Chapter 100: "Rest Well Master" - A Part of his Soul Koya Secured

Kōya walked back toward the dilapidated inn through the afternoon press of Slane without speaking a word.

No celebration followed, and no one mentioned the mountain of gold he had emptied from his bags to buy a single life off the stage. Around them, the city operated as though nothing had happened: hawkers shouted inflated prices from their stalls, iron-barred drays rumbled through the ruts, handlers guided glowing collars through the crowd, and curtained noble carriages rolled past without slowing. The auction might as well never have happened.

Kōya hated the street for it.

Kaela walked between him and Lyra, moving her feet only when Lyra’s hand guided her elbow. Her silver eyes stared straight ahead without focus, her broad shoulders slumped forward beneath her torn shift.

Every trace of the fierce teacher who had once stood before him with twin wooden practice swords lay buried under weeks of cellar dark and exhaustion.

Kōya clenched his right hand into a fist.

The auctioneer and the brokers called it a win. In truth, he had only moved his master from one iron cage into another. Inside his coat pocket, the rolled vellum special bond contract pressed against his ribs, its legal clauses twisting his stomach into a knot of disgust.

Beside Kaela, Lyra matched her shortened stride in silence. Having worn a collar of her own, she understood that some wounds only bled worse when prodded with questions.

When they reached the quiet lane of the inn, Kōya pushed the thick timber door open and stepped aside. "Come inside."

Kaela shuffled across the threshold, her bare feet dragging over the pine floorboards, and sat down on the edge of the narrow upstairs bed where Lyra guided her.

Kōya stood in front of her knees for several seconds, his throat dry.

On the road, this reunion had played in his head a hundred different ways: striking every chain off her wrists with his blade; her bark at him for taking so long; a punch to the jaw for dragging himself into a territory war; her rough voice calling him an idiot.

Instead, she sat on the ticking and stared at the floor planks between her feet.

"Master," Kōya said.

Her eyelids stayed still.

Crouching down on his heels in front of her, Kōya brought his face level with hers. "It’s me."

Her silver eyes stayed fixed on the wood grain.

"You don’t have to talk," he said. "And you don’t have to force yourself to remember everything today."

Silence filled the small room.

"You are never going back to that hall," Kōya said.

Resting on her bruised knees, Kaela’s pale fingers twitched once.

Kōya held his breath. His attention locked on her hands. Five seconds passed without another movement, and a cold weight settled into his chest. His eyes dropped to the floorboards. Had the handlers buried the woman he knew so deep in the dark that his voice couldn’t reach her anymore?

Lyra stepped forward and knelt on the boards near Kaela’s hip. "She knows you’re here, Kōya."

He faced her, his eyes hollow. "How can you tell?"

"Because she hasn’t tried to pull away from you." Lyra offered a steady smile. "She doesn’t need to say anything yet."

Kōya swallowed hard and gave a slow nod. "Yeah."

For the first time since walking out of the auction house, the rigid tension in his shoulders eased a fraction—then Stormfront, leaning against the plaster wall, drew his attention.

He had carried the Lightning Sword across so many miles of blood and mud that its weight and the ozone tang of its scabbard were second nature to him. He knew it as Zeref’s stolen trophy, and as the weapon that had carried him through the borderlands.

Yet long before the world burned, the sword had belonged to another life.

*Yuna. Before Kōya had ever trained under Kaela’s stick, Yuna had brought the Lightning Sword into the courtyard to show her master. In Kaela’s world, Stormfront was tied directly to a girl she had loved and trained in the sun long before Slane’s chains touched her neck.*

Rising from his crouch, Kōya reached out and lifted the scabbard from the wall.

The instant the iron chape cleared the floorboards, Kaela’s eyes twitched.

Kōya froze.

Kaela stared straight at Stormfront’s golden crossguard. Her scarred face remained blank of conscious recognition, yet her silver pupils tracked the weapon in his hands.

Holding his breath, Kōya lowered the hilt three inches toward the floor.

Kaela’s eyes followed the steel down.

"K..."

The cracked, raspy consonant scraped past her dry lips so faintly it barely stirred the air. Her mouth worked a second time without producing a sound while her eyes stayed fixed on the sword.

Dropping back to his knees, Kōya laid Stormfront across his thighs within easy reach of her lap. He stayed still on the planks and waited.

Kaela’s scarred right hand shifted on her knee.

Violent tremors ran through her wrist as she lifted her fingers two inches into the cool air, hovering over the gap between them before reaching slowly past Kōya’s chest toward the sword.

It was a movement of less than six inches, yet it burned behind Kōya’s eyelids like a flare in the dark. A single hot tear slipped down his scarred cheek. "Master..."

Kaela’s trembling fingertips brushed the rayskin wrap of the handle.

Kōya slid Stormfront two inches closer to her knees. "Take it."

Her fingers closed around the familiar grip. Bringing her left hand across, she wrapped both palms around the scabbard and hauled the weapon tight against her sternum.

For three heartbeats she sat rigid with the steel against her ribs. Then the blank mask over her face broke apart.

A hot tear splashed onto the black lacquer, followed by another. Bowing her head over the crossguard, Kaela curled her torso around Stormfront like a shield while silent, wrenching sobs shook her broad shoulders and soaked the front of her torn shift.

Kōya clapped his right hand over his mouth, biting down hard on his knuckle so no sound of his breaking would reach her. Tears spilled freely over his fingers anyway.

That single reach of her hand told him everything he needed to know: buried underneath the collar and the vaults, Kaela was still inside there, holding onto a piece of Yuna’s light.

Beside the bed, Lyra’s shining eyes moved from Kaela’s bowed silver head to Kōya, keeping the quiet intact.

Gradually, the ragged tremors shaking Kaela’s spine slowed into deeper, even pulls of air. Exhausted to the marrow, her fingers still welded around Stormfront’s hilt with both hands, she let her eyelids close and drifted into sleep.

Kōya stayed kneeling on the hard pine planks for a long time while his master guarded the Lightning Sword in her sleep as if it were the only honest thing left in the city.

When his cramped knees finally forced him to stand, he faced Lyra. "Lyra."

"I’ll stay right here," she whispered, shifting closer to the bedside. "I’ll stay with her tonight."

Kōya nodded once, his voice thick. "Rest well, Master."