CHAPTER 30 TYCHO #2
And just like that, I get it. My magic lives in my blood.
I had to work to learn how to send it out : to start a fire, to heal a wound.
But Nakiis’s scraver magic is always in the air, always outside his body, always there to be taken.
I didn’t have to wait for him to agree— I could’ve taken it at any time, if I’d known. So could Grey. So could any of us.
No wonder he was always so wary. No wonder he was always so afraid of being trapped by a magesmith.
No wonder they all fled, that very first day they helped us in Briarlock.
The wind is roaring around us, biting at my skin, tearing at my hair. My lips feel chapped, and my fingers are numb. I can’t feel my shoulder anymore. I can’t feel anything.
I’m sorry, I think. But I call my magic back to myself, dragging the magic of the wind and sky right along with it.
Dragging his magic with it.
The power hits me all at once, and I’m not ready for it. It’s ice flowing through my veins, it’s gale force winds making me breathe. It’s a relief and an assault all at once, a power so fierce it’s trying to escape. My body feels like a blizzard is stuck inside my skin, desperate to get out.
Nakiis’s voice finds me. “Breathe, Tycho. This magic is not meant to be kept within you.”
I exhale, and I didn’t realize I was holding my breath. The air that comes out of my lungs is like a winter wind as it passes across my lips, and I shiver.
Then I look down at Nakiis. My arm has fully come out of the sling, and I’m pinning him to the ground, his wings splayed crookedly in the snow beneath him.
Snow.
My breath catches, and I look past him. An inch of snow coats everything in the barn: the straw, the equipment, the horses. Icicles hang from the rafters above, already dripping in the summer heat. As I watch, Mercy shakes herself, and snowflakes shudder free, drifting to the ground.
And my magic— my magic still feels like something alive in my veins telling me I could run a hundred miles or burn a hundred buildings or start a hundred wars. Telling me I could fly. The power was always there before, but this is altogether different. It’s terrifying. It’s exhilarating.
It’s familiar, too, because I recognize that it’s Nakiis’s magic of the wind and sky bound to the sparks and stars in my blood. I can feel it with every pulse of my heartbeat. I give the magic a little push, and wind swirls through the space, blowing some of the snow and making his feathers ruffle.
Oh.
When I look back down, Nakiis is staring up at me, his eyes so dark. The sling has gone loose around my neck, and my tunic is a shredded ruin, but the pain in my shoulder is gone.
Part of me wants to let him go— but another part of me is vividly aware of the way he just tore me apart.
“How did you do that?” I demand. “How am I healed?” I flick my eyes over his wounds, which aren’t. “Why aren’t you?”
“The steel of their weapon only touched you briefly.” He pauses. “I had to tear away the flesh it touched so you could heal what remained.”
“Oh.” Just the memory of it causes my stomach to roll again, and I almost have to close my eyes. “Should I . . . do that to you?” As I say it, however, I remember that Jax already coated my weapons with Iishellasan steel. I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to.
Nakiis shakes his head anyway. “It has been too long. My wounds are set.” He pauses. “You are the one who must fight when Xovaar comes.” A light sparks in his eye, a hint of his ironic humor. “But by all means, make yourself comfortable.”
It’s the same thing I said to him once. I swear and scramble off him. The snow has already gone soft, but there’s enough of it that it hasn’t fully melted yet.
“Go,” he says. “Find your armor. If Xovaar sensed our magic, he and the others will not be long.”
If.
But I nod, then shove to my feet. My bow and my breastplate are back at the forge because I couldn’t use them. But I need them now.
“Your magic . . . ,” I begin.
“Our magic,” he says, and there’s a note in his voice that I don’t like.
“Nakiis.” I frown. “I don’t want it. You can have it back. We just needed to summon Xovaar—”
“You can’t give it back, Tycho. My magic is carried within your body now. We are bound until you die— or until I do.” He closes his eyes. “Go. You don’t have much time. If he has another magesmith, he can travel far in seconds.”
I inhale sharply, but he blasts me with his magical voice, which is so much louder now that we’re bound.
— Go!
“Silver hell,” I mutter. I head for the double doors.
But once I’m there, I do look back this time. Igaa has moved close to him again, and she’s crouched down in the snowy straw. As I watch, she pulls his head into her lap.
I suddenly realize why he did it. He saw no other way to protect her.
This suddenly feels too intimate, and I slip through the doors as silently as I’m able.
Once I’m out, I stop short. It wasn’t just the interior of the barn coated in snow.
It’s . . . everything. The entire lane, the bakery, the trees, the forge in the distance.
It’s melting swiftly in the midsummer heat, because drops are already falling from the trees, but the snow itself evokes the first time I came here, the way I first talked to Jax in the lantern light of his forge.
The air was so sharp and cold, and I found him so intriguing.
I’d spent so much of my life guarding my emotions that it was the first time I’d ever felt a true pull of attraction for someone else.
The feeling was so new and raw that I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
I know what to do with it now, but as usual, something else requires my attention.
I shake off the memories and stride forward, feeling the slush-covered mud grab at my boots with every step.
Wind swirls around me as I walk, and it takes me a minute to realize that it’s not Nakiis’s magic causing the wind anymore.
It’s . . . it’s mine. After so long without using my power, I expect it to feel sluggish again, but sparks and stars flare in my blood almost without me thinking about it, and the wind picks up.
Without warning, the temperature begins to drop.
Clouds shift across the sky, and a new round of snowflakes fall.
I shiver, trying not to stare— but I’m not dressed for this.
When I reach the forge, I turn for the door to the house, but a shadow in the far corner shifts, and I jump, my hand automatically going for my blade.
My magic responds simultaneously, and frigid wind blasts through the space, icicles forming everywhere.
“Tycho,” says Jax, pulling free of the shadows.
My heart is still pounding. “Jax.” The wind settles. “You have got to stop doing that.”
His eyes fix on my shoulder, and then he looks out and around. “We could hear the wind— we thought it was going to blow the buildings down.” He hesitates. “I know you said to stay in the house, but I didn’ t— I couldn’ t—” He makes a face. “Well, I knew I could watch from here.”
There’s so much emotion hiding among those words. “Jax,” I say softly.
His eyes shift back to my shoulder. “The magic fixed you.”
I nod. “I need my breastplate and my bow.” This time I hesitate, because it feels like so many things are unsaid, and there’s not enough time to say them. “Before Xovaar gets here.”
Just as I say it, a new wind swirls through the forge, and this time I have nothing to do with it.
I immediately go rigid, then rush for where my things are shoved against the work bench.
Jax sees my sudden movement and yanks the bow over his head, pinning two arrows in his palm like he’s been a soldier all his life.
Without a thought, I have the breastplate strapped to my chest, and I grab my quiver and join him in the shadowed corner.
We both have a nocked arrow now, but we’re shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, just like the night we finally realized we were on equal ground. It seems fitting somehow that we’re having this standoff right here in his forge.
Beside me, his breathing is steady, his eyes clear and focused on the lane.
He’s as ready as I am.
A bit of snow falls again, and I look down at the barn.
I wonder if I should’ve made an attempt to hide Nakiis and Igaa somewhere else.
Somewhere better. When she pulled his head into her lap, there was something so tender about it.
Guilt is still tugging at me about everything that happened between me and Nakiis, the way he forced me to bind my magic to his.
I know he hated it— and Igaa was willing.
He knew she was willing. It didn’t have to be this way.
But then I consider what he said.
We are bound until you die— or until I do.
And I suddenly realize Nakiis doesn’t expect Xovaar to come here to kill me.
He expects the scraver to finish what he clearly already started.
Nakiis expects Xovaar to follow this trail of magic to kill him.