Chapter 37 It Didn't Take

Chapter 37 It Didn't Take
The room felt smaller once the door closed behind them.

Maybe it was because they had already spent too many days in it. Maybe it was because too much had happened elsewhere for four walls and a bed to feel normal again.

Whatever the reason, Jax stood just inside the room a second longer than he needed to, looking at the washbasin in the corner, the narrow window above it, and the chair he had spent too many hours sitting in while people watched him breathe like it might stop being safe at any moment.

Mira didn’t seem to have that problem. She kicked off her boots near the bed and stretched both arms overhead until her shoulders cracked. “Gods,” she muttered, rolling one shoulder after the other. “I thought they were never going to let us leave.”

Jax glanced at her. “You were complaining about that six hours in, you know.”

“Because it was annoying six hours in,” she said, dropping back onto the edge of the mattress. “A week later it became a personal attack. I was afraid I’d forget how to use my frost magic.”

That earned the faintest pull at the corner of his mouth, but it faded quickly. He reached up without thinking and brushed his fingers over the mark beneath his shirt. It didn’t pulse. It hadn’t responded to anything since the incident.

His hand dropped away again before Mira could notice, or before she could say anything if she did. She looked up at him anyway. “You’re doing the weird stare thing again.”

“I’m not staring. I’m lost in thought, and my eyes just happened to be pointed at you.”

“You are, you liar.” She shifted farther back on the bed and leaned against the wall, one knee pulled up loosely. “It’s the same face you make when you think something is about to go wrong.”

Jax let out a short breath through his nose. “That’s because something did go wrong.”

“Past tense,” Mira said. “You’re still alive. I’m still alive. The room is ours again. Feels like a win.”

It should have.

That was the problem.

He should have been exhausted. Instead he felt fine, more than fine, like his body had skipped the part where it paid the cost.

Mira watched him for another second before her expression softened. “Jax. Sit down before you wear a hole in the floor,” she said, pointing at the worn path he’d made over their time in the room together.

He did, lowering himself into the chair near the window. The wood creaked under him, familiar and plain. Outside, lanternlight moved across the street in wavering patches where people passed below. The inn had settled into its nighttime rhythm.

Behind him, Mira shifted onto her side. “Wake me if you start exploding again.”

Jax turned just enough to give her a look.

She grinned against the pillow. “I’m joking.”

“That would be easier to believe if you sounded less hopeful.”

“That’s fair.” She tucked one arm under her head and looked at him through half-lidded eyes. “Still. Wake me if anything feels weird.”

Everything feels weird, he almost said.

Instead he nodded. “Go to sleep.”

Mira hummed something that might have been agreement. It didn’t take long. After a week of interrupted rest, mana checks, and people in and out of the room at all hours, she was out fast. Her breathing evened. Her shoulders loosened. The energy that followed her everywhere finally went still.

Jax sat in the quiet for a while, waiting until her breathing had settled completely. When enough time had passed, he shifted forward in the chair and planted both feet more firmly against the floor. His eyes flicked toward the bed. Mira hadn’t moved. Her breathing was steady, shoulders loose, completely out in a way she hadn’t been in days.

At the door, he paused with one hand resting against the wood, his gaze drifting back to Mira. She didn’t stir. For a brief moment, something in him hesitated.

He eased the door open just enough to slip through and pulled it shut behind him with the same care. The hallway was dim, lit only by a single lantern near the stairwell. Most of the inn had already settled for the night, and the few distant voices that carried from below sounded quieter now, worn down by the hour.

Jax moved past it all without stopping.

He didn’t have a destination. Not really. But his feet carried him anyway, away from the inn, away from the lights, toward the quieter edges of the district where the buildings spaced out just enough for the city to feel less crowded and more open.

His pace slowed once he was far enough that the inn had disappeared behind him completely. That was enough space for what he needed. He stretched his body out once, grounding himself again, then stepped into the center of the empty stretch of road.

“Let’s see how my mana responds,” he muttered under his breath.

A stone shield formed in front of him, large and solid, locking into place without resistance. The weight settled exactly where it should have, stable and familiar, and for the first time since leaving the room, something in him loosened.

“Good,” he said quietly. “I was worried that it wouldn't work.”

He shifted his focus and let the mana move again. “Stone spike.”

The ground answered instantly. A sharp pillar of stone snapped upward, faster than he was used to, holding steady and waiting for direction. Jax blinked, watching the structure hold without strain as his brow pulled together.

“That was faster.”

His gaze dropped to his hands. The thought came naturally after that, rising before he could stop it or question whether this was a good idea.

The axe.

He didn’t hesitate. Mana surged toward him immediately, drawn in faster than before and gathering in his hands with a familiar weight. The outline began to form, haft first, then the head, heavy and real for the briefest moment before it slipped.

The structure thinned and unraveled before it could lock into place, the mana dispersing outward like it had nowhere to hold. Jax frowned, staring at the empty space where it should have been.

“Why didn’t that...”

He stopped himself, jaw tightening.

That had felt right.

He tried again, pulling harder this time and forcing the mana into shape. It responded instantly, the partial form snapping into place before breaking apart again, the construct collapsing before it could fully exist.

Jax’s breathing sharpened. “No... that should’ve worked.”

He reached for it a third time, more forcefully now, his hand tightening against his chest as he grabbed at the mark beneath his shirt.

“Come on,” he muttered. “Give me the power to keep Mira safe. Just respond.”

Mana surged harder. For a split second, the weapon formed clearer than before, the shape almost complete, the weight nearly settling into something he could actually hold.

Then everything went wrong.

The structure didn’t just collapse. It rejected him. The gathered mana twisted in his grasp, slipping sideways instead of settling and tearing out of alignment with a sharp, violent shift that hit somewhere deep in his chest. 

Jax gasped as heat flooded his core, sudden and brutal, his body locking as the mana tore free, not outward, but through him.

His hand clawed at his chest as the pain spiked, sharper than anything from the week before. The street tilted sideways, lanternlight smearing into broken lines as his vision dipped and his balance disappeared with it. 

He tried to steady himself, but his legs gave out instead, the strength vanishing all at once as the world blurred into dark shapes and broken light.

Mira’s voice cut in just as the world dropped out from under him.