CHAPTER 30 TYCHO
TYCHO
After hearing Jax’s hammer for more than an hour, the sudden silence in the lane between the bakery and the forge is shocking.
I don’t think it’s ever been this quiet anytime I’ve been here— and that counts the spring afternoon I spent with Jax and Grey, stripping weapons and armor off the dead bodies of Truthbringers.
If there’s any spot of relief, the rain has mostly stopped, leaving only the occasional droplet of water to fall from a branch.
The remaining humidity hangs in the air like a cloak to weigh on me as I head for the barn.
The sun seems to be trying to break through the clouds overhead, but it’s a losing battle for now.
I hope that’s not an omen.
Then again, we have a handful of fighters and barely more than a handful of arrows. It probably is.
When I ease into the barn, Mercy nickers to me from where we’ve tethered the horses, and I wish I had a caramel to give her.
Malin tacked the remaining horses earlier so they’d be saddled and ready in the event we needed them, but ever since Alek mentioned fire, I’ve been worried the Truthbringers would set the barn ablaze as soon as they got here.
Sweet Mercy. My fingers are itching to strip her gear and set her loose.
But I have more important things to do. Instead of heading for Mercy, I head for the shadowed corner where Igaa stands over Nakiis.
He doesn’t even look at me.
Fine.
“Are you ready?” I say to her.
“Yes,” she says.
“No,” says Nakiis.
I ignore him completely. “Tell me what to do.”
“I said no,” Nakiis growls. A cool breeze stirs up the straw littering the floor of the barn, and ice begins to form on the exposed steel.
“Sit,” Igaa says to me, ignoring him. “Allow your magic to find the air.”
I sit and close my eyes. At first, it’s hard to find my magic, because I’ve spent days trying to tamp it down to prevent discovery. But every inch of my body aches, and my shoulder flares with pain every time I inhale, so as soon as I relax, the sparks and stars surge in my blood.
“More,” says Igaa, and I hear her shift in the straw. “You need to allow the magic to leave yourself. Send it into the air, where it can find mine.”
“No,” Nakiis says. “Stop this.”
“No,” I say.
“It’s never going to work,” he says bitterly. “Not like this.”
“Hush,” says Igaa, and I gasp and open my eyes, because her voice is right against my ear. “Focus on your magic.”
The wind in the room picks up, sending straw swirling across the ground. On the other side of the barn, the horses shift anxiously, and Mercy nickers again. Those sparks and stars in my blood settle a bit, withdrawing.
“Try again,” Igaa says patiently.
I close my eyes and try to relax, but Nakiis growls again. “Maybe I should just kill you so you can’t do this.”
This is clearly just posturing, so I don’t even look at him. “You’d have to get off the floor first.”
It was a mistake to close my eyes, because I don’t see the attack coming.
Nakiis is weak, but my injuries put us on equal footing.
I’m shoved back against the ground before I realize it’s happening, and his claws dig right through my tunic and pierce the skin of my upper arms, pinioning me in place.
His wings are crookedly splayed behind him, and my vision is clouded with a haze of pain and magic. I’m trying to struggle, but one arm is still tied to my body with Jax’s makeshift splint, and the other is trapped by Nakiis’s claws.
He leans down, until we’re almost sharing breath. “Would you like to repeat that?”
I wince and try to swallow my pain. “In truth,” I gasp, “you’ve smelled better, Nakiis.”
Igaa stands over him, though she looks more like a disapproving schoolmistress than a fierce creature who’s going to come to my aid anytime soon. “Let him up, Nakiis.” Even her voice is mildly apathetic.
He doesn’t. Instead, his claws dig deeper into my arms, and it pulls a sound from my throat.
I don’t want to beg him to stop, but everything hurts. Those sparks and stars are stealing my vision again.
“Now,” I gasp. “Igaa, now. Even if he kills me—”
“No.” Nakiis lets go of my left arm, but the relief is short- lived, because he drives his claws right under the bandage, grabbing fabric and flesh.
Then he digs in and pulls.
“Please,” I cry, and I hate myself for it. I don’t know if I’m begging him or if I’m begging her.
I do feel like an idiot.
“If you want it, then take it from me. I’m not letting you do this to her.”
The pain is overwhelming. I can’t see. It’s possible I can’t hear and his words are only reaching my brain through his magic.
My stomach gives a heave, because it feels like he’s going to rip my arm right out of its socket.
I’m curling in on myself involuntarily. I wish I could call for Callyn or the queen.
If Nakiis kills me, maybe one of them can merge their magic with Igaa somehow.
They wouldn’t be strong enough.
The thought comes to me unbidden, and I hate it. This plan was destined to fail from the start, but I didn’t expect it to fail so quickly.
I’m so cold. The wind is blasting every bit of exposed skin it can find, and my blood seems to be turning to ice when it pulses out of the wound on my shoulder. Nakiis’s voice is low and vicious in my mind.
— Where’s your magic now, Tycho? You fight so valiantly to save everyone else, but you have nothing left for yourself?
I can’t speak. My throat won’t work. Maybe he’s ripped that out, too. My entire vision is overtaken with vivid stars, bright white in the dimness of the barn.
— Where is your pride? Where is your fight?
His hand shifts again, and I realize I can still feel, because something in my shoulder gives. I choke on a sound, and the taste of blood coats my tongue.
The air is colder, and I hear Mercy nicker. Nakiis’s magic is in the air now, because I can feel it brushing against my senses, the way he once taught me to feel it.
I hate it. I hate him. I imagine shoving him away, and those sparks of magic seem to flare in the air, sending the wind swirling away for the barest moment.
“If you want to give me your magic,” I rage, panting, “then give it to me.”
— No, he says. — Don’t you understand yet? The magic has always been ours. If you truly want it, it must be taken.
No. I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this. My thoughts are too full of pain.
— Why do you think I hated her so much? Why do you think Xovaar hates magesmiths so much?
Only then does it click into place. Nakiis hated the first magesmith who trapped him. It’s the whole reason he’s resisted doing this at all. It’s the whole reason he didn’t want me to trap Igaa.
And this is what Xovaar has been after this whole time: a reclaiming of their magic— because magesmiths have stolen it to use it against them.
If you truly want it, it must be taken.
Now I understand. No wonder he hates it. No wonder he’s been so afraid.
And I don’t want to take it. It’s . . . it’s a violation.
I’ve had too much taken from me. I don’t ever want to do that to another creature. Especially not one who doesn’t want to give it to me.
Not even while he’s ripping out my shoulder.
“I can’t,” I gasp. “I won’t. Just— just let me go. I— I can’ t—”
— You must. Or he will kill your king, and then he will come for you.
I don’t understand. Does he want me to? Or does he hate me for this? The ice seems to be forming its way into my shoulder. “Nakiis—”
— Tycho, you must take it. You must. Please. You must.
Even as he says the words, my magic is finding his in the air like strands weaving together.
But my thoughts are fading. The stars are flickering and going dim.
Nakiis shakes me. My head smacks the ground, and my arm flops limply. He presses those fanged teeth right against my ear. “Everyone here is counting on you, Tycho. Even me. If you won’t defend yourself, then defend them.”
Everyone here is counting on you.
I think of Jax, forgoing sleep to work in the forge so we’d have more effective weapons. I think of Lia Mara, willing to sacrifice herself so Grey has a chance to survive. I think of young Nora, riding off with little Sinna tied in front of her.
I think of Nakiis, who dragged his broken body off the floor to spare Igaa any violation of sharing her magic.
Unfortunately, I don’t know what to do.
But maybe he just told me.
You fight so valiantly to save everyone else, but you have nothing left for yourself?
I thought he was mocking me— but he wasn’t. Maybe he was truly asking me.
Again, I let my magic scatter into the air, until my vision goes white again.
But this time, when I sense the tendrils of his power in the air, I don’t push it away, I try to grab hold.
At first, the wind swirls away, and I realize what he meant about taking it.
But I dig deep, thinking of everything he’s sacrificed, of everything I’ve sacrificed.
I think of my parents. Of my siblings. Of the way Grey pulled me out of the shadows in that tourney and put a sword in my hands.
And somehow, I find a well of strength in my gut, because I surge against Nakiis’s hold, flipping him onto his back at the same time as my magic seems to grab hold of his.
For one blazing, furious instant, I almost lose hold of it.
I can’t tell if I’m losing consciousness or if the magic is just too overwhelming, but it’s like trying to grab sunlight or sound— there’s nothing tangible.
But just as power begins to drift away, I throw all my effort at it. All of my will.
The day Grey and I rode recklessly across the fields to rescue Lia Mara, he was pouring magic into the sky just like this.
Nakiis found me that night, and he was shocked that Grey sent all of his magic out of his body like a beacon.
Then, I didn’t fully understand, but now I do.
I can sense my magic, like a living thing outside my body, weaving through the air to mesh with the scraver’s.