Chapter 7
Vale is well aware he's breaking every rule the Order has ever written.
The protocols for handling practitioners of dark magic are unambiguous: immediate arrest, isolation, interrogation, trial.
He has personally never brought a necromancer to trial, since they're uniformly too stubborn and too proud to surrender, and the encounters end the same way every time, but the principle stands.
Necromancers are meant to be contained by any means necessary.
Not consulted. Not collaborated with. And certainly not healed of their corruption and carried bridal-style through the streets of the Old City.
Then again, Vale has never been a strict follower of rules. He bends and breaks them as the mission requires, and the way he sees it, this is really no different.
He tells himself that while watching August study the warehouse from across the street, and almost believes it.
August looks better. Markedly better, now that he's eaten, showered, and changed into clothes that haven't been worn through two days of running and fighting.
His dark hair is clean, falling across his forehead in a way that softens those sharp cheekbones, and the veins on his hands remain that pale grey, evidence that the healing touch accomplished something tangible.
He's steadier on his feet. More present.
The feverish, half-gone quality that had haunted him in the subway is muted now, replaced by a focus and clarity that makes it easier to see the person underneath the dying.
It also makes it considerably harder not to stare.
The black veins at his neck are the problem.
They disappear beneath his collar, threading downward toward whatever origin point the corruption has claimed on his chest, and they're still dark.
Still active. Vale finds his gaze drawn there more often than he'd like, tracking the lines, wondering how far they extend, thinking about what it would feel like to press his fingers against the column of August's throat and watch the corruption recede under his touch the way it had on his wrists.
Thinking about the skin beneath August's shirt, tattooed and pale, and how much of it has been claimed by those dark veins, and how much of it might yield to Vale's hands if he were allowed to try.
He shakes his head. Focuses on the warehouse.
He has never been distracted by a mage, and certainly never by a necromancer.
But necromancers, in Vale's experience, are aging scholars with hollow eyes and grasping ambitions, and August is none of those things.
August is vibrant and defiant and full of a stubborn, burning life that refuses to accept its own expiration date.
Despite having a Templar willing to heal him with a touch, he insists on pushing through alone, and something about that fierce self-reliance gets under Vale's skin in a way nothing has in a very long time.
"I can feel it from here," August says quietly. His hand presses against his chest and Vale catches the wince, involuntary, quickly suppressed. Even at this distance, the rift's energy is reaching for him. "It's smaller now, unstable, but still open. I can sense the undead inside."
Vale crosses his arms. "We've had it under guard for two days.
The Templars on rotation are keeping the undead contained, but our resources are stretched thin between the rifts and every other piece of otherworldly activity in the city.
Closing this one permanently would free up manpower we badly need.
But we can't do it without a necromancer. "
"That's because you can't close a rift from this side. Not permanently." August turns to look at him. "Someone has to cross through and disrupt the anchoring magic on the other side."
"Cross through." Vale's eyes narrow. "You mean go into the rift. Into the underworld."
"Just barely past the threshold. You'll probably still be able to see me through the opening.
" August turns back to the warehouse, his expression carefully neutral, as though he's delivering a technical briefing rather than explaining that he intends to step into the realm of the dead.
"But yes. Someone with death magic has to enter the rift space and break the anchoring points to seal it. "
Vale had assumed the Order couldn't close the rifts because they lacked the ability to interact with the tear itself, that it was a matter of magical compatibility.
He hadn't considered that closing a rift required physically entering it.
The idea of stepping across the veil, even a few feet, sits badly in his chest. That barrier exists for a reason.
The living aren't welcome in the land of the dead, and the dead aren't shy about enforcing it.
August knows the consequences better than Vale does, which means he's already weighed the cost and decided to pay it anyway.
But knowing what Vale knows about the corruption, how it accelerates with exposure, how every use of death magic shortens the time August has left, the thought of him voluntarily walking into a space saturated with death energy makes Vale's jaw tighten.
"How much will this cost you?" Vale asks. His mind is already running scenarios, most of them ending badly, and he doesn't like how many of them end with August on the floor. "And what happens if you get overwhelmed inside the rift? I can't cross the threshold to pull you out."
August's mouth sets in a firm line. "Your healing bought me more margin than I've had in years. I feel better than I have in a long time. I should be able to sustain significant exposure."
"You don't sound as certain as I'd like."
"I'm rarely as certain as I'd like. We should move." August nods toward the guards. "The sentry change is in ten minutes. That's our window."
Vale leads the way across the street. It would be nothing for him to walk straight up to the main entrance and gain them entry, since his authority as an investigating Templar would override any questions, but he can't risk anyone seeing August. The Templars on duty would report a civilian presence to Cael without thinking twice, and August had been explicit about the involvement of other Templars.
Vale is committed to honoring that, even when the practical difficulties of sneaking around his own people feel faintly ridiculous.
The warehouse looms ahead, glowing crosses etched into its walls marking it as an Order investigation site.
The two Templars on guard duty are positioned at the main entrance, wearing the expressions of men who'd rather be literally anywhere else.
Vale can't blame them. Standing guard over a hole in reality while the dead press against a barrier on the other side is not, in his experience, anyone's idea of a good posting.
They don't notice two figures slipping around the side of the building.
"Side door," Vale murmurs. "No wards on this one."
They enter the warehouse in silence, Vale leading with his sword drawn in case there are any Templars stationed inside.
The rift is exactly where Vale left it, a tear in reality hovering above the center of the warehouse floor, its jagged edges shimmering with sickly green light.
It's smaller now, maybe three feet tall instead of the six-foot gash it had been, but it's still breathing.
Still pulling. The air around it is markedly colder than the rest of the space, and the wrongness radiating from it scrapes along Vale's nerves.
A reminder that the veil is fracturing, and all his scrambling hasn't stopped it.
His blessing ring still glimmers around the perimeter, pale holy light holding back a handful of undead that have emerged from the rift since he sealed the area.
They gnash and press against the barrier, the stench of rot and decay filling the warehouse, and Vale has to resist the urge to cover his nose.
Three centuries and the smell still gets him. Some things you never get used to.
August doesn't seem nearly as bothered. He moves forward through the warehouse toward the rift without hesitation, one hand raised, shadows already gathering in his palm.
The darkness pooling in the warehouse's corners seems to shift toward him, drawn to a familiar presence, and his jacket stirs in a wind that shouldn't exist indoors.
He walks toward the rift with the quiet certainty of a man who has accepted the cost and decided the work is worth it.
"You'll have to drop the circle," August says, glancing back at Vale over his shoulder. "I can't cast into it."
"I'm not sure that's true," Vale says, thinking of the impossible way his holy magic heals August instead of destroying him, thinking of what other impossibilities might extend from that, but he extends his left hand anyway.
His rings flare with light. The blessing circle flickers once and vanishes.
The undead surge forward. August is ready.
He releases the death magic building in his hand and the tendrils find their targets, punching through skeletal remains and ragged flesh with a wailing discharge that sets Vale's teeth on edge.
The bones collapse into piles around the rift.
Quick, precise, controlled. The work of someone who has been biding their time for years and doesn't waste a single drop of power.
"I'd be interested to know how far your immunity to holy magic extends," Vale says, watching the last of them fall. "I have a theory you could cross a blessing ring without harm."
August gives him a wary look. "We don't know if the immunity applies to holy magic in general or just your touch specifically. I'm not interested in being your test subject."