Chapter 21: Stranger

Chapter 21: Chapter 21: Stranger

The high from the raid was still sitting warm in his chest when he turned onto his street, ten thousand pounds heavier and already halfway through planning what he’d tell Novaria first, the money or the wolves or the part where he’d nearly lost a hand to his own bad footwork.

Then his eyes caught the front door.

Open. Just slightly, but open, a thin dark gap where there should have been nothing but solid wood and a closed handle.

Every good feeling in his chest dropped out at once.

He didn’t remember deciding to move. Essence surged down through his legs and the street smeared sideways, porches and parked cars blurring past in a compressed handful of heartbeats, and then he was through the gap in the door before it had finished swinging, boots skidding on the hall floor, his shoulder catching a side table hard enough to send a lamp crashing down behind him. He didn’t stop to check what else he’d knocked over on the way through. He barely registered the noise at all.

He hit the bedroom doorway a heartbeat later.

There was a woman sitting in the corner of the room, he registered that much, a shape at the edge of his vision, but it didn’t matter, none of it mattered, because Novaria was slumped sideways across the bed, unconscious, and his whole body was already moving toward her before his brain had finished processing anything else.

"Hey, wait, she’s fine, I already-"

The words reached his ears and slid straight past whatever part of his brain was supposed to process them. He was already on his knees at the bedside, [Cursory Insight] snapping active before he’d fully registered activating it.

[Novaria Agnello]

[Condition: Stable. Heart rate and breathing elevated, currently declining toward baseline.]

Those were the only two pieces of information his eyes could focus on

Close enough to see clearly now, he noticed the shattered pieces of a teacup scattered across the floorboards near the nightstand, porcelain in jagged white fragments catching the lamp light.

Her breathing was slowing. Settling. The same pattern he remembered from the night the hound had broken in, the aftermath of it, not the attack itself, the particular rhythm of a body coming off something violent.

’She’s had another seizure. And I wasn’t here.’

Something in his chest caved inward all at once. He set the spear down, not really registering doing it, both hands hovering over her, wanting to help and finding nothing left to fix.

"I’m sorry," he said, to her, to the empty room, to no one who could hear him yet. "I should’ve been here. I should’ve thought about this before I ever left the house."

A hand tapped his shoulder. He barely felt it the first time. The second time it was firmer, and the third came with a voice attached, low and a little wary.

"Hey. Who are you?"

He blinked, some of the fog clearing, and turned to find the same woman from the corner now standing right beside him, hand still hovering like she wasn’t sure if a fourth tap was going to be necessary.

"Sorry," he said, voice rough. "Sorry, I didn’t- what?"

"I’ve asked twice already. Who are you?"

"I’m-" He shook his head once, hard, forcing himself back into the present. "Her husband. Jason."

Something in the woman’s posture eased slightly at that. "Right. Okay. That explains the door."

He looked at Novaria one more time, steady now, breathing even, and finally allowed himself to actually look at the woman standing over him.

She looked younger than him, maybe. Or close to it at least.

Her hands were steady despite the tension still sitting in her shoulders.

"Did you give her the meds?" he asked.

"Yeah." She nodded toward the nightstand, where an empty injector sat beside the ruin of the teacup. "She’s okay now I think. I mean, she was seizing pretty badly, but it’s calmed."

"Thank you." He said it immediately, like it was the only sentence left in him. "Thank you so much"

"You already said that."

"I’ll probably say it a few more times before I’m done."

That got a small, surprised huff of a laugh out of her.

"What happened exactly? Tell me everything." Jason implored.

"I was just headed back home when I heard something break. It sounded like glass through the window."

She crossed her arms, like she was working through the memory in order. "I’d called out a couple times but nobody answered. Maybe I should’ve just kept walking, but curiosity got the better of me, so I let myself up the front steps to check."

He nodded, throat tight, waiting for the rest.

"That’s when I heard her. The convulsing. Followed the sound straight to this room."

Something twisted sharper in his chest at that, the image of it, the sound of his wife seizing on the floor pulling a stranger through his own front door.

"She was already going under by the time I got to her," Victra went on. "But she managed to point at the drawer, mid seizure, somehow. I found the injector inside, read the label fast as I could, then I just, went for it. I stabbed the needle into the side of the thigh and hoped I wasn’t making it worse." She exhaled. "She calmed down pretty quick after that."

Jason closed his eyes for a second, something between relief and renewed guilt washing through him in the same breath.

"How long ago was that?"

"Around twenty minutes before you got here. I was still trying to figure out whether to call someone when I heard you basically break the front door down." She tilted her head slightly, studying him.

"Adrenaline," he said, which was at least partly true.

"Sure." She didn’t push it. "Anyway. She’s stable. Sleeping now, probably will be for a while."

He nodded slowly, some of the tight coil in his chest finally starting to loosen. "I don’t know how to actually thank you for this properly. You want to stay for dinner? Least I can do."

"I’m good, thanks."

"Let me pay you, then. Please."

She waved a hand, already half turning toward the door. "Really, it’s fine, I just-"

He held her gaze until she visibly relented.

"Fine. Alright." A small, wry smile. "You’re annoyingly persistent."

"So I’ve been told."

"What’s your name? Do you live around here?" he asked in quick succession while, walking her toward the front hall.

I’m Victra and I live a few houses down." She pointed vaguely through the cracks in the front window toward the street. "That one, actually. Was just passing by on my way somewhere else." She glanced at the clock on the wall and winced. "Speaking of which, I really do need to go. Mr..." She said

"Jason" He completed her sentence

"And my wife you just saved is Novaria"

"I see" Victra said, Jason could see the faint look of resemblance in her eyes.

She’d probably heard rumors about them considering how powerful his wife once was.

"But I really should be leaving now"

"Right. Of course." He walked her the rest of the way to the door. "Thank you. Again. I know that’s the fourth time."

"Fifth, probably," she said, stepping out onto the porch. "But who’s counting."

He watched her head off down the street before finally closing the door behind him.

He made his way back to the bedroom. Picking up the lamp he’d knocked over in his rush to find out what was going on. Then made his way once again into the bedroom, grabbing a broom on his way back.

The shattered teacup swept into a neat pile of white fragments, the sound of it strangely loud in the quiet house.

Then he cleaned the blood from the raid off himself, scrubbing harder than necessary, as if to wash away the guilt and moved to the kitchen.

He pulled out the ingredients he needed, root vegetables, a handful of pale herb sprigs he kept sealed in a box to preserve its medicinal properties specifically for this, a portion of marrow he’d been saving for this recipe. The spell had said the Jade vein soup had an especially potent soothing effect on one’s circulating essence.

He diced the vegetables smaller than usual, patience he didn’t normally have but made time for tonight, and set the marrow simmering low first to draw out the richness before adding anything else. The herb went in last, torn by hand rather than cut, released more of its effect that way, according to the recipe.

He let it all simmer slowly, stirring occasionally, the smell filling the kitchen with something dark and warm and faintly metallic.

’She’s going to be exhausted when she wakes up. This is the least I can do.’ Was all Jason could think of to numb the pain of the strain this recipe was putting on his pocket

While it simmered, he sat down on the kitchen floor, cross legged, and turned his attention inward.

[Essence Core: First Level, Initial Stage]

His essence circulated quietly through his meridians, the familiar warmth and crackle of the dual natured essence moving in the pattern the Heretical God Law laid out, slow and deliberate.

He tried to settle into it properly, tried to let the guilt sitting heavy in his chest fall away the way it was supposed to during cultivation, and found it wouldn’t move. Every pass of essence through his core came slower than it should have, weighed down by the same thought circling over and over.

’I wasn’t here. She needed me and I wasn’t here.’

He kept going anyway, pushing through the resistance instead of waiting for it to pass, essence crawling forward in smaller, harder won increments than usual.

’Then get stronger. Get strong enough that this stops being a choice between earning money and being here for her. Find a way to do both.