2951 Present Struggles (Part 1)

Friya hugged Nalrond tightly, losing herself in his warmth.

She ran her hand through his hair, appreciating its soft thickness. Then, she caressed his back, following the line of his muscles. Friya took deep breaths, taking in Nalrond's natural smell and that of his cologne.

She clung to him, trying to trap all those feelings and engrave them in her memory as strongly as she could. It was the only thing she could do to fight the fear that it was the last time she would hold him.

***

Trawn Woods, Lith's tower, a few minutes later.

"What do you mean, almost die? Are you insane?" Lith said, his words matching Friya's.

Nalrond, Friya, and Quylla had Warped to the Verhen House and from there the Rezar had asked Lith to move to the tower to talk in private.

"Do you realize what you are asking me to do?" Lith's outrage after Nalrond finished explaining to him the procedure to merge the Rezar life force with the human had taken everyone by surprise.

They had expected a shrug. A cold risk/benefit analysis. A friendship hug since Lith knew all too well how having your life forces engaged in an eternal conflict felt. Anything but this.

"This isn't a life-saving procedure but an elective procedure. And dumb one at that." Lith snarled.

"No more than Quylla's attempt to Awaken herself." Nalrond shook his head.

"Hey!" Quylla said, not liking the comparison one bit. Mostly because it was true.

"Please!" Lith brushed the objection off with a wave of his hand. "That wasn't stupid. That was suicidal. I classify it as a life-saving procedure because without me Quylla had fewer chances of survival than a biscuit in Solus' room."

"Hey!" Both women said in unison, liking the comparison even less than the prior.

"This time, instead, I can stop this madness simply by refusing to take part in it. If I accept and something goes wrong, it is going to weigh on Solus' conscience for the rest of her life. Friya might resent me and I'd lose one of the few friends I have.

"I don't see any reason to help you. I have nothing to gain and everything to lose from this shit."

"Wait, you don't even see me as a friend?" Nalrond asked in shock.

"A friend?" Lith furrowed his brows in greater shock. "You tried to kill me at first sight. You betrayed Solus' secret after she spared your life. You taught me Light Mastery only to make up for the mess you made.

"We are acquaintances and business partners in the silver mines, but that's it."

"Thank the gods you haven't changed." Nalrond said with a laugh, finding Lith still being Lith oddly reassuring. "For a moment I feared that fatherhood had made you soft."

"Why in the gods' names are you happy that Lith's acting like a jerk?" Friya asked, outraged enough for them both.

"Because I'd rather my healer be cold and detached during the procedure than an emotional mess." Nalrond shrugged. "Most healers refuse to treat their loved ones because they can't take the heat.

"Also, if I have to be honest, Lith isn't wrong. We know each other for years but you can count the times we hung out together for the fun of it on the fingers of one hand."

Then, the Rezar turned to Solus who was still as confused as everyone else.

"Since we have already established that Lith has no conscience and he's just worried about yours, would you please help me convince him, Solus?"

"Me?" Being the center of attention made her take a step back in reflex.

She considered Nalrond a friend and was worried about how his death would reflect on Friya as well. The last thing Solus wanted was to be the one making such a hard decision.

"Yes." Nalrond nodded. "I know that it's a low blow but if I convince you, Lith's going to follow you to the moon and back. Please, Solus, help me. You know how it feels to be trapped in a cage that has no bars yet prevents you from living your life to its fullest.

"To be stuck in place not because of what you did but for the choices that someone else made for you. Please, help me to shatter my chains."

Solus stared at him and then at Friya, not knowing what to do.

'What would I do in his shoes? Would I put my life on the line to be free from the tower?' Solus looked at the hands of her human body and then she used Sky Blessing to study for the umpteenth time the cracks in her life force and mana core.

They were still there, unchanged since the first time she had discovered them, but there was a reason for it. Were the tower to fix them, its bond with Solus would be broken and with it the possibility to save her life.

The wound that the original Bytra had inflicted upon Elphyn had caused her original life force to be nigh-depleted and her mana core to turn grey.

The years Solus had spent bonded with Lith had allowed the tower to replenish her missing life force by slowly converting the world energy into it after using Lith as a blueprint.

If the cracks in her life force had been sealed back when she was a stone, she would have died of old age in a matter of days. Even now, Solus had no idea how much of her original life force had been restored.

She had lived bonded to the tower for 700 hundred years and Awakened humans were supposed to live around 1000 years. Even worse, were the cracks in her mana core to be fixed, it would quickly reach the bright violent level in a matter of days.

Her core would then become too strong for her weakened body, making it burst like an overinflated balloon. Solus had struggled a lot with her condition over the years, but the more she studied it, the more she realized that Menadion's work was a miracle of magic.

Ripha had salvaged a shattered core and even found a way to replenish an exhausted life force. What were sixteen years compared with the renewed youth and life that the tower was giving her?

'No, I would not try to close the cracks in my essence.' Solus answered to herself honestly. 'I wouldn't risk dying and losing Lith, Elysia, and everyone I've come to love. Yet my situation is completely different from Nalrond's.

'I just have to wait to get everything I want and maybe even get free from the tower whereas he has to decide whether to be a prisoner for the rest or his life or put everything on the line for a change at freedom.'

"You are my friend, Nalrond. You have my help." Solus offered him her hand and he promptly shook it.

"He is?" Lith was flabbergasted. "But you've spent with him even less time than me!"

"Lith Tiamat Verhen!" Whenever someone used his full name, he knew to be in trouble. "Nalrond risked his life while fighting by our side countless times. He helped us to save Falco from the Strangler."