The silence left behind by the vanished, violent portal was a physical weight, heavy and suffocating, pressing down on the narrow, bloodstained street. The Night Owl Café's warm amber light, usually a beacon of comfort, now spilled onto a scene of unimaginable horror, illuminating the broken, still form of Lorian on the cobblestones and the ragged, shallow, blood-flecked breaths of Silas slumped against the café's outer wall.
Varric knelt beside his brother, his large frame shaking with silent, gut-wrenching sobs, his face buried in his hands. He didn't look up, didn't seem to register anything beyond the devastating loss as Nola, her face chalk-white but her movements unnervingly steady, rushed past him to Silas's side.
"Dad? Dad, can you hear me?" Nola's voice was tight, almost clinical, her new glasses somehow still perched on her nose, helping her focus past the overwhelming horror. She assessed the grievous wound on his chest – deep, ragged, bleeding profusely, the edges showing signs of both brute force trauma and some kind of corrosive energy. Critical. Utterly critical.
Amelia stumbled out of the café after her, Gavin, Ronan, and Leo crowding the doorway behind, their young faces etched with a shared, profound shock that stole their breath. Nachtan lingered just inside, his eyes wide and terrifyingly unfocused, the vibrant colors of the café – the warm wood, the faded posters, the cheerful glow-panels – seeming to leach away at the edges of his vision, leaving everything a muted, indistinct grey. The Void-book in his pocket felt like a cold, heavy stone.
"We need… we need to move him," Nola managed, her hands hovering uselessly over Silas's wound, her medical training warring with the sheer, paralyzing scope of the injury. "Varric? Varric, we have to help him!"
Varric didn't respond, lost in a cocoon of grief beside his fallen brother, his shoulders still heaving.
Silas coughed, a wet, rattling sound that tore through the silence. His eyes, clouded with pain, fluttered open, struggling to find Nola's face. "Elora…" he rasped, each word an agonizing effort. "He… the masked one… said… revenge…" His eyes unfocused again, then with a surge of desperate clarity, refocused on Nola. "Have to… find her… Must track…"
"You're not going anywhere like this," Nola insisted, her voice trembling slightly despite her forced composure, tears finally beginning to well in her eyes. "You're bleeding too much. We need to stop it."
But a desperate, almost feral resolve hardened Silas's pain-filled features. He pushed himself upright with a pained groan, ignoring Nola's frantic protest, clutching his ravaged chest. "No time… He's not from here… That portal energy… unique signature… fading fast…" He swayed, and Amelia and Gavin rushed forward to support him.
The journey back to their sprawling, slightly dilapidated home was a blur of fear, pain, and desperate urgency. They moved through Nexuria's shadowed back alleys, Silas leaning heavily on Amelia and Gavin, every jolting step an agony that drew grunts of pain from him. Nola scouted ahead, her senses stretched taut, while Ronan watched their backs, his usual bravado replaced by a grim, silent vigilance. Leo seemed to drift beside them, his presence unsettlingly quiet, his eyes holding a distant, knowing sorrow. Nachtan trailed behind, the strange black book a cold, alien weight in his pocket, a dark counterpoint to the chaotic fear and grief churning inside him. Varric, eventually roused from his initial shock by Nola's desperate pleas, had remained behind at the café, a silent, heartbroken sentinel beside his fallen brother, lost to a grief too profound to follow, promising only to secure the area as best he could.
Inside their home, the familiar clutter of their living room felt alien, the silence oppressive, charged with unshed tears and unspoken horrors. Silas collapsed onto a worn sofa, waving off Nola's immediate attempts to tend to his wounds properly. "No time," he repeated, his voice strained but dangerously firm, his eyes burning with a feverish light. He fumbled with the clasp of Elora's dimensional bag – the small, shimmering pouch she always carried, which he'd snatched up in the chaos. He pulled out compact emergency medical supplies, advanced tech scanners Elora had acquired from off-world contacts, and other, stranger things.
"Dad, you can't," Nola pleaded, her voice breaking. "You're hurt. Badly. Let me at least—"
"She's gone, Nola!" Silas snapped, the grief and pain momentarily overriding his control, his voice cracking. He winced, pressing a self-sealing emergency bandage to his chest; it adhered, but the bleeding beneath was too profuse, already soaking through. "I have to track them. That portal residue… it won't last. It's the only chance." He looked around at the pale, terrified faces of the children, his expression softening slightly but his resolve unwavering, absolute. "Listen to me. All of you."
His gaze was intense, sweeping over each of them. "You stay here. Lock the doors. Don't go outside for any reason. Don't contact anyone. Varric… Varric should be back soon, hopefully. He'll know what to do next, how to keep you safe. Stick together. Wait for me." His eyes lingered on Ronan, sharp and commanding. "And you, Ronan. Especially you. No teleporting. No following. That's an order. Do you understand me?"
Ronan met his gaze, his usual smirk entirely absent, replaced by a shocked, grim understanding. He gave a stiff, jerky nod.
Silas stood, swaying slightly, his makeshift bandage already darkening with fresh blood. He looked utterly broken, yet driven by a singular, desperate purpose. He paused by Nachtan, who was huddled near the doorway, looking smaller and more lost than ever, the grey fog at the edges of his vision now noticeably more pronounced. Silas hesitated, then rested a hand briefly, gently, on Nachtan's head. "Stay safe, kid."
Then he was gone, slipping out into the Nexurian night like a ghost, leaving behind a house filled with suffocating fear, the heavy weight of his command, and the unspoken terror of what was to come.
Silence descended again, thick, cloying, and unbearable.
It was Ronan who broke it, his voice low, raw, but fiercely determined. "He won't make it alone. Not like that." He looked at the others, his eyes flicking towards the door Silas had just closed, a desperate, reckless light in them. "I can follow. Keep my distance. Make sure he's…" He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.
"No," Nola said immediately, her voice regaining some of its strength, her protective instincts flaring. "He told you— He gave you an order!"
"He's barely standing!" Amelia cut in, her fists clenched, her own grief and fear manifesting as frustrated anger. "Ronan's right. Someone needs to watch his back. He's walking into a death trap!"
"I'll go too," a small, hesitant voice piped up.
All eyes turned to Nachtan. He stood straighter now than he had all evening, his earlier blankness replaced by a fragile, flickering determination that seemed to burn away some of the grey fog at the edges of his sight. "I want to help," he said, his voice surprisingly firm. He looked around at his siblings, seeking validation, wanting, just once, to be useful, to not be the one left behind, the one causing trouble, the one needing to be saved.
Amelia rounded on him instantly, her own guilt, her fear for Silas, her terror for Elora, twisting into a sharp, protective, and devastatingly cruel fury. "Help?" she scoffed, her voice dripping with a bitterness that startled everyone, even herself. "You? Don't be stupid, Nachtan. You'll just get in the way."
Nachtan flinched as if struck, the fragile flame of his resolve sputtering. "I won't! I can—"
"You can what?" Amelia stepped closer, her eyes blazing, the trauma of the night making her lash out, her words like poisoned darts. "You heard Dad. Stay here. You're always messing things up, always needing someone to save you, always seeking some kind of attention when the adults are trying to handle things! We don't have time for that now. We don't have time for you to slow us down." The words were harsher than she intended, fueled by the unbearable image of Silas bleeding, of Lorian dead, of Elora gone – a terror she couldn't voice, redirected at the easiest, most vulnerable target in the room. "Just stay out of it. Stay out of sight. Be the shadow you always are."
The air crackled. Nachtan stared at her, his eyes wide, the fragile determination shattering into a million pieces. He saw no anger in her face, only a cold, dismissive finality. Shadow. The word echoed the emptiness he felt creeping inside him, the fading colors, the gnawing, terrifying sense of not belonging, of being fundamentally, irreparably wrong. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. The hurt was too deep, too sudden, a final, crushing blow.
"Amelia!" Nola gasped, stepping forward, her hand reaching for her sister's arm. "That's not fair! He—"
"It's true, isn't it?" Amelia snapped back, refusing to meet Nola's horrified gaze, refusing to acknowledge the devastating pain she'd inflicted on Nachtan. She couldn't. If she did, she might break too. "We're going. Ronan, Leo, let's move."
She turned, grabbing her recovered training straps. Gavin, his face pale and grim, hesitated for only a brief second before nodding curtly and taking his new gauntlets from his pack. Leo pushed off the wall silently, his expression unreadable. Ronan gave Nola a quick, apologetic glance, then activated his recall marker, ready to track Silas's fading Anomalyte signature.
Nola looked torn, her gaze flicking between the departing group and Nachtan's stricken, silent face. "Wait! We shouldn't split up! It's too dangerous!"
But Amelia, Gavin, Ronan, and Leo were already heading for the door, driven by a reckless, grief-fueled need to do something, anything. With a frustrated, helpless sigh, Nola hesitated for another agonizing moment, then followed them, casting one last, deeply worried look back at Nachtan.
Nachtan stood alone in the center of the suddenly too-large, too-empty room, the silence amplifying Amelia's cruel, dismissive words. Shadow. Useless. Get in the way. Always messing things up. Each phrase was a hammer blow against his already fragile sense of self, against the boy Kael had briefly seen potential in, the boy Silas had shared stories with. A choked sob, raw and ragged, tore from his throat. He couldn't breathe. The room felt like it was closing in, the shadows on the walls lengthening, twisting, reaching for him.
He turned and fled, stumbling blindly towards the sanctuary of his own small, dark room. He slammed the door shut, collapsing against it, sinking to the floor as the carefully constructed walls around his fear, his otherness, his secret pain, finally crumbled. Tears streamed down his face, hot and furious, blurring the light into meaningless streaks. He curled into a tight, protective ball, pressing his hands hard against his ears as if he could block out the echoes of the explosion, of the masked man's venomous voice, of Amelia's devastating dismissal. He wasn't just sad; he was breaking, shattering from the inside out. He gasped for air, rocking back and forth, overwhelmed by a grief and an emptiness so vast, so absolute, it felt like the shadows in the room were alive, reaching for him, pulling him down into a cold, lightless void that threatened to swallow the last, fracturd pieces of the boy he used to be.