Seraphine's voice was soft at first, barely audible over the crackling fire and rushing stream. The words were ancient, flowing in a language that predated the modern kingdoms, the tongue of the first priesthood.
"Lumis ae resonara, divinus ae harmonis…."
Her hands glowed faintly against Lucius's chest, silver light mixing with golden pulse beneath his skin. The corrupted divine energy within her reached out.
It found the chaotic solar energy raging through him, wild and untamed, burning everything it touched.
And slowly, carefully, began to harmonize.
Lucius felt it immediately.
The pounding in his head, the relentless hammering that had felt like his skull was splitting, began to ease. Not disappearing completely, just being suppressed.
The rhythm of Seraphine's chant seemed to wrap around the pain, containing it, redistributing it.
The pressure decreased. He exhaled shakily.
"Ae corpus, ae spiritus, ae vitalis…."
Her hands grew warmer. The connection deepened as she continued.
The screaming in his ears, every sound amplified to unbearable levels, started to fade. The birds in the trees no longer sounded like shrieking demons. The fire's crackle became more bearable. The stream's rush softened from a roar to a gentle murmur.
His enhanced hearing was still active, still sharper than that of a regular human, but no longer overwhelming.
Above him, Seraphine's face tightened. A sharp breath escaped her lips.
She was starting to feel it all now, everything he felt coming at her in silent whispers.
A dull ache started in her temples. Her own heartbeat grew louder in her ears, the beginnings of the sensory overload transferring to her.
But she didn't stop chanting.
"Resonara ae duo, harmonis ae totalis….."
The ritual continued.
Lucius's send of smell, which had been picking up every scent within a hundred meters, overwhelming and nauseating, began to normalize. The pine sap, the cooking meat, the damp earth, and Seraphine's faint scent of herbs and sweat, all of them became more manageable.
He felt the tension in his jaw release. Muscles he hadn't realised were clenched, began to relax.
Seraphine's hands trembled slightly. The headache blooming behind her eyes intensified. The sounds around her grew sharper, intrusive. But she kept her breathing steady and maintained the chant.
She was taking half his pain, and the connection deepened further.
Lucius's vision, which had been picking up every detail, every movement, making even dim firelight feel like staring directly at the sun, softened. Colours became less aggressive and cooler.
His eyes could finally close without the light filtering through his eyelids burning.
But Seraphine's face was pale now. Sweat beaded on her forehead. The sensory overload she was absorbing clawed at her consciousness, sounds too loud, smells too strong, her own skin feeling hypersensitive.
She gritted her teeth and continued.
"Duo ae unus, unus ae totalis…."
The ritual reached its peak, and Lucius could feel the fever breaking. The uncomfortable heat radiating from his skin, the elevated body temperature from solar integration, finally began to stabilize. Not disappearing entirely, but becoming bearable.
His sense of touch normalized. The fabric of his remaining clothes no longer felt like sandpaper. The cool forest air no longer stung.
Every part of his body was calming. The cellular restructuring continued. He could still feel it, the subtle shifting beneath his skin, but the pain of it faded to a distant discomfort.
Seraphine's chant grew quieter, more strained. Her hands shook against his chest. The headache splitting her skull was agonizing now. Everything was too bright, too loud, too much.
But she held the connection.
Because the moment she let go, the moment the harmony broke, everything would crash back into him worse than before. The pain would rebound, amplified by the interrupted resonance.
So she endured.
"Harmonis….ae….permanens…" she gestured the final phrase.
Golden and silver light intertwined, creating patterns in the air above them, like geometric symbols, the visual manifestation of their resonating energies.
Then, slowly, the light faded, and the chant ended.
But Seraphine didn't remove her hands. She couldn't remove her hands.
The connection was established now. As long as she maintained physical contact, the harmony would hold. The pain would stay split between them.
If she pulled away too soon, before the resonance fully settled into his body, the backlash would be catastrophic.
So she stayed.
Hands pressed against his chest, feeling his heartbeat slow from frantic to steady. His breathing deepened, evened out.
And then, without warning, he fell asleep.
Not the fitful, fever-dream plagued sleep from before. This was deep, profound. The kind of sleep his body desperately needed.
His face relaxed completely. The tension lines around his eyes smoothed. His mouth fell slightly open, breath slow and peaceful.
For the first time since arriving in this world, since absorbing corpses, fighting bandits, killing blessed warrios, assassinating a god, Lucius looked at peace.
Seraphine stared down at him, her own pain momentarily forgotten.
"He looks like a peaceful kid when he's asleep," she murmured.
Her hand, still resting on his chest, shifted slightly. Her fingers moved upward, tracing the line of his jaw. His skin was still warm but no longer burning. The golden glow beneath had settled into a faint, steady pulse.
She moved her hand to his hair, running her fingers through the dark strands. They were softer than expected, despite everything he had been through. The tips were beginning to lighten, golden highlights forming from the solar integration.
Her headache throbbed. The sensory overload made her want to curl up and block everything out, but she couldn't.
So, instead, she focused on him.
On the steady rise and fall of his chest. On the peaceful expression on his face. On the connection between them, fragile, necessary, binding.
Time passed, an hour or maybe more.
The link between them hummed quietly, a thread of shared energy. Through it, she could feel fragments of him. Not thoughts, exactly, but emotions. And beneath it all, a deep, aching guilt.
He still carried the weight of what he had done. The child god's final smile, the tears on that small face.
Seraphine's throat tightened.
Her hand moved from his hair back to his face, fingers ghosting over his cheek. He looked so young. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. Barely more than a boy himself.
And yet he had killed a god.
Her gaze drifted to his lips. Slightly parted, relaxed.
The moment shifted. Became something different, something more intimate than the ritual.
She didn't plan it, didn't consciously decide, but she found herself leaning down.
Her face hovering above his.
Just a brief lip to lip contact. Just—
His eyes fluttered open.
Golden irises stared directly into hers, mere inches away.
Seraphine froze.
Her face turned bright red, a crimson flush spreading from her cheeks to her ears to her neck. Her eyes widened. Her mouth opened, closed, and opened again.
She pulled back immediately, sitting up straight, hands jerking away from his chest before she remembered….
The connection.
She slammed her hands back down, maintaining contact, but her composure was shattered. She stared determinedly at the trees, anywhere but at him.
"I was just....checking your temperature. Making sure the fever.....very important to monitor…."
Lucius chuckled softly, the sound warm and genuine despite his exhaustion. His eyes closed again, a small smile playing at his lips.
"How long has it been?" He asked, voice rough from the sleep.
Seraphine forced herself to breathe normally, to regain some semblance of professionalism.
"Not sure, actually. It should be about two hours now." She paused, then added reluctantly. "I'm getting hungry though…and painfully having a pounding headache."
His head turned slightly toward the stream, eyes still closed. "Enough yet?"
"You good?" She asked, grateful for the change in subject. "If you are, then we can stop for today. Maybe go again tomorrow until you're fully recovered."
"Well, I should be done by tomorrow."
'Wait,' Lucius thought suddenly. 'She might ask how I know. I can't tell her about the system.'
But Seraphine simply nodded, her expression thoughtful.
"That's a rough speculation given the situation, but you might be right. The integration process usually takes forty-eight to seventy-two hours. If you've survived this long, the worst is probably over."
'Phew!' Lucius thought. 'She didn't ask how I knew.'
"Alright," Seraphine said, her voice steady again. "I'll slowly disconnect the bond now. Tell me if you feel anything."
She began to chant again, with different words this time, slower, more deliberate. The severance ritual.
"Resonara ae separatus, harmonis ae liberatus….."
The connection between them began to thin. The thread of shared energy fraying, unravelling.
Lucius felt the pain creep back in, gradually not overwhelming like before. Like turning up the volume slowly rather than all at once. His senses sharpened slightly. The headache returned but dulled.
"Duo ae liberatus, corpus ae singularis…."
The golden and silver light pulsed once more, then faded.
Seraphine's hands lifted from his chest, and the connection severed.
Lucius took a breath. The sensory overload didn't crash back, but the pain remained at the reduced level. The resonance had worked, his body had stabilized enough to maintain the improvement even without her.
"How do you feel?" She asked.
"Better. It's much better if I am to say." He sat up slowly, testing his body. Everything felt strange, enhanced, but no longer agonizing. "Thank you."
Seraphine opened her mouth to respond…and coughed.
Blood splattered across her palm. Dark red, flecked with silver.
She stared at it, her eyes widening.
'What?'
Another rough cough came along, and more blood spewed from her mouth.
Lucius scrambled toward her. "Seraphine…."
She held up a hand, stopping him. Her breathing was laboured. The blood continued to drop from her lips.
Taking on his pain and filtering solar energy through her body had damaged her badly.
Her vision swam. The headache spiked into something blinding and the blood...
She coughed again, unable to stop it.
Seraphine tried to speak, but only blood came out. The world tilted and darkness took her.