Chapter 162: Luna [1]

The western border encampment never stopped moving.

Wagons groaned under supply loads. Armorers distributed fresh steel in loud clattering stacks. Runic wards were hammered into wooden palisades while runners sprinted between command tents carrying intelligence that was already slightly out of date by the time it arrived. Everyone knew the silence was borrowed time. Nobody said it out loud because saying it would make it real.

Alden stood near the perimeter fence staring at the foggy tree line. Nothing was moving out there. But his hand was already resting near his weapon and he wasn’t planning on moving it.

"You look focused," Luna said from beside him. She had her arms crossed and her eyes moving across the perimeter with an ease that said she did this kind of waiting regularly. "Staying sharp in a quiet moment isn’t bad instinct though."

Alden glanced at her. "I gues—"

"AH!"

A supply soldier nearby tripped on uneven ground. He had been carrying an armful of unsheathed broadswords and when his footing gave out the whole bundle went with him. One longsword flipped clean through the air tip-first directly toward his own face.

The soldier froze. His instincts said move but his body forgot how.

Luna blurred forward.

She thrust her bare hand directly into the path of the falling blade. The razor tip drove straight through her palm and poked out the back of her hand.

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink. She just reached over with her left hand grabbed the crossguard and pulled the blade out with a sound nobody wanted to hear. Blood pooled in her palm and started dripping into the dirt.

The soldier stared at her from his knees with his face completely white. "L-Lady Luna! I’m so sorry! Because of my carelessness you—!"

Luna waved her uninjured hand and gave him the kind of warm calm smile that shouldn’t be possible from someone bleeding through a hole in their hand. "It’s fine. Just slow down next time. Take a breath before you move. No need to rush."

He nodded about twelve times and scrambled off to collect the scattered swords with his face burning.

The surrounding guards and logistics personnel exchanged quiet looks.

"Didn’t even raise her voice..."

"Lady Luna is such a kind Spire..."

Luna looked down at her palm and sighed lightly. "I should probably wrap this."

Alden stepped over to her. "You could’ve just deflected with Rai-Kin."

"And hit every unarmored soldier in the blast radius with a pressure spike?" She gestured around at the encampment. "Most of these people aren’t combat trained Alden. A sudden Rai-Kin release from a Spire in an enclosed space would crush their lungs before they knew what hit them."

He paused. "...Right." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I’ve gotten too used to fighting around people who can handle shockwaves."

"It happens," she said easily.

He was about to say something else when his eyes dropped from her palm to her wrist. A deep purplish-black bruise ringed the joint with old mana residue sitting heavy in the tissue. That wasn’t from the sword incident.

"Your wrist is hurt too."

"Oh this?" She rotated it slowly and winced just a fraction. "Isabella’s vine caught me during the spar earlier. It’s nothing serious."

"That doesn’t look like nothing."

"Trust me I’ve had worse."

He looked at her expression for a moment. Then he held both hands out. "Give me your hand."

She blinked. "Why?"

"I’ll heal it."

Her eyebrows went up. "You can use recovery magic?"

"I think so."

"You THINK so?"

"I’ve never applied it directly like this."

Luna stared at him. "So your plan is to use an active Spire as a test subject for magic you haven’t confirmed works."

"I’m not going to accidentally remove your hand Lady Luna."

"How extremely reassuring," she said but she extended her injured hand and rested the bloodied palm gently on his without further argument.

Alden cupped her hand between his and closed his eyes.

’If I’m right about how it applies then it should push vitality directly into the damaged tissue.’

[Concept: Dragon Blood Activated]

Deep crimson warmth radiated from his hands. The puncture wound began closing. Muscle fibers knitting. Vessels fusing. Fresh skin sealing over the cut from the inside out. The bruising around her wrist faded and the deep swelling dissolved under the heat.

Luna watched it happen with genuinely wide eyes.

When he released her hand she immediately flexed her fingers and rotated the wrist in full circles. The ache was completely gone.

"It actually worked," she said.

"Basic application of life force."

"You called that basic?" She looked at her perfectly healed palm. "I may need to start hunting you down whenever I take damage on the battlefield."

Alden immediately stepped back. "Don’t get any ideas."

Luna laughed. Then she looked down at her hand quietly and her expression went somewhere softer. "Thank you. Really." She flexed once more. "Though even with this the phantom weight of Isabella’s strike still lingers a bit. She really is incredible isn’t she."

Alden glanced toward the command tent in the distance. "You really admire her."

"I do," Luna said without hesitation and without ego. "She’s the sole reason I’m standing here today."

Alden looked at her. "Sole reason?"

Luna smiled at the fog on the horizon and something in her eyes traveled back years. "Would you like a short story?"

Alden leaned back against the perimeter beam and folded his arms. "I’m listening."

***

Ten Years Ago

"Lady Luna you’re incredible!"

"She already mastered another high-tier spell!"

"Is there anything she can’t do?!"

The praise followed her everywhere through the polished estate halls like a shadow she couldn’t step out of.

Luna had been born into one of the most powerful noble houses in the kingdom and her talent for magic had burned brighter than anyone around her from the moment she could hold a focus. Complex spell scrolls she cracked in minutes. Techniques that took veteran mages decades she replicated on her second try. Everything came easily and everything came fast.

And because of that everything was deeply and painfully boring.

People worshipped her bloodline and her mana capacity and her "genius" title. Not a single one of them actually saw her. There was no struggle. No wall to climb, no rival to fear, nothing that made her heart beat faster. Magic had become routine and routine had become gray.