Mira’s words echoed in my head long after she said them.
> “He said I could heal the system…”
The way she said it wasn’t the confident assurance of a healer it was devotion. Faith.
And faith, in the hands of someone like Drayke, was the most dangerous weapon imaginable.
She turned back to me, eyes bright and soft. “You don’t understand, Kyle. This isn’t a curse. The fragment is helping me see how everything connects. The world’s mana isn’t broken it’s sick. I can fix it.”
Her tone was gentle, but the pulse of silver light in her veins told another story. It wasn’t healing her. It was feeding.
I kept my voice calm. “And what does Drayke get from all your fixing?”
She hesitated. “He… he says I’m stabilizing the other hosts. That I’m keeping them from burning out.”
“Then he’s using
