Chapter Eighteen #2
HE’D KNOWN THE quaking earth was no land temblor the moment the shudders began.
He’d sensed the detonation of the staggering magic a heartbeat before all hell broke loose.
But there’d been no time to unravel the source, no time to warn anybody around.
Now, he stood with breaths ragged in his chest. He stared down at Zayvier’s bloodied, mangled form.
He tried to unsee Zayvier’s neck bent at a gut-churning angle and the left side of his face bashed in with chunks missing from it.
He’s fae. He is immortal. He can heal. Malachi had to keep telling himself that, keep up the reassurance, or else he might rip the world to shreds in blind grief and rage.
Zayvier’s still form shifted into that of his father’s headless body lying bloodied at the foot of his parents’ bed.
Then, Malachi saw his mother’s headless corpse beside his father’s.
Their heads lay inches away; the bloody stumps of their necks had made the younger version of himself who’d witnessed the horror vomit.
He’d been there when his father’s high cleric, a supposed close friend, had swung the blade made not out of void magic but onyx and steel, a feat of metalworking that gifted a non-magical blade the ability to slice through flesh and bone as easily as if cutting silk and the power to withstand attacks from weapons forged from magic.
In those last moments, his father had tried desperately to save his wife.
But his efforts, the ferocity with which he’d fought, hadn’t been enough—
Malachi firmly shook himself out of the waking nightmare that he hadn’t slipped into since he was seventeen.
Not that the memories weren’t there, but Trystin had found a rune around that time that could bury the images and nightmares that haunted Malachi deep in the black void of his mind.
Apparently, seeing Zayvier broken had made the wretched things spring free.
He snarled, because he couldn’t deal with that bullshit right now.
He dropped to his knees beside his friend, placed his hands above Zayvier’s most life-threatening wound—the one affecting his head.
The broken neck, a mature fae could survive.
But his partially bashed-in skull, his mutilated brain …
that posed peril. Malachi’s throat felt like it wanted to close.
He swallowed. Blinked. Clawed past the grief rising up and all around him like a tidal wave.
He pushed his void magic out of his palm, directing it to encircle Zayvier’s head.
He shoved all the willpower he possessed behind the command that he bellowed out loud: “Heal him!”
Shadows slithered and writhed across Zayvier’s gravest wounds.
Void magic and the darkness born from it destroys.
Yet it also creates. And this has been its nature since the birthing of the faefolk from the black Void itself, his father had noted frequently when instructing him in his youth.
Usually his void magic manifested as a terrible, icy, pitiless force that penetrated down to the bone, burrowed into the soul, and shredded both if Malachi willed it.
But during the infrequent times that he chose the other facet of it, the part of his magic that bolstered life instead of annihilating it, the darkness that poured from him radiated a heat that left him feeling like a black inferno burned from within him.
Malachi rarely drew on the healing aspect of his power, preferring to lean into his destructive urges.
He also didn’t relish the physical discomfort.
But he needed his ability to heal to make itself useful now.
He hadn’t earnestly prayed to any Celestial in a long time—not since his parents’ deaths that a prophecy attributed to the Celestials brought on—but he let go of his pride and madly prayed to Nyaxia to help him keep Zayvier, a scion of Her court, on the right side of death so that he could keep advancing the court that had always remained dutiful to Her.
He was rambling, he knew he was rambling, but the Celestials must operate according to give-and-take as the faefolk and all powerful species did, right?
Malachi grunted against the agony that lashed through his skull, the cost of healing another.
He shook the pain off and focused with greater intensity on Zayvier’s mutilated head, swearing an oath to the Celestials that he’d endure an eternity of torment if it pleased them in exchange for Zayvier’s life.
Time seemed to stand utterly still and race by too quickly all at once.
A roaring kicked up in Malachi’s ears at the extended time it took—much longer than normal—to start to see the missing chunk of Zayvier’s head begin to reform.
But it did eventually. Malachi’s heavy exhale echoed beside several others.
The intermixed sounds made the rest of the world beyond Zayvier lying injured atop the rubble snap back into focus.
He didn’t dare turn his head, lest a break in concentration halt the healing that had finally taken root.
But he reached out with his senses and catalogued the rest of his Cadre that huddled around him.
A second wave of relief rolled through him because the others were alive, more or less whole, and conscious.
“I’m fine here,” he gritted out, the immense concentration causing pain to lance right behind his eyes.
It struck sharp enough to make him need to blink away a brief dizzy spell.
“Go!” he ordered his Cadre. “Go help whoever is injured and in need.”
A shrill cry pierced the air. It was Kadeesha.
He nearly snapped his eyes in the direction it came from.
But Zayvier was too important, and he held steadfast in his unwavering focus on his brother.
Whatever it was, whatever the source of the keen agony in her pitch, she could deal with it on her own.
It shouldn’t have been so difficult to decide it and make the choice stick.
It shouldn’t, in fact, have been a struggle he’d needed to decide on at all.
Yet he found he was impressing that belief firmly upon himself when Kadeesha cried out again, desperately yelling for help.
SAMIRA. SHE FOUND Samira. Except … Horror dragged claws down her stomach.
Great Celestials, Samira is buried beneath massive slabs of stone …
The toe of the riding boot on her sister’s left foot peeked out from beneath one of the slabs.
If not for the shiny black leather glinting off the sun, Kadeesha might’ve missed it.
At first, the scream lodged in her throat.
She went numb. Then, the sound ripped from her, a mix of fury and agony and terror.
She raced the rest of the distance to Samira, her aether flames reaching her sister before she did.
She incinerated the slabs, only pulling her flames back before they could singe Samira’s crumpled form.
She dropped down beside her sister and cried out for help, her voice hoarse.
In her head, she screamed as well, an endless loop of No.
No. No! This was the second time in too short a span that she’d seen her sister pale as death, the brown color having leeched so greatly from her skin that it’d turned chalk white.
Kadeesha called out for help again, unsure who she was even calling to.
Anybody, a healer, who could restore Samira’s color and the breaths she no longer took.
She twisted around searching for Malachi—he’d healed Samira before—ready to bargain away whatever he asked, her very throne without a fight, if that’s what he demanded.
Something ragged rattled around her chest when she saw him a distance away, bent over one of his Cadre and healing the male.
As soon as she beheld the scene she knew that he couldn’t save Samira this time.
He wouldn’t help her this time. Not when he was occupied with one of his own.
He wouldn’t place Samira’s life above one of his brothers—just as she wouldn’t if in the same position.
“I can help.” Trystin squatted beside her. He stared down at Samira, brows pinched together.
Kadeesha stared at him blankly for a moment, not quite understanding what he even meant.
But Trystin just repeated, quietly, “I can help,” and finally she nodded and scrambled out of the way.
Trystin took her place near Samira’s head.
So much of her was battered and shredded and mangled.
Too much. Kadeesha blinked back tears. She wouldn’t cry.
She expected Trystin to manifest some manner of the same void magic that Malachi did when he’d healed Samira before.
However, he instead pulled a stick of kohl from the pocket of his tunic and began to draw elaborate markings consisting of sharply slanting lines and narrow vertices around the top of Samira’s head.
He sketched the same symbols along the right side of her body and then moved to her left side and did the same.
He drew them atop the surrounding rubble, and each mark blazed crimson the moment one of Trystin’s quick, efficient strokes left it behind.
He worked silently and meticulously, forehead creased in concentration.
Kadeesha held her breath, never taking her eyes off Samira.
When a hand slid into hers, she glanced at her other sister.
Their shared grief hung suspended between them.
She squeezed Leisha’s hand and looked back to Samira, wordlessly willing Samira to live.
Another, slimmer hand squeezed her shoulder and Theo stepped into view on her other side.
“Do you think … Will he be able to … Will she—” A strangled, horrified cry choked off the boy’s questions.
He was a good three years younger than Rassa, but they possessed the same guileless air.
The similarity made Kadeesha infinitely thankful that she’d tasked Rassa with settling the kongamatos in the aerie, far from the palace, so she’d been out of harm’s path.
“Samira is a fighter. She’ll be all right,” Kadeesha firmly answered Theo, not leaving room for any other outcome. Live, she commanded Samira once more. Live.
Trystin ceased the drawings. He sank to the ground, sitting with his hands braced against his thighs.
He panted. His white tunic with silver threading stuck to his torso, drenched with sweat.
Samira’s wounds were gone and her chest …
Thank the Celestials, her chest vigorously rose and fell, a clear sign she was breathing.
Kadeesha leaned forward and squeezed Samira’s hand, needing her sister to open her eyes before she allowed herself to truly believe she’d be all right.
Several moments passed, and it didn’t happen.
Yes, Samira was breathing, but she didn’t otherwise stir.
“What’s the matter?” she asked Trystin, her gut tightening.
“The damage was severe,” he replied. “So severe that I could only do so much with a rune. Her body needs time to mend itself fully.”
Kadeesha let out a slow, controlled breath. “She will wake up, yes?” she whispered to Trystin. You had better, she demanded of Samira.
Trystin’s sympathetic expression made her stomach lurch. “I am exceptionally adept at rune work, so hopefully. But even I have my limits of the feats I can achieve.”
She didn’t want to hear about limits. She didn’t want to hear words like hopefully.
She was about to say just that when Leisha once again squeezed her hand.
Kadeesha looked to her friend, and Leisha nodded, trying to pass along whatever strength she could.
Kadeesha took a deep breath, somehow managed to wrestle her frenzied worry under control, and softly said to Trystin, “Thank you for doing what you could.”
She then prayed to the great Celestials that Samira’s immortal body would repair itself fully and she would wake up.
This made twice now that she’d placed her sister in danger and she’d been harmed because of Kadeesha.
If Kadeesha had never insisted on traveling to the Stone Keep with Malachi, if she’d backed down when she was met with opposition, then Samira would’ve never been anywhere near the wall when it blew apart.
If if if, she thought. Too much of my life right now is surrounded by if.