The Forbidden Wastes were silent, save for the ragged, hollow whistling of the wind. Alyssa sat in the dust, the man who had once been the kingdom's greatest light now a cold, heavy weight across her lap. Up close, the damage was more than psychological. It was biological. Jaden's skin was so thin it looked like parchment stretched over a cage of bone. His pulse was a faint, erratic stutter—a ghost of a heartbeat.
"The chains," Alyssa hissed, her voice cracking. "I have to get these off you."
She reached for the Slayer's Iron collar. The metal was a masterpiece of cruelty, etched with anti-mana runes that pulsed with a rhythmic, sickly crimson light. These weren't just shackles; they were leeches. For four years, they had been siphoning whatever mana Jaden tried to regenerate, feeding it back into the Void to keep the prison sealed.
As her fingers brushed the iron, a jolt of repulsive energy surged through her. The runes hissed, sensing a foreign magical signature. The metal didn't just resist; it fought back, the heat of the curse blistering Alyssa's fingertips.
"I don't care," she snarled, her jaw set. "You won't have him anymore."
She drew her black-steel blade, Nightfall, and channeled every ounce of her remaining mana into the edge. She didn't use the finesse Jaden had taught her. She used the raw, jagged desperation she had cultivated in the dark. With a scream of effort, she drove the sword into the gap between the iron collar and Jaden's throat.
The collision of magic sparked a blinding flash of white and violet. The Slayer's Iron shrieked, a high-pitched metallic wail that sounded like a dying animal. The collar resisted for a heartbeat, two, and then—crack.
The iron shattered. The shards flew into the dirt, smoking and dull.
Alyssa didn't stop. She worked on the wrist manacles next. Each time the iron broke, she expected Jaden to gasp, to sit up, to let out a torrent of the golden mana he was famous for. But as the last of the chains fell away, the silence only deepened.
Jaden didn't move. Without the iron to hold him up, his head lolled back.
"Jaden?" she whispered, her hands hovering over his chest.
She began to check his body, and the horror truly set in. His muscles had almost entirely atrophied. The "Once-in-a-Lifetime Genius" who could swing a claymore for ten hours without tiring now lacked the strength to lift his own hand. His fingers, once so precise, were curled into stiff, skeletal claws.
But it was his mana-veins that broke her heart.
Alyssa placed her hand over his sternum, closing her eyes to feel his internal energy. In a healthy mage, the mana-circuitry feels like a rushing river, warm and vibrant. In Jaden, it felt like a dry, cracked riverbed. The Void hadn't just taken his power; it had scarred the very pathways his magic traveled. The "circuits" were burnt out, blackened by the absolute cold of the nothingness.
"No," she breathed, her tears falling onto his pallid face. "No, no, no. You're Jaden. You're the strongest of us. You're supposed to be..."
She tried to feed him some of her own mana, a gentle "transfusion" to jumpstart his heart. But as soon as her energy entered his body, Jaden's frame convulsed. He let out a dry, hacking sound—not a scream, but a rasp of air through a ruined throat. His body rejected her magic. He was like a man who had been in the dark so long that even a candle-flame felt like a wildfire.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed, pulling him closer, trying to use her own body heat to stave off the Void-chill that radiated from his skin. "I'm so sorry, Jaden. I should have found you sooner. I should have fought harder."
For hours, she sat there as the sun began to set over the Wastes. She used her cloak to wrap him, making a small nest out of the tattered remains of her life. She found a flask of water in her pack and dampened a cloth, pressing it to his cracked lips.
He didn't swallow at first. The water just ran down his chin. But on the third attempt, his throat made a faint, clicking motion.
"That's it," she encouraged, her voice trembling. "Just a little bit. You're safe. I'm here. Alyssa is here."
At the mention of her name, his eyelids flickered. The violet pits of his eyes drifted, struggling to focus on the woman above him. His lips moved, but no sound came out—just a puff of cold air.
She realized then the true scale of his weakness. He wasn't just physically broken; he was erased. The "Genius" had been stripped down to the very base of his soul. He had no sword, no magic, no army, and barely enough strength to keep his eyes open.
"It doesn't matter," Alyssa said, her eyes flashing with a new, dangerous resolve. "They thought they could throw you away because you were too strong. Now, they think you're gone. Let them think it. I'll carry you. I'll be your hands, Jaden. I'll be your sword."
She looked back toward the horizon, toward the distant, glowing spires of the Capital that had betrayed them.
"They broke the sun," she whispered, her voice hardening into a promise of ice. "Now they're going to have to learn to live in the shadow I bring."
She picked him up. He weighed almost nothing, a feather-light burden of bone and tattered silk. As she began the long trek out of the Forbidden Wastes, the wind picked up, howling through the jagged rocks. It sounded like the laughter of the Void, but Alyssa didn't look back.
She had her prize. And though he was weak, though he was broken, he was hers.