Chapter 8
DARIAL
Kelan loosens his hold on Aura’s magic the way one might loosen a fist that has been clenched too long.
The change is immediate. The air inside the cave seems to shiver, no longer tight and pressurized but expanding.
The sharp metallic tension that had threaded through my veins softens.
The hum of her power returns in a low, trembling note.
Aura senses it too.
Her spine straightens, her inhale deepens, and beneath the fading restraint, her magic answers, alive, aware, and very much her own.
She straightens where she sits on the edge of the bed, her shoulders tensing, and her hands bracing against her thighs. Her eyes flicker with sharp uncertainty, as if she expects the magic to betray her the moment she acknowledges it, or us to call it back before she has a chance to wield it.
“You’re not bound anymore,” I say quietly, determined to reassure her. “We’re… standing close.”
Ronyn lets out a breath from where he leans against the stone wall. “Think of it like guardrails,” he adds. “You’re still the one driving.”
Aura’s mouth twists, but she nods once.
Slowly, she lifts her hands.
The magic gathers between them like the flicker of a flame or the bubbling of a boiling pot rather than with the power of violent rending. Pale light blooms, illuminating her fingers and the faint scars that line her skin.
She stares at it, startled, then swallows and looks at me.
“Try,” I say.
She presses her hands to her forearm.
Small cuts fade beneath her touch, the skin knitting itself together with quiet efficiency. She inhales sharply, then laughs once, breathless and disbelieving.
“I can feel it,” she murmurs. “It knows where to go.”
Kelan inclines his head. Ronyn’s posture eases a fraction.
Encouraged, Aura shifts her focus lower.
Her feet are in the poorest shape: bruised, cracked, marked by shallow gashes she’s clearly ignored for too long. Hesitation flickers across her face when she looks at them, the memory of pain making her magic waver.
“Slowly,” I murmur. “There’s no rush.”
She presses her glowing hands to her feet.
This time, the magic burns brighter, and her jaw tightens as she works to heal the more severe damage. Her breath hitches as skin seals and swelling eases. The light pulses, then dims, and she sags back against the bed with a small, frustrated sound.
“That’s enough,” Kelan says, firmly. “You’ve done well.”
She nods, exhausted.
Her hand drifts to her throat before she seems to realize it. The change in her is immediate. Her fingers hover over the scars there, and her magic recoils sharply, folding in on itself like the memory of pain has burned through it too many times.
“You can heal that, too.” I touch my own throat to emphasize what I mean.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “I can’t.”
The word is absolute, but the break in her voice is made more of regret than hesitation.
I move without thinking, kneeling in front of Aura, careful to keep my movements slow and non-threatening. She watches me warily but doesn’t pull away.
Her throat works as she swallows. “It’s more than badly healed skin.”
“I know,” I say softly. “There are memories that linger within it. Ones that protect as well as hurt.”
She closes her eyes as her fingers trace the rough ridges at her throat.
“Fear is a protective instinct,” she says. “I wish I didn’t have so much experience with it, but I won’t ever underestimate how important it is to remember how easily I can be hurt.”
“There are two things I need you to understand,” I say, shifting closer. “The first is that you will never have to fear what you’ve been running from again.”
When her green eyes open and focus on me, they’re clouded with disbelief and uncertainty.
“The second is that you don’t need the physical scar to remind you not to trust easily. The psychological one is still there. Why hold on to both if you can heal one?”
I press my fingers to my temple first, and then my heart.
She’s still for a while, studying me and considering my words.
I lift my hand, pausing inches from hers. “May I help?”
After a long moment, she whispers, ‘Yes.’
Her hand is warm when I take it, and so small, it disappears into my wide palm. When we touch, residual magic hums between us. I guide her fingers back to her throat, pressing them gently over the scar.
“Close your eyes,” I tell her. “Release the memories while the magic works. Let it move where it wants.”
I close my own so I can focus more keenly.
Aura’s magic rises shakily. Heat blooms beneath her fingers, the light flaring bright enough to see through closed lids as the scar softens and smooths and then disappears entirely.
She inhales sharply.
When she opens her eyes, disbelief floods her face. She traces her throat with trembling fingers, testing, swallowing carefully.
I trace the soft, unblemished skin there too, smiling.
A broken sound escapes her, half laugh and half sob, and tears spill over.
Inside me, my dragon roars at her pain, and I draw her gently into my lap, wrapping my arms tightly enough to stop her from shaking.
She stiffens for a heartbeat, then collapses against me, grief and exhaustion finally breaking through as she allows herself to cry quietly with her face pressed to my chest.
Kelan turns away, offering privacy without comment. Ronyn’s jaw flexes as his amber eyes blaze protectively.
Through our mind connection, Kelan growls, if he wasn’t already in the grave… He shakes his head, and images of violence pour from my alpha to this slain foe, Gregory.
We must focus on restoring her strength, I respond. Before we reveal who she is to us and what she must sacrifice.
She’ll relinquish her magic willingly, Ronyn says. She fears it more than she enjoys it.
Maybe. Even in my own mind, I don’t sound convinced.
Aura shivers in my arms as my dragon heat warms her through. I stroke her hair, and the echo of her magic settles.
She doesn’t trust us. She has no reason to. We haven’t even told her our names, but she allows me to hold her and comfort her. She allows me to touch her and murmur soft encouragement.
And for all her bravado, I’m certain her loneliness is the deepest wound she carries.
Magic can’t heal everything, no matter how much we wish it could.