Chapter 45
CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
Icursed as the world came rolling back to me on a slow and violent wave. The pain hit first, the echoes of agony which I’d been certain would shatter my body. It wasn’t as intense as it had been but it was still there, my flesh on fire with it, my bones aching from its grip on me.
“I don’t trust him,” a deep, familiar voice growled to my right, heat enveloping my hand as the person holding it tightened their grip.
“You don’t need to,” another male voice clipped. “You need to trust that we have him under our control.”
Bastian growled in that low, possessive way of his, and then a different, colder, clammier hand was taking hold of my left.
“If you so much as attempt to disturb a single hair on her head, I will rip you limb from limb in this very room,” Bastian snarled in warning.
“I-I-I-” the owner of the clammy-handed voice stammered before the other man in the room interrupted.
“She will die without this help. Is that what you would choose for her, Dragon?”
“She’s too fucking stubborn to die in any way she didn’t choose for herself,” Bastian replied.
“But she did choose it, didn’t she? She chose to risk everything to fulfil the bargain she’d made with us and give us a fighting chance against the eschaton star.
But it isn’t over yet and regardless of what she may have been willing to sacrifice, we still need her.
There are no others with her capabilities.
There are none who can fill her role in all of this but her. ”
“You speak of her as if she is a tool for you to wield,” Bastian spat, chair legs screeching across a wooden floor as he stood, my hand falling heavily out of his, the loss of his warmth making my wounds throb all the worse.
A groan escaped my lips and the arguments in the room fell silent at last.
“I speak of her as a warrior set to play a crucial role in a war far more important than any other that has been waged upon this continent in hundreds of years,” Lazarus said firmly, his voice aligning with a name at last.
“She’s in pain,” Everest said in a low voice and I felt the brush of her fingers across my brow.
“Just let him heal her. I’m here. If he tries anything then I can Void him in the blink of an eye and you can roast him in Dragon fire.
But she’s hurting, Bastian. Whatever else is going on, don’t you want to see her out of pain? ”
It appeared there was an entire party taking place around my death bed.
Bastian didn’t reply but the clammy hand still grasping mine tightened its grip on me and I was dimly aware of magic brushing against my skin.
I’d experienced this before and tensed as I felt the rush of power closing in on me, the healing magic tearing through my limbs in a way that was terrifyingly euphoric.
It stole across my skin and dove beneath it, seeking out my wounds, the injuries I’d taken internally and even the fatigue in my muscles and miraculously repairing it all.
Or perhaps…not all. There was no improvement to the constant pain of my grief. And there was still a burning ache on the flesh of my arms which seemed to be at war with the magic he was using on me.
“Why isn’t it working?” Bastian demanded. “What are you doing to her?”
“It is working,” the man holding my hand gasped. “But these injuries…I don’t understand them…I can’t–”
“Dark magic comes at a cost,” I muttered, tugging my hand free of his and wiping it clean on the sheets of my bed.
I blinked at the people surrounding me, trying to take in where I was and what was going on while my eyes fought to adapt to the light provided by flaming sconces on the walls.
We were beneath the ground, the walls made of rock. But the room I was situated in was well furnished, and clearly had been made use of plenty of times before.
“Ravensview?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Everest replied. “You kinda lost your shit in the dark magic stuff and there was a whole massive, terrifying situation which really made me think you’d died for a minute there.
But then Septa rescued us from the ether by burning those herbs in our fists and I managed to get you out and Bastian saved our asses and got us away from there and.
..well, long story short, we’re back here.
You did it. Oh and that’s a Reaper who is being held captive and just used healing magic on you – I didn’t catch his name. ”
“It’s Pedro Pantalini Poozwin,” the Reaper said, bobbing his head at me.
I looked him over as I pushed myself up on my pillows. He was dishevelled, his golden cape torn and smeared with dirt, his eyes full of fear and his desires all centring around the desperate hope to survive.
“Bastian shifted where everyone could see him?” My eyes moved to the Dragon who now stood with his arms folded at the foot of my bed, Lazarus at his side.
He knew the word of that would spread. But I supposed Evard had known we were heading to Avanis, he wouldn’t be surprised by that much. Though I doubted he or Dragor would be pleased to have the fact known widely.
Kaiser, North and Mirelle were also in the room though they’d all chosen to remain on the far side of it by the fire, watching us, but saying nothing.
“Why aren’t your arms healed?” Bastian asked, his gaze dark and focused on the wounds he was referring to.
I looked at the runes I’d carved into my skin, a lump forming in my throat at how far I’d gone to repair the keystone. The wounds were bloody and stung in the warm air, the taint of ether still simmering within them a little.
“I told you, the price of that kind of magic is high. I suggested offering up a sacrifice but none of you seemed keen on the idea so I refrained from cutting the throat of the Stonebreaker who witnessed our actions.”
“Without her we’d be dead,” Everest added and I frowned at that.
“Then more fool her I suppose.” I looked to Bastian again. “I used what I did to Cayde as an offering but it wasn’t enough. So I worked with what I had.”
“Damn the consequences, right?” Bastian said coldly.
I felt I should have had some answer to that which might have banished the anger in his expression but I couldn’t apologise for what I was.
He was the one who’d told me to stop doing so after all.
Clearly he expected more from me though.
The trouble was, I didn’t think there was any more I could offer.
“I’ve fought and won battles with far worse wounds than these. They won’t slow me down,” I said finally.
Bastian tensed while Lazarus and Mirelle expressed satisfaction at my reply and began talking about the next stage of their plans. Striking at the beast itself on the night of the blood moon.
“Then you’re no longer lingering at death’s threshold?” Bastian asked.
I shook my head, my eyes on his as the truth of that struck him and for a moment it seemed like all the tension in his powerful body fell away.
“Good,” Bastian said finally and something seemed to burst into bloom within my chest, stirring my senses, giving me a reason to be glad to have awoken still living and breathing in my own flesh.
Or at least it did until he continued, making it clear his anger with me was far from banished.
“Your death is mine, after all spectre. I won’t see it fall into the hands of another. ”
Bastian turned and strode from the room, the door thumping shut at his back, whatever small spark had been stirring within my chest snuffed out with the strike of the latch.
My fingers fisted in the sheets at my lap and I fought to swallow down a lump in my throat.
“Out,” Everest barked suddenly, rounding the bed so that she could stand between me and the others in the room. “You can go talk tactics somewhere else. Vesper needs to bathe and stitch her remaining wounds. And she doesn’t need anyone lurking in here while she does it.”
Lazarus bowed his head to me, murmuring a few words of thanks for what I’d achieved before taking hold of the terrified Reaper and shooting from the room.
Kaiser and North followed, though Everest had to shoo the Fury out of the door rather forcefully. I could feel his desire to protect her from me coiling around my chest. I supposed I could have reassured him but I only offered him a dark smile instead.
Mirelle paused before following them, her gaze roaming over me thoughtfully.
“You aren’t entirely what you seem, are you Sky Witch?” she mused.
“Is anyone?” I replied.
Her lips twitched with the faintest hint of amusement and then she was gone too, leaving me alone with my kitty-cat.
“I thought everyone was leaving?” I asked.
“Obviously I don’t count,” she replied, moving to the large, copper tub in the corner of the room and casting steaming water into it from her palm.
“Obviously,” I replied slowly, my eyes remaining on her as she pulled open drawers and cupboards, rummaging through their contents as if she owned the place.
“You need to bathe in salt water,” she said, tossing a handful of salt into the steaming tub. “And I was hoping to find a sprig or two of lavender to help you relax–”
“I need ginger and turmeric,” I replied. “To ward off infection. Relaxing is something other people worry about.”
“Yes…I can see that stick of tension is rammed firmly up your ass. We’d need a whole lavender field to even begin to rectify that. I’ll go ask if they’ve got any ginger.”
She headed for the door and my gut tightened. Everyone else had left me already. He’d left me. I found I didn’t want her to do so too.
“There should be some in my pack,” I said quickly. “If it’s here somewhere?”
“It is,” Everest agreed, shooting me a look which said she’d noticed how I’d spoken to stop her from leaving.
I pursed my lips and got to my feet while she started rummaging through my belongings.
“Is this a sex thing?” she asked, waving a coil of rope in the air and I rolled my eyes.
“It’s to bind my captives with.”
“So…yes then?” she teased and I snorted in amusement.
I peeled off the filthy Stonebreaker clothes I’d been dressed in and stepped into the tub, releasing a low groan as the hot water enveloped my skin and I sank low beneath it.
I held my breath beneath the surface for a count of ten then emerged, leaning my head back against the tub and staring up at the whorls and scars which marked the cavern roof above me.
“Ginger,” Everest announced, almost taking my damn eye out as she threw the entire root at me.
I caught it with my air magic before it could bludgeon me and gave her a cutting look.
“You don’t hurl a whole root into the water. You grate a measure of it and–”
“I don’t know anything about your hocus pocus shit, Ves,” she said. “And I don’t know what the fuck turmeric looks like either. Is this it?”
“That’s a rock you found on the floor.”
“Yeah. But it has turmeric vibes, don’t you think?”
I snorted a laugh and she grinned at me before striding over and handing me both a turmeric root, a dagger and the rock.
I took them all with a roll of my eyes and she dragged a chair across the room to sit beside me while I bathed.
I placed my rock down on the side of the tub then proceeded to shave a small amount of the turmeric and ginger into the water with my blade.
“He’s just mad because he cares, you know?” Everest said, leaning back in her seat and kicking her feet up to rest on the end of my bath. “And you frightened him with the whole, blood-covered corpse look you had going on.”
I tossed the ginger and turmeric back towards my bag and turned the dagger in my grip so that I could start picking blood and muck out from beneath my fingernails with it.
It distracted me from both the sting of the runes cut into my arms and the twisting knot in my stomach which seemed determined to draw my focus.
“He’s a fool to care about me,” I said finally.
“Yeah,” Everest agreed. “You’re the worst. But…
you’re kind of addictive too. Being around you is a bit like having a really angry pit-bull for a pet.
It has a sore paw and is really fucking hungry.
And because it’s so empty inside it’s snappy as shit and occasionally tries to kill you.
But it’s also weirdly sweet when you don’t expect it to be and because you’re in its pack it actually defends you against the nasty old world out there when push comes to shove.
You don’t really like it because it’s grumpy as shit but…
you find yourself trying to tempt it with treats in the hopes it might forget to be an asshole for a little while.
‘Cause when it does it’s actually kinda nice to be around. ”
“Gee thanks,” I drawled and she smiled widely.
“You’re welcome. And don’t worry – Bastian has a thing for strays too. He won’t be able to stay mad at you for long.”
“He’d be better off if he did,” I muttered, looking away from her and into the fire.
“Probably. But we don’t really get much say in those kinds of things, do we? And if I were you, I’d probably stop trying to sabotage one of the few good things you’ve got.”
“I have a few?”
“Well yeah, obviously – I don’t just run baths for anybody, you know.”
“Oh, so I’m special?” I asked.
Everest cut me a look which said I was pushing my luck with her but then she sighed heavily and agreed. “Okay fine, you’re special. I’m the great and powerful Void after-all. So you’d have to be, to be able to call me your friend.”
I didn’t say anything in reply to that claim but as I leaned back against the edge of the tub, I wrapped my fingers around the vial of blood which remained hanging from my throat and I could have sworn it warmed against my skin once more.