Under the hail of Yi’s arrows, Phoenix couldn’t catch them. Phoenix could only watch them slip into a ragged rift like a torn seam in the sky, and vanish.

Back on the battleship, a soft figure dove into Aphelia’s arms. The scent of a young girl rose like warm tea, and all her words sank into a single sigh.

The others kept silent, a frost settling on steel. They had been Heroes, yet the tide now shoved them against the world, with Aphelia cast as its calamity’s root.

Aphelia had shown she could step between light and shadow, yet suspicion would cling like burrs from every faction’s chiefs. Zealots would ride the chaos.

Worse, to pull Aphelia out, Yi—the outsider from the East—had been dragged into the same whirlpool.

"I trust you, as always," Augustus said, pointing toward the girl resting by Lena for treatment. His voice dropped like dusk over a field. "I called you my dearest friend, and spent everything to set this plan with Fran. But now... her wounds may spin out of control."

These two had paid without counting. They even played the villain’s mask, and burned every bridge in the Holy City to save Aphelia.

In any rescue, blood is the toll at the ford. They had braced for the worst. Aphelia’s power averted it, yet some cuts can’t be dodged, and Fran’s was carved too deep.

Were they brainless amoebas? Of course not. You don’t become a young Cardinal by thinking in straight lines only. Still, they chose the cliff and leaped.

They never regretted it, but the mountain of reality still stood in the road.

Aphelia stroked Violet’s hair, as soft as red silk in a breeze, sat her aside, whispered in her ear, then walked to Fran’s pallet.

Few knew the Cardinal Order like she did. She knew who had set this barb. A nameless Cardinal, once her mentor, a soul-craftsman whose blade cut like winter wind.

His art targeted the soul with needle-fine ruin. He didn’t chase a killing blow. He planted a thorn that would fester like hidden rot.

He got what he wanted, and Aphelia answered with a single slash, leaving him half-dead, like a lantern guttering in rain.

"I’ve stabilized her body," Lena said. Her hands poured near-legendary healing like a river of light. "Yi pried out the soul dagger. But..."

"Her soul is unsteady, like a flame in a draft. It tugs the flesh apart. Right now, only you can set it right, Aphelia."

Lena glanced at Aphelia’s wounds veiled in holy light, and her heart pinched like a closed fist. A right arm hewn clean, burns from sorcery, and a hole through the chest.

Augustus swallowed his words, because hers, by any measure, were storms worse than Fran’s rain.

Reading their worry like ink on paper, Aphelia smiled and lifted the veil of holy light. "I’m fine. Leave it to me, Sister Lena," she said, the smile like dawn.

What showed was flawless, pale skin, smooth as jade. If not for the torn nun’s habit, no one would guess what had torn through her moments ago.

"You’re no Phoenix. How..."

"Don’t overthink it. Uncle Yi will give you a decent answer."

She braced Fran with her left arm. As Augustus drew breath to ask about the missing right, black fire bloomed at her shoulder like an eclipse.

It took the shape of a forearm, witch-dark and silent. A faint sss of burning threaded the air, though no fuel fed that flame.

Only Fran saw Aphelia bite down on the pain, like a blade hidden behind a smile.

"Then, I’ll begin."

Fran nodded, a leaf trembling yet resolute. In her heart, when this Hero spoke, mountains moved.

The black-flame hand touched Fran’s wound. The soft crackle returned, like paper singed at the edge, and everyone fixed on that midnight limb.

It didn’t take long. Perhaps a quarter hour, the time for incense to burn. The black hand withdrew, drawing out thin gray threads like spider silk from mist.

Only trained eyes in the soul’s craft could catch those hair-fine strands, ghostly as morning fog.

The instant they came free, Aphelia’s gaze hardened like a drawn blade. In one breath, she sealed the black hand and the gray threads inside a magic circle.

The circle became a sealed pocket of air, and within it, the taint detonated like a star cracked in a jar.

Aphelia flicked the sealed circle away, a coin tossed into the open sky beyond the hull. Then she shaped a hand of light, and tended the backstab wound.

With the soul’s interference gone, Fran’s flesh knit before their eyes, spring grass rising after rain. Color returned to her cheeks in a slow bloom.

Aphelia bathed the wound in holy light, combing away every hidden barb. The last shadow lifted, leaving no lingering scars.

She exhaled a long breath, like wind leaving a bellows, set Fran into Augustus’s arms, and let herself drop to the deck. The light in her eyes dimmed like twilight.

"Aphelia!"

Violet dashed to her. Crimson Arcane Power pooled in her palms like molten lacquer, ready to pour into Aphelia.

"Easy... I’m just tired. Don’t spend yourself," Aphelia said, catching Violet’s wrist, and used her arm to sit up, slow as a reed in water.

She sighed, weariness like sand in her bones. "So, what now? Except for me and Uncle Yi, and Augustus with Fran, the rest of you can go home."

"Ride out the storm on your own ground, wait until the wind dies."

"And you, Aphelia?" Lena locked eyes with her, steady as a spear, refusing any fog of half-answers.

"Of course, I’ll chase the truth."

"So you’ll face it alone again? You did when you slew the Demon King. Now you’ll do it again?"

Before the last word settled, Violet hugged her from behind, arms tight, her voice trembling like a plucked string.

Held by Violet’s warmth and plea, Aphelia felt sweetness and helplessness braid like twin vines. "There are things only I can do."

She ruffled Violet’s soft red hair, gentle as a palm over embers. With Violet, her smile never dimmed; she showed her the sun, never the storm.

Her answer to Violet was that same smile, and a wave of dizziness that folded the world. Violet sagged like a petal, asleep.

"All right. Let’s talk business. I’m leaving Violet to you," Aphelia said, handing her to Lena. She rose, and if they hadn’t seen her collapse, they’d swear she was whole.

A sudden shudder slammed the battleship’s flank, a drumbeat in iron. Everyone staggered, balance skidding like gravel.

"What’s going on?!"

Yi moved first, arrow-quick toward the control room. Another jolt hit before he reached it. The ship tilted like a listing boat, and they braced on instinct.

Oppenheimer shoved the door open, coughing smoke. "The Church is on us! Not one ship—at least three mains. Judging by the spatial ripples..."

"...there’s likely reinforcements."

Silence dropped like ash. The air felt like a tomb.

Augustus drew breath to break it, but Aphelia’s voice cut first, clean as a knife. "Please, take care of Violet for me. Sister Lena, I owe the elves an apology."

"Aphelia... is this a joke?!" Lena’s answer snapped like a whip. Her palm left a hot red print on Aphelia’s cheek, and her eyes brimmed like overfull wells.

"You still have a tribe to guard, Sister Lena. Let me return a little of what you gave me, for raising me all these years."

"Augustus. Uncle Yi. I’m leaving the rest to you."

They said nothing. They only nodded, stone-still. None of them could body-block a battleship in the void. Not even to stall.

This was the only coin they could pay back to Aphelia.

"Don’t, Aphelia!"

"You know it too, Sister Lena. Only I can do this. Only my station fits the blade’s edge. Please."

Aphelia glanced to her companions. They held Lena back. She walked to Oppenheimer and spoke softly.

"Please."

Light as it was, the word hammered Oppenheimer’s chest like thunder under a cloak. He was the youngest here, a tinkerer of odd toys.

Yet the Hero, Aphelia, trusted him as one trusts a bridge over a ravine.

His lips shook. Tears drew pale tracks like rain on soot. He said nothing, and opened the hatch.

"Thank you."

Aphelia smiled, and dove into the open sky. Whoosh.