Fucked
Mishaps can happen while casting and conduiting. It’s important to keep proper materials nearby in case of such an event. Scissors and a healer’s kit should always be close at hand.
Fundamentals of Magic by Eroland Lockhart
WHEN I DON’T SEE DOM in the mess hall for dinner, I grab two bowls of stew and a loaf of fresh bread to share before I head up to his room. I awkwardly knock with my foot, and he gives a small laugh as he opens the door to see me juggling it all.
“You could have just come to fetch me,” he says before he lets me in. I set my bowl down on his desk, though I can’t help but notice the remnants of his picked-over lunch. Apparently he wasn’t as hungry as he claimed after our ride.
“I had a feeling you weren’t in the mood for a crowd,” I say before I offer him the bowl in my hand.
He gives me a wan smile as he takes it before sitting on the edge of his bed. “You’re not wrong.”
I take the seat at his desk before I break the small loaf of bread in half. Dom pokes aimlessly at his bowl, and I can tell that whatever caused his mood to shift so suddenly during our ride still lingers.
“Are you alright?” I ask gently.
Dom sighs, his eyes flicking up to me. It used to be I could almost read his mind with how often our thoughts aligned, but now, it’s like trying to read a wall. Whatever happened has shut him up tight.
“I hate to say that my good mood’s vanished,” he admits.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He shakes his head and says, “You’ll find out tomorrow night. Just... more bad news.”
I study him, hating that I have no idea what he needs. “Do you still want company?”
Dom’s look is almost pleading. “Would you read to me?”
The request makes me smile. Ever since Dom discovered the spell records in the library, we’ve been digging through some old journals that were donated for posterity.
The one we’re reading now belonged to a wizard named Solena.
She was a student of Eroland Lockheart, and she had a flair for the written word.
It’s been a delight reviewing her experiences at the Crux.
“I would love to.”
We eat in relative silence, though after some delay, Dom actually finishes his bowl. Once he’s done, he strips down to his underthings, and I follow his lead before I grab Solena’s journal from his desk and slide into his bed with him. As I start to read out loud, his head rests against my chest.
His fingers gently trace over my hip and stomach as I recount an assignment Solena and a few others undertook.
Opening up the land bridge between the ocean and Aeris Bay was nothing short of a magical marvel, and it’s fascinating reading a firsthand account of the feat.
I’m so sucked into the theory of the transmutations they used to accomplish it that I don’t realize Dom’s finger has stilled until he gives a tell-tale jerk.
“I’m awake,” he says groggily, and I chuckle as I close Solena’s journal. I tilt his face up before catching his lips in a gentle kiss. His eyes droop, a contented sigh escaping him before he nuzzles back down against my chest. “Keep going.”
“Not a chance,” I say through a smile. “Sleep, love.”
Yet as I go to extract myself from his bed, his arms tighten around me. “Will you stay with me tonight? It... helped a lot yesterday.”
The request fills me with warmth. Before the Tower, it was a rare night we didn’t share a bed.
In the aftermath, I respected his wish to sleep alone, but hearing him ask me to stay for the second night in a row feels like...
maybe something is healing. I scoot down until we’re face to face before pressing another kiss to his lips. “Of course I will.”
I reach over to set the journal on his bedside table before I dim the glow globe with a touch.
“Thank you,” Dom says, and there’s something so endearing about the sleepy slur in his voice.
He curls against my side, and I stroke my fingers through his hair until his breathing deepens. Only then do I carefully roll and close my own eyes. Last night was a late night for me as well, and even though it’s still relatively early, I drift off easily.
I’m not sure how long I’m asleep before a quiet groan draws me out of it. The sound is as familiar as it is disheartening, and I know before I’ve fully woken up that Dom’s having another nightmare. Guess we couldn’t get lucky two nights in a row.
I shift, turning to face him. The sky outside is still dark, but the moon gives me enough light to see Dom’s brow pinched together, his lips parted as another distressed sound escapes him.
“Hush, love,” I murmur groggily. “You’re safe.”
Dom tenses, body jerking as he fights against the grip of sleep. Yesterday when he was laughing with us on our ride, he almost seemed like himself again. But seeing him now makes me realize just how good he’s gotten at hiding.
I reach up to gently cup his cheek, but the second I touch him, Dom’s eyes fly open. They’re wide and unseeing as he grabs my wrists.
Pain sears through me, hot and unexpected. It jolts me fully awake, and I shout, pulling my arms out of Dom’s grip as I jerk away. I scramble out of the bed, bringing the quilt with me, clutching it to my chest like a shield.
My ears ring, and I’m vaguely aware of Dom jolting upright on the bed. Yet I’m too busy looking at the burns circling my wrists. They’re in the perfect shape of his hands, the skin red and angry. Blisters are already raising as if Dom’s fingertips left fiery prints behind.
He must have released a spell in his sleep.
Dazed, I lift my head to look at him as he hurries to his feet.
His chest heaves, his eyes wide with shock.
I watch the movement of his pale, freckled skin, transfixed for some reason.
Dom says something, but the words don’t quite reach my ears over the rush of pain.
His hands hover over me, as if he’s afraid to touch me.
It’s only then I realize what’s caught my attention so thoroughly. I was looking for a spell strand around Dom’s neck, but... he’s not wearing one.
Vaguely, I look down at my own. I never go without at least my emergency strand anymore. Not since Arlon was attacked. Yet as I lift one throbbing hand, feeling through my spells, there’s not a spent one among them.
I blink hard, snapping out of the fog. The pain gets that much more acute as I truly feel it, my skin throbbing in an uncomfortable harmony with my racing heart.
“How did you do that?”
Dom swallows, his eyes wide and panicked, like a deer caught in a hunter’s sight. “I-I don’t know.”
It feels like that time I used beeswax on myself. An experiment gone wrong. It hurts in a distinctly not fun way, but it’s not too terribly severe. Probably won’t even scar, but the thought makes me grab one of Dom’s hands. My thumbs trace his palm, but his calloused skin isn’t even pink.
He pulls his hand away before grabbing the quilt to drape it over my shoulders. “C’mon - the infirmary.”
“For this? I’m not dying,” I say even as I search through my spells for a corpimancy.
It’s a borrowed one from the Crux’s stores, but as I release it, it helps diminish the pain.
The blisters are still raised, but I know Dom has a healer’s kit in his closet, because I’m the one who put it there.
Yet searching my necklace reaffirms that Dom didn’t accidentally release one of my spells.
So where did that magic come from?
Dom’s hands slide off of me before he goes to sit on the edge of his bed. His face is pale, cradled between his hands, his eyes staring unseeingly at the floor near my feet.
I pull the quilt a little more firmly around me, careful of my wrists before I sink to crouch in front of him.
“Dom, how did you do that?”
His eyes gloss over before he covers them with his hands. His shoulders shake as he curls in on himself, and in that moment, he looks so small, so fragile that I’m afraid to touch him.
“Something’s fucked about me,” he says at last.
I frown. “What do you mean, love?”
Dom shakes his head, still not lifting it from his hands. “I-I don’t know if I’ve always been fucked or if being stuck in the silver... let it out, but...” He lets out a shuddering breath, and it’s like watching a dam collapse. “No one touched me while I was in the silver at the Tower.”
It’s the last thing I expected him to say, but the relief that follows makes me feel lightheaded. Diran, Jaret, Lucien - they didn’t touch him. Yet relief is chased by something else as I have to rewrite the last couple of months in my head.
All the guilt and worry I’ve carried since he came back. The pain of thinking that he suffered as much as I did at their hands - worse than I did.
I said no to the assignment out east. Have been holding onto the guilt of that decision for months. I kept thinking of how things might have been different if I’d gone along.
And no one touched him.
It feels perverse to be so angry at that truth, yet a part of me is. For a moment, I’m not sure what to say as relief, anger, guilt - so much guilt - coil, like a viper readying to strike.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask at last.
“Because no one touched me,” he repeats, lifting his head at last. His eyes are red-rimmed and wild. “Not when I dream walked to you. Not even to get me out.”
The bottom drops out of my anger, confusion filling the void. That... inescapable hold is what’s always scared me about divination. Ropes I can squirm out of, but the silver? There’s no escaping the silver on your own.
“A-and ever since, something’s - fucked.” His eyes clench shut before he drags in a steadying breath. When he speaks again, his voice is hollow. “My spells were all the way across the room when Demica caught up to me at the Tower, yet I still managed to blast her off her feet.”
“Where are your spells tonight?” I ask.
Dom swallows, fingers tightening in his hair. “Tucked in my closet.” He swears quietly before saying, “Arlon once told me that magic wants to obey, but... ever since the silver, it feels like I’m losing control of mine. I am losing control of mine.”