Chapter 512: Chapter 512: Good Surprise?

The group didn’t arrange themselves with any intention. They just… sat. Wherever their legs gave out, wherever the stone was least broken. A loose circle formed without anyone deciding it should, close enough that no one felt isolated, far enough that no one felt crowded.

Garron leaned heavily against a chunk of fallen masonry, his left arm wrapped and braced in a rough immobilization Elena had put together from cloth and bark-hard growth. He kept flexing his fingers like he was testing whether ignoring the pain would somehow make it stop listening to him. It didn’t.

“I hate this,” he said finally, breaking the quiet. His voice wasn’t loud, just raw. “Sitting around. Waiting. I’m built to stand in front of things and make them stop moving. Not… this.” He gestured vaguely with his good arm. “Feels like I’m dead weight.”

Elena, who had been kneeling nearby, finished adjusting the last trace of green light around his shoulder and leaned back on her heels. She looked tired in the honest way—no dramatics, just limits reached.

“You’re alive,” she said, tone dry but gentle. “Which means you did your job. Everything else is bonus.” She tilted her head, studying him. “Also, for the record, dead weight doesn’t usually keep Archmage-level monsters busy long enough for the rest of us to survive.”

Garron huffed, half a laugh slipping out before he could stop it. “Still don’t like it.”

Charlotte shifted where she sat, arms wrapped around herself more for balance than warmth. She hadn’t spoken since they regrouped, eyes lowered, jaw tight like she was holding herself together by habit alone.

“It wasn’t just you,” she said quietly. Not sharp. Not defensive. Just tired truth. “Everyone pushed too far. You just happened to be the one in front.” She glanced around the circle without lifting her head. “If we’re counting damage… we all paid.”

No one argued.

Noel had been standing off to the side, watching rather than participating, eyes moving slowly from one face to another. When he finally spoke, it wasn’t to correct anyone.

“This wasn’t clean,” he said. His voice carried easily, calm without being distant. “We didn’t walk away untouched. We didn’t outplay it perfectly.” He paused, letting that settle. Then added, quieter, “But it wasn’t a mistake either.”

He stepped closer and sat down at last, resting his forearms on his knees, posture relaxed in a way that made it clear he wasn’t about to start issuing orders.

The mood didn’t stay heavy for long.

It never really did, not with this group.

Someone—Noel, eventually—pulled a water bottle out of his dimensional pocket and took a long drink, leaning back against a broken piece of stone like he’d decided, for the moment, that the world could wait. The silence that followed wasn’t tense anymore. It was the kind that came from everyone being too tired to rush the next thought.

Elyra was the one who broke it.

She was sitting cross-legged, still looking more drained than she’d ever admit, but her eyes had that familiar sharpness again—the one she got when her mind was already three steps ahead of everyone else.

“You know,” she said casually, as if she were commenting on the weather, “when this is over… I want a child.”

Noel choked.

Water went the wrong way, and he coughed hard enough that his shoulders shook. He tried to turn his head away, but he was a second too slow.

Laziel, who had been sitting far too comfortably in front of him, took the full spray.

“…I hate all of you,” Laziel said flatly, blinking water out of his eyes. “Every single one of you. Especially you.”

Clara snorted. Selene actually smiled. Even Garron let out a weak, breathy laugh that turned into a cough.

Noel wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, still half dying. “I— I wasn’t— you can’t just—” He pointed vaguely between Elyra and himself. “That’s not a sentence you drop like that.”

Elyra tilted her head and looked at him, completely unbothered. “I just did.”

Her eyes flicked, very deliberately, to him.

The implication landed.

Elena’s eyebrows shot up. Charlotte’s brain visibly stalled for a second. Selene looked away, then back, then decided to stay very interested in a crack in the ground.

“…Wow,” Laziel said. “I get waterboarded and this is what I wake up to.”

Noel rubbed his face. “Elyra.”

“Yes?”

“You’re doing this on purpose.”

“Of course I am,” she said, not even pretending otherwise. Then her expression softened a little. “Not now. Not here. But someday. When this stops being… this.” She gestured vaguely at the ruined island, the broken stone, the whole mess. “I want something that isn’t about surviving.”

For a moment, no one joked.

Then Garron cleared his throat. “I, uh. I’m happy for you. Future you.”

Charlotte nodded. “That’s… actually kind of nice.”

Noel opened his mouth, closed it again, took another careful sip of water, and said, “We’ll… talk about it. When we’re not bleeding.”

“Deal,” Elyra said, satisfied.

Clara had been quiet through all of it.

Too quiet.

She was sitting a little apart, hands resting in her lap, watching them with a small, strange smile that Noel hadn’t seen before. When the laughter faded and the moment settled, she took a breath.

“…Since we’re apparently sharing life plans,” she said, voice light but steady, “I should probably say something too.”

Everyone looked at her.

She hesitated for half a second. Then:

“I’m pregnant.”

The world stopped.

Not metaphorically.

Actually.

Garron’s mouth stayed open. Laziel froze mid-blink. Elena’s brain clearly crashed and had to reboot. Selene went completely still. Charlotte’s eyes went wide.

Noel just stared at her.

“…What?” he said.

Clara smiled, a little nervous now, a little proud. “Marcus and I. Before all of this.” She shrugged slightly. “I found out right before everything went to hell.”

The silence stretched.

Then Elena was suddenly on her feet. “Clara— are you— are you okay? How far? Are you hurt? Did anything—”

The silence didn’t just stretch.

It tightened.

“…What?” Noel said.

Clara’s smile faltered—not disappearing, but losing that lightness she’d been holding onto. She nodded once, grounding herself. “Marcus and I. Before all of this.” She drew in a careful breath. “I found out right before everything went to hell.”

This time, it wasn’t shock that held them still. It was something heavier.

Elena was the first to move. She crossed the space between them without thinking, kneeling in front of Clara, her voice suddenly all focus and restraint. “How long?” she asked. “And don’t tell me ’a little.’”

“Not far,” Clara answered quickly. “Early. Really early. I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t safe.” She hesitated, then added, quieter, “I didn’t know we’d be pushed like this.”

Garron’s jaw clenched. “You could’ve stayed back,” he said, not accusing—just stating the obvious, like it hurt him to say it out loud. “You didn’t have to be here.”

“I know,” Clara replied. “But I didn’t know it would be like this either.”

Selene’s expression had gone sharp, calculating in a way that had nothing to do with combat. “You should’ve said something,” she said. Not harsh. Concerned. “We would’ve adjusted. Routes. Timing. Everything.”

Charlotte’s hands curled slowly into fists at her sides. “You shouldn’t have been anywhere near a chained guardian,” she muttered. “Not like that.”

Clara swallowed. “I didn’t want to be left behind,” she said softly. “And I didn’t want Marcus thinking I stayed back because I was scared.”

That one landed.

Noel hadn’t spoken yet.

He was staring at Clara, not in disbelief, but with a slow, dawning weight settling into his chest. His mind replayed every jump, every impact, every moment the ground had nearly given way beneath them.

She shouldn’t have been there.

Not through that.

Not through this.

’If something had gone wrong…’

He exhaled through his nose and finally spoke. “You could’ve told me,” he said. “I would’ve made sure you weren’t anywhere near the front.”

Clara met his eyes. “I know.”

That was the problem.

Noel leaned back slightly, resting his forearms on his knees. His voice lowered, losing its edge. “From now on,” he said, “we’re not treating you like just another body in the group.”

No one argued.

Elena nodded immediately. Selene didn’t even need to. Charlotte was already watching Clara like she’d volunteered for guard duty without saying it out loud.

Noel’s gaze stayed on Clara a second longer.

He didn’t say it aloud—but the thought was clear.

’I have to be careful now. More careful than before.’

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