Chapter 15 #3
Another swell of pain, and their words were drowned out.
It was an assault against all of my senses at once.
The blinding flashes, the acrid taste of bile in the back of my throat, the smell of blood mixed with that awful ichor, the harsh ringing that filled my ears, and the agony of foreign magic picking through my veins.
I don’t know how long I was lost in the cacophony of sensations, but it only changed when I felt the tug of a tether latching to my chest.
“The pain is temporary. Do not cling to it as if it is here to stay.”
Azrael’s words passed over my mind like the smoothing of sand, dulling the ache, if only by giving me something else to focus on.
“Think of more beautiful things. Of mossy forest floors, and kisses planted gently into the soft bed of your thigh.”
I tried my best to do as he said, to put myself in another place, but the pain rooted me there, in that agonizing moment, and no number of attempts could dig me out.
The next relief came from the pain moving to my hip. The Sleeper must have finished with the wound on my shoulder and moved on to the next. Hope bloomed within me that perhaps the second round would not be like the first. And for what it’s worth, it wasn’t.
It was worse.
Another scream tore its way through my throat, so violent I tasted blood as it spattered my tongue. Azrael’s connection flared, offering more comfort to keep me calm, but it wasn’t enough to distract me.
I wanted to die. Anything would be preferable to this nightmare.
But then another tether tugged at my chest.
“You are stronger than this, Cirian.”
I wanted to argue. To tell Bastien that I was a coward if that meant he’d let me end this.
“If you think that I would allow you to enter into the hands of death once more, then you are sorely mistaken. I will drag you back into this world kicking and screaming if I must. This I promise you.”
Though his words lacked the warmth of Azrael’s, I did find comfort in them. He was a man who showed affection in strange ways, this Bastien. But I could still feel it, radiating down the tether that connected us.
And somewhere between that blinding pain, the two tethers wove themselves around one another, pushing out some of the sharpness.
I could feel them siphoning away portions of the pain, spreading it amongst the three of us till it reached a level of bearable.
Allthe while, their minds spoke to me, sharing moments of their lives that we’d never spoken of before.
Azrael told us of the times growing up in the kitchen at Chateau Greene.
He spoke of his father and the love that he held for the man who brought him into this world.
Then, of the guilt that overshadowed that love for not returning sooner to free him from the bindings that confined him to that place.
Bastien spoke of his grandmother and all the ways she ensured that magic remained a part of his life, even when they couldn’t practice it in public.
He told us of the stories she passed down from the Reviled that came before, and how she was the one who gave him the tattoos that he sometimes hid across his forearms.
And when it was my turn, I spoke of my mother and sister, and of our life together at the Cradle. I told them how much I missed them and of the warning my mother gave me about the curse of the Findlay family.
The pain carried on, shifting now to my chest and deepening to a point where I couldn’t even cry out anymore. The tether wound tighter into my chest, assuring me that I wasn’t alone. I felt so fragile, it was as though a whisper would shatter me.
Doing my best to ignore the pain, I told them instead of the time I spent with Tobias sparring outside of the chateau, and how they had brought me out of the shell I had crawled inside after the passing of my mother and sister.
I showed them sun-drenched dawns of rose blooms covered in morning dew, and the smile of the beautiful boy across the strip.
The mention of Tobias brought a new sensation down the tether, and I was struck with the overwhelming sense of longing from each of them.
My own yearning rose to the surface, weaving each of our separate desires into this beautiful cord that we had formed.
It was clear just how much each of us missed Tobias, but what came as a shock was how the longing merged, forming something deeper than anything I’d felt before.
The ache drowned out even the pain in my chest as the Sleeper worked the wound, washing me in the melancholy of the loss.
We needed Tobias. All three of us. And the longer we went without that connection, the larger this sorrow would grow. The question that lodged itself in my mind was what would happen if he never woke?
Wrapped in the layers of longing and comfort, I hardly noticed when the touch of the Sleeper left my body.
It was only when Bastien’s tether unraveled from ours that I was even aware that the pain had subsided, replaced instead by the dull throb of a healed wound and an exhaustion that weighed me down like waterlogged clothing.
Taking a moment to untangle myself from Azrael’s tether, I opened my eyes, taking in my surroundings for the first time.
I was lying atop a desk, it seemed, papers and writing utensils strewn across the floor as if they were swept aside in great haste.
Azrael was still at my side, his fingers wrapped around my upper arm.
He smiled as I looked at him, a fang protruding over his bottom lip.
“You scared us shitless,” he muttered, blunting his voice.
I nodded, my throat too raw to commiserate.
Across the room—a dimly lit interior, walled with shelves of books from one end to the next—Bastien stood alongside the Sleeper, holding the large tome that the woman had given to him back in the Cradle. Both of them leaned into one another as they spoke in hushed tones.
Prodding at the sliver of puckered skin on my chest where the Sanguine blade had pierced, I marveled at the handiwork of the mysterious figure.
Just how had he managed to heal such grievous wounds?
Even someone as powerful as Sancha would have struggled to close more than one Sanguine wound at a time, yet this man seemed to offer no sign of fatigue.
My mind drifted back to that basement under the Mortal Cup and the story that the Sleeper weaved.
Was there some sort of truth to it? If that were the case, then he’d be over a thousand years old.
It would also mean that he was touched by the Source itself.
Just like I’d been….
“This one here,” the Sleeper announced, voice loud enough to reach my ears. “That should be able to negate the effects of the stasis. Combine it with the list of ingredients I gave you, and be sure they consume the entirety.”
“Are you certain?” Bastien questioned.
“I am most certain. Ah, I had forgotten how lovely Annora’s quillwork was. Keep these pages well, Seeker. They hold the knowledge of the original alchemist herself.”
The two turned back to us, the Seeker making a humming sound as he approached the desk, his mask of swirled porcelain staring down at me with glassy resolve.
“Welcome back, Acolyte.” He paused, raising a gloved hand to tap the chin of his mask. “Oh, I suppose that title no longer suits you. With the departure of dear Sancha, you have claimed the title of Saint.”
I shook my head, gravelly words failing to cross my tongue.
“Allow me,” the Sleeper said, resting a hand against my throat.
With a surge of warmth, the fire in my throat subsided.
“I’m not a saint,” I said finally, the words coming through smooth and clear.
The Sleeper shrugged. “Well, the political workings of the church hold none of my interest, so I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“Where are we?” I asked, propping myself up on an elbow to get a better vantage.
“In my office,” the Sleeper answered. “The exact location shall remain a mystery for the meantime, but rest assured, I intend no harm to befall you or your companions.”
The dozen questions swirling around my head coalesced into one.
“What were you doing in the Cradle?”
“Running an errand,” the Sleeper answered without hesitation. “I had to wait until enough damage had been caused to the structure to get through those pesky wards around the vaults. We just so happened to come across you lot on our way down. How fortunate for you all.”
“And that abacus was what you were after?” Azrael interjected, his suspicions narrowed in on the man.
“Yes,” the Sleeper answered, once again without hesitation. “And a few other items that were also being held under dubious circumstances. Like Annora’s compendium there.”
“And what do you intend to do with the Abacus?”
“I intend to use it. That is, after all, what artifacts were created for.”
“What of the others?” I asked, the other questions simmering to the surface. “The other Hallowed that were there. Did they make it out?”
“Reina tells me that she spoke to a precocious little thing outside of the crater that used to be the Cradle, who saw a great host of people fleeing the structure before it collapsed. Now, I cannot say for certain that everyone made it out, but it does appear that there were survivors.” A sniffle emanated from beneath the mask.
“That was all thanks to your efforts, dear boy. You should feel immense pride in your actions today.”
A broken laugh ricocheted through my chest.
“Yeah, it’s my turn to take your word for it.”
The Sleeper returned my laugh, a sharp, high-pitched thing that petered out just as quickly as it came. “You have been blessed by the Source, Cirian. Humility is for those without the fire of the Enduring within their veins.”
My thoughts drifted back to the Sleeper’s story. He said that he had also been blessed by the Source, back in the time of the Magi-King. I didn’t know how to reconcile the stacking similarities between us.
“I think my blessings have officially run out,” I said, grunting as I sat upright, my head spinning.