Lili drifted through the vast darkness. Her breath echoed in a hollow canyon, and her shadows, usually obedient, now slithered ahead of her restless.
Whispers tickled the edge of her hearing:
You’re not one of them.
You were made for the dark.
Let go, Lili. Come home.
The voices were countless, layered, broken and beautiful in the worst way. Some sounded like her own. Some like Rafael. Some of them too much like her mother’s quiet sobbing. Others were monstrous—crawling through her mind like spiders.
A light flickered in the distance.
Lili turned toward it. And suddenly the black fog pulling back as if scorched.
The light was blue and flickering like a flame. She reached for it and different images materialized:
Snow started to fall on the rooftop. Notori beside her, both too bruised to speak, yet sitting shoulder to shoulder.
Another: her father’s arms wrapped around her during the storm that shattered the windows. He held her like she was the most breakable thing.
A final image: the quiet sob she allowed herself in Notori’s arms just nights ago, when the strength cracked and something softer slipped through. That one burned longer and stayed.
But the darkness surged again, angry now:
You’re weak.
You protect them and they betray you.
Even your parents gave you to the fire.
The voices screamed, but Lili clenched her fists instead of accepting them. “No,” she said aloud. “I’m not yours. I don’t belong to you.”
The darkness didn’t retreat. It roared more furious this time.
But instead of confronting it, Lili turned and walked toward the blue memory, even if it was painful. At least feeling pain meant she was still alive…
***
Lili’s fingers twitched on the bed and her eyelids fluttered. The first light that cracked through the thick fog behind Lili eyes was bright surroundings. Her body felt like stone and her throat was parched. Lili stirred. Just a breath at first, the tremble of lashes against a cheek.
“Lili?” Margherita’s voice cracked. Her chair screeched against the floor as she sprang up, pressing trembling fingers to Lili’s wrist.
Lili’s lips parted. Broken and dry sound escaped. Then her eyes found Margherita first. Relief flooded the medic’s features.
“Don’t move,” Margherita whispered, like speaking louder might frighten the moment away. “You’ve been out for three days.”
Lili tried to speak, but nothing came. Margherita pressed a cup gently to her lips and Lili drank.
Then, eyes flicking toward the door, she forced out: “…Rafael?”
Margherita nodded. “Alive thanks to you.”
Something flickered in Lili’s eyes again. “My parents?”
Margherita smiled. “They’re right outside.”
Lili blinked to the ceiling above her.
Margherita leaned over her, eyes sharp behind the exhaustion, her hands already checking vitals. “Tell me how you feel,” she said. “If anywhere hurts, you need to let me know.”
Lili’s throat burned. Her lips parted around words that felt like they had to be forced through. “I’m… fine,” she whispered, and tried to lift her hand just a little. The shadows curled obediently at her fingertips..
Margherita’s brow furrowed. She didn’t look convinced. “Fine doesn’t mean much when you’ve just taken a hit like that.” She hesitated for a breath, then straightened up. “I need to run some tests.”
Lili closed her eyes, sighing through her nose. “Do I get to say no?”
“No,” Margherita answered bluntly, already pulling a tablet from the nearby table. “Not when you’ve been unconscious for three days and your Gift nearly tore itself apart shielding someone else.”
Lili didn’t argue. The weight of exhaustion still clung to her, but beneath it… no whispers. No inner screaming. No dark voices waiting for weakness in her head.
“Alright,” she murmured. “Do what you need to.”
Margherita’s shoulders eased, just slightly. “Good. I’ll be quick. And once I’m done, I’ll send your parents in.”
That made Lili’s eyes open wider again.
“They’ve been waiting,” Margherita added gently. “Haven’t left the corridor much.”
Lili nodded slowly, eyes misting just faintly as she turned her face toward the pale light pressing through the window. “Okay,” she whispered. “Let them in… after.”
“I’m going to scan your internal readings first,” the doctor said, tapping her tablet. A low, blue light passed over Lili’s torso, bathing her in a cool glow. “We need to check for any anomalies. When you absorbed that blow, your entire system flared with activity I haven’t seen before.”
Lili flinched faintly at the wording.
“Still no pain?” Margherita asked again, softer this time.
“Nothing sharp,” Lili admitted. “Just… like I’ve been hollowed out.”
Margherita nodded, her eyes scanning the data. “That’s consistent with overuse. You burned through a lot of power.”
Lili frowned faintly. “I didn’t push it. I just… needed it. And it came.”
Margherita looked at her concerned. “That’s what worries me.”
She moved around the bed, took a blood sample with the lightest touch. The vial lit faintly violet for a second in the analyzer, then dimmed.
Lili’s gaze had wandered to the window again, the world outside too far away and too unchanged for what had happened inside her.
The scan beeped.
Margherita blinked, paused, then frowned at the screen. “Interesting.”
Lili’s eyes flicked to her. “What?”
Margherita didn’t answer right away. She tapped a few more icons, studied the data as her brows pulled together. “Your Gift markers are… stabilizing after all this time spiking and splintering.”
Lili blinked. “You mean I’m healing?”
“Of course.” Margherita turned to her, awe in her voice now.
A beat of silence passed between them. Then, Lili breathed out. “Good. Maybe now it’ll stop screaming.”
Margherita’s gaze softened. She didn’t tried to confirm what Lili meant. “Tests are done for now. I’ll keep monitoring your scans in the background, but… you’re stable and you’re strong.” She moved to the door and paused before opening it. “You sure you’re ready to see them?”
Lili hesitated… then nodded.
Margherita opened the door and murmured something to the figures waiting just beyond it. Then Colin and Astonia stepped inside.
Lili blinked, slow and uncertain, her lashes flickering. Pain pulsed low in her chest, but it was a dull thing.
“Lili?” The first voice she heard was Astonia’s.
Lili turned her head just slightly and there they were standing close now, their expressions cracked wide open with emotion.
“Oh my god…” Astonia whispered, and in an instant, she was at Lili’s side, her fingers trembling as they brushed across her daughter’s cheek like she couldn’t believe she was real. “You’re awake… you’re—Lili, you’re here.”
Colin didn’t speak at first. He just sank into the chair beside the bed. He was desperately trying to hold his composure, but his jaw trembled and his eyes were bright with the tears he didn’t know how to hide.
“You were slipping away in our arms,” Astonia said, her voice breaking. “You just… went cold. I kept calling your name, and you wouldn’t—” She choked on the words and pressed her forehead to Lili’s hand, breathing in like she was afraid her daughter might vanish again.
“I’ve never been that scared in my life,” Colin said, finally finding his voice. It was rough, frayed with exhaustion. “Nothing compares to watching the light go out of your eyes and not being able to do a damn thing.”
Lili’s lips parted, her breath catching in her throat. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” she rasped.
Astonia shook her head fiercely.
Colin leaned closer, his hand hovering over hers as if afraid to crush the delicate thread of life he’d almost seen unravel. “We almost…” he murmured. “We almost lost you.”
Lili closed her eyes, her breath hitching as a deeper ache rose in her chest from something softer. “I fought it,” she whispered, the words barely there. “I fought to stay.”
Astonia’s lips parted, but the door creaked open behind them, and the moment was interruption.
Margherita stepped into the room, eyes shadowed with responsibility, but not without gentleness. She stopped at the threshold for a moment.
“Colin, Astonia,” she said softly, but with the authority of someone who’d fought just as hard to keep Lili breathing, “I think it’s enough for now. She needs to rest.”
Astonia turned, her fingers still wrapped protectively around her daughter’s hand. “Please… just a little longer?”
Margherita stepped closer. “Even a warrior like Lili needs quiet to heal. And we still need to run a few tests to make sure everything is truly settling right.”
Colin rose, the stiffness in his back betrayed by the heaviness in his movements. “We’ll come back,” he promised, voice rough. He leaned in one last time, brushing a kiss to Lili’s temple. “We’ll be here when you wake.”
Lili watched them retreat, the door closing with a soft click behind them. Margherita moved closer, checking the monitors, glancing at Lili without breaking her rhythm. “You scared the hell out of us.”
“I do that a lot lately,” Lili murmured.
The doctor smirked, tired but genuine. “Let’s run a few scans. Just to make sure your shadows aren’t plotting something new.”
Lili gave a faint smile. “They’re quiet for now.”
“Good,” Margherita said. “Let’s keep it that way.”
Just as the soft hum of Margherita’s scanner lit the room in a pale glow, the silence shattered. The door burst opened again, but this time with a crash.
Notori stood there, framed by the broken calm. He looked as though he hadn’t slept in days.
His eyes locked on the bed. “Lili—”
Margherita stepped forward, placing herself between them. “Notori! You can’t just barge in like that!”
Notori didn’t respond right away. His gaze flicked over her shoulder, trying to see Lili, needing to see her and get proof that she was whole.
“I just…” he rasped eventually, his voice barely there. “I had to see her. Just once. Just to make sure…” His legs wavered slightly under him.
Margherita looked back at Lili, whose hand weakly rose, the fingers curling toward the man in the doorway.
“It’s okay,” Lili whispered. “Let him in…”
“Lili—”
“I want to see him.”
Margherita hesitated a moment longer, then exhaled a long, slow breath. “You have five minutes,” she said quietly. “And then she rests.”
She stepped aside, and Notori entered the room fully. He reached her bedside and dropped beside it.
Lili’s fingers twitched in his, brushing the knuckles. “I thought I lost you,” he said. The words cracked on his tongue. A tremor rippled through him. He bowed his head, pressing her hand to his cheek. Her skin was so warm. Alive. “I wasn’t there. I should’ve been with you—I should’ve burned anyone who touched you—”
“Notori.” Her voice was hoarse but firm. “You would’ve done the same thing. You would’ve jumped between him and that thing too. You know it.”
“I don’t care about Rafael,” he said, too fast, too loud, and then quieter, ashamed. “I care about you.”
“You always care,” Lili murmured.
And for a moment it was quiet.
“That’s time,” the doctor said gently.
Notori looked up at Lili, panic threatening to rise again. But she nodded and it was like the promise that no matter what happens, it wasn’t over and they will return with full force toward whatever threat was awaiting for them…
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