The Transfer

Elian didn't reach for his scalpel. He didn't reach for bandages.

He reached for Kaelen.

He ripped Kaelen’s shirt open, exposing the blackened, ruined chest.

"Elian, don't," Kaelen gasped, realizing what he was doing. Panic, real and terrified, filled his eyes. "Don't you dare!"

"Shut up," Elian said, tears streaming down his face. "For once in your life, just shut up and let me save you."

Elian plunged his hands directly into the open wound.

He didn't pull the pain out. He pushed himself *in*.

He closed his eyes and summoned everything he was. Dr. Elias Thorne. The smell of sterile hospitals. The taste of coffee on a rainy Tuesday. The guilt of the patient he lost. The anger at this brutal world. The strange, twisted love he had found in this tower.

He gathered it all into a ball of white-hot light in his mind.

"Transfer," Elian commanded the magic.

* NO!* Kaelen’s voice echoed in his head, a telepathic scream of denial.

It was too late.

The energy surged out of Elian. It was agony beyond comprehension. It wasn't physical pain; it was existential erasure. He felt his memories burning like film in a projector. He forgot his mother’s face. He forgot his name. He forgot why he was crying.

The white light poured into Kaelen.

The black veins on Kaelen’s skin screamed and vanished. The wound in his chest closed instantly, knitting together with new, flawless flesh. The Rot evaporated, purged by the purity of an alien soul.

Power—raw, limitless, and clean—exploded from Kaelen.

The blast wave knocked the Pale King backward. The white monsters disintegrated into ash.

Kaelen rose from the throne. He was glowing with a blinding, silver aura. He looked terrified. He looked at Elian, who had slumped against the dais.

"Elian!" Kaelen screamed.

He turned to the Pale King. The grief transmuted instantly into a rage that shook the foundations of the Spire.

Kaelen didn't cast a spell. He simply unmade the Pale King. He reached out a hand, and the void-entity shattered into nothingness, erased from existence by the power of two souls.

The sky cleared. The monsters fell.

Silence returned to the Spire.