Chapter 778: Gift [Bonus - ]

Chapter 778: Gift [Bonus Chapter]

A gentle radiant warmth was slowly dragging Tasmin up out of the cold heavy depths of exhaustion.

It felt like liquid sunlight being poured straight into the hollow pathways of her mana channels.

...It washed away the bitter taste of dirt in her mouth, the lingering smell of ozone and the dull throbbing behind her eyes.

Every breath she pulled in came a little easier than the last, while the broken edges of her ribs knit back together under a slow steady pulse of warmth.

Faint voices drifted through the haze, along with the soft crackle of a hearth and the clean smell of lavender and fresh down feathers.

"You really should’ve stepped between them before they wrecked the whole arena, Lord Silas," a soft melodious voice chided gently, followed by the rustle of silk. "When you brought them in, their knuckles were split to the bone, and poor Brida’s ribs were broken in three places... It took nearly all the Argent Flame I could gather just to set everything back where it belonged before their mana started healing it wrong."

"Come on, Aurelia, you saw how locked in they were," a deep familiar voice answered with an easy chuckle that ran straight through Tasmin’s spine. "If I’d dropped in ten seconds earlier, they would’ve called a truce just long enough to turn around and punch me for interrupting... When those two decide to settle something, you either let them finish or get ready to fight both of them at once... Besides, look at how it turned out, neither of them gave an inch."

A soft musical giggle escaped the Saintess, bright and airy, carrying that helpless fond note she now only ever used around one person.

"You sure have an excuse for them," Aurelia said, her voice warm. "Though I suppose watching them both go down at the exact same moment was rather impressive... Even Morwenna went quiet, and that hardly ever happens from what I’m aware of."

Tasmin tried to shift her weight.

Her limbs felt like ingots of lead sunk deep into the mattress, and every muscle in her body was singing with the leftover ache of that double knockout.

Her fingers twitched against linen sheets that were a hundred times softer than the coarse wool blankets in the barracks.

She drew in a slow breath and forced her heavy eyelids open against the soft golden candlelight.

The room was big, with dark polished timber beams across the ceiling and thick wool tapestries on the walls to keep out the mountain winter.

A fire crackled in a wide stone hearth against the far wall, throwing long shadows across a pair of velvet armchairs and a polished vanity table.

Pale winter light pressed against the frosted window behind the heavy curtains.

Standing beside the bed was Aurelia El Mimonte.

The Saintess of the Argent Flame was wrapped in a soft pale gold glow, her slender hands hovering a few inches above Tasmin’s stomach as streams of warm healing light poured from her palms... Her golden-amber eyes were bright and focused.

And leaning his forearms on the carved footboard with a fond grin on his face was Silas.

He was still in his black fur-lined robes, the dark gray fur resting over his broad shoulders, and his dark hair was a little messy from the mountain wind.

His dark blue eyes caught the firelight, and the faint gold ring around his pupils glowed steady and warm.

The moment Tasmin’s eyes opened, his gaze found hers, and the relaxed curve of his mouth softened into real relief.

"Hey there," Silas murmured. "Look who finally decided to wake up... Take it slow, Tas. How’s the head? Still ringing, or did that last punch scramble everything?"

A sudden sharp flutter went off in the middle of Tasmin’s chest.

It had nothing to do with her ribs or her empty mana channels... It was a sweet warm rush that climbed up into her throat and caught her breath before it could get out.

Her Lord was right there at the foot of her bed.

He wasn’t off going through ledgers or checking the walls, he hadn’t handed her off to someone else and left.

He’d stayed and waited for her to open her eyes, and he was looking at her with that disarmingly gentle expression that always made her proud guarded walls crumble.

A quiet bubble of joy swelled under her collarbones. She parted her dry lips, ready to assure him that his Shadow Commander was fine.

"Lord Silas..." Tasmin rasped, her voice still hoarse from the dust of the arena. "I’m fine, thanks to Lady Aurelia. You don’t need to worry about—"

SNRRRRKKK!

A wet violent snore ripped through the warm quiet of the room so loudly that the bedposts rattled.

Tasmin’s sentence died in her throat, and her whole spine went rigid and beside her, the mattress was sagging heavily to the right under a large unmoving weight.

Very slowly, her eyes slid toward the other half of the bed.

Lying barely two feet away, sprawled on her back like a starfish, was Brida.

The brawler had kicked the fur blankets completely off her legs.

Her boots had been flung into a corner of the room, and her bare feet hung off the edge of the mattress.

Her auburn hair was a tangled disaster across the white pillows, like an abandoned crow’s nest.

Her mouth hung wide open, and a shining trail of drool was making its way down the side of her bruised jaw onto the embroidered pillowcase.

Every breath she pulled in rattled in the back of her throat like a cart rolling over river stones, until it ended in another wet snorting blast that ruffled the edge of the blanket.

HOOONKKK!

Tasmin stared at her, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks.

Every last drop of tender warmth that had just filled her heart vanished, replaced by a volcanic surge of pure murder.

’Of all the rooms in this Keep...’ Tasmin screamed in her head, her fingernails digging so hard into the sheets that the linen nearly tore. ’Of all the empty rooms upstairs, why the hell is this loud-mouthed pig sleeping in my bed?!’

The injustice burned through her veins like boiling oil... She’d just fought the battle of her life, dammit!

She’d bled through her leathers, broken her knuckles and pushed her Shadow Heart another step forward, all to earn a place under her Lord’s roof... She’d pictured waking up somewhere quiet and dignified, maybe with soft velvet curtains and the smell of pine drifting in.

Instead, she’d been shoved under the same blanket as a snoring drooling barn animal that sounded like a dying water buffalo.

On pure instinct, Tasmin’s fury reached for her mana.

She wanted to call up the dark... She wanted to drive five spikes of solid shadow up through the mattress under Brida’s shoulders and launch her straight through the window into the snowdrifts three stories below.

Tasmin willed the shadows to rise however nothing happened.

Her channels gave a weak pathetic flicker.

Her Shadow Heart, still raw from the strain of the domain clash, answered with nothing but a hollow thrum that barely stirred the air over her knuckles.

She was completely dry, and her body was still weighed down by the heavy warmth of Aurelia’s healing.

She couldn’t call up a single needle of shadow, never mind a spike, hell she could barely lift her own hand six inches off the blanket.

"Fuuu..."

Tasmin let out a strangled hiss of pure rage, grinding her teeth so hard the muscles along her jaw stood out like cords.

Silas watched her expression go from tender to homicidal in the space of a single snore, and he couldn’t hold it in anymore.

He threw his head back and laughed so hard it rang off the rafters.

"Careful, Tas," Silas laughed, walking around the foot of the bed to stand beside her. "If you grind your teeth any harder, Aurelia’s going to have to fix your jaw too... I put you two in here together because this bed was the only one strong enough to hold Brida while you were both out cold. Besides, after the show you two put on, it felt wrong to split you up."

Tasmin turned her face up toward him and forced her expression back into something resembling dignity, though a faint pink flush of irritation still burned on her cheekbones.

"She’s completely uncivilized, Lord Silas," Tasmin muttered stiffly, shooting the sleeping brawler a venomous glare. "She snores like a broken furnace... I’d rather sleep on the floor in the hallway."

"Oh, stop complaining," Silas teased. "You two just gave this territory the best fight it’s ever seen. Seriously, Tas. The way you handled that domain, your clones, that head-scissor... You fought like a terror out there. Watching you push through Brida’s defense was brilliant, Every girl in those stands knows exactly why you’re my Shadow Commander now."

Hearing him praise her that directly melted the cold edge of her irritation all over again.

Her dark eyes softened and dropped to her hands, and a self-conscious warmth tinged her cheeks.

"I just used what I had, my Lord," Tasmin murmured, her proud voice dipping into a rare modest tone. "If I hadn’t run out of stamina at the end, I would’ve finished her clean. I’m sorry I let her land that last punch..."

"There was nothing to be sorry about in how that ended," Silas said firmly, his smile widening. "You both gave everything you had and that breakthrough you made in the middle of it was incredible."

His expression turned a little more serious, and he reached into his Inventory.

The air beside his hand rippled, and a heavy ancient book appeared in his grip.

It was a thick grimoire bound in old leather, worn soft and dark at the corners, with faded silver lettering pressed into the cover.

Even sitting still in his hand, it gave off a faint steady pulse of mana, as if the knowledge inside it was humming.

Silas leaned down and set it gently on the blanket over Tasmin’s lap.

Tasmin blinked down at it with her fingers curling over the worn leather on instinct, and read the silver letters on the cover.

[Treatise on the Compression of the Primary Core: The Creation of a Mana Heart]

"My Lord, what is this?" Tasmin asked, feeling the faint vibration humming through the cover.

"One of the rewards I took from the World Vault," Silas explained, resting one hand on the edge of the mattress. "Number Five told me all about it... It’s a guide to compressing your primary core into an autonomous Mana Heart, no matter what element you have."

Tasmin’s breath caught as her eyes snapped wide.

"Your Shadow Heart took another step in that fight," Silas went on, calm and encouraging. "That was incredible, Tas, but a breakthrough you force out of yourself in the middle of a brawl leaves the foundation shaky. This book lays out the whole process from the ground up. How to stabilize it, how to get the darkness flowing through you naturally, how to draw straight from your element without burning yourself out... If you get it right, your affinity’s going to skyrocket."

Tasmin stared down at the book, her fingers trembling against the leather.

She understood exactly what was sitting on her blanket.

A guide to safely forming a Mana Heart was the kind of thing people would kill for and her Lord had just handed it to her in a quiet bedroom, like it was nothing.

"This is worth more than I can even imagine, Lord Silas," Tasmin murmured, her voice thick with emotion she was struggling to swallow. "To trust me with something like this..."

"You’re my Shadow Commander, Tas," Silas said simply, cutting through all of it with an easy smile. "You bled for this territory so you’ve earned it ten times over."

He reached out and brushed his thumb over the cover.

"Just don’t hog it all to yourself," Silas added with a teasing wink, nodding toward the other side of the bed. "Once you’ve gotten through the first Chapters, share it with Brida... If she can learn to properly condense that Warrior’s Heart of hers, she’ll be able to hold that compressed form without tearing herself apart. I want both of you reaching the next stage together..."

Tasmin glanced at the snoring woman beside her, and a reluctant haughty pout tugged at her lips.

Still, she nodded.

"If that’s what you want, my Lord," Tasmin conceded softly, smoothing her fingers over the spine. "I’ll let her read it after I’ve gone through the important parts... Thank you, Lord Silas... Really... I won’t let you down..."

Silas smiled, and his dark blue eyes softened with deep warm affection.

"I know you won’t."

Before Tasmin could guess what he meant to do, Silas leaned down across the side of the bed.

His warm calloused fingers cupped the side of her jaw and brushed a loose silver-streaked strand of black hair behind her earthen, close enough that she could smell the clean scent on his robes, he pressed his lips firmly to the center of her forehead.

SMOOCH!