Chapter Twenty-Five #2
It was Perian who resumed the explanation.
“No one else could see or hear Kinan, but rather than his energy dissolving when he died, it somehow… separated from his body. And it attached itself to Renny. She could still see and hear him, though she couldn’t touch him.
While neither of them knew it, she was sustaining him.
He couldn’t get very far away from her, and she was often drained and ill—because as it turned out, she was sustaining two people when she only had enough energy for one.
” He smiled kindly at Kinan, who was rigid at Cormal’s side.
“Kinan would never have willingly hurt his sister, but Renny is so glad that he stayed with her. She said she’d do it all over again to get to keep Kee. ”
Kinan sucked in a stuttered breath. “She says that a lot.”
Cormal squished even closer, so that he and Kinan were slightly overlapped. He couldn’t leave Kinan alone right now. Kinan flashed him a small smile.
Perian went on to explain how he’d met Renny when he first came to the castle, and he’d spent time with her basically every day. She’d kept growing stronger, without anyone realizing why, because Perian was inadvertently providing energy to Kinan.
“And eventually, he was even able to leave her side and come with me!” Perian exclaimed. “He went away for a few days of training, and I didn’t even know that he came with me.”
Trill asked, “Did it feel the same, being with him as being with your sister?”
Kinan tilted his head back and forth. “I think so? I mean, Perian always felt different, though I couldn’t figure out why back then. When Renny told him the truth about me, he actually treated me like a person, like he believed her, even when there was no reason to.”
“I believed that she believed,” Perian said with a smile.
Kinan smiled back and added, “So much felt different about that time. Renny seemed to be feeling better, someone else was treating me like I actually existed… and then I suddenly realized that I hadn’t felt that terrible tug back to Renny that used to happen if I got more than a dozen or so feet away from her.
I experimented and found that I was able to do a few short walks through the castle, but sometimes I got pulled back quickly.
Eventually, I realized that I needed to be near Renny or Perian, although even then, I could be further from them than I ever had been before.
I decided I needed to see if I could actually go with Perian and leave Renny behind. ”
Perian waggled a finger at him, trying and failing to look really severe. “Which, let me point out, could have been a disaster if it didn’t work!”
Kinan did look sheepish, and Cormal forbore from scolding him more only because he knew how restricted Kinan had been. And he had come out of it all right. But the thought of what could have gone wrong, and no one would even have known he was there—
It made a shiver race up Cormal’s spine.
Kinan shrugged. “I felt like I had to try. Renny saw that I was able to mount up behind you, and she saw us ride off. If she’d seen me fall off or get stopped not far away from the castle, she would have made sure I could get back to her.”
Perian opened his mouth, no doubt to point out all the ways that could still have gone wrong, but after a moment, he closed it again.
“You couldn’t communicate with him?” Trill clarified.
Perian shook his head. “I couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear him, and had no idea he was there. Which, let me just point out, if you heard anything you shouldn’t have, that’s all your own fault!”
Kinan looked amused. “I stayed out of your tent, don’t worry. I spent the night in the cave.”
Perian huffed a breath. Then he looked more serious. “Our stay unfortunately ended with the demon attack that hurt Molun.”
Trill frowned. “You said it was lesser demons?”
They all nodded.
“There were nightmares and wraiths as well,” Brannal added. “Thankfully, they didn’t all converge on Molun, Nisal, and Perian. The rest of us were separated from them when the lesser demon attacked Molun. Perian got him back to the castle through sheer force of will.”
Perian gave a ghost of a smile, but it was clear that these memories were hard for him. He looked at Trill.
“I didn’t know that I could heal anyone.
I just told Molun that he was going to be fine and he couldn’t die—and he didn’t.
It wasn’t until much later that the doctor told me that there was no way he should have lived through it.
But I didn’t really know what I was doing, so I probably didn’t do a very good job. Sorry.”
Molun stood up to go over and give Perian a huge hug. “You did the best job. You don’t ever have to apologize for saving my life. In fact, please don’t. People might take it the wrong way and think you don’t love me or something.”
Perian hugged him back hard.
Cormal had never really let himself think about how amazing that had been, even once the doctor had revealed what Perian had done. Perian had been acting purely on instinct and caring and stubbornness, and he’d saved Molun’s life.
“You did a fantastic job,” Trill reassured the man.
With a sigh, Cormal took up the narrative. “And this is the point at which I screw everything up.”
He explained how he’d overheard Brannal telling Arvus that they needed to jerk off, confirming what Cormal had begun to suspect, that Perian was a carnalion, and making him realize he needed to act immediately, because here was another Summus letting a demon into the castle and thinking he had everything under control.
Swallowing, Cormal admitted, “I had Perian abducted and inadvertently put him somewhere where he was attacked and nearly killed. Brannal found him just in time and brought him right back to the castle—so I told everyone he was a carnalion and had him thrown in the dungeon.”
Trill stared at all of them with wide-eyed astonishment.
Perian started talking again, explaining how the doctor had helped them realize that rather than hurting anyone, Perian had actually been the one responsible for making the Princess feel better—which had finally made him realize that he hadn’t been giving her energy, he’d been giving it to Prince Kinan.
“Renny convinced everyone that Kee was real by explaining how Kinan had had a crush on Cormal forever.”
Cormal couldn’t help but laugh even as Kinan mock-glared at Perian.
Perian explained how the Queen had agreed to let him try to help, and he glossed over most of the rest of the details, once again being more kind to Cormal than he deserved. But it was also clear this was difficult for him, and there was no need to make the recollection worse.
“That’s when the doctor explained how I’d kept Molun from dying, so I knew that I’d already healed someone who was hurting.”
“Healed a body that was hurting,” Trill corrected.
Perian nodded, looking puzzled by the distinction.
Trill huffed. “You don’t know how often I’ve wished to heal other hurts, but I’ve never been able to. I don’t know exactly what happened to the Prince, but it’s obvious he’s not actually here in body. You healed his energy.”
Perian shrugged. “I didn’t know any better, I guess. I poured everything that I had into him. I tried to think of him as whole and happy and healthy. I thought about what I wanted him and Renny to be able to do in the future. I pushed and pushed and pushed as hard as I could.”
Until, as Brannal then explained, although Kinan had become visible, Perian wouldn’t stop. When it was obvious it was hurting Perian, Brannal had put up a shield between them.
“Perian collapsed, and it was chaos until we realized that he was alive but unresponsive, and while we could see and hear Kinan, he was intangible.”
“And then it was me again, being a disaster,” Cormal admitted with a sigh.
“I still thought of Perian as a danger who had to be removed from the castle. And since Brannal was basically camped out at his bedside, I faked a report of a bad enough nightmare and wraith attack that Brannal would have to go deal with it. He took Arvus and Delana with him, and while they were gone, once Perian was awake, the Queen and I banished him here—while implying that Brannal and everyone else wanted him gone because a carnalion couldn’t be involved with a Mage Warrior, let alone Summus. ”
Trill winced.
“Exactly,” Cormal said with a grimace of his own. “Which is why Molun, Arvus, and Kinan rushed out here to try to make sure that Brannal didn’t simply kill me as soon as he saw me.”
It was sort of cathartic to get everything out in the open, but it certainly didn’t show him in a good light.
Brannal looked at Trill. “When I got back and they presented me with that ultimatum, I simply resigned and came after Perian.”
Trill smiled at him. “That’s so sweet.”
Cormal sighed. “And I wound up with a job that I didn’t actually want, having left everyone to assume that I’d connived to get the position.
I was miserable and angry—and still blaming everything on Perian—until Kinan took pity on me.
I shared the whole stupid story with him, and instead of declaring that I was the dumbest human on the planet, he forgave me. ”
“Well, you can be kind of dumb,” Kinan said with a smirk. “Are those two things mutually exclusive?”
Cormal huffed a laugh and leaned into the other man, making their shoulders overlap for a second.
“All right.” Trill nodded, a considering look on his face.
“I’m definitely not an expert on any of this.
But the fact that there were wraiths in the room and wraiths pull energy out of people, and somehow the Prince ended up with all his energy out of his body shortly before all of the wraiths were destroyed…
I don’t know if it makes sense, exactly, but if I were trying to conjure up a way where something like this could happen, I feel like that has at least some of the pieces that could fit. ”