Makun's eyes opened slowly, finding the same container ceiling above him.
It looked familiar now. Not comforting, just familiar. Cold metal. Condensation clinging to the seams. A faint salt smell that never fully left the pier district.
He sat up.
Pain followed immediately, blooming across his ribs and shoulders like bruises waking up. The ache was the same kind he always carried these days, the kind that made him wonder if his body had ever truly been his.
He blinked and tried to breathe properly.
His head felt wrong. Heavy. Fogged. The memory he had recalled was still stuck behind his eyes, not as an idea, but as a place.
Bathroom.
Cold tiles.
Bitter taste.
The swallow.
Chains.
The crack.
The Presence.
It was vivid enough that his throat tightened.
Makun looked around the container.
And the first thing he noticed was the blood.
Not a smear. Not a trail.
A pool.
It spread across the floor and swarmed the metal grooves, thick and dark, like it had been poured there and left to settle. His eyes followed it, then rose.
The Veiled Lady stood nearby.
Her veil was soaked. Darkened with blood at the edges. Her posture was straight, but her presence looked thin, like she could fold again if she let herself.
Makun stared for a second too long.
Something in him wanted to pretend he had not seen it. Something else demanded he understand.
He remembered nothing of this.
Not the blood. Not her collapse. Not what happened after the darkness swallowed the recall.
He looked at her hands.
They were steady.
Her eyes met his.
Makun forced his voice out, dry and small.
"Are you alright?"
A pause.
"I guess," she replied.
The softness was still there, but the strength under it had dimmed. It sounded like a voice that had been scraped and used and returned.
Makun swallowed.
He wanted to ask what she gained from looking at his memory. He wanted to ask what happened in the darkness. He wanted to ask why there was so much blood in a room that had only held two people.
But he did not know how to ask those questions without sounding like he thought he was owed an answer.
The Veiled Lady glanced at the blood. Then she lifted one hand.
Makun watched her fingers, expecting a gesture, a chant, something ritual.
Instead, she moved like she was reaching for an object.
The blood rose.
It gathered inward, tightening like it was being pulled by invisible threads. It did not splash or resist. It obeyed. In seconds, it condensed into a shard of ice, sharp and clean, hovering in the air like a weapon.
She flicked her fingers.
The shard shattered.
The fragments scattered, then vanished, turning into pale mist before they hit the floor. The smell of iron faded with it, leaving only cold and salt.
Makun stared at the clean metal. Then he stared at her.
Was something like that possible.
She did it like it was nothing. Like blood and ice were the same thing if you had the right hands.
"I gained a lot thanks to you," she said.
Her voice steadied as she spoke, as if speaking was a way to rebuild herself.
"I am going to enter meditation now. Take a seat and do not disturb me for as long as I am in meditation."
Makun nodded and sat. He did it quickly, because he did not want to be told twice.
She turned away from him.
Then she removed her veil.
Makun's breath caught before he could stop it.
Golden hair spilled out, thick and clean, as if it had never touched blood. Her neck was pale. Her skin looked too calm for what had just happened, too untouched.
Makun looked down immediately.
He could feel his own state too clearly. His clothes damp with sweat. His ribs aching. His mind still dragging itself back from the Deep.
The Veiled Lady took a handkerchief from somewhere Makun did not see and wiped her face. She wiped once, then again, slow and careful, as if even that small motion had cost.
Then she sat.
Lotus position.
Her back exposed to him.
She closed her eyes.
The container changed.
Not in temperature. Not in light.
In movement.
Makun's Sight was still active.
He had not turned it off. He was not sure when that happened. The ability was beginning to feel less like something he switched on and more like something that lingered, waiting for the wrong moment to flare.
Particles moved.
At first it was subtle. A drift in the air, like dust caught in a draft.
Then the motion sharpened.
Particles swarmed toward her.
They came from everywhere in the market. From outside the container. From the gaps in the metal seams. From the air itself. They converged toward one place, gathering around her back like a tide deciding where to land.
Makun watched the pattern and felt his headache begin to throb harder.
The particles pulling toward her were light. Bright. Fast.
Then he noticed the second flow.
Heavier particles left her body.
They were denser. Duller. Slower.
They drifted out of her like exhaust, spilling into the container air and thinning as they moved. They looked wrong beside the bright flow rushing toward her.
Her golden hair began to billow.
Not gently.
It moved in the same fashion the particles moved, following the vortex, lifting and twisting as if the air had become a spiral staircase and her hair was being dragged along it.
Makun's eyes narrowed.
He tried to understand what he was seeing with the little knowledge he had. He did not have terms for it beyond what the book had mentioned. Tiers. Grades. Routes. Comprehension.
But he had never seen any of it happen.
This was different from reading words in a drained book.
This was the mechanism. The process.
And it was violent.
The swirl increased.
The convergence became tighter. Faster. More forceful.
Makun felt it in his own body. A pressure behind his eyes, a tightness in his throat. He could feel the market beyond the container reacting, not because he heard voices, but because the air itself felt more awake.
People outside were turning toward the container.
Not all of them would know why.
But they could sense something was happening. Something was being done with the rules of this place.
Makun stayed seated. He stayed silent.
He had been told not to disturb her. He also did not trust himself to move, because he was not sure what movement might do in a room pulling in this much energy.
The Veiled Lady did not move at all.
Her back stayed straight. Her shoulders stayed level. Her hands rested, calm in her lap.
The vortex grew more violent anyway.
Makun watched the lighter particles rush in faster and faster, gathering like a storm that had decided on a center. The heavier particles leaving her body thickened for a moment, then began to disperse in a wider spread, like something inside her had decided it was done being held.
Makun swallowed.
Was this what advancement looked like.
He remembered the book saying comprehension drove progression. He remembered the Veiled Lady saying memory was a pattern. He remembered the darkness that swallowed her.
Had that darkness shown her something.
Had it given her a path forward.
Makun's mind tried to connect pieces that did not want to connect.
Then the sound came.
POP.
It hit the container like a strike. Sharp enough that Makun flinched.
POP.
Another one followed.
Makun clamped his hands over his ears, but the sound still rang through his head. It was not just noise. It felt like pressure cracking.
The vortex snapped inward.
The bright particles surged once, then settled. The heavier particles dispersed outward, thinning into the air like smoke after a fire goes out.
Silence returned.
Makun lowered his hands slowly.
He blinked hard. His ears rang. His Sight trembled.
He stared at the Veiled Lady's back.
Something about the motion had changed.
The particles no longer looked frantic. They no longer looked like a storm searching for direction. They drifted around her in a controlled orbit, steady and clean.
Makun breathed out, not realizing he had been holding it.
The Veiled Lady opened her eyes.
She did not turn immediately.
She stared at the container wall in front of her for a moment, as if confirming something only she could see. Then she reached for her veil.
It was clean.
No blood remained on it now. No stain. No residue.
She put it on and turned to look at Makun.
Her eyes were calm again.
Not soft. Not tired.
Calm.
Makun swallowed and forced himself to speak. His voice came out quiet.
"Congratulations on advancing," he said.
She nodded once.
Curt. Clean.
Makun's mind tried to adjust to the fact that he had just watched something he could not explain. He tried to hold on to what mattered.
He was alive.
The book was his.
The debt was paid.
The Veiled Lady looked at him for a moment longer.
"Now," she said, voice steady again, "you said you had questions."