Chapter Thirty-Five #3
If Cormal had to keep doing it, that was what he’d do, never mind if he felt lightheaded and also like he was being crushed under a monumental weight.
She looked at him solemnly for a moment, then nodded.
“I can do it.”
Delana laid down her shield, then Tinnadal, then Rollanor, and finally Livala, who was biting her lip but had narrowed her eyes fiercely as she stared at the shield as it went opaque. They all nodded, and Cormal, Molun, and Arvus released their shields.
Molun just fell flat back onto the ground and stared up at the ceiling. “We get a vacation after this, right?”
“I’m sure we do. Come on, baby, let’s get something to drink.”
Almost before Arvus finished speaking, there were Warriors there with food and drink, helping Molun to sit up and supporting them both.
Cormal blinked as he realized that someone was in front of him, too.
His vision swam, and it took a couple tries to be able to hold onto the glass being offered to him.
He used both hands and carefully guided it to his mouth, gulping the warm, fortified ale down gratefully.
He stared at the shield, trying to figure out if it looked any different than it had before.
Perian and Trill both had their eyes closed.
Brannal was sitting next to Perian, helping to support him, absently eating cubes of cheese and slices of apple without taking his eyes off the man.
Almost as if this was the prompt Cormal’s stomach needed, it growled angrily, and he realized he was ravenous. He grabbed one of the sandwiches from the plate next to him and devoured it, then another.
It seemed absurd to be doing something so prosaic as eating right now, but it was the only option Elemental Mages had to replenish their energy. The two Life Mages had the sex energy boost—but there was no one to replace them. They had to be able to see this through, or it would fail.
“How are their energy levels?” Cormal asked.
It was Trill who answered, voice clear but a bit strained.
It was obvious he was concentrating on something else as he spoke to them.
“The people outside are essential. Yannoma is helping to boost them. Give them a…a second wind. I have never been fed so much or been drained of it so quickly. ‘Heal everything’ has never been so literal. It’s… a lot.”
Cormal bit back the urge to demand if it was too much, because that wasn’t helpful. Their focus was obvious. Cormal hadn’t expected to feel useless again quite so quickly.
He’d get his own second wind back, but it would take food and time—and ideally sleep, but obviously, that wasn’t going to happen right now.
His hands were still shaking, and he tried not to worry about just how drained he was right now.
He made himself drink more—water, this time—and eat another sandwich.
He looked over at Brannal. He’d never seen the man look so tired—and they’d once stayed up for four nights straight when they were young and stupid on a dare.
Without warning, Livala suddenly slumped over, falling to the floor.
The three remaining Mage Warriors made a cry of distress, Perian and Trill gasped, and the shield…
flickered. Without thought, Cormal slammed his own shield down, realizing only as it locked into place that Brannal had done the same.
The shield flared bright, making Cormal squish his eyes closed for a moment, trying to blink away the after-image. Had he caught a glimpse of something in that moment the shield had flickered? Surely he hadn’t seen nothing? They couldn’t have been pouring all this energy into nothing, right?
He balled his hands into fists again. As soon as this was all over—all right, maybe after he’d slept for a week—he was going to go down to his father’s old workshop, and he was going to throw so many fireballs at the wall that they obliterated everything else.
And Kinan would have to wait outside, because he would be there and he would be solid and he would be well. That was the only acceptable option.
He didn’t dare close his eyes this time, because he feared if he did, he’d actually fall asleep, despite the desperate tension. It was like a yawning pit was growing inside of him, and he was in danger of falling into it.
He couldn’t let that happen. It didn’t matter how exhausted he was.
He couldn’t give up his part of the shield.
The pull felt worse now than it had before, and he wasn’t sure if it was because he was more exhausted or because it was actually taking more magic.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that he needed to be there, that all of them needed to be there, doing what they were doing, even when their hands were shaking and their vision was blurry—or maybe that was just Cormal.
Trill swayed on the other side of Kinan, but Molun and Arvus were there to bolster him. Cormal thought they were saying something, but he couldn’t focus on anything except pouring every bit of magic into Kinan.
He hadn’t realized it was possible to get this sweaty. And was the room getting fuzzy, or was it him? His fingers and toes had begun to tingle, like they’d fallen asleep.
With a suddenness that was alarming, the shield fell, the sudden cessation of pressure so extreme he couldn’t process it. He hadn’t let go of the shield. The others hadn’t either, had they? They would have talked about it. They hadn’t done that. Right?
He blinked, trying desperately to focus. There were sounds around them, but none of them made sense. It was like he was underwater.
Belatedly, he realized could see Kinan again!
His eyes were closed, though, and he was lying there completely still and lifeless.
Dread pulsed through Cormal, his stomach sinking like a stone.
He reached out to check for a pulse—or tried to.
Instead, that yawning pit inside him opened up, and he fell down it.