(Lina’s POV)
I woke up to a headache and a ceiling I didn’t recognize.
Everything felt slightly wrong the way things felt after sleeping too long or not long enough.
I blinked.
The bed was enormous. Soft in a way that felt almost offensive after...after what, exactly. I couldn’t finish the thought.
Did I beco a princess?
The idea lasted about two seconds before I noticed the person sitting in the chair beside the bed.
A boy. Dark hair. Asleep with his arms crossed and his head tilted at an angle that was going to hurt his neck when he woke up. He looked like soone who had sat down for a mont and lost the argunt with exhaustion.
Who is he?
I sat up slowly, careful not to make noise.
Did he bring here?
I looked around the room. Large. Well-furnished. Not a hospital, not a ruin, not anywhere I had context for.
The last thing I rembered clearly was the summoning. A high-rank spirit contract. I rembered the circle. I rembered the pull. I rembered the mont it tipped past the point of return.
After that,
Nothing.
Or not nothing. Sothing. But when I reached for it the mory moved away like it was deciding whether to let have it.
What happened to ?
I looked at the boy in the chair again.
He wasn’t going to wake up on his own anyti soon.
Should I wake him.
I didn’t.
Instead I pulled my knees to my chest and waited, watching the light co through the curtains and trying to piece together sothing from the fragnts I had.
He woke up about twenty minutes later.
His eyes opened and he was already present, already scanning the room before he had fully straightened.
They landed on .
"You’re awake."
"Yes," I said.
He studied my face for a mont, then reached over and poured a glass of water from the table beside him. Held it out without comnt.
I took it.
"How much do you rember," he asked.
"The summoning," I said. "And then nothing. Or sothing, but I can’t reach it."
He nodded like that and answered a question he already knew the answer to.
"You were injured when I found you," he said. "In the forest. Head wound. Leg injury. You’d been there a while by the look of it."
"The forest."
"Deep forest. The kind nothing lives near voluntarily." ..."You were crying."
I didn’t know what to do with that information so I said nothing.
"I brought you back to the estate. Had the maids sort out the rest." He leaned back in the chair. "That was about a week ago."
"A week."
"Give or take."
I looked down at my hands. They looked fine. No visible damage. Whatever had happened to my leg had healed cleanly.
"What’s your na," I asked.
"Kael."
"Kael," I repeated. "You’ve been sitting in that chair for a week?"
"Not continuously."
He didn’t answer that directly. Just looked at with an expression I couldn’t fully read, the way people looked when they were deciding how much to say.
"What happened to ," I said. "After the summoning. Do you know?"
"So of it."
"Tell ."
He was quiet for a mont.
"The contract pulled more than you had," he said finally. "High-rank spirits don’t take partial paynt. You gave everything you had and it took the rest." He paused. "Your mories went with it. Not permanently they co back. But it takes ti."
"How much ti."
"Depends on the person." He glanced toward the window. "You’ve been recovering. The fact that you’re asking coherent questions is a good sign."
There was sothing in the way he said it, like he was giving the outline and keeping the details for later.
"You’re not telling everything," I said.
He looked at .
"No," he said. "I’m not."
"Why."
"Because so of it isn’t mine to tell. And so of it..." he stopped. Started again. "So of it will make more sense when you have more of yourself back."
I wanted to push. But his face made not.
"Okay," I said instead.
He stood.
"There’s food if you want it. The maid will bring anything you ask for." He moved toward the door. "Rest. Don’t go anywhere alone until you recover your mories."
"Kael."
He stopped.
"Thank you," I said. "For finding ."
His expression changed. Brief, unannounced, gone before I could na it.
"Don’t ntion it," he said.
And left.
The door clicked shut.
I sat with the quiet for a mont.
Then, from sowhere near the window a sound. Like wind moving through a space too small for wind to be moving through.
A presence settled beside on the bed. Invisible to the eye but not to anything else.
I knew this feeling.
"Sylph," I said quietly.
The wind stirred.
You rembered my na, the spirit said. Not in words more like the shape of words, carried on sothing that moved through the room without touching anything. That’s a good sign.
"What happened to ?"
A pause. The curtains shifted slightly.
You pushed past the limit of the contract, Sylph said. The high-rank bond requires full spiritual presence as collateral. You didn’t have enough and you offered it anyway.
"I know that part."
You collapsed in the transit space between the summoning circle and the bonding plane. I pulled you out. Mostly. ....The forest was the closest point of return I could find.
"You left in a forest."
"I left you sowhere you could be found," Sylph said. "I calculated correctly."
I thought about the boy in the chair. A week of coming back to sit beside soone who didn’t even know his na.
"He found ."
Yes.
"What else aren’t you telling ?"
"And he still brought here."
Yes.
"Why."
I don’t know.
....
"Can you tell about what happened"
I also don’t have much mory because our bond was weak but... Yeah you were like Koala.
"Koala....."
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