Desmond opened his eyes.

But his consciousness was not what had returned.

It wasn't as if he had fallen asleep and finally woken up.

What had been brought back to him was life.

For him, there was no continuity, it might as well have been a single second from when he was dying to now.

But it was clear that some time had passed.

Not long enough for night to have given way to day again, but at least several hours.

For starters, the smell.

The smell of blood, of piss, of shit.

But most of all, the smell of rot.

He had left five corpses in his wake. They had already begun to smell bad, to rot.

But that wasn't the only thing, of course.

Desmond had been pierced in the stomach by a sword.

That wound no longer existed.

His insides were still in place.

And he felt... Fine.

Not in great shape, but fine. He could get up. He could keep going forward.

More than good enough for him.

Desmond got to his feet. There was no difficulty in that movement. He felt fine and he was, more or less.

His things were still where they needed to be.

The sword, the gun. And the backpack. No one else had come through here.

Well, if they had, they had neither helped him nor robbed him.

"It's better to get out of here as soon as possible," Desmond said out loud, unnecessarily.

Unnecessarily because he was alone.

He had deserted without explanation. Leaving in the middle of the night. They wouldn't put everything into looking for him as if he were some kind of fugitive.

Still, he preferred not to get in trouble with the law.

Let his name, his face and his recent past come out.

Because, even though he hadn't done anything particularly wrong, they would want to look for him.

He was someone special, after all.

He alone was worth ten regular soldiers. At the very least.

Despite his lack of talent, his destructive power could not be underestimated.

Jacob had forgotten his confession thanks to Amy's power.

But would that last?

She hadn't done anything like that until then. It was possible that Jacob would remember, though it would take time, and then they would be after him with all their might.

All of Albion would be after him, as would the entire Azure Empire.

In other words, Desmond would become the enemy of the entire world.

Just like Abigail.

Everything would be fine as long as we are together, he told himself.

Not to mention, even if Jacob didn't remember anything, he wasn't the only person he had to worry about.

Surely there were people far more influential and powerful than Jacob who did know about him, or at least about Abigail.

Bottom line...

Let's get moving at once.

Desmond broke into another run, leaving the rotting corpses behind in the cold, merciless moonlight.

■

They were in line at the mess hall.

When a team received today's food on trays, they went to find a seat. They weren't assigned.

In this, at least, there was no difference between this and an academy for normal people.

When had she started to think of those who were not mages, those who didn't know how to make use of the blessing they were naturally born with, as normal people?

In any case, time stretched indefinitely.

It gave the feeling that the line didn't end. That they would be here forever.

Amy was sweating for no reason. She felt dizzy. She felt a little... a little sick.

For no reason?

No, she couldn't say that. There was a reason and she knew what it was.

But...

What? But what?

Nothing. Nothing.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Amy asked. Christina was at her side.

Of course, they were a team.

They were a team.

"What's there to talk about? "Christina answered bitterly "He's gone and the best we can hope for is that we don't meet again. Because if we do, it won't exactly be pleasant for any of us."

Assuming he is alive in the first place.

An unpleasant thought, which made her shudder.

But...

She couldn't say it was off the mark.

The truth, bluntly, without embellishment, was that Desmond was heading for a suicide mission.

Attack the capital to rescue Abigail from the facility where she was being held.

A public facility, in the middle of the city, no, not just any city, the capital. If only it had been in a secluded place, away from the eye of the common citizen.... But even then it would have been madness.

The chances of him making it, being honest with herself, were crushingly low.

One man attacking the capital. The heart of the Empire.

If it were that easy, Albion would have ended the war long ago. Desmond was someone exceptional with a superhuman body and unusual affinity, but still just one man, after all.

He could die.

Most likely he would die far away from them.

That the next time they saw him they would be looking at his corpse.

They got their food for the day. Amy hadn't even noticed what they had put on the plate, her or the others.

Today at best it wouldn't taste like anything to her anyway.

They went to find a seat. It wasn't difficult.

Seating wasn't officially assigned, but as a general rule each team sat pretty much in the same place, and it was one table per team, no mingling.

They sat down.

Two trays, not three.

A table that seemed as long and empty to her as the prison table she had left behind.

There was a lump in her throat.

Today, everything reminded him of what had happened. Of him.

That would keep happening for a long time. Who knows if it would ever stop.

"You know we have to talk about this. You can't push it aside and expect to be able to move on almost as if nothing happened. In the long run, it will only hurt you. You know I'm right."

"What do you want me to say?" Christina said, curtly, without even thinking about it.

"Christina... I'm just trying to make this work. Please."

Christina wasn't holding her gaze.

Instead, she had ducked her gaze to the tray. She hadn't touched the food yet.

None of them had, actually.

"He's gone and... I should have seen it coming."

That was something.

Not much, but some progress, at least. Besides, it was interesting.

"What do you mean?"

"In the beginning, I was willing to do whatever it took to make this work. And eventually I convinced myself that I had done it. That it would work out, despite the bumps in the road. But when that woman came along... Something changed. I felt it, unconsciously."

Amy would be lying if she said she hadn't felt the change in Desmond.

It was evident.

His emotions, his thoughts, were at the surface. In that sense he was like a child. Even if he had tried, he wouldn't have been able to hide the change....

But there was no need to hide it either. Because it was only natural that he had changed after meeting such an important person.

But she had never worried that this would happen....

She had never believed it was a possibility. She had seen no reason to believe it.

"Since then I should have known it would never work. That this was inevitable."

"Inevitable or not, it's done and... we have to learn to live with it."

"I pleaded with him. I got down on my knees and begged him, abandoning my pride. And still he turned his back on me. He turned his back on us."

"Don't talk like that, please. I know you're angry, but..."

Don't talk like that.

He's not here to answer, not anymore. That way of thinking and talking will color the memories of him. Don't spoil something so good like that.

She just had to say that. It sounded so simple and it was.

But when she opened her mouth to try, she wasn't able to.

She found herself completely unable to put the words in the right order, and fell silent.

"We should have stopped him from leaving," Christina said gloomily.

As if she were talking about a mistake made years ago. As if she no longer felt sadness or regret, only the shadows of it.

Amy felt a shiver of finality.

■

Dawn seemed a long way off.

How long had he been walking?

Desmond, he suddenly heard, inside his own skull. It was without a shadow of a doubt Abigail's voice. Not the voice of his imagination and his hopes.

"I know what you're going to tell me, but... but I had to do this. You can tell me off the next time we look into each other's eyes."

That's what I should tell you.

Although in his head, it didn't sound like the voice of his thoughts, but a normal voice.

As if it was right next to him.

As if he could see her and touch her.

Desmond stopped. Now he could actually see her. Abigail had chosen to appear in front of him, silhouetted against the darkness of the night.

He could notice the emotions in her voice. The nuances.

And Abigail sounded disappointed.

But not with him, with herself, really.

I should be, but I can't. Actually... I feel happy.

Desmond's heart began to beat harder, faster.

He knew it.

He knew that she had been waiting for his help, that she had only been trying to push him away for his sake, not for her own.

He knew, had known from the beginning.

That this was the right decision.

I'm so happy that you chose me and not them. It will only be painful for you. It may even kill you. But... It can't be helped. I was afraid that they would take you away from me, no, that they had already become more important in your heart. But now... Now I could cry.

"I'm sorry I sowed those doubts. You don't deserve that.

It's not your fault. You have nothing to be sorry for. And anyway, the past doesn't matter anymore. Only the present is left.

Desmond reached the edge of the hill.

The sunrise had seemed far away, sinking into the darkness of his heart, but in reality it was not.

From the hill, Desmond saw the sun rising over the horizon.

There is only the road that lies ahead of us.

"Yes," Desmond murmured, nodding his head.

There was no turning back. And even if he could turn back, he would make the same decision, despite the sadness that threatened to crush his chest.

He was here because he was precisely this kind of person.

The person he was wouldn't change no matter how many times he turned back time.

Well, first of all, that was an impossible fantasy even for magic. Time, in its relentless march, dominated everything and everyone.

There remains only the road that lies before my eyes, he thought.

Under the light of dawn, Desmond descended the hill, walking towards the port city of Aegina.