Chapter 19 Velra
~Velra~
Sylas lurched up on his bed, screaming in agony.
“Hurry!” Lazriel called to me frantically, as he pushed Sylas back down, straddling him now. The more he moved at this point, the faster the desiccation spread.
“Move me… to it,” Sylas urged Lazriel, his eyes darting to the nightstand where he’d told us he kept his serum. A whole lot of serum that he’d apparently been using to stave off this sickness—this desiccation—that we hadn’t known he’d been suffering from.
The problem was, he’d locked it with necromantic magic.
Our magic could meld together in some ways, but not with the spell he’d used.
There were only two ways around it—dark magic and Celestial power.
“You’re not using your magic,” Lazriel told him.
“One more fucking spark and the desiccation will reach your heart and that will be it.” He growled low in his throat, cursing him out in angry mutterings that I could see he was trying so hard not to escalate to absolute rage. “I’ll call Cassius,” Lazriel told me.
I started at his words.
The mention of Cassius was bad enough, but there was also the inference there—Lazriel had a line to him? When and how had that happened?
“No,” Sylas uttered. “We’re even… can’t owe… him. Not… again.”
“This is your life. I’ll take the debt on me. I don’t give a fuck, so long as you’re well and—”
“I’ve got it,” I cut in.
I grimaced, then pulled on the dark and dangerous aspect of my Dark Fae abilities, something that I’d actually done earlier as well.
The two of them hadn’t taken that in yet with everything going on.
But when Kelsana had sensed a whole lot of rage and a surge of power from Rennick, and we’d arrived on scene, witnessing Lazriel and Sylas in such a state had sparked that dangerous part of me to the surface.
The last thing I wanted was to do it again, but here we were.
I had the power. I couldn’t not use it for them.
My purple magic burst forth with flecks of black, a rush like no other. It swept over the nightstand and I felt it breach Sylas’ magical lock a second before the drawer opened.
I pulled back my power, choking a little at the sensation, and then I reached in and pulled out five syringes of a couple of dozen in there—holy hell.
Sylas had said that he’d need at least five to be able to treat such a mammoth spread of desiccation.
“At the… site,” Sylas told us, as I handed them to Lazriel.
In rapid-fire bursts, he injected them into Sylas’ abs, right shoulder, left and right leg, and then his throat as well.
We watched with bated breath as the grayish tint actually began dissipating, the desiccation healing quickly.
Lazriel and I exchanged a heavy look.
“Thank fuck,” he breathed, sitting back on his haunches on Sylas.
It took Sylas a moment to breathe steadily again and become more cognizant, and when he managed it, he reached out to Lazriel.
I winced when Lazriel batted his hand away, then climbed off the bed.
Sylas sat up and leaned heavily against the headboard. “I know you’re upset and—”
“Upset?” Lazriel snapped. “Upset? Is that what I am, necromancer?”
“I’d say so, yes.”
“Sylas,” I ground out, perching on the edge of the bed. “His reaction is warranted. Downplaying it isn’t going to do that any favors.”
“It’s not as bad as you think,” he still told us. Jeez, he was a hard nut to crack.
Well, I guess there was a whole lot of that going around. I couldn’t really talk where that was concerned.
I grimaced as I looked at Lazriel who was pacing back and forth and pulling at his hair, anger and pain barely contained.
I’d contributed to this as well for him.
And I felt sick with it.
For him. For all of this.
He had such a good heart, an open heart, once he drew close to someone. So much to give.
And here he’d been slamming up against walls with me, then thinking the opposite had been true of Sylas until this brutal revelation about this awful sickness he was afflicted with.
Hell, it was more than mere sickness. With his magic compromised for a few moments, even though I could feel it surging back now, I’d sensed it—death.
Sylas was actually dying.
“Not as bad?” I queried, trying to keep the edge out of my voice
“I had to exert myself tonight on a job. I would have been fine, though, if it hadn’t been for Rennick’s unprecedented attack.”
“What job?” Lazriel barked back at him.
“The details don’t matter.”
Lazriel shook his head and scoffed. “Of course they don’t. Because you obviously need your fucking secrets, don’t you?”
“Word cannot spread that I’m ill,” Sylas told us. “It’s imperative.”
“We get that, you dumb fucking fool. Of course we do. You’ve got a shitload of enemies. They’d all come for you if word got out.”
“Not just me. Those I care for.”
“Kai, you mean?” Lazriel snapped.
“You know I’m referring to the two of you. I don’t draw close to people, so it will be very obvious. You’d become instant targets if my enemies found out I was weakened.”
“Velra and I aren’t new to being targets.”
“All the more reason to keep other bullshit away from you, wouldn’t you say?” He went to push off the bed, only to fall back down, his head lolling back.
He was still too weak to manage it.
“Just rest, for fuck’s sakes,” Lazriel told him.
“This is what you needed my magic for?”
Sylas’ gaze snapped to mine. “Yes. The way my power responded to the flare of yours the first day we met suggested it could possibly assist with my situation.”
“Yet you told me to take my time, to wait until trust was built between us, before we even tried?”
“Of course. I don’t force people into things. Ever.”
“This is different. You’re dying. I sensed it when your magic was down briefly.”
“And I fucking smelled it,” Lazriel said.
“The serum is countering the effects. So long as I inject it in time and don’t overexert myself, I’m fine and beyond functional.
Tonight was an outlier. And I’m also searching for a solution to the actual sickness itself.
It’s being taken care of. I understand seeing me in that state tonight was disturbing, but it was an extreme circumstance. I’m handling it.”
“Handling it, huh?” I said, shaking my head.
“Yes.”
Lazriel slammed his hands down on the foot of the bed, the whole thing rocking. “You. Almost. Died.”
“Babe—”
“Don’t. Don’t call me that! What’s the point of any of this, anyway?
You’re gonna leave me. You’re gonna perish.
You’re gonna keep doing this vigilante work and get yourself killed before you find a cure.
If you can even find a cure! I looked into it.
I’ve activated my sources and this sickness is unheard of. It’s never fucking existed before!”
“I’m already aware of that and I’m—”
“Stop! It’s all bullshit! You pulled me close, you let me care about you—deeply—all the while knowing you were dying! What kind of sick—fuck it! Just fuck it!”
I went to reach for him, but it was too late. He sped away in a burst, the door slamming after him as he left Sylas’ home.
Sylas cursed and brought his hands to his face.
When he sighed deeply, then lowered them, there were tears in his eyes.
It was the first time I’d ever seen emotion from him.
“He processes with rage first,” I said.
“Yeah, I know. I know he does.”
I reached out and took his hand. “Once you’ve properly recovered from tonight, I’ll help you, okay?”
“You don’t need to feel pressured just because you saw me in a bad way once. I don’t want that for you.”
“I don’t feel pressured. I want to help you. My hesitancy was because I didn’t know where your interest was coming from.”
“You were concerned there was some nefarious intent buried in there somewhere?”
“I have to be certain with these sorts of things.”
“Makes sense after all you’ve endured.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “My survival mode approach, the thing screwing everything over.”
His fingers tightened around mine. “It’s not screwing everything over. It’s keeping you alive. And I’d rather have you cautious than destroyed.”
I glanced down at our joined hands, then back at him. “Still… I’m trying to learn the difference between protection and isolation.”
“You’re already doing the work there now. Don’t discount that. It’s a hell of a feat.” He smiled sadly. “I guess we have that in common, hmm?”
I nodded and a heavy silence passed between us.
Weighty, yes, but comfortable.
Then he raised our joined hands and brushed his lips over my knuckles. “Thank you. For your offer. And for what you did tonight. I don’t take that lightly.”
“You’re not just talking about my magic, are you? You mean, people helping you. Period.”
“I do, yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“That your life has been like this. So alone. Nowhere to turn. No one to truly trust. At least until recently, right?”
He smiled. “Until recently, yes.”
“It’s time we both stopped kidding ourselves that we favor isolation.”
“That it’s easier.”
“And safer.”
“That too.”
Because in the end, it just hurt.
I reached out and stroked his cheek. He leaned in slightly, watching me carefully.
And then I took it the rest of the way, pressing my lips to his.
A soft groan spilled from him and he stroked my hair as we kissed softly and serenely.
A shock went through me, making me pull back with a gasp.
Off Sylas’ look of surprise, I told him, “That’s the alert I embedded into Lazriel’s bracelet. He’s at Graverun.”
Sylas started and tried to push out of bed again, but his body just wasn’t having it, and he slumped back down with a disgruntled curse. “In the state he’s currently in, he could be endangering himself. Or others.”
“I know. I’ll go to him.”
“I’ll be along shortly and—”
“You can barely move. Rest. Just rest.” As he moved to protest, I added, “It will go a long way with Lazriel.”
He sighed, then gave a nod. “Be careful. Graverun is as brutal as its name suggests.”
I was well aware.
Although, not wanting to witness that brutality wasn’t exactly why I’d stayed away.
There’d been more to it than that.