Chapter Twenty-Five- Rage
Within this rage I am whole, within this rage I am home. Without Thorne, I am lost. Thorne can’t be dead, he can’t die. But the blood, the way he collapsed.
Then there’s the way I am choking up blood. Our connected beings share the weight of the wound. I spit at Elm as we wrestle to best one another. I can’t die until he does.
I choke up blood again but there is no pain, just the crimson splattered upon Elmerov’s face.
I am so blind with rage that when my hands strangle Elm, he’s turning blue when I feel the plunge of his sword into my hip.
“I… had t-to,” Elm chokes as my grip falters.
I trusted him, he was like my brother.
I stumble backward and his sword has moved all the way through me, clean through flesh and muscle. I leave the blade in me, knowing that removing it will cause me to bleed out. Elm drops to the floor, gasping desperately for air.
My vision swims, Thorne is unmoving, I’m losing blood too fast. Distantly I wonder why I’m not choking on blood anymore. Why am I still alive if Thorne is dead before me?
“Gialya,” I tremble. The small healing spell isn’t working.
My magic is too depleted from aiding Thorne.
Crowley swoops low, attacking at Elm to keep him away from me.
I watch Crowley shudder as I try to pull magic from him to heal myself, but it’s not enough.
I don’t have the healing gift. Elm stumbles backward and I gasp greedily for air.
Thorne, Thorne, Thorne.
Fable is distraught, cawing helplessly and jumping on Thorne’s chest, the blood staining her feet.
I’d rather be unmade than to endure this. This is beyond the Titan’s mercy. I cannot live if my bonded Arcanist is dead.
Yet somehow, something stirs faintly within our bond…
There’s movement out of the corner of my eye. I laugh, actually fucking laugh as Thorne pulls himself to standing, death wearing his face. Fable is a flurry of feathers around him.
Thorne is furious and I drink in the sight of him, even as I spit out blood. Where his neck was split open is now perfectly carved ice, his magic holding space to stop him from dying. Within the clear solid water I can see his flesh stitching itself back together.
Animalistic in his wrath, Thorne sends shards of ice flying at Elmerov, whose scream tears through the air as the tiny daggers pepper him with thousands of pinprick wounds.
A deafening quake rocks the stone room, an explosion. Briefly I think it’s Thorne but no…
The Titan’s Kyanite has finally shattered and an impossible well of magic is traveling straight into Thorne’s chest. It is not physical, but I swear his skin is opening to let it in.
He howls as he’s taken off his feet to hover in the air, the magic making a puppet of him.
I am pinned to the ground by the sheer magnitude of the power.
I can feel the way the pain overwhelms him, though it isn’t exactly like pain.
There is an ache but it feels more like being filled, being pushed full of air to the point of bursting open like a dam.
Thorne is fighting it, trying to control it.
He pushes it back, back, back, trying to put some of it into the broken shards of Kyanite.
I don’t even realize Elm is trying to flee the antechamber until Thorne blasts him with that same overwhelming magic from his palm, allowing us both to heave a deep breath.
Elmerov Blaine ceases to exist in a terrifying instant, leaving only ash on the ground.
Blessed Titans.
I blink to clear my vision, trying to understand how my friend—my brother—could turn on me in such a way while struggling to process what Thorne just did. The ash almost shines, catching and reflecting the light in the space… It’s ice.
Thorne just turned him to ice and fucking combusted him. An image of Elm’s smile flashes across my vision along with the sensation of him patting me on the back in that way of his.
I double over and vomit.
Blood mixes with the vomit and I’m still fighting to stay conscious with this damned sword inside of me. I know this isn’t a good sign.
“Here! This way!” I hear shouting outside of the antechamber because of course there can’t just be one problem to solve at a time. They must have been alerted to the antechamber’s wards being breached.
The Netherhelm soldiers halt in the entryway of the antechamber as Thorne absorbs the last of the magic from the Titan’s Kyanite.
He turns to them as his boots make contact with the ground again.
Blood pours from his eyes, ears, and nose.
His veins have opened the skin on his wrists to free room for the magic.
The flesh curls away from the wounds, bowing to the unholy magic claiming him.
Miraculously, my body isn’t pouring blood.
“Aenz-silon!” He shouts and levels a dozen soldiers rushing for him. They are dust in the blink of an eye. I don’t know if I’m vomiting from his raw power or the fact that I’m dying, but I empty my stomach and blood onto the stones.
I sense the strength it took for him to perform such a spell through our bond.
It has weakened him. He can’t do that constantly.
Still, it should be impossible. Spells to control people are bad enough, hypnosis like I do is punishable by death, but killing spells.
That’s… Brilliant, terrifying, impossible.
I spit particles of ash out of my mouth. Ew.
“Harrow, no no no,” Thorne finds me. He is distraught as he takes in the sword piercing my skin. I feel him wince at our shared pain and I grunt as my vision goes white. A twisting ache ravages my spine.
“He just grazed me.” I give him a small smirk and I’m so much more comfortable now. I can lie down… now that…
“Harrow!” He slaps me.
“Ow!” I groan and blink up at him, momentarily disoriented. Briefly, I thought we were in my bed. But no, instead we’re bleeding out below the library.
“Thorne, you have to go make it right,” I urge him.
“You’re going to be fine,” he shushes me and places a deft hand over my wound.
“Ah!” I wince. Frigid cold burns me before rendering my nerves completely numb.
“It’s okay,” Thorne’s voice is gentle and soothing. I wipe blood from his face, the streams slowing.
I am astounded when he uses the healing spell and it works, blending his ice magic to stop the damage as my hip starts knitting itself back together.
I can’t speak, but as I’m watching my flesh heal, I notice something different about him. He’s using his hands to guide his magic. I grab his gloved hand and pull the leather off.
Set into his palm is a deep blue stone, sapphire placed into his skin, the edges healed into it.
“When did you—” I remove his other glove to find his other palm is the same. “You had siphons embedded in your skin?”
“I did it myself,” he smiles triumphantly. “It was in the book.”
“That’s where you disappeared to today?” I ask. He nods with a proud smile;
“I saw a healer who was willing to do it.”
“It worked,” I huff, astounded. “You brilliant, beautiful, prince!”
He should be dead, but here he is, doing the impossible. Possessing two types of gifted Titan magic.
I sit up and kiss him hard, relishing the solid, real, aliveness of him.
My moment of relief is short-lived. The palace quakes, an explosion goading us from above. War has come in the name of Prince Thorne, but it’s been brewing for centuries.