The wound Fynn had received was deep and impacted a poorly protected part of his armor. Idda did her best to pull Yue away from the spot, while Ronan had to improvise.

The man of Vilna had no choice but to withdraw the knife from his wound. That way, Fynn screamed until he hurt his throat from the pain. While he was bleeding to death, Ronan not only had to apply that painful salyr root treatment to the wound; he also had to force the boy to ingest some of the potion by standing over him and forcing him to drink from the vial. The man tried to calm him down and make him see that it was for his own good, but when the pain was so severe, Fynn would sink his hands to the ground so as not to punch his mentor off him.

The scene was brutal, as the boy was writhing in pain, screaming at the absurd stinging of his wound, and now, he had to drink the same treatment to close internal injuries. The moment was worthy of horror, as his wailing could be heard in an almost silent forest.

After that horrible moment, Ronan carried the boy back to camp; Fynn could barely stand, and the feeling of the potion poured inside him made it more difficult.

"Don't throw it up; hang on!" exclaimed Ronan, hurrying his march.

"Sorry, sorry!" exclaimed Fynn in a hoarse voice from what he drank.

The man tried to reassure the boy at that moment, laughing softly, "Heh, you did better than I would have."

"W-What about Yue?" asked the boy.

The akajsi girl was safe, but that didn't mean she was okay. As soon as she reached the camp with Idda, she quickly detached from her; with so many things on her mind, like the traumas she had experienced and the guilt for stabbing her friend, she was trying to keep her distance.

"Yue, it wasn't your..."

"Shut up!" the girl shouted in a trembling voice. "It wasn't me! It wasn't my fault! He was there! They were all there!"

"Yue, please, calm down," exclaimed Idda, trying to compose herself.

"They were all there!" cried Yue disconsolately. "Your husband was there too! They wanted to kill me! They wanted to do things to me before they turned me in! They were the monsters! Not me!"

Idda covered her mouth in disbelief at those words.

Yue wandered off to the far corner of the camp, where she sat until nightfall.

For the rest of the day, Ronan left Fynn resting in the wagon. The boy had to rest; he had to let the potion take effect and let his own healing traits do so.

Ronan must, along with Idda, removed that dead creature from the camp, which seemed to have decomposed much faster than expected.

"Oh, that smell!" exclaimed Idda in disgust as she carried that monster off its tail.

Ronan dragged the dream wraith as far away from the camp as he could, where he cut off some parts of the creature's body.

"Mister Ronan, what are you doing?"

"These things, these monsters, are not so easy to come by." explained Ronan, "I'll take some samples to send to Adhaz. Excuse me, can you...?"

Ronan held the monster's scalp, and Idda, seeing she was out of options, pursed her lips and decided to help the man.

"Don't you want me to go take care of Fynn?" the red-haired girl asked in an attempt to evade that situation.

"If everything went well, he'd just need to rest," replied Ronan. "The wound was deep; it's a stab wound, after all. However, the mesh of his armor prevented it from going any deeper. So let the root take effect, though he should be at least a day or two just drinking water."

"By Lithal, poor boy..."

"It's a common risk for us, miss Idda."

"But he's just a child, a teenager. They both are."

"I know."

"How old must they be? Fourteen? Fifteen?"

"Technically, they're only a few weeks old," Ronan explained as he went about trimming bits of skin and hair from that monster that was beginning to drip blood and fluids. "But yes, I suppose their appearance corresponds to that age."

"Is it always like this?"

"Sometimes the smell is worse."

"What, I don't mean this!" exclaimed Idda, alluding to the creature. "Do they always appear like this young?"

"Sometimes less so. I must have looked like a child of ten or less. One marked girl I know was a baby, but another looked a little older than these two."

"Why?"

The man sighed, trying to answer a question he didn't have an answer to.

Stoic and aloof, Yue was lost in her painful thoughts for hours while hugging her legs like a child who had been punished for staying like this under a tree.

"Yue," Fynn was heard to call out to her friend in a hoarse voice. "Are you still there?"

The girl didn't say a word.

"I know you're there," Fynn indicated, peering at the girl through one of the cracks in the wagon's wood. "I see you there, in the dark."

The girl hugged her legs even tighter.

"Come on, get out of there and get closer to the fire," the boy pointed out, crawling into the wagon until he leaned his back against the side, getting a better look at his friend.

"Ronan said you shouldn't move," Yue said, breaking her own silence.

"It wouldn't be the first time I didn't listen to him," the boy said, taking the water wineskin to moisten his parched throat from the potion.

The girl remained silent. Then, the boy sighed resignedly.

"Fine, then I'll go over there," the boy insisted, preparing to get down from the cart.

Like that, Yue got up from her distant place and walked angrily towards Fynn.

"Ronan said you can't move!" the girl exclaimed, annoyed.

"Oh, that's right, I forgot," exclaimed the boy with a teasing, tired smile.

Now, Fynn sat on the carriage, leaning his back again, and waved his hand at Yue to invite her.

Yue couldn't look him in the eye, she didn't dare, but she still agreed to sit there.

"Are you going to yell at me?" asked Yue.

"No, why do you say that?" asked the boy.

"Because I stabbed you?"

"You want me to yell at you?" asked Fynn with a smirk.

Yue hugged her legs and rested her head on her knees.

"I wasn't planning to yell at you; I know you didn't want to do this very well. I don't hate you or anything for something that wasn't your fault."

Yue was silent for a moment. Then, Fynn heard her friend snort.

"Are you okay?" the boy asked in a hoarse voice.

She turned her eye to the boy, tears were falling from her eyes, and she was shaking from how heartbroken she was.

With difficulty, she answered him between sobs, "I thought you would hate me after this. I don't want you to hate me, Fynn."

Fynn watched her friend grieving; he felt a tightness in his chest as he watched her cry.

"Come on, I-I said I don't hate you," the boy exclaimed, trying to calm her friend down.

"You're the only person I trust, Fynn. I don't want you to hate me."

Fynn smiled at her friend as her eyes began tearing up.

"Don't cry, Yue. I don't want you to think I can hate you. You're my friend; we're in this together, and I will always trust you."

The girl approached her friend and hugged him. Fynn allowed her to cry on his shoulder as he hugged her back.

The scene was unusual, to say the least, for Ronan. Seeing that sullen girl cry was strange.

"Leave them for a moment, Mr. Ronan," Idda exclaimed, holding him by the shoulder.

"I wasn't planning on ruining the moment," replied Ronan, smiling.

Idda and Ronan stood back as Fynn tried to calm her friend, and Yue tried to stop crying.

"You know, Miss Idda? It's strange; they both entered this world at the same time, almost in the same place. Weird, I've never heard or seen anything like that before.

"Perhaps the gods thought they should arrive here together?"

"'Gods,'" the man exclaimed mockingly. However, he soon stopped. "Perhaps, it's all an unusual coincidence."

Once Yue had stopped crying, Idda and Ronan appeared with feigned casualness from among the trees, the remains of the dream wraith had supposedly been heavier than they had expected and so had taken longer than expected.

With a somewhat frugal dinner, everyone went to sleep. Except for Ronan, who must now send a new letter, for if things were not going well, they had worsened.