Chapter 55 Cero
Cero
The moment Aiz stabbed herself, Cero knew what he had to do. But he still was not prepared for the sorrow that rolled through him when he realized he must remove the heart of his childhood best friend.
Hurry, Cero, Ruh said in Cero’s mind. The heart must be strong.
Sweat rolled down Cero’s face, though the cave was cold. He supposed the others must be watching, but he couldn’t think of them now. He wouldn’t cut Aiz open with a blade—it felt wrong to do so. Instead, he used his bloodsmithing to find her heart, and ease it free.
In horror and fascination, Karinna, Quil, Sirsha, and the jinn all watched as he took the heart to Ruh’s still body. Div—or the manifestation of the jinn children, he supposed—remained close to Sirsha, looking up at her, as if for reassurance.
Bring me back, Tel Ilessi, Ruh said. Please. Ruh’s voice felt familiar in its tone, its timbre, the way it fell in Cero’s heart. Like Cero wasn’t just talking to a voice he knew but a piece of himself.
As he knelt beside the boy’s body, Cero’s hands shook.
He used his wind to cut open Ruh’s shirt, realizing that at some point someone must have changed it, must have gotten rid of his old, bloodstained clothes and lovingly put him in this clothing.
But he could not dwell on who that might have been, for Ruh awaited his heart.
Cero placed the heart inside Ruh, going entirely on instinct, having no idea what direction it should go. The magic, he hoped, would orient things as they should be, help the heart connect to the rest of Ruh, help his body accept it.
He did not know Ruh. But he knew Karinna, who loved Ruh, and Aiz, who had too, in her own way.
Unlike in Old Kegar, when Cero healed Karinna, his magic wasn’t blunted by Ikfa.
The bloodsmithing came to him as easily as breathing.
Cero tried not to overthink as he imagined the boy’s blood pumping through Aiz’s heart.
Sinews and muscles and nerves joining, connecting, welcoming the heart into the body.
But that was only flesh, and he had to add mind and emotion and soul to this. He tried only to think of the voice he had heard throughout these many months. Thoughtful and serious, full of curiosity. Ruhyan. A name that meant “spirit.”
But he did not know Ruh—not really—and he did not know how to bring him back. He gasped as he drew upon more of his magic, for if he let go now, Ruh would live and breathe, but he would be an empty vessel.
Distantly, he felt a presence at his side, tall and solid—Quil, pouring memory after memory of Ruh directly into Cero’s mind. And Karinna on his other side, holding Abzi close, her body shaking as she recalled who her brother had been in life.
Ruh forgave me in a trice no matter what stupid thing I did.
We sometimes made a list of people who had irritated us and all the ways we’d get back at them.
Ruh taught me to see, just by being observant himself.
He could mimic anyone, but his funniest imitation was of our father when he was mad.
Ruh made stories out of the constellations and told them to the dark when none of the rest of us listened.
When I was sad, he’d find me and hug me and I never figured out how he knew, he just did.
It was so much, and he poured all of it into Ruh.
Yet it felt like pouring water into a void.
This healing wasn’t like it had been with Abzi, who, for all her cleverness, was simpler to revive.
Nor was it like Karinna, whom he had been observing for weeks without even realizing it.
This felt like clawing life out of stone. His will flagged.
I can’t do this.
And another voice, one he had never heard, but deep as the bones of the earth, spoke in the darkest parts of his heart.
He is the bridge, Tel Ilessi. He will save your world or break it. You are the Wayfinder. The Bloodbinder. The Diviner. Your destinies are bound. You must find a way.
That was not a voice one ignored.
Cero forced himself to slow down, to consider.
He’d mended Ruh physically, and he’d gotten a clear picture of the child through Quil’s memories and Karinna’s words.
He knew Ruh wanted to return, had perhaps been directing his spirit in doing so for months now.
But Ruh needed something more. A living part of this world.
A piece of Cero. Something of his spirit, of his soul.
Do I even have a soul? Cero wondered. For so long, he hadn’t considered the question.
But now he was forced to wade through the morass of his life, of all he was and all he had done.
His past felt like a wound and his future like a song he couldn’t quite hear.
He hunted for something amid all that, something he could give to Ruh. Something that wasn’t tainted.
They will be enough, Cero. Your good things.
Karinna’s words, spoken when she was half-asleep. He tried to remember what he’d felt after. Warmth in his chest, burning soft like a banked coal. Hope that he could be better. That, indeed, one day the good he put into this world would be enough. That not every bit of him was touched by shadow.
For a moment, as he knelt over Ruh’s prone body, he was not only Cero, and Ruh was not only Ruh. They were a single living, breathing creature. Cero held out a bit of his soul, trembling and defenseless, ephemeral as morning dew. He felt it leave his body. He felt Ruh accept it.
When Cero released his bloodsmithing, he found himself meeting the pale silver stare of the child who’d helped him find his way to who he was. All around them, above them, beyond them, the blue of the metal in the cave had transformed to brilliant glowing silver.
The portal and the void that lived within it were gone. Cero caught a glimpse of the flame eyes watching him before Ruh’s voice drew his gaze back.
“Cero bet-Dafra,” Ruh whispered, and for a moment his voice was not his alone, but hundreds of voices. “Thank you.”