The compound had fallen into a tense rhythm. Each footstep was cautious. Every voice, hushed. Word had spread quickly—Kirion, the heart of the resistance, was injured. Not mortally, but permanently. A symbol, dimmed.
He refused to rest, though he moved more slowly now, often guided subtly by Zae or by the edge of a wall he'd memorized. Even the most hardened fighters couldn't help but glance sideways at him with concern.
It wasn't until the morning after the tactical meeting that she arrived.
Her name was Kael.
She came with the medic caravan from the eastern valley—a nurse, a trauma expert, and, as the others described her, "a woman who could force a lion to sit still and rest." She moved with the ease of someone who'd spent her life inside emergency zones, war hospitals, and collapsing infrastructure. There was no drama to her presence, no flash. Only steadiness.
Kirion was in the mess hall when she approached him, ignoring the half-eaten plate in front of him.
"You look like someone who doesn't take medical advice," she said, her voice calm, not unkind.
Kirion didn't look up. "Only when I don't like the diagnosis."
"Then you'll love this one," she replied, setting a portable scanner beside him. "Your eye's not dead. There's residual nerve activity. If we start treatment soon—regenerative therapy, stimulation—we might be able to recover some of your sight."
Kirion finally looked toward her. "I've heard that before."
Kael met his gaze squarely. "You've never heard it from me."
Zae watched the exchange from a distance. Something in Kael's composure gave her pause. This wasn't just another medic. There was a gravity to her—a quiet force that reminded Zae of her father in his younger years.
By the time the day was done, Kael had set up a small treatment station in one of the old bunkers. It wasn't sterile, not by a long shot, but it was effective. The next morning, Kirion found himself lying back in a reclined chair, a thin mesh of neural stimulators pressed to his temples.
Kael worked in silence for a while, checking readouts. Then, as she adjusted the device on his head, she asked quietly, "Why do you think you're still fighting?"
He hesitated. "Because if I stop… the world wins."
"That's not the real reason," she said, tapping a few commands into her console. "You fight because you don't know how to stop. Because stopping feels like giving up on the people you couldn't save."
Kirion was stunned into silence.
Kael leaned in, her tone gentler now. "But you're not alone anymore. Let us carry it with you."
He exhaled slowly, feeling something unfamiliar stir beneath his ribs—something like relief.
Treatment began that day. And so did something else.
For the first time in a long while, Kirion allowed someone to care for him. Not just patch his wounds, but see them. And Kael, with her steady hands and unflinching gaze, started tending to things that had been broken long before the war began.