Chapter 6 Rune
rune
. . .
Thick, frigid magic latched onto my finger, and in that half-second, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even draw a breath into my lungs. It was so unlike any other poison or venom I’d been in contact with.
Coralynn had mentioned that magical essence rot was a byproduct from a dark magic ritual, so that meant it must’ve been rare. I hadn’t even heard of it before…but it was essentially a toxin. Wasn’t it?
Arms wound around me from behind, and my senses filled with daisies and jasmine.
Slater.
He yanked me back, his arms still wrapped tightly around my waist as we hit the root-covered dirt. His body broke our fall beneath mine as I landed sprawled across his chest. My heart was about to burst from my ribs just from our proximity.
“You alright, venom baby?” he breathed, voice tight. “You weren’t supposed to touch the rot.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I whispered, staring at my hand. My finger throbbed, sending twinges of agony up my arm toward my chest.
“Fuck.” He gripped my wrist to examine the spreading mark before the phantom started to scream again.
“I’ll be fine,” I assured us both.
The trapped phantom shrieked with such force it bent the trees around the circle, twisting them outward, splintering bark. My bones vibrated with it. Any higher pitch, and I’d think it was a banshee and not a phantom.
I leaned into Slater’s chest on instinct.
“This is not fine,” he insisted, holding me close. The heat of his body against mine made my magic fight a little harder against the rot. “What can I do?”
My skin prickled like it wanted to peel away, and my magic flared within my body, fighting the rot as it ate away at my magical essence.
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “It just eats my reserves, right? It’s not like it’ll kill me.”
“But then you’ll lose your supernatural powers. We need them.” His red eyes filled with worry as he stared down at me. “Especially if you’re going to pass.”
“I’m stronger than my powers,” I promised with a wince as the pain throbbed up my arm. “Let it eat away my reserves. I can always fill it again.”
“What do basilisks feed off of?” Slater frowned. “I don’t actually know.”
My legs rippled as scales threatened to take form, but I forced myself to calm. “Basilisks need to shift to fill their reserves. Thanks to my special power, though, I can consume poisons or be injected with venom to fill mine, too.”
“Venom?” He shifted us up to where we were sitting with me in his lap. “Like a snake bite?”
“Yeah, that’ll do it.” I sucked in a breath.
“Snakey.” Slater’s snake manifestation formed, curling around my arm and opening its mouth, its fangs flashing beautifully before they sank into the flesh of my wrist.
White-hot pain dissolved into pleasure as his venom pushed through my veins. I bit down on my lip to contain a moan as its venom filled my reserves.
His snake’s fangs pulled out, and his little tongue ghosted over my cheek before fading.
I collapsed into his arms a little more, euphoria from the venom making my limbs feel jello-like. “Snakey?”
“I named him when I was four, okay?” he mumbled shyly, his hands resting on my lower back. “Feel better, venom baby?”
“More than better, Havoc baby.” I grinned before bringing my finger in front of my face.
“Would you consider the rot a poison?” There was still the trail of green-black rot curling up my index finger-like ivy.
It pulsed with the rhythm of my heart, already trying to burrow itself deeper into my veins.
“I touched it, but maybe if I taste it...”
“Rune, wait—”
My tongue snaked out and licked the rot, coating it in a blazing heat.
“Rune!” Slater gripped my shoulders, checking me over like I was about to die in his arms. “Fates, are you okay? What do I need to do?”
As I swallowed, the rot burned my mouth, and it seared down my throat. Not a moment later, the effects faded.
“You don’t have to do anything, Havoc baby.”
The rot slipped from my finger the next instant, splashing onto the dirt beside us.
The rot stopped eating away at my essence, and instead, my reserves filled from the consumption.
“Just like I thought,” I murmured in victory before raising my hand out and letting my power flicker as I excreted the same rot from a fingertip.
“Holy shit,” Slater gasped, his grip on me loosening. “You just…reproduced it?”
I grinned wickedly. “My special power lets me have the ability to excrete any venom or poison I consume as my own venom.”
A flash of blinding light erupted from the rot before it evaporated into the air.
“I guess our squad managed to perform the purification ritual.” I gestured to the lack of magical essence rot webbing through the ground.
“Good for them. Listen, I love that you’re okay because you almost gave me a heart attack.” He huffed as if I’d insulted him before his lips worked into an enormous grin. “Hey, since I technically bit you, that makes you mine, right?”
“You’ll get used to that if you hang around me long enough. Technically, Snakey bit me, not you.” I glanced back at the magic circle.
The phantom had fallen still again, gasping within it.
“But Snakey is an extension of me, you see,” he explained, his hands finding my hips as he tightened his grip on me. “What do we do about that guy?”
“Let him go?” I answered with more of a question.
The rest of our squad arrived in a flurry of boots and crunching sticks.
“What the Fates happened here?” Zuko asked, crouching beside us with a smirk. “Are you flirting without stabbing now?”
“Why, jealous?” Slater shot him a cheeky grin.
“Nah.” Zuko winked at me. “I like it when she gets stabby.”
“I found the phantom,” I murmured, still a little dazed from Snakey’s venom. “He’s been here…this whole time.”
“Are you okay?” Koa crouched down next to Zuko and peered into my eyes. “Did you get bit by something?”
“Yeah, my snake,” Slater gloated.
“Stop hitting on her for once,” Dimitri snapped, running a hand over his jaw. “Is she okay?”
“Ask me yourself,” I suggested, hopping out of Slater’s lap and up to my feet, swaying a little. “Slater wasn’t flirting that time. His chaos manifestation did bite me.”
“Why?” Koa turned to Slater with a scowl. “It has venom, doesn’t it?”
“It was so I could fill my reserves.” I waved off their concern before gesturing to the binding circle with the phantom inside. “It was fantastic, anyway, the phantom.”
“Fantastic?” Koa repeated, confused.
“Fill your reserves?” Zuko asked. “That’s not how basilisks…”
“Special power.” I bowed before stumbling slightly.
He nodded as if that explained everything. “Gotcha.”
Dimitri stepped forward, arms crossed, brow low. “We shouldn’t get involved with the phantom. He looks unstable.”
“He’s suffering,” Eleanor disagreed, stepping forward as she wrung her fingers together.
“He’s not a threat to us. He’s a victim.
That binding circle was leaking magical essence rot.
It killed the land, and there’s no telling what it’s done to him in the last twenty years. Leaving him is unethical.”
“He’s not totally harmless,” Slater threw out casually, getting to his feet next to me. “He lunged at Rune several times.”
“He’s traumatized,” Eleanor explained softly. “Not evil. You’d do the same after twenty years of being alone, tortured by magic with zero magical reserves because of it.”
A tense silence passed over us.
“Wait a second,” Coralynn interjected, holding out a finger. “How would a phantom survive twenty years of this without food or water?”
“Can’t magic circles keep someone alive?” Aura asked, her lips pouting as she stared at the poor phantom.
“It could,” Coralynn answered. “But it would be a seriously strong magic circle for that to happen.”
“Can you tell if that’s the case here?” Dimitri asked, his jaw tightening as his red eyes swept our surroundings.
The phantom stayed on his knees with his head down. He didn’t even acknowledge us anymore.
“I can’t.” She shook her head softly. “But it is possible.”
“Does it matter either way?” Eleanor asked, her tone pleading. “He’s a phantom. A supernatural just like us. He’s suffered. How can we not at least give him a chance?”
“That’s…true,” Coralynn murmured. “If I had been kept like that, I would hope someone would try to save me.”
I nibbled on my bottom lip and looked over at him. He was pale with hair covered in dirt to the point that I couldn’t even tell what his actual hair color was. He was skin and bones, and he was mumbling something over and over again.
Even with my basilisk hearing, I couldn’t understand it over the hum of the magic circle.
“Drecken said the arcane specialist was to decide,” Dimitri muttered, glancing at Slater.
“Vote on it,” Slater answered automatically with a quick glance in my direction. “We’re all involved here, so I don’t want to take the choice away from the majority. Team work makes the dream work, you know?”
The corner of my mouth curled into a smile.
“Good idea,” Eleanor murmured with a soft smile. “I just want everyone to think about how they’d feel in this situation.”
“Show of hands for destroying the circle and freeing the phantom,” Dimitri announced.
Dimitri kept his hand down, along with me and Slater.
Eleanor, Koa, Aura, Zuko, and Coralynn raised their hands.
“Votes are in.” Dimitri winced.
A sick feeling bottomed out in my gut.
“I guess we let him out, then.” Slater raised a hesitant hand.
His chaos magic flared to life in the shape of his long, hissing serpent.
The snake was four-times his normal size, and he untangled from Slater and slid toward the circle with a flick of its shimmering tongue. “Break it,” Slater instructed.
Snakey’s tail pushed over the circle, and lightning-like magic struck around it before it shattered in a thunderous wave of dark bolts and cracking runes.
The phantom man stood, whole for the first time since I’d seen him. He didn’t flicker, and he stood straight-backed as if he hadn’t been suffering in a magic circle for twenty years.