke slowly, and the first thing I noticed was the bed itself, impossibly soft beneath me, nothing like the hard medical surfaces or the restraints that had held me down for what felt like weeks. The blankets carried a warmth that seemed to seep into my bones, familiar in a way I couldn’t immediately place.

When I finally opened my eyes, color flooded my vision from every direction, and something in my chest tightened at the sight of it. Soft blue curtains hung against the window, sunlight spilling through them in patches across a yellow cushion propped near the foot of the bed. Books were stacked haphazardly on a small shelf, a scattering of dried flowers sitting in a jar on the nightstand. I found myself staring at that cushion for far longer than made any sense, something about its ordinary yellow color overwhelming me in a way I hadn’t expected.

For days, everything around me had been white. White walls, white clothes, white corridors stretching endlessly in every direction. Seeing actual color again felt like relearning something I’d never realized I could lose.

I tried to sit up, and my body protested immediately, soreness radiating through muscles I didn’t remember straining, my wrists aching with a dull throb that made me glance down at them instinctively. My throat felt raw, scraped and tender, and my memory came back to me in fragments rather than any coherent order. Elaris. The altar. Liora’s wolf crashing into the fight. The portal tearing open. Reed and Xander’s faces the moment they found me.

I looked down at my wrists again, searching for restraints that weren’t there, and something in my chest loosened at the absence of them.

A soft rustling sound came from somewhere beside me, and I turned my head carefully to find Ivy curled in a chair near the bed, a book open and forgotten in her lap, her head tilted at an angle that promised a sore neck later.

"Ivy?" I whispered.

Her eyes flew open instantly, and she was on her feet before I’d finished saying her name, crossing the small distance between us in two steps before catching herself and pulling back just as quickly, remembering I was still healing.

"You’re awake," she breathed, her hands hovering near my shoulders like she couldn’t decide whether touching me was allowed.

"Come here," I said, and she didn’t need telling twice, carefully wrapping her arms around me while I held onto her just as tightly, both of us laughing through tears that came without warning. Nothing about the moment needed to be dramatic. We were simply two girls who’d survived something together, finally sitting in a normal room with normal light and normal blankets, and that alone felt like enough to break something open in both of us.

Once we’d both settled, questions started spilling out of me faster than I could organize them. How long had I been unconscious? Where were Reed and Xander? What had happened to everyone else who’d come through that portal? Had we actually made it out, all of us, or had something else gone wrong while I’d been unaware of everything happening around me?

Ivy answered what she could, filling in pieces I’d missed, and when I tried to push myself further upright with the intention of actually standing, she immediately pressed a hand against my shoulder.

"Absolutely not," she said.

"I feel fine."

"You’ve been unconscious for two days and you’re already trying to get up. That’s not fine, that’s concerning."

Before I could argue further, the door opened, and Xander walked in with Reed close behind him, both of them stopping the moment they saw me sitting up.

"She’s been awake for what, thirty seconds," Xander said, "and she’s already trying to make a run for it."

"I’m not trying to run anywhere," I said. "I just want to stand."

Reed crossed the room and sat carefully on the edge of the bed, his expression more serious than Xander’s teasing tone had been. "Your body needs time," he said. "You’re not going anywhere for a while. Aldric’s already put you on medical leave from the academy."

"How long?"

"As long as you need," he said. "Your classes are being covered. Your assignments have been handled where possible."

I groaned, letting my head fall back against the pillow. "The bloodlines project."

"Aldric still expects the presentation," Reed said, something almost apologetic in his tone. "Once you’re recovered."

"Of course he does," I muttered, and despite everything, a small laugh escaped me, because somehow that detail made everything feel a little more real. Moonshade hadn’t simply frozen in place while I’d been gone. Life had kept moving, assignments and deadlines and headmasters who still expected results regardless of what I’d survived to get back to them.

We talked for a while longer, and something in me finally started to unwind, the tension I’d been carrying for what felt like an eternity slowly loosening as I sat there surrounded by people who actually cared whether I lived or died. Ivy told a story about Xander pacing the apartment for hours, and I found myself laughing again, genuinely, the sound feeling foreign and welcome at the same time.

Then I asked, without thinking too hard about it, "What happened after we got out?"

The room went quiet.

Ivy glanced toward Reed. Reed’s eyes flicked briefly to Xander before settling back on me, something careful and hesitant behind his expression that I recognized immediately, because I’d seen that same look on people delivering bad news before.

My smile faded.

"Liora didn’t make it," Reed said gently.

I already knew. I’d felt her go still in my arms, watched the light leave her eyes while she looked up at stars she’d only just discovered existed. But hearing the words spoken aloud settled the truth into me in a way that felt entirely different from simply remembering it.

"Where is she?" I asked.

Ivy’s hand found mine. "We buried her," she said quietly. "While you were unconscious. We didn’t know how long you’d be out, and we couldn’t just leave her—"

"I understand," I said, and I meant it. I understood completely why they’d done it, why waiting hadn’t been an option, why someone had needed to make that decision while I lay unconscious and unable to make it myself.

Understanding didn’t stop the ache spreading through my chest.

I hadn’t been there. I hadn’t seen her buried, hadn’t said goodbye, didn’t even know where her grave sat now, somewhere on grounds I couldn’t picture properly in my mind. She’d spent her entire life dreaming about the surface, about stars and sunlight and everything she’d never been allowed to see, and I’d promised her I would show it to her.

I had. Once. For a handful of seconds beneath an open sky, and then she’d died there, looking up at the exact thing she’d wanted most.

"I wasn’t even there," I whispered.

Nobody rushed to tell me it wasn’t my fault, and I was grateful for that small mercy, grateful they let the words sit in the room without immediately trying to smooth them over.

I looked around at everything surrounding me, the soft blankets, the colored cushions, Ivy’s hand still holding mine, Reed and Xander close enough to reach if I needed them. I had survived. I was home, safe, surrounded by people who loved me.

But survival, I was beginning to understand, didn’t mean I’d left everything behind me underground.