"Wendy? Wendy? Are you there? I need your help!"
No, Clythar was not in danger. However, he would be. Once he joins the guild of that man.
"Cly... Lottie is smiling. She is smiling while sleeping..."
Even Levi could not believe his eyes.
Clythar was overwhelmed with joy. Words were not enough to capture his gratitude. Lottie no longer needed the injections. For the first time in years, her face was at peace during her sleep, free from torture.
He stroked her hair and smiled.
"Yoohoo! Lottie is fine! Lottie is fine!" Levi jumped around the room.
As much as he wanted to join Levi's happy ritual, he stopped himself.
"Levi, be quiet. You will wake her up," Cly whispered.
Levi finally stopped bouncing around. His arms wrapped around Clythar, soft giggles coming out from his mouth. Cly gently tapped his arm in return. Cly is usually not in for the hugs, but he supposed, just this once, he could make an exception.
For a while, they sat together to silently celebrate. Eventually, the excitement caught up to Levi. He dozed off next to Lottie, his snores filling the small room.
Unlike his two companions, Clythar could not bring himself to sleep. He quietly lay beside Lottie on her other side, his thoughts climbing up to his consciousness. His overthinking made sleep elusive. He found himself calling out to Wendy, seeking her for some sort of guidance. Questions hovered at the edge of his mind, waiting to be answered.
"Wendy? Are you there?"
Clythar's eyes felt heavy, all the tiredness taking its toll.
Once the sun came up, he would find that man himself and pay him for treating his sister. However, joining a guild with such mediocrity would be stepping right into a pit of spikes.
"Hi, Clythar. You need me?"
Just as drowsiness finally hit and pulled him under, Clythar found himself completely awake, not inside the room, but beneath the mysterious tree once more. Wendy sat perched on one of the branches above, her feet gently swaying in the air. She had been waiting for him.
"Wendy! I am joining a guild, and I seriously need you to answer my questions before that," Clythar declared.
"About your talent, isn't it?"
Clythar said nothing, but Wendy felt the uneasiness and chaos both inside his heart and mind. In the brief time their souls have been connected, she had offered her hands in moments of need but never revealed the true nature of his gift.
Without a word, she leapt down from the branch, landing in the puddle of blood with a soft splash. Facing Clythar and the tree, her expression grew solemn. She began her speech.
"We call this tree the Sanguine Blade. This tree is close to my heart; that's why you always end up in front of this tree when meeting me."
She gazed upon the vast place of darkness, then turned to Clythar.
"We are in Velmire, or more commonly known in your world as the Void. All of the things and beings you will find here have existed once alongside your dimension and the others. However, we have been branded as malicious and ominous, so we chose to live here. In simple words, we are just... too much to handle for your world.
This Void had been disconnected from the other dimensions. But YOU are special. You are connected to this world from the moment you were born. And so, your talent is drawn from this world."
Clythar's eyes slightly squinted, and his fingers scratched his forehead.
"What is so special about me?" He broke out in an incredulous laugh. "I am just an orphan."
"Maybe the secret lies within your bloodline," Wendy answered.
Clythar does not even know his bloodline. His name, Clythar Neeva, was the only thing connecting him to his true identity. And yet, that was not even true. Because the book showed that his surname was Azarus.
Clythar shook off the thought of his family outside his head. Associating with people who have abandoned him was off his list.
"M-My talent. Uncast. Is that it? I mean, is that all that I have?" Clythar was agitated.
"Of course not! Every ascendant has more than one spell they can use. That includes you." Wendy sighed. "You have just awakened. You will master your talent sooner or later. You just have to push through your limits. And to help you with that, you must get to know this place. The deeper you traverse Velmire, the more beings and things you can meet that you can use at your disposal."
Clythar scanned the vicinity. It was just plain darkness. A vast plain of land where nothing but Wendy and the Sanguine Blade exists.
"There is nothing more to see," Clythar uttered.
Wendy smirked.
"That's where you are wrong, Scrawny. This is Velmire. Not like your world, nothing here is definite. Things here have free will and can morph into anything they desire. That includes me! And the only reason you have met me is because I willingly showed myself to you."
"Okay. Last question." Clythar clicked his tongue. "What exactly do 'The Lost Harbinger' and "The Void Paladin" mean?"
Wendy rolled her eyes, growing tired of Clythar's endless questions.
"You'll know soon. Just know that you're lucky because Velmire is a powerful place, and Velmirians, like ME, are the best you can meet out there. Hmph!"
A splash of water slapped the sleepiness out of Clythar. His nostrils were drowned in water, prompting him to get up and sneeze it out.
A sudden splash of cold water slapped the drowsiness out of Clythar. The shock stung his skin and flooded his nostrils, forcing him into a sputtering sneeze. He pushed himself up, finally back in the reality of life.
"Yay! I did not have a nightmare! I did not have a nightmare!"
Lottie danced around the room, stepping on Clythar from time to time. She swirled the bucket she was holding around in the air, then let it go, landing on Clythar's head.
"Cly, I did not have a nightmare! What happened?!"
Lottie held onto Clythar's shirt and shook him hard. Clythar massaged his aching head and swayed Lottie's hand away from his clothes.
"An ascendant from the capital healed you! Cool, right? Your brother is coming with him to the capital to become an ascendant!" Levi intervened, coming in from the outside.
Lottie's reaction was much more exaggerated than Levi's. She jumped up and down and spun around without dizziness hitting her. She shook the two lads to the point of nausea and made little dances all the way out the door, humming to herself.
"We're going to the capital! We're going to the capital! We're going to the—" Lottie almost tripped on her own feet in her abrupt stop. "Who are you?"
Clythar and Levi peeked outside to see who Lottie was talking to. The man, the one that cured Lottie, was standing straight, his one hand inside his pocket. Unbelievably, he was smoking this early in the morning.
Unlike last night, he wore a neat suit and tie, paired with a fedora hat. His hair was tied in a low ponytail.
The man smirked.
"Ready?"
It did not take a second for Levi to stand up and arrange the things he could take, if there were any. Lottie realized what was happening and prepared herself.
Amid the chaos, Clythar locked eyes with the man. The man, unfazed, merely arched an eyebrow and let out some smoke. Clythar exhaled a weary sigh, the realization of his fate pressing down on him.