Chapter Fourteen #2
What a coward he was. Charlie wasn’t gone yet, and I’d be cold in my own grave before I allowed him to slip away. Where was Cameron’s spine? Charlie needed his dad to fight for him, like I was. He needed his dad to not give in.
It was clear the only person in this room who would go to war for the incredible man lying in this bed was me, and I couldn’t be distracted by some simpering Elf who pretended to have some kind of claim on the son he’d created and forgotten.
“You want to show up and be a dad now when he’s dying?”
I spat. “He’s needed you in the past few months, and where have you been? Partying and fucking off and doing ancestors know what else.”
“You won’t speak to me that way. I am his father!”
Cameron demanded.
“You are nothing because I say you are! I am the Holy Mother to the Elves, the symbol and messenger of Idril and Carolyn on this earth, and you will not command me!”
I bellowed. “You are not welcome here!”
“But—”
“LEAVE!”
Cameron might’ve had more authority than me as the Crown Prince, but he listened to my order all the same. He ducked out with his head bowed low, tail tucked between his legs.
I had no regrets about throwing him out. He was pitiful and would only get in my way.
Was that really necessary? Oberi asked dully. She’d been holding off the poison’s growth for some time, and was getting tired.
“You tell me.”
I went to lay my hands on Charlie again, but they fell to the mattress as I heard more footsteps behind me, this time, lighter and slower.
My hands bunched in the sheets as I snapped, “I said no one can come in here.”
“You have authority over all in Ilamanthe, child, save for me.”
The gentle voice that met my ears gave me pause. I turned my chair again. Emperor Cassiel was standing in the doorway, not demanding I let him approach, but instead, asking to be invited in.
“Are you here to say goodbye, too?”
I asked harshly. I wouldn’t let anyone do that, because this wasn’t the end. Not yet.
“Of course not. I know who you are, princess. You will not deny your beloved Charlie the comfort of having his grandfather at his side in this time of need.”
My lip quivered. “You can come in.”
Cassiel strode toward me with a gentleness I could never imitate. He took a chair beside me, near the head of Charlie’s bed. “You have half the staff quivering in fear. You are as terrifying as a lioness, or perhaps, a wyvern defending her mate.”
I had to be terrifying— be mean, be vicious and ruthless and all these terrible things. No one else would go to the lengths needed to save Charlie, and I had to protect him from whatever happened. He was vulnerable right now.
“It’s my job to defend him when he can’t defend himself,”
I said. “It’s always been that way.”
“Who are you protecting him from?”
Cassiel asked quietly. “The Warden? The world? Himself?”
I didn’t know. Because the worst had already happened, and I hadn’t been able to protect Charlie from the people who’d already hurt him the most.
For the first time that day, I broke down into tears. Cassiel put his warm hand over mine in comfort.
“What am I going to do?”
I wailed. “We’ve tried everything. It’s hopeless!”
Oberi dropped her head and made a low note, but Cassiel didn’t crumble. He looked… sad, and definitely worried, but he wasn’t panicking.
“There were many Elves who said that about me, when I was bitten by a serpens spelunca many years ago,”
Cassiel said lowly. “And yet here I am decades later, because Aponi refused to give up when all others did.”
I didn’t say anything, because I was still crying.
Cassiel went on. “When I was bitten, there was no antidote or cure for such a venom. Everyone who had been bitten by a serpens spelunca died, and there were no exceptions. Healers and alchemists tried for many years to find a cure for the venom, and failed miserably. But my wife succeeded, and she created an antidote that saved me and thousands of others when it had never been done before. Do you know why?”
I shook my head, and Cassiel said, “It is because she believed she could. Everyone told my wife that it was hopeless, and that she couldn’t cure me, but Aponi refused to give up. She worked on that potion tirelessly until she found something that worked. She saved my life, and that hope blossomed into love.”
“Love isn’t enough to save people. If it was, so many people I loved wouldn’t have died,” I wept.
“But like Aponi, you are not the kind to give up and let this poison take him,”
Cassiel pointed out. “My wife saved me from the venom. You can save Charlie, too. You are an extraordinary demigod, princess, the best of our people. I know you will rescue the prince from this fate.”
Cassiel rose from his chair. “I will leave you be, so you can concentrate.”
He left the room, and I was alone again. It strengthened me that Cassiel hadn’t said his goodbyes. He truly believed in me and knew I could save Charlie. His presence had been comforting, and it’d cleared my mind enough so I could think.
Cassiel was right. I could do this. I just needed to pull myself together, so my Familiar and I could figure out a solution. Oberi wavered, close to falling off the bed.
“Oberi, stop,”
I said weakly. “If you keep trying to resist the poison, it’ll kill you, too. Then I’ll lose both of you.”
I will not die permanently. I will simply become deceased, then regenerate a few minutes later, Oberi insisted, though she sounded exhausted.
“It still weakens you every time you die and come back. You need to save what’s left of your strength. I may need your help yet.”
Oberi pulled back her magic, and I felt the poison surge forward. It was advancing quicker than ever because Oberi wasn’t holding it back, but I don’t think it mattered. Charlie had already suffered too much damage to his organs, anyway. Even if I got the poison out of his blood, he’d still be in danger, because his entire system needed to be healed now for him to recover.
My fear turned to rage as I thought that none of this would’ve happened in the first place if Danielle hadn’t gotten involved. I should’ve killed her before I left the Institute, but I’d waited too long to make her meet her end. If Charlie died, I’d find a way to portal to hell, locate Danielle, and kill her all over again. And I wouldn’t stop. Somehow, I’d find a way to resurrect her again and again, and slaughter her in increasingly gruesome ways to make her pay, until her soul ceased to exist due to the suffering.
She’d still be getting off easy. Nothing could be as painful as me losing my husband. She had no idea the damage she’d just caused. An eternity of torture wouldn’t be enough to satisfy my longing for revenge if she took him from me.
No. I wasn’t allowing that to happen. Charlie belonged to me, and nobody, not Danielle, the Warden, or the gods themselves would steal his life. Whatever fate had planned, I was the one who got to decide if he lived or died.
And he would live, if I commanded it. He wouldn’t leave me here.
“You don’t get to die unless I tell you that you can,”
I whispered to him. “So hold on, and keep fighting this. I’m going to figure this out.”
Charlie let out a wheezing breath, like he’d heard me. I steeled my nerves. Right now, Charlie wasn’t my husband, or the love of my life. He was my patient, and my patient was going to expire unless I put my mind to work and outwitted the Warden yet again.
And speaking of the Warden…
The Beast appeared in a corner of the room, skulking around the area and seeming arrogant as all hell. My lip lifted into a snarl when I saw him, but I wasn’t the only one who saw him this time. Oberi was a part of me, and although my bipolar didn’t affect her, she could recognize what I saw. She didn’t react, but allowed me to process as I needed to.
The Beast’s face curled into a sick smile. “Looks like I’ve finally found something that works. After Cellblock 9, I didn’t know what it was going to take. The four of you are particularly difficult to exterminate, but I’ve gained the upper hand.”
“Fuck you. I’m smarter than you, you smug bastard. I’m better than you, I’m stronger than you, and you’ve never beaten me yet,”
I sneered. “You’re not going to win this time, either.”
The Beast raised an eyebrow. “That may be true, but you have more to lose than ever before. I suggest you get moving. There isn’t much time left.”
The Beast gave a cruel laugh as he disappeared once again, and Oberi tilted her head. I didn’t know you were having visions of the Warden.
“My psychosis finds weird ways to fuck with me, Oberi. It doesn’t help us now.”
She let the matter drop, and I went back to figuring out what to do. Since I’d tried everything but praying, it might as well be a last resort.
Goddesses, I pleaded, reaching out to Idril and Carolyn. I am your Holy Mother, an Elvish mystic of your temple. Help me save your son, and rescue the prince from certain death.
I didn’t get any sort of response, energetic or otherwise, because I don’t think they heard me. I wasn’t sure they could help even if they tried.
Coyote Spirit and Whale Spirit were most likely too far off, in the middle of fighting a battle with the dark gods. I didn’t think they’d show up, either. Coyote had a hard time crossing the boundary from the spiritual realm to Earth the last time we’d spoken, and at the time, his power had been limited in helping me more than giving advice.
Even so, I tried anyway. I prayed to them, and prayed and prayed, and got no answer.
After moments of sitting in silence, I dug in my pocket. I withdrew my mother’s compass, which I carried with me always. It was one of the very few things I still had from the Institute.
I lifted the compass to my mouth, to whisper into it. “Lindsey and Miranda, are you there? I know you can’t cross the divide, but I need assistance. My husband’s been poisoned, and we aren’t sure how to heal him. Nothing’s working. Send us your aid, if you’re able to do what you can from the Ancestral Lands.”
I clutched the compass in my hands, and watched as the arrow wildly spun out of control, pointing me toward nothing. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for— an audible response, a message, something. But what happened next was certainly something I did not expect.
Two spirits began to rise from the compass. They appeared at first to be a glittering mist, rising from the compass’ face and hovering around the room. Then, they began to materialize.
The shape of a dire wolf, nearly the size of a wolven, took form in the room. It had massive muscular shoulders and a proud stance. Riding on the wolf’s back was a tiny, furry creature that looked to be a cross between a sugar glider and a bush baby. The creature had big ears, two curled horns on top of its head, and big blue eyes— a kurble. As their spirits became solid, the wolf’s coat became black, and the kurble’s pure white.
The kurble chittered. He let out a trill as he waved his bushy tail.
I smiled, and extended my hand to the creature. “I know you.”
The kurble jumped off the wolf’s back, soaring through the air to land on my hand. He scurried up my arm, then raced across the bed and sat on Charlie’s stomach. He sat up on his haunches, rubbing his tiny paws over his nose and furry ears.
I can hear them both speak, so I will translate, Oberi noted. They are spiritual guardians that protect your family from the Ancestral Lands. Lindsey and Miranda sent them. The wolf is here to guard the room against any dark spirits that may interfere. The little one, to help you heal.
“How did they cross the broken boundary?”
I asked. The wolf began stalking near the door, raising his lip in a low growl, while the kurble let out an indigent squeak.
Your mother has a special attachment to that compass, and your family’s guides can come through it. These creatures have a connection still remaining on this Earth that other ancestors do not, allowing them to cross the boundary. The little one is very powerful, and the wolf has strength of his own, but they cannot stay for long. We must hurry, Oberi insisted.
“What must I do?”
I asked the kurble. Oberi waited to hear what he had to say. The kurble gave a chitter, and whatever he’d said had even surprised Oberi, because she nearly toppled over in astonishment.
“What? What did he say?”
I demanded.
Oberi peered at the kurble out of one eye, as if she wasn’t sure she was hearing things correctly, before she said, The poison is a substance they know well, one that grows in the Eternal Torment. It latches onto the host, creating tumors that feed off life energy until the host dies a painful death. In order to heal Charlie, you will need to destroy the poison and the organs that it is attached to at the same time, then regrow new organs in their place. I will keep him alive while you are doing this, so the organs have time to generate.
I thought about the practicality of this. Demigods could make something out of nothing. We could create our own energy, and I had the specialty of healing, so why couldn’t I make Charlie new organs, too? It was part of my demigod magic, so in theory, I had the capability.
It was similar to Charlie’s illusion magic. He didn’t just make illusions, he made them into real physical objects. He’d regrown Sprigs when he was just a dying plant, and gave him sentience. I couldn’t make a body out of nothing, but I could regrow what was already in front of him. I needed to remake him, craft his organs so they were brand-new.
Still… I didn’t know of anyone, demigod or otherwise, who had done this before. Not in history, or even myth.
“How do I do it?”
If we fucked this up, Charlie was definitely not coming out of this.
You have already done it, Oberi marveled, with a shocked look at the kurble. Once before, when your father was in the hospital. You replaced his lungs. This is not a tool you can use on just anyone. This is magic that you may only perform on someone you deeply love.
Memories of my father suffering from pneumonia flooded into my mind. I was still in high school, and hadn’t even gotten my magic yet as far as I knew, but I remembered how I’d laid my hands on his chest the night before he was supposed to die, and the bright light that I’d seen just before passing out.
No wonder my father hadn’t had any breathing issues since.
Tears threatened to spill as I realized the blue eyes I’d seen that night in the hospital had been this little creature’s. He’d come to help me heal my father then, as he had arrived tonight to help me heal my husband.
“We need to recraft everything,”
I insisted. “It’s the only way to help him."
We can do it. The guardian can help us, and we can pull from Charlie’s abilities as a demigod to give us fuel. The small one will help you get past the inferichite, because as an ancestor, he has the ability to push it aside so you can do your work, Oberi stated, looking to the kurble for confirmation. The little creature nodded sharply. You must clean out everything— all the medicine, potions, and antidotes. Everything must go, and the failing organs must be destroyed with the tumors, so his body can be remade anew. Nothing can be left behind.
“Will this kill us?”
I questioned. When I had healed Ez from sepsis, it had taken all my strength, and this was way worse.
You are much stronger now than you were before. Your will is more powerful than this poison, and it will not take our lives, but we must act now, Oberi insisted. His heart is failing.
The heart monitor was barely showing a pulse. It wouldn’t be five minutes before Charlie would be gone.
“Okay. Let’s do this,”
I said firmly. I sprawled my hand over Charlie’s torso. Oberi laid her beak on my knuckles, and the kurble pressed his tiny paw into the back of my hand. I didn’t think I’d be able to feel him, since he was a spirit. Yet I felt his soft paw caress my skin as a light began to shine throughout the room that was brighter than any I’d ever seen before.
I started with Charlie’s heart first, because might as well. I sought the poison that was taking his heart over and was unable to move the tumor wrapped around it, even with everyone’s help. So, I commanded the organ to die. I felt Charlie’s heart wither and blacken, disintegrating into nothing at my command as the tumor died.
When the heart faded away, so did the poison, because it had nothing left to hold on to. The inferichite wasn’t able to cling to anything, and therefore, lost its power.
The sound of the heart monitor going flatline absolutely rattled me, but I felt Oberi’s magic pulsing, and I knew she was using her power to keep Charlie’s blood pumping. I ignored the noise of the machine and focused my attention instead on making a new heart.
I was skilled in healing, but I didn’t understand most systems, or how the body worked. I didn’t know the various chambers or vessels I needed to create in order to fix him.
No matter, though. When I told his body to form a new heart, it did. A new organ magically formulated there, replacing the one that I’d destroyed. Charlie’s body knew what it needed, and knew what to do, forming a new heart at my command. When I pulled back my healing magic, I found with relief that the new heart began beating on its own, without my assistance.
When I was certain that his heart was better than new, I moved on to the blood and replaced that, too, giving him an entirely new life force that was fresh and clean of the toxin. Without the poison in his blood, it couldn’t spread to more parts of his body, which was a benefit. All we had to do now was clear out what was already there.
I moved on to Charlie’s lungs next. The ventilator breathed for him as I disintegrated his old lungs, growing new ones. His lungs materialized almost immediately, and I knew it was because I had experience replacing this particular organ from healing my father. Once that was done, I fixed his stomach and intestines, which were hoarding a massive sticky glob of poison. It took time to clear out, and sweat began to bead across my forehead as I replaced his entire digestive system, starting from scratch.
I heard the wolf give a snarl from the other side of the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as the wolf jumped in mid-air, snarling and snapping his jaws as he tossed an invisible foe into the wall. A piece of stone broke off the wall, though I wasn’t sure what hit it. It looked like the wolf was battling some dark force I couldn’t see.
Dark spirits have arrived to stop you, sent by the Warden. They don’t want Charlie to heal, Oberi rasped. The wolf is fighting them off.
Didn’t care. That wasn’t my job. The wolf continued to growl, and he threw the invisible force into the door as I moved on to healing the rest of Charlie’s organs. Medical supplies were knocked aside, and a cart was tipped over as the wolf fought off the evil entities.
The wolf chased the dark spirits into the hallway. Marcus will deal with it, Oberi stated, though her voice was strained. We’re almost done, Ava.
Thank the ancestors, because I couldn’t keep this up. His liver was the only organ left to be healed— I’d replaced all the others. It was going to be the most difficult, because the liver was what filtered all the body’s toxins, and most of the poison had ended up there due to his poor liver trying to metabolize the poison and failing. I felt my magic wavering, on the edge of failure, but I yanked on Charlie’s demigod magic to support me. His power came surging through the minute I asked, and I used that energy to give me strength as I faded the infected liver into nothing, and forged a new one in its place.
I searched his body avidly for more poison, and didn’t find any. The kurble chittered happily, and Oberi said, It is done. The poison is completely gone.
I sagged in my chair, on the edge of delirium. I’d regrown what had been damaged. But would it be enough?
I began sobbing as I watched color return to Charlie’s complexion. I reached out to touch his skin and found that it was once again vibrant and warm. “He’s going to be okay!”
Yes, he is, Oberi said wearily. We have cheated death once again.
I bawled into my hands. The little kurble scurried up my shoulder and sat there to give me a kiss on the cheek. The wolf approached from the side, giving a satisfied growl.
They must return to the Ancestral Lands now, Oberi noted. But they will be around, even if you cannot see them.
The kurble gave another trill, and the wolf grumbled lowly. Their spirits faded from my eyesight, though I sensed their presence lingering throughout the room.
Oberi hopped off the bed and changed into a husky, I will find assistance. He is healed, but he will need rest… as will we.
I couldn’t move. I was too busy weeping in relief.
Everyone had rushed in the moment Oberi had retrieved them. There were questions from a lot of people on how I’d done it, and I gave the most basic of explanations, because I was honestly too overwhelmed to go over everything.
I told my parents about the spirits that had arrived to help me. Needless to say, both of them were completely floored by the arrival of our family’s guardians, and shaken up. They took a private room in the hospital to console each other, grieve, and rejoice as I returned to Charlie’s side.
The doctors had taken the breathing tube out and unhooked him from all the monitors, as it was clear he didn’t need them. He still hadn’t woken up, but I wasn’t surprised. He’d been through a lot and needed time to recover.
I refused to let anyone help me. The doctors wanted to monitor me and check me over for any damage that may have been caused by the extent of my magic, but I wouldn’t let them. They could worry about me once Charlie woke up and we knew he was all right. I wasn’t leaving his bedside until his eyes opened, that was for sure.
“Please leave me alone,”
I snapped, pushing Ez’s hands away. He was trying to check if I was good, which was unnecessary, because I was certain I was fine.
“Ancestors, Ava, you’re impossible!”
Ez snapped.
“Would you stop acting crazy and let people help?”
Kallie demanded. She’d been arguing with me to let the doctors do an evaluation for fifteen minutes, and was getting more pissed by the second. “There’s no reason to act ridiculous now. Charlie’s fine.”
“We think he’s fine. We don’t know for sure if my spell had any side effects,”
I worried.
Kallie rubbed her face. “If you don’t get looked at, Charlie’s gonna be pissed when he wakes up. He hates it when you don’t take care of yourself.”
“Fine by me.”
I wasn’t the patient here.