Chapter 12 Sylas #3
I forced a smile, then Cassius passed us through the circle, and he eased me onto the chair. I sank down, my head tipping back against the heavy cushioning because I could no longer even hold it up.
Cassius walked behind the chair and clasped my shoulders.
He erected a blindingly bright white shield and then he pushed his power into me—temporary power that would leave as soon as the spell was done.
A rush of warmth surged through me and in moments not only were the aches and pains associated with the massive strain my sickness had afflicted me with gone, but there was a calming numbness that rolled through me also.
I groaned and wearily looked out at Cornelius.
He stood just a few feet from us with both palms upturned and flaming with his silver magic.
Silver magic?
Hold on… with everything that had happened, I hadn’t made the connection or thought too much about it. I’d just accepted the interference that I’d felt during the Blood Trace I’d performed on Lazriel, because it had only been brief and I’d been focused on our goal. But come to think of it now—
My body jolted violently in the chair and I looked to see Cornelius’ magic streaming into me—two fucking powerful streams.
I couldn’t feel any pain, thanks to Cassius, but my body was certainly taking notice.
He started uttering an incantation that I made sure I didn’t take notice of.
I didn’t want to think about that—about incantations, about magical protocols, about any of it. Especially not the fact that after these few moments, I wouldn’t be able to utter my own, to perform any magic whatsoever.
I wouldn’t be able to be me.
I choked as his magic continued streaming, but then started causing a scraping sensation through my body, like rot was being dug out.
I knew it wasn’t the rot being removed, it was my magic.
He was digging it out in effect, separating it from my body, my very being, and then once it was all loose, no longer intrinsically linked and fused to me, he’d gather it and lock it away. Bind it deep within me, a part of myself that would no longer be accessible to me.
“I can’t slow down! I can’t demonstrate weakness! Why is that so hard for people to understand? Thinking they can take care of me… that’s not how it works!”
I bucked in the chair as my own words to Cassius slammed into me.
A warning.
Damnation.
That’s what this spell would mean for me.
What it would fucking do to me!
I couldn’t… I couldn’t let it!
No!
“You’re fighting me,” Cornelius spoke. “Breathe. Focus on what needs to be done.”
I looked out at him, the determination and concentration as he streamed his magic into me, as he fucking unmade me.
I turned my head and saw Velra with her purple magic live, pacing back and forth, tears in her eyes for me at what needed to be done here.
Needed to be done.
That was what Cornelius had said.
Maybe he was wrong.
Maybe the Healers were wrong.
Maybe Kai was wrong.
Hell, maybe even my own body was wrong.
I’d handled a lot of fucked-up things over the years… why did this need to be different?
If I kept my magic, it wouldn’t have to be.
But without it… if I let them take it… everything would be different.
I would be different.
I wouldn’t be that charismatic, dominating force of energy and purpose.
Fuck, I’d be nothing.
I snarled. My magic sparked, bursting from both hands in crimson flames.
“Sylas,” Cornelius warned.
I gritted my teeth and pushed harder.
Through it, I caught Velra’s eye.
And then her words not long ago seeped into me.
“So alone. Nowhere to turn to. No one to truly trust. At least until recently, right?”
“Until recently, yes.”
“It’s time we both stopped kidding ourselves that we favor isolation.”
“That it’s easier.”
“And safer.”
“That too.”
I jolted as they hit.
That isolation was what it would be like if I let myself die and haunted the Valley of the Dead.
If that was what really needed to happen.
Like I’d thought earlier… it could all be wrong.
This sickness had never existed before.
“You push any harder and even Cassius won’t be able to mitigate the hurt. It could actually damage you permanently.”
“I’m already damaged! That’s why we’re doing this fucking thing!” I yelled, my voice reverberating through the still area.
“Sylas,” Velra tried.
In her urgency, she stepped too close.
“Do not breach the circle!” Cassius called to her, frantically. “You will be caught up in the binding!”
She stilled just in time and held her hands out either side, trying to hold my gaze.
I looked away.
Cornelius’ magic flamed wilder.
Cassius grunted.
“If you can’t hold the shield steady, pull back,” Cornelius warned him.
“He will be in agony.”
“If I stop the spell now, severe damage will be done to him. Unless he lets up, agony will befall him anyway. Don’t risk the same for yourself. You’ve already lost your True Celestial status, you won’t do well with losing more.”
I took in the dangerous predicament Cassius had put himself in for me.
Then at Velra who was trying hard to drag me into her illusion to spare me, her panic and grief so stark it cut at me.
And here I was trying to fight the inevitable.
I squeezed my eyes shut and recalled Lazriel’s freakout when he’d discovered my sickness.
“You’re gonna leave me. You’re gonna perish. You’re gonna keep doing this vigilante work and get yourself killed before you find a cure. If you can even find a cure!”
I sucked in a breath.
“Stop! It’s all bullshit! You pulled me close, you let me care about you—deeply—all the while knowing you were dying! What kind of sick—fuck it! Just fuck it!”
He’d been so pained.
So afraid.
For me.
For us and our bond.
Doing this now, fighting it… I was coming close to repeating that, putting them all through grief and pain.
I let go.
My magic snuffed out.
Tiredly turning my head, I looked out at Velra.
She smiled sweetly, then a purple haze filled my vision, before I was pulled fully into her illusion.
I blinked and looked to see that I was in a field of lush red roses, the warm sun beaming down on me as I stood there in a white linen shirt and pants.
I smiled when I saw that the roses didn’t even have thorns.
“Hey.”
I turned around and watched Velra sauntering toward me in a little black dress, her ombre hair cascading ethereally about her face.
She gestured at the flowers all around us. “Your favorite, as I recall.”
“My favorite,” I confirmed.
“How come?” she asked, coming to me and sliding her arms around my waist as she looked up at me with so much adoration and curiosity. So much fucking care.
“They’re powerful symbols of so much. Beauty, love, transformation. Even pain and grief. I guess they encompass everything that life—and death—is about.” I lifted a shoulder. “And they’re stunningly beautiful. Delicate but fearsome.”
“Just like the four of us,” she mused. “And I’m sorry the most overtly fearsome of us all isn’t here right now. I know he’d want to be if he knew. He’d absolutely be here for you.”
“I know he would.”
He’d told me he loved me and that was no small thing for Lazriel Thaine. Those abandonment issues of his made sure of that, along with his insecurities and pain of being what he was.
“It’s best he’s not bearing witness to this. It would break him into pieces.” I sucked in a breath. “Instead, though, he’s in a place where he can be built up, where he can come to terms with the vampire side of himself that he’s so long denied the full extent of.”
“You helped him accept the other thing he’d denied for a long time. You helped him, more than I think you even realize.”
“Well, that goes both ways.” I smiled down at her. “All ways, actually. Thank you for what you’re doing now, and for accommodating a difficult bastard like me into your life. What Cassius is doing in reality right now is no small thing to me either.”
She stroked my back and beamed up at me. “You don’t need to thank us for loving you, Sylas. It’s our pleasure.”
A shudder rolled through me, an unsettling cold coursing through my veins. “It’s happening… almost done,” I rasped, resting my head on her shoulder.
“Yes,” she admitted. “He has your magic, he’s binding it now,” she told me, having one foot in this illusion, and one on the outside in reality.
Normally, I’d be able to see through the entire thing too. I’d made sure after Glasswake Massacre that I could always register illusionary magic.
But not right now.
Right now I… I wasn’t… myself.
“What you did for me… I’ll never forget it,” she told me. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“Like you said, it’s not something to thank me for. It was my pleasure.”
She looked up at me, and although she didn’t speak the words, I could see the grief there. And something just a little deeper.
Guilt.
“I made the decision. You had no control over it. And for that, I’m sorry.
I’m all about free will and agency, but I couldn’t stand by and lose you when I had the power to rectify it, to pull you back to the land of the living.
And, no, I don’t regret it, so don’t go there, please.
I would do it again. For you. For Lazriel. For Cassius. For those we love.”
“Sylas,” she breathed, holding me tighter to her and nuzzling against me.
“So, do you think our hot little wolf is giving Remnant hell right about now?”
Her chuckle turned to a giggle. “I have no doubt. He’s probably turning The Shadowed inside out.”
“Chaotic, wild, ferocious,” I mused. “Just what’s deserved.” I stroked her hair. “He’s also loyal, feels deeply and so bravely. He’s courageous and possesses such a beautiful heart, such a softness that he only gives to us. He’s never been too much. He’s—”
“Perfect.”
“Exactly, Dark Beauty. Perfect.”
“Just like we all are for each other.” She lifted her head from my chest and stared up at me as she told me pointedly, “As we still will be, no matter what alters for each of us along the way.”
“Message received loud and clear.”
“I know this won’t be easy, but you’ll still be here with us, and we’ll figure it out. You really won’t be alone in that.”
“I know, but I may need to be, especially once it starts sinking in.”
“Even then, we’ll still be within reach. Do you hear me, Sylas?”
“I do.”
Another shudder wracked my body.
This time, it was followed by another and another.
Velra tightened her hold around me. “It’s almost over.”
I eased from her and turned to take in the stunning fields of roses, savoring the sight and the serenity of it all, even as I felt something so profound slipping away in the process.
I tried to focus on that.
Her hand slipped into mine, and I added her warmth to that focus, as I shuddered uncontrollably, needing to tighten my hand in hers in order to ground myself and remain upright in this illusionary space.
And then it ceased.
No more shuddering.
Just… emptiness.
“Drop it,” I eked out.
“I can hold it longer if you like. For as long as you wish, actually.”
I shook my head.
And then her power slipped away, the illusion dissipating.
Reality came slamming back and I jolted.
I looked to see Cornelius right in front of me as I laid sprawled in the chair, his glowing hand sweeping over me.
“Nothing,” he reported, looking between me, Cassius, and Velra. “No more magic.” He grimaced, then stepped back, telling me, “It’s done, Sylas.”
All I could manage was a nod.
“You’ll feel a sense of exhaustion for a couple of days, then you’ll be able to function… normally.”
Normally.
Well, how else could he really put it?
“Thank you,” Velra told Cornelius.
“Of course,” he said, smiling at her, then sweeping the circle away with his magic. He gave her a fatherly hug, then I heard her tell him that she and Cassius would take it from here.
He gave a chin lift to Cassius, a sad smile to me, then unfurled his wings and soared away into the dark night.
Cassius finally let go of my shoulders and he and Velra came to stand in front of me, looking me over studiously.
“Fine,” I told them, pushing out of the chair.
The exhaustion Cornelius had warned of was real.
But that deathly weakness was gone.
I was just tired.
That was all.
Just… tired.
I stumbled a little in my step.
“We’ll take you back to my place, make you something to eat?” Cassius suggested.
I nodded. “Sounds good.”
And then I went to snap my fingers.
To call my magic.
To teleport us.
I choked.
Velra winced.
Cassius tensed.
“Fuck,” I uttered. “I… it… I can’t… it’s gone.”
I collapsed to my knees.
Tears welled in my eyes, and as fast as I tried to blink them away, they kept coming.
I hung my head, unable to curtail any of it.
And then I was sobbing without restraint.
I felt arms around me, hands stroking, trying to offer comfort, trying to ease my pain.
But in the storm of despair sometimes comfort was futile.
Nothing could cut through the brutal reality that had just slammed into me.
I was without my magic.
And I was my magic.
Now I was just… nothing.