Jed lay on the scorched cobblestones, the spear of light still sizzling where it had pierced his armour. For a heartbeat nobody moved; the only sound was the crackle of burning timbers around the ruined village.
Then Prince dropped to his knees beside him. "Jed! Stay with me!" His hands pressed against the wound, heat from the fading spear biting his palms.
Lammy was already pulling reagents from his satchel. "Hold him steady," he snapped. A pale green glow spilled from his fingers as he tried to knit flesh back together. The magic hissed against the light wound like water on hot metal.
Praise tore a strip from her cloak and pressed it below the wound to slow the bleeding. Her eyes were wide with fear. "Come on, Jed," she whispered. "Don't you dare leave us."
Around them the villagers huddled in doorways, smoke and ash drifting like ghosts. No one had seen where the beam of light had come from; no one had dared to breathe until it was gone.
Prince's mind raced. Lume could have killed all of us, but he didn't.
"Lammy?" Prince's voice was tight.
"I'm holding him, but it's bad," Lammy said without looking up. "We have to get him somewhere clean. Now."
Praise met Prince's eyes over Jed's body. "Back to the monastery?"
Prince nodded. "Move. We're not losing him."
Together the three of them lifted Jed as gently as they could. The villagers murmured blessings, but their faces were pale with terror. Behind the adventurers, the light spear dissolved into a thousand motes and drifted away on the wind.
They reached the monastery at dusk, the winter sun already sliding behind the mountains. Snow creaked under their boots as they staggered inside, carrying Jed between them. Praise kicked the door shut with her heel and they laid him on the long wooden table that had once served as an altar.
Lammy immediately began unpacking his kit again. "Clear space," he ordered. "I need light and no distractions."
Prince lit the lanterns with a snap of his fingers. Shadows fled the walls, revealing the old runes carved into the stone. Praise hovered at Jed's side, biting her lip as Lammy's magic flowed over the wound in steady waves. Colour slowly returned to Jed's face, but his breathing stayed shallow.
"He's alive," Lammy said at last, sweat on his brow. "But he won't be fighting for a while. That light spear… it left something behind I don't recognise."
Prince exhaled through his teeth. "Lume wanted us to see what he can do."
"Then we go after him now," Praise said sharply. "Before he tries again."
"No." Prince straightened, the quiet in his voice carrying more weight than a shout. "We rush in, we lose more people. We fortify, find out what that weapon was, and then we hunt him on our terms."
Praise stared at him. "You've changed."
"I'm not going to watch anyone else fall," Prince said. "Not to him, not to Kael."
Lammy held up the fragment of the spear he'd pulled from Jed's armour. It pulsed faintly with a rune they'd never seen before, a sigil shaped like a fractured sun. "This might be a clue to where Lume is hiding," he murmured. "But it's going to take time."
Prince nodded once. "Then we take the time. We're adventurers. We survive. And when we're ready…" He clenched his fist. "We'll end this."
Outside, the wind howled through the monastery's broken windows. Unseen on a distant ridge, a single point of light hovered and flickered — Lume watching them through a shard of radiance, a faint smile on his lips.