Dane's hand gripped the dog tags hard enough to cut his palm. They didn't snap but crumbled, flaking apart like rusted metal left under endless rain.

  Space folded in on itself, warped, shuddering like the first time he'd ever torn a hole through reality. But this time…the rhythm was wrong. Off-beat. Like something had grabbed the portal mid-formation and twisted it.

  The cold hit him first. Then the dark.

  He opened his eyes to a silent, blue-black world, pressure squeezing his ribs. Clay was sinking, drifting downward like a stone, his limp arms trailing behind him as chains coiled around his ankles like serpents dragging him to his watery grave.

  "No...no, no..." Dane kicked hard, reaching out through the thick water. Every stroke felt slower than the last, like the whole ocean wanted him to fail.

  He caught the chain.

  The sudden weight almost ripped his shoulder loose, but he held on, bubbles tearing from his clenched teeth as he pulled himself down to the older man.

  Clay's eyes were barely open, but there was no recognition in them.

  Dane hooked an arm around him, forcing their bodies close as he tried to kick upward. The weight of the chains was too much.

  He had no mana left and just a small flicker of Dragon Essence.

  He closed his eyes and reached inward, searching past the panic, past the cold, until he found the dim, molten acendents core. It felt like a reactor; the humming told him he couldn't push it much further, but he had to try.

  Mana trickled back into his pool, thin as a leaking faucet. He had enough for one more portal. Maybe.

  Come on, he thought, willing the energy to gather. One more. Just one more.

  The pressure built behind his eyes as mana finally pooled enough for a single cast. It wasn't much. Barely a spark on a dying wick. But it was enough.

  Dane forced his shaking hands together around Clay's chains, pulling the older man tight against his chest, and shaped the mana into something resembling a gateway. It flickered. Stuttered. Threatened to collapse.

  "Hold together," he growled, voice swallowed by water and darkness.

  Reality split. The sea vanished. Cold stone slammed against Dane's back.

  Once, the place they portalled to would have been a warm, cozy tavern, but now it was a sterile medical ward. Clay was lifeless on the floor. A team of medics scrambled first, trying to figure out what was going on. Then, to treat the patients on the floor.

  "See to my friend, I'm fine."

  The medical team was hesitant but eventually yielded to Dane's command.

  The medics worked quickly once Dane stepped aside. They cut the chains from Clay's ankles, flushed the seawater from his lungs, and wrapped him in warming talismans that pulsed with a faint amber glow. The ward hummed with quiet urgency, but Dane felt none of it.

  He stood against the far wall, dripping, arms folded, watching.

  After what felt like an hour or maybe a minute, Chronowell warped things in odd ways. A healer approached him with a tentative nod.

  "He's stable," she said. "Weak, but he'll wake soon."

  Dane murmured a thanks and stepped around the curtain.

  Clay lay on a cot, his breathing shallow but steady, his hair matted to his forehead—deep lines carved through his face, pain lines, exhaustion lines. Dane felt something twist in his chest.

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  He pulled a chair up beside the bed. His clothes were still soaked, leaving a dark puddle on the pristine tile. He didn't care.

  He clasped his hands, stared at the floor, and exhaled slowly.

  When Clay finally stirred, Dane looked up.

  The old man blinked groggily. "…Boy?"

  "Hey," Dane said softly. "You're safe."

  Clay shifted, wincing. "I don't feel safe."

  "You will."

  Dane swallowed hard.

  "You know," he said quietly, "you remind me of my dad."

  Clay turned his head, eyes narrowing, not unkindly, but with the sharpness of a man who wanted to understand the weight behind the words.

  Dane continued before he could talk himself out of it.

  "He was… stubborn. Rough around the edges. Always smelled like burnt metal and sawdust. Never said much. But the way he stood?" Dane shook his head, and a small laugh escaped him. "It was like he was carved out of stone."

  Clay snorted. "Sounds like an idiot."

  "Yeah," Dane said. "He was."

  Clay let that sit for a moment. Then:

  "I ain't that man, kid."

  "I know."

  "And I sure as hell ain't your therapist.”

  "Yeah," Dane whispered. "I know that too."

  Clay pushed himself up slightly, grunting with effort. "Then why say it?"

  Dane's jaw tightened. His eyes lowered.

  "Because I keep forgetting who's gone," he said. "And sometimes… sometimes it's easier to pretend that he isn't gone. That maybe pieces of him are still all around me.”

  Clay studied him quietly, the sharpness fading into something weary. Something real.

  "Well, if you need some advice, I suppose I can do that," he said finally, "You look like you are attending a funeral. You couldn't have done anything differently, even if you didn't do everything that you could have. You can't change the past."

  Dane shook his head.

  "No," he murmured. "I barely knew them, but they still died because I made the wrong choice."

  "Everyone in the Crucible is meant to die. That's why they send criminals and slaves. We die for their entertainment." Clay looked at him differently now, softer, more human. "You saved one old bastard today, and that has to be enough."

  "It's not," Dane said quietly.

  He drew in a breath, shoulders tense. "I spent a long time twisted up inside. Angry. I wanted to kill every last person who enslaved me and shattered who I was."

  His hands curled in his lap.

  "But the more I chased that… the hollower I felt."

  He stared at the floor, at the puddle spreading around his boots.

  "Somewhere along the way, my dream changed. I didn't want revenge. I wanted to be someone who could stop other people from going through what I did. Someone who could stand between them and pain, even if it meant taking the hit myself."

  Dane's throat tightened.

  "I know I can't change the past. I can barely change the outcome when I'm standing right there in the middle of it." His voice dipped, rough with honesty. "But this weight, this guilt, it keeps me moving. It reminds me why I can't stop."

  He lifted his eyes to Clay, unflinching.

  "I'm the only one who can carry this. So I will."

  "I've known men like you in the Marines," Clay said quietly. "Men who let the mission keep them breathing. Men who lived for everyone but themselves. They were unstoppable in the field… but once they were stateside, once the war wasn't there to hold them up..."

  He shook his head.

  "Those were the ones who didn't make it."

  Clay looked Dane dead in the eyes.

  "Find something to live for that's yours. Not a mission, but something that you want. Otherwise, this thing you're carrying? It'll bury you."

  Clay's words hung between them, settling like dust in the still air. Dane didn't look away this time. He held the old man's gaze, letting the truth in it bite deep.

  Then he nodded once, slowly.

  "That's good advice," he said quietly. "I thought you weren't a therapist."

  Clay snorted. "I ain't charging you for it."

  Dane almost smiled. Almost. Instead, he reached inward, past the ache in his muscles and the guilt grinding through his ribs, down into the molten ember of authority Daedala had given him, the heart of his System.

  It pulsed, and he raised a hand.

  A small mote of light gathered in his palm, swirling like gold dust caught in a sunbeam.

  Clay's expression shifted from confusion to alarm. "What the hell is that?”

  "The Earthbound System," Dane said.

  Before Clay could recoil, Dane pressed the light to the man's chest. It sank into him like warm breath filling cold lungs.

  Clay gasped and clutched at his sternum as the System threaded itself through his soul. A soft chime echoed just at the edge of hearing, like a bell rung underwater.

  Clay's breath came in ragged pulls. "What… did you just do?"

  Dane stepped back, giving him space.

  "I gave you your power back," he said.

  Clay stared at him, stunned. "How?"

  Dane hesitated. He could've said many things, like, "We found a jailbroken system." It is a back door to the imperial system. But instead, he told the truth.

  "A friend of mine gave this to me, and now I am passing it on."

  Clay blinked hard, shoulders sagging as he felt the System settle into him like a heartbeat syncing with his own. "Kid… I don't know what to do with this."

  "Well, the people of the Dungeon town need a way back to earth, so you start there," Dane said. "Just get your strength back. When you can stand again… find Tomas. He'll help you figure out the rest.”

  Clay frowned slightly. "Who is that?"

  "The best man that I know," Dane said. "Trust me."

  Dane turned to leave.

  "I'll be back when I can," he said over his shoulder. "But for now… You died in the crucible. You should probably change your name so if a legionnaire comes by, they don't recognize you."

  Clay didn't say anything; he just gave Dane a look that said, "Thank you."