15. ~Vorzyr~ #2
He had to bypass the ward without detection and then also replicate the test exactly as it was, while only touching it very briefly so his magical essence and signature didn’t have time to be registered by the protections in place.
If it was registered, then he’d be identified as the thief, as having accessed what was outlawed.
I honed in with my dragon hearing and listened in on the situation as it transpired.
“This place is really something,” Nyx commented, looking all around in awe while he kept the shadow travel going and enveloping them.
“What’s actually impressive is the control you have over your abilities tonight.”
“Yeah?”
“Definitely.”
“Thanks, Kai. I’ve been working on it. Holding to my plan for this last year like I told you about.”
Kai smiled, then turned his full focus to the task before him.
He called his rose-gold magic to the fingertips of his right hand, just those specifically glowing vibrantly, indicating the precision that would be needed.
He shifted his weight, then stepped right up close to the containment field that was levitating the golden scroll that was Ariana’s test results.
I started as he uttered an odd command.
“Zhairen fa’vahl.”
I frowned, trying to place the words.
The familiarity rolled over me, much of my childhood spent studying ancient tongues, given that my culture was rooted in an ancient existence, was finally coming in handy.
Kai was speaking an ancient language similar to Proto-Indo-European and fused with other ancient dialects. Yield to the forgotten.
His magic flamed on his fingertips and I watched in awe, just like I saw Nyx doing, as they passed through the ward.
He grunted, pushing harder, then speaking another command with a whole lot of vehemence, “Zhairen fa’nuriel.” Yield to what was before.
Motherfucker, he’d found an impressive loophole.
He wasn’t technically fighting the ward, he was doing a whole lot better and being fucking ingenious about it—bypassing it by invoking an older authority.
It was brilliant, risky, and rather unhinged—just like the infuriatingly alluring man himself.
I saw him manage to work the ancient commands to allow his hand to pass through the ward without causing a disruption that would trigger an alert and notify the Unity Council that there was a security breach.
Even with it being the dead of night and a couple of hours before the place was open, any security issue would immediately alert them and given that they were supernatural beings, they could be here in seconds.
Kai was just a mere inch away from grasping the scroll, where I knew the plan was then for him to take a trace magical essence from it so that he could create an identical copy using his magic and a couple of drops of Ariana’s blood.
But then something unexpected happened.
Something that sent a chill down my spine.
Kai was crying out in the next second as white smoke suddenly started swirling around the scroll, another spell or something activating as it felt his closeness.
In seconds, it was wrapping around his hand, then traveling up his arm and jerking him closer.
Trapping him.
He hissed, and I peered closer with my dragon vision to see it melting right through his leather trench coat, exposing his skin beneath, then burning through that as well, his flesh becoming red-raw in moments.
He tried to pull back, and even shocked it with his magic, but it didn’t respond at all to his efforts.
It was beyond even his magic then?
“What the shit is that?” Nyx cried, starting forward.
Kai held up his free hand behind him. “Stay back. This is… it’s dangerous. It shouldn’t be here.”
“What is it?”
Kai hissed as the burning worsened. “Not sure… yet.” I saw his magic surge, but it did absolutely nothing. His eyes shot wide, and then he expressed actual fear.
Kai Hunter had no clue what the fuck to do.
It shouldn’t be possible with his massive, extensive knowledge base. I mean, he’d just been able to employ ancient magic that very few magic-wielders with years of more experience than him knew how to do.
Something was seriously wrong here.
My instincts screamed at me.
Pushing me to act.
I knew it in my bones then as I took in Kai’s predicament, him being imprisoned, completely unable to escape, and being damaged in the process. There was something I could do.
I couldn’t explain it.
I didn’t know exactly what it was.
But something deep within me roared with the assurance that I would know when I was within range, when I was touching… whatever the hell that was.
As Kai and Nyx started arguing, with Kai insisting that he leave, so that at least he wasn’t implicated, telling him to warn Ariana to get gone, too, I burst across the distance with my dragon speed, then dematerialized in a red cloud of teleportation just before I hit the doors.
I rematerialized right beside Nyx in the very next second.
The moment he saw me, he quickly covered me with his shadow magic.
Thankfully, it all happened fast enough and smoothly enough without any security measures having the time to be triggered.
“Damn, what are you doing here?” Nyx breathed, straining at having to hold me now also, and with Kai stuck he was already extending that as it was.
“This additional ward… it’s not breakable through… normal magical means,” Kai croaked, the pain getting to him. “Not even ancient magic… could work… to bypass it. Go. Both of you.”
“No,” I told him. In the next moment, as I stared at that white smoke attacking him and holding him hostage, instinct took hold, guiding me in such a powerful way, like it did when I was in my dragon form those times when I let myself go fully.
I stepped forward and grasped Kai’s burning and now blistering arm while he struggled and grimaced in horrific pain. I got a good look at it, seeing that it was burning deeper and deeper, almost reaching bone.
The damage was similar to that caused by dragon fire and Hellfire.
How?
What was going on?
I didn’t have time to think about it as the white magic trapping Kai reacted to my proximity, then loosened around his arm and hand, before going for me and wrapping around mine.
I managed to shove Kai back and then it was just me standing there trapped by it.
But only briefly.
Because a primal part of me had me pushing against it, commanding it with a feral snarl and something strange within me that I didn’t understand.
Nyx gasped and Kai frowned, cradling his damaged arm, as the attacking magic started retracting from me, then dissipating entirely, as I fucking well dominated it, forcing it to back the hell off.
“What the—how did you do that? What did you do?” Nyx asked.
There wasn’t time to get into it—not that I even really knew the answer myself.
I turned to Kai. “It’s clear now. Extract the trace essence that you need, then we’ve gotta get you out of here and deal with that wound. It’s still burning, I can smell it.”
Shakily, he reached out with his good left hand, called his magic to his fingertips again, and he completed the extraction, before then pulling back, shimmering golden balls levitating on his palm as he opened his fist. He snuffed it out, sealing it away for safekeeping. “Done.”
I eyed Nyx. “Get us out of here. Can you hold it long enough to do that?”
He nodded, and then he was moving us out of there in his smoke and shadow.
The moment we were clear and made it outside to the forest, Kai collapsed at the edge on the dirt and grass.
Ariana burst over in a cloud of teleportation. “What happened?” She eyed me. “And how are you here? I saw you dart inside.” She held up her hand. “Never mind. Kai first.” She skidded to her knees beside him.
Nyx was already crouching down on the other side, his blue magic sparking to life as he cast a spell to ease Kai’s pain until we were able to heal him.
He started uttering ideas aloud at the same time of how we could help him and heal the damage, even though we didn’t know the source of whatever that additional shield around the scroll had been.
“How… no. This can’t be,” Ariana choked, studying Kai’s wound that was getting worse by the second, the red-raw nature of it now turning black, like being charred, like ash.
“You know what it is?” Nyx asked, frantically.
“It looks like dragon fire damage, but it’s not. I’d be able to sense it,” I spoke. “Maybe Hellfire-based? Somehow?”
She shook her head, the look in her eyes grave and deeply worrying, so much so that it sent a chill down my spine and actually had Nyx shuddering—he was clearly reading her emotions.
“This is the work of Celestial Light,” she informed us. “This is the damage it does when it touches any being rooted to the mortal plane.”
“Like, non-Celestials?” Nyx asked.
“Even Fallen. They were cast out, so it can also harm them.” She hovered her hands over Kai’s arm, her silver magic sparking, as she told him, “I can heal you. Hold on, okay? You’ll be all right. I’ll fix this.”
His other hand shot out and grasped her thigh urgently. “No.”
“Kai, this damage is… it needs healing immediately.”
“Not… by you.”
“What? Of course it has to be me. I just told you that it’s Celestial-borne.”
“When it… grabbed me… it… I felt it… calling out for you. It can’t know… can’t feel you.” He choked and spewed up blood over the grass.
“Motherfucker,” I uttered.
“It’s killing him!” Nyx cried.
“The infection is driving too deep, too fast,” Ariana determined. “Fuck this, I’m healing you.”
Kai weakly grasped her hand. “ No. It’s… against… my wishes. I know you… value… free will.”
“Dammit, Kai!” Nyx yelled.
I saw it in Ariana’s eyes. Kai had gotten to her. She couldn’t violate his free will, what he wanted. She’d never do that to anyone, and it made sense given her situation.
“Argh!” Ariana ground out. “Even on your deathbed, you’re utterly maddening.”
Kai spluttered out a raspy laugh. “Aww… love you, too, sweetheart.”
Ariana jolted at his words.