The next night, the Seal loomed with its silence. Frost rimmed the stone, pressing the air cold and still. Across the far wall, the frozen lake glimmered faintly blue. Halven stood within his icy prison, one hand pressed against the frozen surface, his face too calm, as if death had dressed itself in serenity.

We gathered in a half circle before the elders, with Yukari among them.

Isa’s voice carried steady across the chamber, though the lines around her eyes betrayed the strain.

“Tonight we attempt what has failed before. Fusion to keep the lake stable. Binding to return the entities to their prison. But first, the Transmutation. The increased power will give us what we need to maintain the spell and keep the entities from attacking us.”

The words struck like iron. None of us had been told who the spell would take, and even thought I was hear, I had no idea if I could complete my part in the Transmutation spell.

My hands pressed together, nails digging into skin. My weak magic offered so little to what we meant to do here today. No one needed me for my magic anyway. But Neir’s voice from last night haunted my doubts. He had said they still needed me, that I was part of something larger with my friends. And he said he wanted me here, standing with him today. So I was. For them. For him. My chest ached with the effort of holding steady.

I still couldn’t help the deep unease growing like in a plague in my chest.

Garnexis crossed her arms, her expression unyielding. Ardorion shifted with restless energy, for once robbed of easy words. Shara’s gaze clung to Veyn as if her will alone could shield him.

I understood that fear. I had the same for Neir, but I didn’t dare to look at him. Instead, I kept my eyes fixed on Halven, refusing to let them stray anywhere near him. If I looked at him, the tears would come, and I would not stop.

Lo and Elio lingered near the back, subdued, their usual banter stilled. Orivian leaned close to Garnexis, his defiance clinging to him even now. Aster stood apart, her stillness threaded with an unease similar to mine. All of us were here, bound by what this night demanded.

Isa let the silence stretch. “Now you know the order. But not the one who gives up their life tonight.”

My stomach turned to stone. The words scraped against every fear I carried.

Yukari stepped forward. Her body blurred at the edges, strands of silvery-blue mist curling from her arms before drawing back. Her hair drifted like water stirred by unseen currents, streaked with glimmering white ice crystals. Her eyes, cold blue and luminous, swept across us. “It is me. I will be the one Transmutated.”

Relief tore across the group.

Shara’s expression cracked with it, though guilt shadowed her face. My own knees weakened. Part relief, but also from the horror of what we must still do.

To take a life.

Elio’s voice broke the silence, raw with panic. “I don’t know about anyone else, but Transmutating a person is a lot different than a plant. You cannot ask us to kill you, or anyone.”

Every fiber of me agreed. My lips parted, but no sound came.

Yukari’s mouth curved, humor threaded with pity. “While I appreciate your honorable nature, dragon, I am not asking. I’m telling you. My hands have ended more lives than all the combined years you all have been alive. A thousand times over. Whole villages destroyed under my command. Minds broken while they begged for death. Some deserved it. Many did not.”

The chamber froze around her words. My throat closed. She had ended so many lives by her own admission. Yet, the thought of helping to end her struck sick and wrong. Could I allow the truth of what she admitted crushed every protest?

Her voice deepened, ancient and final. “That debt binds me more tightly than any chain. Tonight, it ends with me. Tonight, I begin my redemption before seeking it in the eight hells.”

Elio stumbled back, silence sealing his protest. The others wavered, some in grief, some in quiet resolve. I could barely breathe, yet the choice stood already carved. They would do this, with or without me. My friends needed me, so how could I not stand with them?

Later I would mourn the part of myself I would lose tonight.

Yukari’s gaze lifted to Isa, her eyes blazing like frozen fire. “When the Transmutation is done, Neir, Rielle, and Aster will need to bind what remains of me into Isa. Once complete, Isa will have access to my energy to use in the Binding of the entities to the lake.”

Isa inclined her head, her expression unreadable.

Yukari’s form wavered again, mist peeling from her shoulders before drawing back. “This is how you will save everyone, so don’t weep for my corrupted soul.”

Tears pricked at my eyes, but I blinked them back. If she could choose this, I could not falter. I would not let my friends face it without me.

We closed the circle around Yukari as she knelt, mist already curling from her edges, her form steady though she must have known what waited for her.

Isa lifted her hands, her voice calm and commanding. “Find your element within her. Draw all of it free.”

Moon magic opened inside her the moment I reached for it. No struggle, no resistance. Her core overflowed with it, a purity unlike anything I had touched before. It poured through me like a silver tide, endless and whole. For one who spoke of slaughter, who had counted lives in thousands, the essence at her heart was still sacred. This was the magic of the Kōri-onna, born of the Goddesses’ bond, as if divinity itself had carved her from water and moonlight.

The brilliance nearly drowned me. Threads of Moon poured out, cold and radiant, more than my body could hold. Neir’s closeness steadied me. His hand hovered at my side, silent and sure, keeping me from faltering. My chest ached with the strain, yet I drew harder, wanting to prove I could do this.

Around me the others fought their own battles. Shara clenched her jaw, her guilt as visible as the vines weaving from her hands. Ardorion strained, his fire dragging heat from where it barely lived in Yukari’s endless cold. Garnexis held herself like steel, unyielding, her gaze locked on Halven’s hand within the ice.

The circle thickened with power. Light spun from every side, threads of root, flame, ore, and water weaving with mine. Yukari’s body began to unweave, not violently, but as if thread unraveled from a tapestry. Strands of shadow, water, and moonlight dissolved into the spell. Her expression softened. Eyes closed, she lowered her head as though welcoming the end.

My soul cried for hers.

The plant in training had been still, mindless. This was not. Each strand whispered memory, fragments of centuries heavy with grief, with choices etched into eternity. My breath broke, yet I pulled harder, even as the purity of her magic pressed against the truth of all she had destroyed.

Her body collapsed inward, mist flickering once, then brilliance overtook her. Every last thread dissolved until only a seething, misty mass of raw, radiant power blazed at the circle’s center.

My arms trembled, every nerve alive with the current rushing through me. It could have torn me apart, but I clung to it. For Halven. For my friends. For Neir, who had asked me to stand with him tonight.

And I had.

The storm of Yukari’s energy churned in the chamber, raging like a sea torn from its shore. Strands of brilliance cracked across the air, threatening to shatter loose. If it broke free, everything we had given would scatter with it.

Isa stepped forward, her jaw locked, her body straining under the flood pressing against her. “Now. Bind it to me, to my center in my womb.”

Neir’s hand lifted beside mine, steady as always, Aster raising hers on his other side. Silver, blue, and lavender threads spiraled upward, twining into Isa. My magic quivered, thin and weak against theirs, yet Neir’s presence steadied me. We spoke our intention aloud, my voice trembling but true.

“We bind what remains of Yukari into Isa, so her power may guard Wintermere.”

Neir’s voice anchored ours, firm as stone, the strongest among the three of us. The spell sank into Isa’s body, pulling Yukari’s essence toward her womb. The energy struck with crushing force. Isa cried out, her body buckling, but she held. Light gathered low in her abdomen, pulsing like a second heartbeat, steady, alive. The storm quieted, its brilliance sealed inside her.

A longing stirred in me as Neir lowered his hand. When this was over, when Halven was safe, maybe we could find out what it would look like for me to stand beside him. Perhaps we’d learn what it meant to be soul halves.

Isa turned toward the ice prison where Halven waited. Veyn and Neir joined her, their shadows stretching across the frozen wall.

The rest of us spread along the barrier. I sidled close to Shara, my next Binding partner. She pressed her palm flat to the ice, steady as roots driven into earth. I laid my hand over hers, my breath uneven though my grip did not falter.

“Begin Ardorion and Aster.” Isa’s command broke across the silence.

Their Fusion rattled Wintermere. Fire and water collided deep within the frozen lake, cracks splitting outward in jagged lines. The same breaking that had doomed us before.

Then Isa blazed. Yukari’s energy tore through her body, the brilliance engulfing every shadow. Wind ripped in circles around us, deafening, until her voice rang out again. “Begin the Binding spell.”

Shara’s Wood surged first, threads of root and vine thrust into the frozen lake. My Moon magic spilled over hers, silver weaving through green, their union binding stronger together than either alone. Our shared intention whispered against the barrier.

The chamber roared back with their howls, voices clawing against us, tearing through the ice with fury. The wall rattled beneath our joined hands. My magic nearly buckled, weak against their rage, but Shara’s steadiness carried me. Her strength bound mine, and together our strands hurled into the greater spell Veyn anchored.

The entities thrashed, then faltered. Isa’s glow pierced the frozen lake, Yukari’s power blazing through her body like a beacon. The entities’ voices fractured, weakened, then stilled. Cracks in the ice closed, luminous frost sealing them away until silence filled the chamber.

Neir stepped forward, his hand pressed to the wall. The spell he wove sank out of sight, deep into the heart of Wintermere. But I recognized it, or the theory of it, now seeing the dreaming spell in practice. A spell so complex, my magic would never be able to recreate it. But silence thickened. The entities slept again.

Isa and Veyn cast their power into Halven’s prison. Light unraveled their previous Binding spell, water streaming down the stone floor. Halven collapsed free of it, his body crumpling against the ground, breath faint but alive.

Relief tore through me, breaking me open. We had done it. Against everything, we had saved him.

Veyn steadied Halven first, lifting him from the stone. Their clasp of hands and faint smile carried the kind of history no one else could touch. Lo threw herself into him next, clutching him with a desperate kiss. Elio stumbled forward, laughter breaking through his breath as he caught Halven’s shoulder.

Ardorion shoved through the tangle, his arm locking around Halven in a clap that echoed. “Missed you, bro. Don’t do that again unless you want me to replace you as captain of our bro squad.”

Halven’s lips curved, his whisper scraping the stillness. “Thanks.”

The chamber stilled as if time itself had caught its breath. His first word since he had vanished from our lives, returned to us now when I had almost stopped believing I would ever hear him again.

My chest broke open. Tears ran freely, too many to name their reasons. Relief that he stood here again. Guilt that lingered, whispering that if I had not broken things off, maybe he would never have come to the Academy earlier than all of us. I wanted to cross to him, to hug him, to tell him I was glad he lived. But Lo’s arms were locked around his waist, her claim pressed into him, and I was the girl from before. The ex. This moment did not belong to me.

Halven’s gaze lifted, steady and warm as he met us one by one. When his eyes touched mine, the ache deepened. I lowered my head, leaning back as Neir’s arms circled me. He had been waiting, patient as always, giving me the space to choose. I let him hold me, sinking into the steadiness he offered.

Movement at the edge caught me. Garnexis lingered apart from the others like me, shadows clinging to her stance. Something unsettled curled through her, the kind of tension that spoke of leaving. My breath hitched, but Elio’s voice broke through.

“You’d better start studying tonight if you want to pass finals.”

Halven’s hoarse laugh rolled through the chamber, joined by others until the sound tangled with tears. For a heartbeat, joy and sorrow lived side by side.

Isa’s voice carried above the rest. “The lake remembers what you’ve done for Nythral. And it always will. You should feel proud of what you’ve accomplished here, Docilis. I know I do.”

I lifted my head. I couldn’t feel the pride she granted us. I was happy to have Halven back, but the cost of taking a life would always be a stain on my soul.

Then my gaze slid back to where Garnexis had stood.

She was gone.

None of the shadows hid her, and my heart dropped. I couldn’t lose another friend, not now. As I pulled away from Neir, ready to tell everyone we were losing Garnexis, Ardorion’s voice echoed in the chamber.

“Hear that, bro? We’re legends now.”