Strax watched Scarlet with his forehead pressed against the blade, laughing and crying in the same breath. For a moment, he said nothing. He didn't dare break that moment—as if the truth, as fragile as old glass, could shatter at the slightest whisper.
But he needed to know.
"What do you mean... she's alive?" Strax's voice came out hoarse. He barely recognized himself. "You said... you felt it."
Scarlet slowly raised her face. Her eyes were still teary, but there was more than emotion there: there was certainty. A kind of conviction that cannot be learned or taught. It can only be felt.
"When I touched that sword," she began, breathless, as if still processing what she had just experienced, "I felt something I hadn't felt since the Fall."
She closed her eyes, touching the hilt as if reading an invisible map engraved on its surface.
