We began to walk at a slow pace, venturing deeper into the city. The sanctuary's outer garden was a labyrinth of freezing beauty. Flanked by dark stone pillars, it housed bushes and flowers whose petals were perfectly crystallized by the ice, preserving their vibrant colors inside cold, transparent prisons. As we moved further away from the gates and entered the first inhabited streets, the quietness of our earlier playfulness began to dissipate.

Villagers bundled up in thick furs walked with their heads down. The moment the crimson red and deep black of our cloaks entered their field of vision, their behavior shifted. They stopped. They stepped aside to the edges of the narrow streets, clearing the path for us, and lowered their eyes. There was a palpable mix in the air: an instinctive dread and, at the same time, a silent reverence for the colors of the Tears of Hollows.

"They fear us..." I murmured, walking attentively.

"They don't fear us. They fear the Tears of Hollows," Yae replied with a serious expression.

"We better go back," I said, lightly tugging the sleeve of her cloak.

"No... we haven't done anything wrong. Let's just enjoy the beauty of the city. They aren't looking at us. They're looking at the cloak," she answered, pressing forward.

"What do you think they did?" I asked as we walked.

"I don't know... but I feel deep down that there is something very wrong with them. At the slightest hint, we run away together. In the meantime, let's benefit from what they have to give us."

"Agreed."

We both continued walking through the city. In the distance, there were children playing, running back and forth. A sudden gust of wind blew by, snatching a piece of cloth from a little boy, who chased after it to try and catch it. The cloth flew in my direction. I caught it, and the child approached, running toward me before slowing down to a hesitant walk. He was scared, but he also seemed to really want that piece of cloth.

"This is yours, isn't it? Here, it blew right at me. It was lucky I caught it," I said, holding the cloth out to him.

He hesitated, afraid I might do something to him.

"It's okay. You can trust me."

"No... we can't trust the Tears of Hollows," he explained, his voice trembling.

"You can trust me. Trust us," I replied with a welcoming smile, pointing to myself and Yae.

The civilians around us were surprised, but also fearful that I might hurt the child.

"T... thank you," he answered, taking the cloth. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," I replied.

A woman ran quickly toward us and snatched the child's hand.

"I told you not to talk to people who wear that cloak!" the lady scolded, hurrying away.

Unlike all the civilians watching us, there was a distant girl hiding between two houses down an alleyway. She was staring at us, wearing a cape and hiding her face under a hood. I stared back at her for a moment, trying to make out her face, but she turned around and started running. Yae went after her immediately. I ran, trying to keep up.

Yae didn't hesitate. She went straight after the girl. An instinct screamed inside me: we had to catch her. The way she looked at us wasn't just fear; it was recognition. She carried secrets. I sprinted, trying to keep pace.

The chase tore through the lethargy of the snowy city. The hooded girl moved not like a human, but like a wraith loose in the snow. She threw herself against the side wall of a tavern, used her boot to gain momentum, and jumped, grabbing the roof eaves with a terrifying fluidity. In a single motion, she flipped over the roof, sliding down the icy tiles before leaping to the next building.

Yae growled, trying to force her own body to follow the same route. But the heavy gravity of this world, combined with the thick, closed fabric of her woolen cloak, turned her into an anchor. When she tried to vault the same wall in one go, her legs failed the height. Yae had to slam her chest against the stone, grip the edges with effort, and hoist her own body up much slower and heavier. Jumps that once, in Hyperion, would have been as natural as breathing, now demanded an overwhelming effort.

The hooded girl dove back down to the streets, landing in the middle of the market crowd. She slid under a firewood wagon, bypassed stalls, and twirled past civilians, who screamed and threw themselves into the snow upon seeing the grim cloaks of our guild passing by like blurs of pure panic.

As Yae tried to force her way through the crowd, panting and frustrated, I realized that chasing her down the exact same path would be useless.

My open cloak billowed like black wings behind me; the fresh snow didn't bother me, and my vision revealed another route. The girl was heading for the base of the city's east wall, ready to use some stacked crates as a staircase for a jump.

I swerved sharply. I ducked into a parallel alley, sprinting at top speed across the ice, cutting through the block behind the houses. The sound of her boots hitting the wood of the crates echoed. I burst out of the alley at the exact moment she gathered momentum for the final leap.

I didn't hesitate. Before her feet left the last crate, I threw myself forward. My hand clamped down like a metal vice around her ankle.

Physics did the rest. Her momentum was cut short mid-air. The girl let out a muffled cry, her body spun, and she crashed violently, landing with a dull thud on a pile of dirty snow at my feet.

Yae arrived seconds later, skidding on the ice, panting, her breath forming thick white clouds, her eyes locked on the fallen figure.

The hooded girl's breathing was ragged. She tried to drag herself backward, cornered against the cold stone of the wall. My heart pounded with the adrenaline of the hunt. I approached with slow, measured steps, my body blocking her only exit. I crouched down, reaching a trembling hand toward the dark fabric of her hood.

It was the moment of truth.

I yanked her cloak back in one motion, and I could see. An adult human woman with brown eyes, fair skin, and long blonde hair. She had a pale complexion and lips made even paler by the cold; visible puffs of breath puffed from her mouth and dissipated after a few seconds.

"What do you want?" the hooded woman asked, her voice shaking and breathless, cornered against the stone wall.

"What do you know? Why were you analyzing us? What do you want?" Yae fired off consecutively, stepping closer with clenched fists.

"What do I want?" the girl retorted, letting out an ironic, almost desperate laugh. "I want you all to leave! I want you to disappear!"

Yae was about to crouch down to grab her collar and demand more answers, but was interrupted by a sharp hiss that sliced through the cold air.

Everything happened too fast. Yae's natural instinct made her twist her body backward, but the heavy wool of the cloak and Primitia's relentless gravity betrayed her again. The sound of the impact was dry. An arrow violently grazed my sister's left shoulder, piercing the dark fabric and tearing into the flesh.

Yae let out a muffled groan, dropping to her knees in the snow.

"Yae!" I screamed, throwing myself to her side.

When I looked back up at the wall, the hooded girl was no longer on the ground. With unmatched agility, she was already on the roof of the house next door. Her hood had slipped back, exposing her long blonde hair whipping wildly against the freezing wind. Beside her, standing on the ice-covered tiles, was a boy, also hooded, slowly lowering a dark wooden bow. They looked at us for a brief second, their eyes cold. Then, they turned around and vanished into the vastness of the white rooftops.

"Are you okay? Let me see that!" I pleaded, turning to Yae, panic making my hands shake.

She gritted her teeth and slowly pulled her hand away from her shoulder. Crimson blood stained the snow and began to mix with the dark red lining of the cloak.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I took a deep breath and tried to focus my mind. Water. I was the goddess of water. Healing should flow from me as easily as breathing. I dove into my own consciousness, searching for the sphere of liquid energy that had always inhabited my being. I visualized it. But this time, the sphere was smaller. Tiny. Instead of a vibrant, powerful torrent, the water inside me was perfectly calm, stagnant, and dormant.

I tried to pull on it, forced my divine will to channel the magic to Yae's wound, but nothing happened. The water ball didn't react. My power didn't answer my call. I was, in that moment, as useless and powerless as any frightened mortal.

Clenching my jaw in pure frustration, I helped Yae to her feet.

"Come on, we have to get your wound treated by the Tears of Hollows."

We made the trek back to the Tears of Hollows sanctuary in absolute silence. The walk, which had earlier been a joyful exploratory stroll, now felt like a funeral march. The aura of intimidation our cloaks caused among the villagers no longer mattered; the real threat was out there, and we were completely vulnerable.

As soon as we passed through the gates, Yae was immediately taken to the base's infirmary. The room was made of freezing gray stone, smelling strongly of crushed herbs and medicinal smoke. One of the guild members, with a pale, impassive face, approached silently and took Yae's heavy black and red cloak to clean the blood and stitch the tear left by the arrow.

Now, Yae sat on the edge of one of the infirmary beds, wearing only her underdress. Her shoulder was wrapped in clean, white bandages. I sat on the wooden chair right next to her, my hands resting on my knees, staring at the stone floor. The tension in the air was thick. Neither of us had spoken a word since the arrow flew.

"How?! How am I so... so slow! So heavy! So weak!" Yae demanded, outraged, gritting her teeth.

"It's just Primitia limiting us!" I replied, trying to calm her down.

"And how long are we going to stay like this, Neiva?! I barely dodged an arrow! Let alone a dragon!" she spoke heatedly, her head down.

"Yae..." I murmured.

I took a deep breath, looking at her downcast face, and placed my hands over hers.

"I can't even use my powers anymore. I can't heal you, and I'm not as strong or as fast as you," I confessed. "I think we've been doing really well. We don't even know how the others are. But in a few hours, we'll start our training and we might figure out how to get around this whole situation," I added, gently fixing her hair.

She lifted her face. Through the messy pink strands, I could see her eyes burning with a mix of rebellion and determination.

The medic approached, unwrapped the bandages on her arm, applied more ointment, and tied the wound back up.

"Fortunately, this wound won't cause you much trouble." he said. "You were lucky to be ambushed by only two Revolutionaries of the Red Glove."

"Who are they?" I asked.

"A group of people who oppose our cause," the healer explained with indifference. "They have already killed and kidnapped some of our own. We just need to identify their base to put an end to this."

The man walked away, gathering his equipment from the metal table.

"Red glove..." Yae muttered, looking thoughtfully at her own hand.

"Try to forget about that for now. Let's focus on learning something tomorrow," I asked, forcing an encouraging smile.

Yae was visibly shaken by everything that had happened. She stood up in silence, without returning the smile, and headed for her dorm room, leaving me alone with the weight of our new reality.