Echoes of the Abyssal Blade: Path to Free Will-Chapter 56: Blessing in Disguise

On the way back, Rhydian and Jonan boarded a carriage, which was following a caravan on the way, which was getting to the nearest city from where they were, and from there, they would board a carriage that would lead them to Starfall City.

No carriage would be benevolent enough to help them; it’s just that Rhydian took out quite a sum of gold, which changed their mind, and let them hop on the carriage, and instead of wearing a mask to hide his face, he simply covered half his face with a cloth, and he also wore a hood for better concealment.

At the moment, while Rhydian was perfectly fine, Jonan, in the meantime, was lethargic, and his limbs were not working from the exhaustion as well and some effects of the Dark Tide were showing on him.

The Dark Tide of the Monarch Lyneex wasn’t just a simple black color flood; if it even touches any living being, it starts to corrode anyone from the inside.

While Jonan wasn’t unlucky to be drowned in Dark Tide, he was swept by it, which left lingering traces of corrosion in his internal organs, which in turn made him weak. He needed a healer who could heal him as fast as possible and remove traces of the Dark Tide’s effect on his body.

For this, Jonan needed a powerful healer too, and for now, Rhydian could only think of the Starfall Family to help him, but to reach the Starfall City would take them at least a week, and he wasn’t sure if Jonan could even survive for more than a day or two.

After hesitating for a bit, Rhydian took out a Small parchment on which he wrote cryptic messages, after which he burned the parchment, and his face was uncertain if what he did was even right.

Meanwhile, at the same time, in the Starfall Castle, Lenaia, the shaman of the Starfall Family was observing an insect by dissecting it on the table, wearing a monocle, which was contracting and dilating, her eyes were curious.

At the same time, she felt something burn in her pocket, and when she took out a small parchment, which was blank a moment before, but was now filled with cryptic writings.

"Hmm, Rhydian wouldn’t disturb me if it wasn’t something important," after which she blew on it, which turned the letters into disarray, and they started moving randomly, and when the letters finally settled down, she started reading them.

Reading the parchment turned her eyebrows into a frown; she was visibly, and with a sigh, she said, "Ughh, I chose that abomination because it had no link to any of the royals or anyone of greater power that would trouble us, but this trash of a beast, how dare she spoil my plans", after which she slammed her table in anger, which turned everything on the table fall, and turn into a mess.

After reading more of what the parchment had, her face turned nearly pale, "Shit...Shit....Shitttt, this plan was a disaster, that bitch Lyneex, I will personally rip out her shadow skin, agh this has turned into a mess, because of the destruction of the city, the other heroes will be able to find our involvement in this, and Young Master is also in a critical condition, he is His Holiness’s final hope, I cannot mess this up."

Leniaia stood up, she first dusted her clothes, and she wore a green regal robe, which had the symbol of the Starfall Family.

After cleaning herself, she muttered something, which made the parchment start to burn, and its ashes, instead of scattering, converged and turned into an arrow, following which she shot off, flying in the sky, which is something even Rhydian is not capable of.

Meanwhile, Jonan’s condition was deteriorating by the second, his face was pale, sweat was forming on his face, and even Rhydian, who was indifferent, was troubled by this situation; he didn’t know how to solve this problem, but he had mentioned it to Lenaia, whom he knew would find a solution for this.

The gentle creak of wheels on rutted ground was the only sound breaking the silence, the air was dry, the heavens were grey, clouds hung low in ragged streams like funeral drapes across battered horizons, and dust was raised in loose whirls as the caravan proceeded, its cargo of merchants, guards, and travelers paying scant heed to the quiet carriage bringing up the rear.

Inside, the cabin was blacked out, the curtains were pulled over them, Jonan huddled on one side of the seat, his body twitching slightly, his eyes half-closed, lips parted slightly, but his breathing erratic and shallow, every breath laborious.

Rhydian sat beside him, expression taut, his hood was pulled forward, a length of dark cloth masking the lower half of his face.

Jonan’s condition was worsening.

The damage from Lyneex’s Dark Tide was subtle but lethal, the corrosive essence had not been expelled, it had nested inside him, and it gnawed at his insides like invisible vermin.

He leaned forward, pulling the cloak tighter over Jonan’s shoulders. His movements were efficient but tense.

"Hold on," he muttered under his breath. "She’ll find something for you, just hold on."

But even he wasn’t certain anymore, the parchment he wrote on was one of their most secure means of contact; it was enchanted and hidden from all but Lenaia, but even he wasn’t sure if a Monarch’s power could be expelled from someone.

Unfortunately, It was the only choice he had left.

After an hour or so, the wind outside shifted, and a ripple passed through the air, unnoticed by the caravan, but not by Rhydian.

He tensed.

He felt it: a strange compression of space, as if something heavy had just dropped near them, soundlessly, and then the shadows at the edge of the carriage flickered—once, twice—and stilled.

A presence was here.

Rhydian’s eyes raked across the cabin, and then there she was.

Lenaia.

She stood inside the crowded cabin, her lean figure somehow exempt from the movement of the carriage. Her robes glimmered softly, green silk with Starfall insignia stitched in golden thread, but her shape was just visible, quivering on the edges, like mist. She had clothed herself from view—only those she granted permission to could see her.

Even Rhydian, for all his skill, hadn’t sensed her arrival until the last moment.

"You... came in person," he muttered, lowering his mask slightly.

"I had no choice," Lenaia replied, her voice low and sharp. "You didn’t mention he was dying."

She stepped forward and knelt by Jonan, her hand reaching to brush his damp forehead, her touch was precise and gentle, but firm, like a scalpel.

"He’s being eaten from the inside," she hissed. "And not slowly."

A flick of her wrist summoned an orb of pale green light into existence, the cabin grew still, the ambient noises of the outside world dulling into silence, Lenaia placed both hands above Jonan’s chest and closed her eyes, and the green light began to flow down in thin, tendril-like wisps, slipping through his skin like rain soaking into earth.

Jonan’s breathing hitched.

The light intensified, wrapping around him in a soft glow, but almost immediately, something was resisting it. The green energy convulsed, black tendrils laced with red veins slithered through his body, snapping at the healing energy like serpents, the Dark Tide was also autonomous.

Lenaia’s face tightened.

"Damn it..." she muttered. "It’s entrenched in his organs. Heart, lungs, liver—it’s coiled in all of them, and worst of all, it recognizes when its life is in danger."

She pressed down harder, and the green aura grew thicker, forming a shell around Jonan, the black tendrils surged up violently in retaliation, trying to bite through the barrier, Jonan groaned in agony, his fingers twitched, and his jaw clenched.

Rhydian stepped forward. "Is he—?"

"Don’t speak," Lenaia snapped, sweat beginning to form on her brow. "I need to stabilize him first. Then talk."

Her voice was cold, and focused; she was deep in her trance now, guiding her energy like a surgeon’s blade, she twisted her fingers midair, and the green light compressed, spiraling into a narrow stream that pierced through the darkness like a drill. Bit by bit, she began unraveling the tendrils, forcing them out of Jonan’s organs, dragging them into the light to be dissolved.

It took some time, and it was longer Jonan, harrowing minutes where Jonan’s body spasmed in silent agony. But slowly... the black began to fade. The last of it hissed and crumbled to ash beneath the purifying green.

The radiance receded. Lenaia let out a slow sigh and relaxed back, palms smoldering lightly.

Jonan’s white face and icy skin of mere seconds before, and now regaining color, breathing smoothed out, sweat evaporating off his forehead, curled fingers, as if emerging from a nightmare.

Lenaia stood, swaying briefly.

She turned her gaze down to Jonan, then narrowed her eyes. Something still nagged at her.

"There’s more," she said softly, kneeling again.

She placed two fingers just above Jonan’s heart and murmured something under her breath, a translucent sigil blooming beneath her hand, an intricate spiral of glyphs and ancient characters.

Her eyes widened.

"What..." she whispered. "This shouldn’t be..." 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

She leaned in, listening—feeling, she could hear the rhythm of Jonan’s heart, not just the sound, but the harmony, it was... pure, it was integrated, and stronger than before.

"No..." she muttered again. "What we failed to achieve was achieved by him under such disastrous and miraculous conditions; his heart is finally his."

Rhydian nodded. "It wasn’t his originally."

"It is now."

She looked up, her expression was dazed.

"The Dark Tide forced his heart into full synergy with his body, it... tried to kill him, but instead, it challenged every part of him to survive and being the heart of that being, it obviously responded, but now Jonan will have adequate control over his heart."