Chapter 8 #2
“Not necessarily.” I shrug. It wasn’t meant to be a dismissive shrug, but I guess it came out like that.
Lidiane glares at me. “What do you suppose? That Zorwal must have become a nice fae all of a sudden and decided to let him go?”
“I can’t see Marlak,” I say. “I don’t know what’s happening. He could be fighting, escaping. Who knows?”
Astra reaches out a hand to me. “I can find him. Please. Give me a drop of your blood.”
That’s a witless idea. “No. Do you want to become a bloodpuppet like me?”
Astra shakes her hands in the air, desperation clear in her tone. “The nymph said skin! He didn’t mention blood.”
What an idiotic conclusion. The only reason I don’t roll my eyes is because I know what it’s like to fear for your soulmate. “Reach through your bond. Is he in danger?”
She swallows, then closes her eyes. A moment later, she says, “No. But it doesn’t mean—”
“Look through your bond,” I insist. “If you are able to transcend to where he is, you can also know if he’s in danger. You’d feel it.”
She sighs, unconvinced.
Renel places a hand on her shoulder. “And it’s dangerous for you to go there. My brother knows the castle well. He might indeed have sneaked out.”
Astra turns to Lidiane. “Wasn’t your magic supposed to protect them?” Even though her tone isn’t accusatory, her words stir a pot of anger in my gut.
I raise a gloved, wet finger in the air. “You’re not going to blame Lidiane.”
Lidiane sighs. “His sister was the one who found him. You’re right that my magic should have allowed them to go in unnoticed. I’m sorry.” She approaches Astra. “Close your eyes, feel him, see if there’s any deception, anything hidden.”
Astra closes her eyes, but her face is still tense. “He seems fine, but—”
“Then he’s fine,” Lidiane says. “Truly, you’d sense it.”
Astra’s shoulders sag, I suppose partly convinced, then Lidiane takes a deep breath and tells her, “I have something for you, and I’m wondering if you’re willing to try it.”
“What?”
Lidiane opens her hand and shows us a pin, its tip red. “I was able to prick Zorwal. And… he’s a healer… I made sure it didn’t get wet.”
Astra glances at me, then takes the pin.
If she licks it, she’ll taste blood from a powerful healer. A healer.
A knot uncoils from my chest. There’s a chance for me.
I look at Lidiane, and, for the first time since I faced the Witch King, I see true hope in her eyes, and it’s not her usual tenacious, stubborn hope against the impossible, but a relaxed, happy hope.
My breath catches. Why is she so beautiful?
To think that we might have a chance is more than I could hope for.
I look at Astra, excitement and fear of disappointment battling in my chest. Can I even dare to hope?
ASTRA
Marlak, Marlak, where are you? There’s a coldness settling in my chest and a worry that won’t leave my heart, and yet I have to trust that he’s fine, if I’m not sensing anything wrong.
When I think about him, when I try to reach him through our connection, I sense no sign of danger. I hope he’s not fooling me.
Pushing away my anxiety, look at Lidiane’s pin. Oh, this is so gross. I’ve licked blood before, but it was in moments of extreme danger or distress, when my nerves muddled my senses and muffled my revulsion. But if I can save Azur, this will be worth it.
I bring the pin to my tongue, hoping the trace of blood in it will be enough, hoping I’ll be able to do something as complex as healing. It tastes…
Gross, obviously. There’s the metallic tang of blood, and then there’s something else. Darkness. Hatred. Malice. An overpowering force about to take me to its depths.
For a moment, I see the cave of the Witch King, where a grotesque head grows from his neck, then I see myself, sword in hand.
For some reason, Otavio comes to mind, laughing with an eerie, odd laugh, and then so much darkness.
Coldness prickles my entire body as if a layer of ice was forming under my skin.
Bile stirs in my stomach as my mouth feels dry and wrong and bitter.
Horrific.
“Astra!”
There are voices far away, beyond this darkness, voices I know.
“Astra!”
A hand touches my wrist while another touches my shoulder. Meanwhile, pain radiates from the middle of my back.
“Astra!” The tone is urgent, worried.
Where am I? I wish I could fade away in this darkness, avoid that strange power coursing through me. So much power. Disgusting, terrifying power.
Zorwal’s magic. I remember what I was doing—and open my eyes.
The sky is blue above me, while Ziven and Lidiane are crouched by me, their faces worried. Renel, Azur, and Ferer are standing at a distance, also staring at me.
I sit up quickly, and realize my back hurts from falling onto the uneven, rocky ground of the edge of the island.
“I’m fine,” I mutter, even though it’s hard to speak through my throat, as if it was fighting that awful blood, rejecting that foul magic.
But I need that magic.
“Are you sure?” Ziven asks. “Do you need anything?”
“No, just… a moment.”
Many moments, in fact, to find my bearing again, to come to terms and connect with that eerie magic. With slow, deep breaths, I try to reach for it, feel it.
The first thing I feel is not mine, but other people’s magic. Magnificent power emanates from Lidiane, Azur, and Ferer, and then, more muted, I see Ziven’s stone on his neck emitting power, and even some trace of magic in Renel’s chest, or maybe not magic, but some life force.
I can also sense some of the air around me, a fraction of what I’ve felt before with Marlak’s or Azur’s magic.
But what I need is healing, and I hope it’s something I can use like that, with only my basic training from the Elite Tower, when we learned how to identify—and hit—vital organs or how to care for common wounds and ailments. So little.
Lidiane’s face changes from worry to expectation while behind her, Azur stands with his arms crossed, his expression a hard mask. I understand that mask. He’s afraid to hope.
And then, all of a sudden, it comes to me.
I can sense tissue, organs, veins, and see them like I would hear a harmonious song, each part of the body a note.
I stand in front of Azur and look at him.
His breathing is stiff, his pulse accelerated.
I look at his hands—but don’t see anything wrong.
Does the magic poisoning start in the hands, or are the hands just a symptom?
I still think I should see or sense something.
“Can you remove your gloves?” I ask.
Azur hesitates, his breath contracting.
“I won’t hurt you,” I add.
He clicks his tongue. “It’s not that.” His tone is surprisingly gentle, perhaps because he’s glancing at Lidiane.
Her eyes are tense as she stares at him.
Slowly, Azur removes his gloves. When he raises his hands to show them to me, I flinch, horrified. For a second, I wonder if it’s an illusion, if my imagination is distorted by this horrific magic, or if it’s a trick of light.
I take a better look, and there’s no denying it; his fingers are entirely white.
Does the magical poisoning spread that fast? And if it continues like that, how long does he have? Two, three days at most? Perhaps a little more than one day.
With a deep breath, I tell myself that I can’t entertain those gloomy thoughts. I look at his hands again, this time trying to see it through this strange magic pulsing through my veins.
The healing magic is working. I can see the skin, tissue, muscles, and the way the bones are joined together, I can even sense the blood flowing to the tips of his fingers.
Good. Normal. It’s what the magic tells me.
Perhaps I should search for the root of his predicament elsewhere in his body.
I look at his chest. Blood flows through his heart, air through his lungs, everything healthy, whole.
His head is fine. No. There are scars on top of his head, but they’re old, healed.
I can sense that there’s something missing there, but from years and years ago, its energy gone.
I don’t understand what it is, but it’s clear that it has no relation to his magical poisoning.
Other than that, everything is fine, as far as this magic tells me, and yet it’s not fine.
“It might take a while,” I mutter, since everyone’s watching me. “And I need to test something.”
I don’t want to give them false hope, but I don’t want them to know that I’m at a loss. At least not yet. The magic might leave my body at any moment, so I have to be fast.
The truth is that I don’t know how this magic heals, so I look at my companions, trying to see if I can sense anything different. Whole. That’s all I get.
I pick a dagger and make a small slash on my own palm, then look at it. Not whole. Yeah, no kidding. And yet it’s as if the tissue wants to reform itself, to become whole again. The magic wants to heal it—and I let it.
The cut is healed in one second, not a single mark remaining. Fair. So I can heal. I could cut too, reverse this magic and cause harm, but its greatest power lies in healing.
I look at Azur’s hand again. Whole. Well, no. It’s half white. Look again, I tell the magic.
Whole.
Asshole, perhaps.
The skin is intact, the muscles, veins, nerves, joints, and bones are intact. The hands are perfect. The fluid flow is intact.
Perfect. Physically.
My heart sinks as I realize that while this magic is extremely powerful, it can only heal physical afflictions. It can’t reverse magic.
Lidiane’s staring at me, hope in her dark eyes. She risked her life to prick that dangerous fae and I can’t bear to tell her it was for nothing. Even Azur is expecting something. Everyone’s counting on me.
But there’s no point looking, reaching for the magic, trying. There’s nothing to heal. No wonder the nymph couldn’t do anything either, even though it healed his stab wounds, which might have killed him otherwise.
My throat is tight and my chest heavy as I consider what to say.
Azur snorts. “Just spit it.”
He’s probably a thousand times more anxious than I am, and each second will only stretch his agony.
I swallow, then say, “Zorwal’s magic can heal the body, but it can’t—”
“Undo magic.” Azur rolls his eyes. “How surprising.”
“I tried,” I protest.
“I’m not blaming you, Astra.” Azur turns to Lidiane. “Or you, even if I’d rather you hadn’t tried this…”
She bites her lip. “At least we know.”
True. I glance at Renel, his chin resting on his hand, his face grave and thoughtful. He had considered approaching Zorwal to try to cure Azur, and now he won’t do such a foolish thing.
“What if it wasn’t enough blood?” Ziven asks.
I shake my head. “It was enough. I healed my cut. I can sense the organs in your bodies, feel that they’re working as they should, sense that you’re whole, and that’s how this magic works.”
Renel tilts his head. “Zorwal could cause cuts as well. From a distance.”
“I could do that. It’s like reversing the magic. A little harder and unnatural, but I can sense that power in me. When I look at Azur, all it tells me is that his physical body is intact, I mean, mostly, except for old scars, but they don’t have anything—”
“What scars?” Renel asks.
“Old scars.” Anger laces Azur’s voice. “Forgotten. Healed. None of your business.”
Renel stares at him. “I’m trying to help.”
Azur snorts again. “There’s no help.”
“Killing the Witch King might work,” Lidiane says.
“Let’s hope, I guess.” Azur stares at his hand, likely wondering if there’s enough time for him to be saved.
And then an idea comes to me. “I know what to do. At least to slow down the spread. Where do you feel the magic?” I ask Azur.
“Nowhere, to be honest.”
I close my eyes and focus on the light, think about the Almighty Mother, and imagine that light enveloping Azur, fighting the darkness trying to overtake him.
I open my eyes and continue seeing that light around him, then say, “Can you repeat something after me? It’s a prayer, but it can also be an incantation. Imagine a light shield around you.”
Azur nods, and I continue, “Now say after me: only light here. Light shields me and protects me from evil. Light shields me, and nothing can pass through this wall.”
He doesn’t look too willing, but repeats the words.
“Her light magic works,” Ferer says. “It kept the ghouls at bay in the Shadow Lands.”
I keep seeing Azur enveloped in that healing, protective light, imagining his hands brilliant, free of any foreign magic, and yet I don’t think my light is that strong right now.
I click my tongue, a little annoyed, and perhaps upset at myself for not having considered this solution earlier. “I think it will work better once Zorwal’s magic is out of my system, but keep repeating it in your mind, and imagine a light removing that magical poisoning.”
Azur puts back his wet glove. “I will.” He doesn’t sound hopeful, but rather resigned. Better than nothing, I suppose.
Another reason it’s hard to connect with my light is my lingering worry about Marlak. I’m not sensing any danger coming from him, and yet my heart won’t quiet down while he hasn’t returned.
“Keep thinking about it,” I say, then I turn to Lidiane. “It was worth trying to use Zorwal’s magic.”
Azur glares at her. “But dangerous.”
She waves her arms. “Now we know he can’t heal you. We just eliminated a pointless solution.”
He looks down, unconvinced, perhaps even despondent.
That attitude won’t help. “Focus on the light,” I say. “Imagine it protecting you.”
Azur nods, his eyes distant and pained. To be fair, I can’t blame him. My light has never healed anyone, and even I am not certain that it will work.
I understand that hanging onto false hope can feel like delaying the pain of finally admitting defeat. It’s like keeping it under the surface, where it still hurts, rather than accepting one’s fate. But at the same time, lingering hope, even if pointless, will keep you fighting until the end.
I’d rather fight. I’d rather trust that we can win, that we can find a cure for Azur.
And I want to hope that Marlak is safe, that he’ll be home soon, even if my heart is shredding like paper. Marlak, where are you?