Chapter 12 Sylas #2
“With the way your health currently stands, you could take out, maybe, one more cell, and that would be it. Without your magic, though, and you not fucking killing yourself, there is a fuck of a lot more you can do.”
“What are you talking about? My magic, my power is—”
“Not all that you are. Your magical knowledge is nearly unmatched. Even by those much older than you. Your connections in the underground are invaluable, especially when it comes to an enemy like Puritas. Your strategic mind is—”
“I get it. All right.” I blew out a breath. “All right, Kai.”
“You wanted me to make it easy for you to let go,” he accused. “Because you know how I also feel about living without my magic, believing it would be a strict no-go for me. But I’m not going to do that.”
Cassius’ words to me not long ago about Velra played on my mind.
“She’s formed a connection with you, a deep bond, and we both know how rare that is for her. I won’t let that be broken. I won’t allow her to lose you.”
And then hers also.
“What we’re all building together, it’s set in stone, you know?”
As if Lazriel’s beautifully brave confession to me hadn’t already been enough.
“None of you are making it easy for me to let go,” I grunted.
“Guess that means you’re not a loner anymore, hmm? You’re wanted, loved, and integral to them.” He winked. “And others even beyond your new loves.”
I glared at him. “You calculative little shit.”
His lips quirked. “Right back at you.”
Despite it all, that had a smile gracing my lips too.
“Ryker investigated your magic when you died and discovered that none of your spells fell. Even the ward over your home is still in place.”
“Right, yeah. I took precautions.” When a magic-wielder died, even though my death had just been brief, their magic fell along with them, spells they’d cast, that sort of thing.
I smiled at Kai’s look of deep curiosity. “Ah, something the great Kai Hunter doesn’t know, huh?”
He rolled his eyes. “Apparently so.”
“I infused Methuselah Root into the essence of my magic.”
It was an enchanted root of a Methuselah tree that had eternal-like properties, which ensured that a spell wouldn’t fall if the spellcaster did.
“How did you fuse it? Outside of chewing a piece every day, which isn’t possible without risking the limited supply, I can’t imagine how—”
“It can’t be done by a sorcerer. It fuses to necromantic essence well, because of my specific makeup.
But for you, it wouldn’t be possible. It latches onto the death-touched nature of my power.
That isn’t present in you. So, yes, chewing a piece each day—perhaps each week given your extreme power set—would be the only way, unfortunately. ”
“I’m impressed.”
“High praise coming from you.”
He smiled. “You know you’ve always been one of the few who can pull that off in my eyes.”
“It’s one of the reasons you wanted me to fuck you.”
“Sylas—”
“You know, the funny thing is, my need to be a purely dominant force has been challenged recently—at least, sexually.”
“Because of Lazriel?”
“It’s how it started, yes. There’s a line for him that can’t be crossed.”
“With that being the case, he’s lucky he found you, because many wouldn’t see that. Not like you do.”
“Like when I stopped with you.”
“Right. You noticed the source of my… discomfort even before I did.” He averted his gaze. “And I’m thankful that you did.”
“Of course.”
My words came out a little slurred.
A surge of lightheadedness beset me, which was extra unnerving with me lying down.
“Fuck,” I uttered, squinting, then trying to blink it away.
I couldn’t manage it fully, my vision becoming blurry.
Weakness surged like a bitch as well.
I heard alarms going off, then the Healers rushing over—three of them in their overhanging hooded robes.
“Go,” I told Kai.
“What? I’m not going to just—”
“I’m going to do the spell… have my magic bound. You can’t be there for that. I know how painful it will be for you to witness. So, go.” I scrubbed my hand over my face, trying to force back my emotion. “It’s probably better I do it alone anyway.”
He jolted, then swung his head toward the entrance of Aetheric Wing. “You’re not alone, brother.”
In the next moment, the Healers were being eased back, and then Cassius was pushing his way through to my Restoration Chamber, Velra right there with him.
“You’re most certainly not,” Cassius said, smiling out at me.
That was why Kai had physically reacted—he’d felt Cassius burst in here with his mammoth power.
It was another kick in the junk that I hadn’t registered it.
Great power felt great power… so right now I just… wasn’t.
“I told you, remember?” Velra spoke, her stunning amethyst eyes shining at me. “What we’ve built between the four of us is set in stone. We’re in this together for the long haul. Good and bad. Sickness and health. The whole deal.”
Cornelius Martel.
He was the one who would perform the binding spell on me.
He possessed experience with this sort of thing, having even bound Jaxon Silver decades ago, wherein he’d actually managed to make Jaxon’s Immortal Descendent side—the child of a Fallen, that Fallen being Draco, of all beings—completely undetectable and even unknowable to him.
For so much of his life before it had come out when Draco had risen, Jaxon had believed himself to be solely an Alpha wolf.
I swallowed hard as I took in the glowing silver circle in the middle of the clearing located several hundred miles away from the Guardian Compound—and anything else, for that matter.
There was a chance of major magical blowback when it came to this spell.
Especially if I resisted once it got started.
Apparently, that resistance wasn’t always a fully conscious thing either.
I watched as Cornelius came into view, creating a ward around the area as well, should the containment of the circle be breached during the spell.
With my power being rooted in death magic, he was also guarding against it lashing out and breaching realms like that of the Valley of the Dead.
Velra was walking with him, talking, and looking really concerned and pained for me.
“We will see to you,” Cassius assured me, as he guided me along, using his Immortal strength to take my almost dead weight. I was beyond being able to hold myself up at this point.
I couldn’t even be teleported, so he’d needed to fly me. Carefully.
Even then, he’d had to stop twice and touched down wherein I’d then vomited blood all over the fucking place.
I’d had Kai take off. He would’ve stayed for me, I knew that. But it would have hurt him. And I wouldn’t have it. There was enough of that going around as it was.
As we drew closer, I heard Velra saying, “You bound Ryker’s magic once, didn’t you?”
“Regrettably, yes.”
“And he didn’t even feel the actual process.”
“That’s not the same, unfortunately. It was a very brief thing. What we’re dealing with when it comes to Sylas, as a necromancer, is binding a mammoth part of him, his nature and very being, and making it unrecoverable and completely inaccessible all the while the binding is in effect.”
“Like you did with Jaxon Silver.”
“Yes, my dear.” He laid his hand on her shoulder. “He will be well. This will spare him.”
“Cornelius,” Cassius spoke with a harshness in his tone, not liking that I’d overheard all that. “We are ready.” His eyes flashed at him. “And we need to hurry. He is deteriorating severely now that he isn’t being continuously flooded with the serum.”
“The only thing keeping me alive,” I muttered.
“Not for long,” Velra assured me, coming to us. “This pain and awful sickness will be gone very soon. You’ll be able to breathe again, to function again.”
Just not the way I wanted to.
At all.
She must’ve seen it in my expression, because she reached out and cupped my stubbly cheek. “We’re here. We’re here with you. And I swear to you that I’ll do everything in my power to make this manageable for you.”
“This is far from the end,” Cassius told me. “Time is just not on our side currently. But all is not lost where your magic is concerned. That is my vow to you.”
“A vow from an Immortal… certainly nothing to… sneer at,” I rasped, before Velra had to jerk away, as I lurched again in Cassius’ hold and choked up more blood on the grass.
When it finally ceased, I could no longer even move myself along at all.
A flash of magic caught my eye and then Cornelius conjured a white upholstered chair.
Cassius took my full weight and eased me over to the shimmering silver circle.
“I will take him now,” Cornelius told him, coming and holding his arm out to Cassius.
“He cannot take any more pain,” Cassius told him. “I will see to it that he does not, and that he’s stabilized during the spell.”
“You are talking about being present within the circle, remaining physically connected to him, and pouring your magic into him in order to numb the pain and the toll of this process.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’ll need to maintain a hefty shield and if it falls under the pressure of my power against yours, you risk your own magic being compromised.”
“Like I said, I’m aware.”
“Cassius… I’ll handle it,” I told him.
“I believe you. But that doesn’t mean you should have to. Not when we can ease things for you, the actual nature of the spell already being horrific enough for you as it is.” I saw him and Velra exchange a look, her nodding at him in agreement.
“We?”
“Maintain eye contact with Velra and she will envelop you in an illusion, which will be far more pleasant than enduring the reality of this spell while it is in progress.”
While we were still at the edge of the circle, Velra came to me again and wrapped her arms around me as Cassius continued to support me.
“We’ve got you. You’re not alone, no matter what.
” She planted a soft kiss on my cheek, my forehead, brushing over my lips even though they were stained with my own blood. “Not anymore. Do you hear me, Sylas?”
“Yes,” I croaked, fighting to swallow down the emotion that her words had wrought.