Chapter 319: While He Slept

Chapter 319: While He Slept

Marris was halfway to Glitch when Jin fell.

She changed direction so sharply that her shoe slipped on the damaged floor. A medic reached him first, rolled him onto his back, and bent close to check his breathing.

"He wasn’t struck just now," Marris said. "He was running toward his beast."

"Give us room, Coach."

She stopped beside the referee, hands useless at her sides. She had watched Jin answer questions between bouts and regain control when Glitch charged.

She had not seen this coming.

A stretcher arrived. Marris followed it into the tunnel while the two beast teams worked behind her.

Sera found her outside the human treatment rooms after Mantle had been stabilized.

There was dried blood across her fingers. She kept rubbing at it with the edge of a clean towel without seeming to notice that it wasn’t coming off.

"Have they told you anything?" she asked.

"Not yet," Marris said. "How’s Mantle?"

"The shoulder will need a long recovery. They think it’ll heal." Sera swallowed. "And Glitch?"

"They’re still treating him."

Sera sat beside her. Neither discussed the result. When her coach came to fetch her, she asked Marris to send word once there was news, then went back to her tiger.

The doctor emerged shortly afterward.

"Jin is stable," she said. "We’ve started treatment, and he’s being monitored."

Marris waited while she checked her tablet.

"Profound exhaustion," the doctor continued. "His blood count is also unusually low. We haven’t found bleeding sufficient to explain it. Has he been eating normally? Any recent illness?"

"He’s been eating well," Marris replied. "Nothing recent that I know of. How serious is it?"

"A further drop could have put him in considerable danger. He’s receiving care now, but we need to understand what happened." The doctor lowered the tablet. "Has he ever collapsed after exertion like this?"

"No." Marris glanced toward the closed door. "Could it have come through the bond?"

"It’s something we’ll investigate. I can’t give you that as an explanation yet."

Marris thanked her and asked when he might wake.

The doctor couldn’t promise a time.

Elena answered the call before the first ring finished.

Marris gave her the news that mattered first: Jin was alive, stable after treatment, and being watched. Glitch had also survived, though his injuries were serious.

Arthur joined the screen while she explained what the doctors still didn’t know. Elsa stood behind them, silent, her face swollen from crying.

"We’re coming," Arthur said. "I’ll find transport."

"I’ve arranged protected travel for tomorrow morning," Marris told him. "Three places, and a room here. I’ll send the collection details."

Elena shook her head. "We need to know the cost."

"It’s covered," Marris said. She had paid it herself while waiting for the doctor’s return. "Please bring whatever you need for a few days. I’ll meet you when you arrive."

Arthur looked away from the screen briefly.

"Thank you," he said when he looked back.

Marris promised another update that evening and kept the promise, even though there was little new to tell them.

Jin didn’t wake that night.

By the following evening, his family was beside him. Elena asked the doctor questions she’d written on the back of a travel receipt. Arthur took the chair nearest the window and eased his brace loose after the journey.

Elsa held two of Jin’s fingers while he slept.

On the third day, Meridian fought Highfen in the final with the students still cleared to compete. Nessa won her bout. The others fought, and the title went to Highfen, whose leading student had also postponed Rank 2 for the League.

Meridian finished runner-up.

Marris returned from the awards with the result on her tablet and found the same quiet room. Jin slept through her conversation with his parents.

When Jin opened his eyes, his sister was lying across his hand.

He stared at her for several seconds. He knew the sleeve, the loose strand of hair over her cheek. Neither belonged in Highmarch.

"Elsa?"

His voice barely worked.

She lifted her head, blinked at him, and went completely still.

Then she shouted for their mother.

Elena reached the bed first. Her hands settled on his face, warm and shaking. Arthur appeared on the other side and gripped his shoulder.

"Hey," his father said. "Easy. Don’t try to sit up."

"Glitch?" Jin asked.

His mother’s expression changed, and the tiny pause frightened him more than anything she could have said.

"Where is he?" Jin tried again.

"He’s alive," Elena said quickly. "He’s in the next wing. He’s awake."

Jin shut his eyes. The breath he’d been trying to take finally came, uneven enough that his chest hurt.

Elsa was crying beside him. He reached toward her and discovered how heavy his arm felt.

"Sorry," he whispered.

"You scared us," she said, wiping her face. "You wouldn’t wake up."

"How long?" Jin asked.

Arthur brushed Jin’s hair back from his forehead. "It’s the fourth morning."

Jin looked between them. His father’s travel bag sat beneath the chair, and there was a folded blanket over Elsa’s knees. They hadn’t just arrived.

"Marris brought us," Elena explained. "She paid for the journey."

He tried to thank somebody and couldn’t decide who. His mother leaned down and held him carefully while Elsa refused to let go of his hand.

For a while, nobody asked him to explain the match.

After breakfast, the doctor asked what Jin remembered after the roar.

She explained the exhaustion, the low blood count, and the treatment already given. There was no accusation in her question about meals, but he answered it quickly anyway.

"I’ve been eating. Properly."

"I believe you," she said. "We’re checking possibilities. Your coach described a sudden collapse, and the tests don’t yet give us a complete explanation."

The thought of something draining him passed through his mind. He disliked it immediately.

"Can I see Glitch?" he asked.

At noon, with permission and a wheelchair, he could.

Glitch lay on thick bedding in the heavy care wing. Dressings covered his chest and foreleg. A treatment line ran beneath the bandaging at his neck, and the familiar horn ridge was clean of blood.

His eye opened when Jin came through the gate.

He tried to rise.

"Don’t," Jin said, leaning forward. "Stay there. I’m coming."

Arthur brought the chair close enough for him to reach. Glitch managed to slide his head a little across the bedding, then stopped, breathing hard from even that effort.

Jin put his hand behind the horn ridge.

The recognition through the bond was faint but unmistakable. Glitch knew him. He was glad he was there.

"Hey, you idiot," Jin said softly.

Glitch’s eyelid lowered beneath his hand.

Jin stayed until his own back began to ache, rubbing the uninjured scales and talking about nothing important. Flicker arrived with a handler and settled near Glitch’s head, unusually quiet. He let her remain there.

Before they left, the veterinary lead made the restrictions clear. Glitch’s Core was intact, but the internal strain required prolonged care. Recovery would take weeks, possibly longer. There would be no training or skill practice for now.

Jin agreed before she finished.

He could feel Glitch’s annoyance through the bond. For once, it was reassuring.

Corin visited that evening and told him about Highfen.

"The final’s over?" Jin asked.

Corin nodded. "We lost."

It stung more than Jin expected. He had wanted to stand there with them, even if all he could do was watch. Then he remembered Glitch struggling to move his head across the bedding.

"How did everyone do?" he asked.

Corin relaxed a little. "Nessa got us a point. Everyone tried. They were better."

He showed Jin the team photograph from the awards. There was an empty space where somebody had clearly expected him to stand.

"We finished second," Corin said. "Marris made us say it properly. No adding ’only.’"

Jin smiled and asked him to send the picture.

Later, when his family stepped out to eat and the room was quiet, he opened the Engine. He needed to see what had happened after Glitch fell.

Beneath the combat record, an unfamiliar entry waited.

[Abnormal Bond Event]

[Event timing: cessation of Imitation Draconic Heart]

[Abnormal strain surge recorded through the active bond.]

[Tamer response: collapse.]

[Mechanism unresolved.]

Jin read it again, then checked the timing against the end of the skill.

They matched.

He had watched Glitch’s readings throughout the fight. He had known the temporary state was hurting him and expected recovery to be difficult.

He hadn’t known it could reach back through their bond like that.

His hand rested beside the treatment line on the blanket. Across the corridor, his mother laughed weakly at something Elsa said, and he understood how close they had come to a much worse conversation.

The Engine had warned him about Glitch’s body failing.

It had recorded what happened to Jin only afterward.