Chapters 45-47

We're missing one chapter from last week and that puts us back on track!

Chapter 45

Lily collapsed to her knees.

Blood poured down her neck, hot and fast. Her hands flew up to staunch the flow, but her fingers slipped over slick skin. The gash was too high, too wide. She couldn’t apply pressure; couldn’t breathe. Her vision blurred at the edges, and the rush of blood sounded louder than her thoughts.

She tried to channel Light.

Nothing.

The spell fizzled as soon as she summoned it. The threads frayed before they formed, and the world pitched sideways. The pain came in pulses now—white, screaming pulses that pushed everything else away. Her limbs shook.

Darkness crept in.

Not unconsciousness.

Darkness.

The same type of Mana that she used for Coniunctionis.

The more she tried to push Light Mana into the wound, the more it faltered. Each attempt grew weaker than the last, like water slipping off oiled skin. The threads of Light unraveled the moment they touched the edge of the darkness inside her. Her healing refused to take hold. It was like the wound rejected her magic, and the more she insisted, the more it twisted against her will, unraveling before it could stitch.

She felt it now, inside her throat wound. It pulsed with each heartbeat, coiled and writhing. It wasn’t killing her.

It was resisting her.

She tried again, forcing Light to thread through the tear. The darkness responded by thickening. Her own mana rebounded and burned like acid. A low noise escaped her—half gasp, half sob.

It won’t work. It won’t let me heal.

Not unless I...

She stopped fighting.

She let the Light go. She let the Darkness rise.

She had never done that before.

Not fully. She had always treated Darkness as something external. Something dangerous. Something to be wrapped in Light and purged. But now, she didn’t have time for that. She didn’t have blood for that.

I am about to die. If this isn't it, I'm dead. I could brute-force it--but that's not it... It doesn't feel right. 

She reached deeper. She let the Darkness into her fingers.

Instead of pulling the Mana out, she guided the Light to wrap around it. To thread with it. Not weave over—with. Together.

The reaction was instant. Her throat burned so bright that for a heartbeat, her whole body flared like a candle. Mana surged in opposite directions: Light meeting Darkness, each one twisting around the other. Like double helices. Like twin threads in a tendon.

The pain spiked, then vanished.

Not faded. Vanished.

She dropped her hands and took in a single, rattling breath.

Air.

She blinked, and the room looked different.

The walls were still stone, the pedestal still dark, the mirror still slick with reflected blood—but everything shimmered. The air around her glowed like breath on cold glass. She felt the Light and Darkness together now. In her throat. In her hands. In the threads that pulsed through her mana channels.

This wasn’t just healing.

It was as if she had fed Darkness into Light to magnify the effect of healing tenfold. 

She looked at the mirror. Her reflection still stood inside it, blood staining its throat but no longer dripping. The wound on its neck glowed with light—not pure, not white, but tinged with ash.

Lily rose. She reached up and touched her own neck.

The skin was smooth.

There wasn’t even a scar.

She inhaled. Mana coiled through her lungs, not just Light, not just Darkness. She had fused them. She had created something in between.

Balance, she thought. Not peace.

Power.

The mirror rippled.

Her reflection smiled—a small, quiet smile.

It was about to turn and walk away when it tilted its creepy head and frowned.

Dad must have brute-forced the healing. He couldn't have done it this way... but that means...

That meant Lily had approached a Great Skill in a completely new way. And it was only because she had been lucky enough to learn Coniunctionis, which allowed her to recognize that the Darkness Mana had craved Light, not to be extinguished. 

I know that it is possible to achieve different quality of Skills, but does this mean that I'll get something even stronger than whatever Dad and the other Patriarchs of the Gens Claudia had?

The creature in the mirror walked closer to the surface and reversed the grip on the ritual dagger, holding it by the blade and offering it to Lily. 

Lily, confused and guarded, got close and slowly took it from her double's hands. 

Now, the creature stood back and pointed at its own chest and then at Lily. 

"You want me to stab myself? Haven't I already gotten the Skill? Wasn't that it?" 

The creature shrugged and turned, starting to walk again.

"Wait!" Lily shouted, feeling like she was about to miss a great opportunity. 

The creature turned and smiled at her with her pointy teeth.

"You want me to stab my own heart, don't you?" Lily said with gritted teeth.

The creature nodded.

Lily stood silent for a moment. Then she plunged the blade into her chest.

The dagger slipped past ribs and slid between the ventricles with eerie precision. A sudden jolt rippled through her. She gasped and yanked it free.

Her knees buckled.

Cardiac shock set in immediately. Her body entered a rapid cascade of reactions—peripheral vasoconstriction, oxygen drop, blood pressure falling. Her heartbeat spasmed, then faltered. Diaphoresis slicked her skin with cold sweat. The brain, starved of oxygen, flickered in and out of clarity.

This time she fell forward.

The pain came like a thunderclap. Then darkness. Her lungs no longer obeyed. Her blood no longer pushed. She felt her retinas begin to fail.

Then—

A voice.

"Lily," it said, calm and resonant. "It's far from your time."

A figure stepped out of the darkness. He was tall, dressed in a long coat the color of shadow, with a face both unfamiliar and impossibly familiar. His eyes shimmered with starlight.

Then—

Another vision.

Lily stood in a sterile hospital corridor. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. She saw her reflection in a glass pane: older, taller, dressed in surgical scrubs. For a moment, she remembered. Procedures. Patients. Her hand writing prescriptions. Her voice calling vitals. Her name etched on a badge.

Dr. Liliana Claudia.

But as it came… 

Then it vanished.

Her body screamed again. Her chest burned. She gasped.

And the room lit up.

Not with torchlight. Not with mana.

It lit like day.

Brilliant. White. Real.

From her chest, a light brighter than the sun lit everything up.

The creature slowly evaporated and turned into ash which entered through Lily’s healing wound, meshing and fusing itself with the Light.

Lily opened her eyes and let out a primal scream.

She was alive.

Whole.

And something in her had just changed.

Chapter 46

Many Years Prior

“Life Flow,” Lucianus’s father, Tertullianus, said.

“That’s the Great Skill?” Lucianus asked while his father prepared him for the trial. 

“Yes. The stronger your healing, the more dangerous the trial will be, Lucianus. Your Light Magic is extremely powerful, therefore you must beware. You will meet a shadow of yourself. It will stab you thrice. If you survive, you will learn Life Flow.” 

“So it’s not a Light Skill, it’s a Life one?” Lucianus looked confused. “Can a Skill even be Life-attuned 

“That’s the power of great skills,” Tertulianus revealed. “It takes complex rituals to bring out such Affinities before you have a class, but there exist Skills that already have a Combined Affinity.”

“They do?” Lucianus was amazed by that reveal. 

“Combined Affinity Skills are usually Class Skills, but there are as many, if not more, Hidden Skilils around the world whose learning rituals and methods are close to impossible to find, and that is why [Librarians] exist.”

“Aren’t librarians evil?” Lucianus suddenly asked; he had always had a curiosity for the forbidden. But hearing his father talk about it, he was confused—he had always thought his father was a proper man, someone who followed the rules. He, on the other hand, had studied bodies and corpses in order for his healing and his powers to be even greater, something banned by the Church. 

“They are a dangerous class,” Tertulianus admitted. “I get it: the temptation to subvert the natural order of things has a strong pull on any young man. It’s a class for rebels. Knowledge is perhaps the most dangerous weapon. Imagine you could have one man with the ability to uncover Skills as powerful as the Great Skills. Now, suppose he could gift the equivalent of Great Skills to your enemies, would you allow him to live?” 

Lucianus raised an eyebrow and said, “I would probably choose to befriend him if that’s the extent of the power they wanted.” 

Tertullianus then gave a large belly laugh. He nodded. “That is a good response, son, but one you could get hanged for. Don’t let yourself get weird ideas.”

“So the trial,” Lucianus said, “I just go in there, heal three wounds—that’s what you said. Is there an animal there?”

“You will first receive the wound, then you’ll be tasked to heal it,” the father said.

“I will be wounded?” 

“Yes.”

It sounded a little bit creepy to Lucianus, but he agreed. 

“On the third wound, the mirror will inject you with Darkness Mana. The point is to overpower Darkness with Life. Light, once it’s overcharged, will collapse onto itself and generate Life Mana. That’s the essence of Life Flow.

“Then, once you overpower darkness with life, it is the same as having double the amount of light, which means it becomes life-attuned, and that’s when life to love, a much more powerful version of the universe, so powerful and scary, will appear. Of course, it varies in potency, but I suspect you will be among those to receive the strongest version of the skill. Even at its weakest, it’s the kind of power that everyone covets. It’s the kind of power that can make or break a great family. This is why we keep it here; this is why only a few are allowed to wield it, and only a few are allowed to know the secrets of it. It would happen if the entire mainline died. There are custodians of secrets, people in charge of furthering the bloodline. You will know more when you succeed. You will know more when you are a stranger. Oaths, blood, Lucianus. Leaving a great family is no easy task.”

The young man had a doubt in his heart. 

“Why can’t Claudia do it? I think that Claudia is more suited to—” Lucianus began.

Tertullianus raised her hand

“Even if your sister could learn the great skill, considering how hard it would be for someone with a Darkness penchant like a woman, to have the power to govern these matters. Lucianus didn’t want to argue; he had already done that so many times.

* 

Tiberius stood by the arched window of the western tower, arms folded behind his back. Sunlight poured through the stained glass, casting pale colors on the stone floor. His armor caught a faint shimmer from it, but his eyes were fixed beyond the wall, on the distant hills.

Ennius stepped into the chamber. He didn’t speak right away, feeling the incredible rage of his older cousin.

Tiberius Iulius was the most dangerous and powerful member of the main branch of the Gens Iulia, a warrior who spent as much time on the frontline as he did scheming. 

“She’s more dangerous than you think,” Tiberius said, not turning.

“You’re talking about Liliana,” Ennius replied flatly.

Tiberius gave a shallow nod.

 “I saw what she did during the Healing Trial and I warned you.”

Ennius narrowed his eyes. “She healed a wound. That was the whole point of the trial.”

Tiberius turned at that, meeting his gaze. “Not just a wound. That pig she was assigned—he had a wound beyond a normal Classed [Healer]. You know how hard it is to fix that.”

Ennius said nothing. Tiberius continued.

“No ten-year-old, not even a freshly Classed [Healer], could have stabilized that in one go. But she did. I checked the pig myself, Ennius. The damage was sealed to the root.”

The Pope’s nerves were grating at the little respect that Tiberius put in his words when speaking to him, but he didn’t say anything.

“She had help,” Ennius said at last, though the words were weak even to his own ears. “Her family’s specialty—”

“The Gens Claudia’s attitude for healing doesn’t explain it. Her fathre wasn’t even in the capital, and you know it,” Tiberius snapped. “She didn’t use normal Light Magic. She used something else. I don’t know what. But whatever it was, it did not follow our doctrine.”

Ennius’s mouth tightened. 

“She’s just gifted, Tiberius. So was Cassius.”

“No,” Tiberius said, voice hard. “Cassius excelled within the space you created for him. Liliana has bent rules and she’s shooting for your position. You saw the duel with Sextus Cornelius.”

Ennius turned away.

“She should’ve lost,” the Pope admitted. “She still didn’t even have a Class. But she humiliated him. She didn’t just react—she dissected him. She baited his stance, manipulated his center of gravity, then hit the core of his Skill. Not even a [Weapons Instructor] could’ve taught that without years of drilling.”

“She’s being trained,” Ennius muttered.

“Not like this,” Tiberius said. “No one taught her that. She didn’t just learn it. She understood it.”

The silence stretched.

“Ennius,” Tiberius said at last, “I tried to warn you. This girl isn’t just talented. She’s unbound. If you don’t start treating her like a threat to the Papacy, you’re going to regret it.”

“She’s just a rebel girl,” Ennius said quietly.

“She’s something else,” Tiberius said. “You just don’t want to admit it.”

It was true. 

Ennius didn’t want to admit that a girl, of all the people, constituted a threat. 

“She’s nothing, Tiberius. She won’t learn a Great Skill and she’ll just be a powerful [Healer]. That’s all.” 

“You’re stubborn, cousin,” Tiberius sighed and shook his head. “Careful that your stubbornness doesn’t become your demise.”

Chapter 47

The garden’s stone tiles were still wet from the morning’s dew, but Lily didn’t seem to care. 

She had yet to go back to Calpurnia and Sabinus—after learning the Great Skill, Lily had asked her mother to guard over her training and make sure it would stay private. 

The blonde girl had found a healing power so great that she was still grasping the extent of it. 

She was barefoot again, seated cross-legged on the training mat with her back straight and her palms resting over her knees. The faint glow of Life Flow shimmered at the edge of her fingers, flickering like a nervous flame. 

Adriana, arms folded and smiling tight with effort, watched her daughter from under the stone archway. She didn’t dare interrupt.

There was no strain on her brow, no tightening of the jaw. Just focus.

After a full minute, Lily opened her eyes. The glow faded. She looked up. “Did I do it right, Mother?”

Lily had channeled the Great Skill it with a precision and consistency that put most adult [Healers] to shame when it came to a simple [Heal] spell, much less a Great Skill. Adriana could hardly believe what she was seeing. The flow of restorative Mana from Lily’s hands was rich, uniform, and deeply attuned—more than a burst, more than a flare. It was the kind of output she’d expect from a Level 50 [Healer], not from an twelve-year-old girl with no Class.

That level of control shouldn’t have even been possible without years of field experience.

Yes, it burned through her Mana like wildfire. Yes, she could barely hold it for more than half a minute without faltering. But that didn’t matter. Even a short burst like this would be enough to reset bones or re-seal grievous wounds in an emergency.

“You—” Adriana crossed the distance in four strides and dropped to her knees. “You did better than right. You held it. Perfectly. You shaped the flow and kept it stable.” She took her daughter’s hands and kissed her knuckles one by one. “You’re beyond gifted, darling. You’re finally controlling it fully. This is what real shaping feels like.”

[Mana Shaping] was a Skill of a fundamental importance for [Healers] for a reason. Adriana had never spent much time overseeing her daughter’s healing since Lily was so gifted. However, since Life Flow, which Lily had explained in detail to her mother, worked similarly to [Heal], the blonde woman had decided to take the time to make sure Lily’s [Mana Shapingi] was up to the task.

The past few days, Adriana had run Lily through complex exercises that would be usually reserved for Classed [Healers], but her daughter had not even batted an eye.

Not only Lily had gotten the Great Skill of the Gens Claudia, but something had changed in her. 

She looks more mature—she’s less stubborn.

“You’re special.” 

“Mom,” Lily said.

“Yes, darling?” 

Lily tried to hide her smile. “You always say that.”

“Because every time, you exceed what you did the day before.” Adriana brushed a few blonde strands from her daughter’s brow. “You’re not just going to be a [Healer]. You’re going to make everyone in the Papacy call you a Champion.”

“What about the law?” Lily asked.

“I’m taking care of that. There’s… it’s simpler than I thought. Just…” Adriana hesitated. “I sent a letter to your father, implying that I was going to do this in order to force his hand. We’ll need his support for your claim to be recognized.”

“But they’ll try to stop me.” Lily said it without malice. Just fact.

Adriana’s hand stiffened on Lily’s. “They’ll try. But after you fight in the tournament. That’s all that matters. Once they see your power and you have your father and the Gens Cornelia behind you… when they try to say no—”

“I’ll already be too strong to stop.” Lily’s voice was quiet, but certain.

Adriana felt the warmth rise behind her eyes. She blinked it away and pulled Lily into a hug. “Exactly, my bundle of Light.”

They stayed like that for a moment, wrapped in the early sun, surrounded by the rustling hedges and whispering breeze.

Then they heard it.

The sound didn’t match the garden—too heavy, too sharp. Boots. Not on gravel or dirt. On stone. Several men, moving quickly, in unison.

Adriana rose at once, moving toward the edge of the archway and looking over the hedge wall.

They weren’t her brother’s men. The armor was different—thicker plate, gold-edged, trimmed with the dark red that only belonged to one family.

The Gens Claudia’s armor.

Adriana’s face darkened.

The lead soldier barked a command. Servants froze as the men entered through the outer courtyard. No weapons drawn—yet—but their posture was that of an escort, not a patrol. They were here with purpose.

“Lily,” Adriana said without turning back, “go inside. Don’t ask questions.”

Her daughter didn’t argue. She ran, barefoot still, the hem of her training robe flaring as she vanished into the house.

Adriana stepped out of the archway, lifting her chin, her back straight. She descended the steps just as the guards entered the inner courtyard. The captain saw her, slowed his approach, and removed his helmet.

“Lady Adriana,” he said. “We come bearing a letter. By order of Lord Lucianus Claudius.”

She didn’t reach for it. “You bring armed men to deliver a letter?”

“It’s not just a letter, milady. It’s a request for protective custody.”

Adriana’s jaw tightened. “Protective from what?”

The captain didn’t answer. Instead, he held out the sealed envelope.

She took it.

Adriana broke the seal with a single flick of her nail. The letter was thick parchment, folded with exacting care. She didn’t need to read far. The handwriting was unmistakably Lucianus’s—cold, mechanical, and without the slightest trace of warmth.

Adriana,

I don’t understand how you achieved such a result. I commend the results and the courage it took for the attempt. But whatever visions you believe you’ve seen, they do not supersede the judgment of those with clear minds.

Our daughter is most certainly gifted. I do not dispute that. But gifts must be tempered. I will return shortly, and until then, I expect your full cooperation.

Effective immediately, both you and Liliana are to remain within the estate at all times. I am sending guards not to offend you, but to ensure that no further complications arises. You are not to leave, nor is Lily to be presented publicly in any fashion.

Specifically: our daughter, Liliana Claudia, is not to participate in the Tournament. That matter is not open to debate.

Let us not force the Gens Claudia to clean up a family scandal. Stay your hand until I return. I expect better of you.

—Lucianus

Adriana’s lips parted slightly as she read the last line. A family scandal. That was how he saw it. Not as promise. Not as power. Not even as potential.

He feared what he couldn’t control. And in Lily, he saw something he hadn’t planned for.

She folded the letter slowly and pressed it against her chest, her fingers trembling—not with fear. With rage barely held back.

“Milady,” the guard captain said. “If you please could enter the villa. Master Lucianus should be back in a matter of days. We don’t want to create any upset.”

“You’d raise your hands on me?” Adriana said, narrowing her eyes.

The captain sighed.

“Milady, I have orders.” 

Adriana nodded curtly. 

“Follow them, then. I’m not stepping inside my house on anybody’s order.”

* 

Lily stood just behind the second-floor window, her breath fogging the glass.

She had hidden the moment her mother told her to run—but she hadn’t gone far. She crouched now behind the embroidered curtain, fists clenched, watching the inner courtyard unfold like a theater of shame.

Her mother stood tall and proud in front of the guards, her golden hair catching the morning light like fire. She didn’t shrink. She didn’t plead. But they still stepped forward.

They didn’t hit her.

They didn’t shove her.

But they touched her.

And that was enough.

Two guards reached out—careful, rehearsed—and placed their hands on her arms. Adriana jerked against them, screaming at the captain, demanding they unhand her. One of the younger guards faltered at the volume of her voice. The other held fast. They weren’t dragging her, not quite. But they were leading her.

And Adriana did not follow. She kicked the wall. Her foot collided with the stone planter beside the fountain and knocked it over, soil spilling across the marble. She screamed again, incoherent this time.

Her arms flailed once before the guards clamped down harder, restraining her without force—but also without respect.

Lily couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t move.

Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest it hurt. Every beat felt like it wanted to burst out and claw its way down the stairs. Her mother, the strongest character she had ever known—stronger than the men in armor, stronger than the priests, stronger than any book or banner or Skill—was being dragged like a criminal through her own garden.

And no one stopped them.

No one even looked away.

The rage came fast. It didn’t climb or build. It snapped. It ignited inside her like oil on a fire.

For the first time in her life, Lily felt something darker than fear.

She felt the desire to burn.

To kill these men.

To show them what they deserved for treating her mother like that. 

Mana surged beneath her skin before she realized she’d drawn on it. 

Her vision blurred as the color of the world shifted. Lines of force and resonance rippled across the floorboards, traced through the walls, reached down into the stone where her mother stood.

She gritted her teeth and hissed through them.

“One day, they’re going to regret that.”