Chapter 22 #2
Before he could rip it off, the entire apartment lit up with a flaming orange light.
A cascading warmth overcame the room, filling Kienna with life despite the death trailing after them.
The shadows continued through it, but over Danek’s shoulder, Kienna saw Tislin’s eyes return to normal.
Moira beamed so brightly that she was but a speck in the rays.
Tislin stumbled in pain through it as he followed the shadows.
Moira stayed by his side while he cast his hand up and pulled the shadows back.
One by one, they screeched and disappeared into Tislin.
Kienna slumped to the ground. Moira slowly let go of her own light and sat, too, visibly shaken and worn from whatever she had to do to get the sun to appear.
Tislin and Danek stared at each other. Tislin’s cut dripped blood, pools of red staining his body.
He needed extensive healing, and their only healer present needed his own recovery.
Kienna’s shoulder ached. She ran her good hand over her face, forcing the tears away. Crying wouldn’t fix this. She stood. “Moira, go get Elowen. At the very least, we need an adult to help us.”
“We are adults,” she said, voice low and distant.
Kienna extended her hand to help her up. “More competent adults. We aren’t equipped for this. Please. Ruva’s outside. She’ll walk with you.”
Moira glanced at Tislin as he shook to hold himself upright. Kienna put her arm around Tislin and wrapped him over her shoulder until he held on. She escorted him to the bed, nudging her head at Moira to indicate she meant business.
“Danek, go lie down,” Kienna said once Moira left.
He barely made it to the couch before crumbling into the cushions.
Kienna helped Tislin settle, trying with all her might not to bring him further pain as blood continued pouring down his side.
Kienna retrieved a wet cloth and pressed it against his side.
He flinched before easing into a calmer state.
As she wiped the blood, Tislin touched her wrist. “Next time, let me die.”
“Not a chance,” she said, darting her eyes up only once to make sure his were still normal. The black veins coursed around his wound, fainter now, but still there. Kienna closed her eyes, sending her mind back out. Are you at least coming back?
Of course, I am. Connak’s voice was laced with exhaustion, urgency, and a twinge of hurt that she would have thought otherwise.
Kienna was tired of fighting with Connak. She wanted to know he was there when things went sideways. Despite their history, he was a part of her, and the void hurt more than any of it.
I’m on my way with Tristian.
Tislin won’t like that. If he survives, I mean.
He needs to be there, Kienna. It’s his brother, Connak said. No one deserves to receive this kind of news when it’s over. What’s the report?
He’s bleeding again. I don’t know how much you healed, but he looks worse than when he got here. The black veins—
Was he stabbed with a weapon made in Alverton?
I don’t know. I wasn’t there when he got stabbed. Only after.
Moira returned with Elowen, who carried a bag full of herbs and supplies. She’d left her rodents at home, and for that, Kienna was grateful.
“If things go sideways again, Elowen leaves immediately, understand?” Moira said firmly. Kienna agreed and stood from Tislin’s side.
Elowen approached, examining him. Kienna and Moira joined Danek. His fingers were beyond Elowen’s repair.
Let’s assume he was, Kienna replied to Connak. Would that have possessed him with shadows? Whatever had a hold of him destroyed Danek’s hands.
What color are his hands?
Black and blue, like a bruise.
You need to stop the spread. Can Moira cast a protection barrier?
Though exhausted, neither of them would rest, and Moira agreed by wrapping an orange ball of buzzing electricity around Danek’s hand, as they had all done for years in River Storm. The faint memory danced between them as a reminder of their cage.
Are his hands cold or hot?
Danek says both.
Damn shadows. Listen closely.
“Connak says we need to neutralize his hands. Something hot and something cold. Not too much,” Kienna explained to Moira.
Listen, I promise we will be there in two hours. Do this for me, and I can save them.
Moira was confident that they could both find heat, but the ice would prove far more difficult in the grand scheme of things.
“You can summon weather, too, I thought,” Kienna said.
“Barely, but I don’t have an energy source to pull from.”
“Pull from me.”
“What?”
Danek sat up. “Yeah, what?”
“Most of the time, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m begging you all to trust me.
” Kienna scanned them both. It was an instinct within her, telling her she could share her energy with them.
She didn’t know how, but she didn’t have time to question it.
Her body—her magic—begged her to do this.
“Your magic may be specified, but it comes from you, and only you. Moira proved that when she became the sun. She didn’t need it to be visible because it’s within her.
Take the energy from me, please, and put an ice storm in Danek’s barrier. I’ll give him the heat.”
They shifted amongst themselves.
Moira placed her hand into the barrier, her other hand on Kienna’s shoulder. After a moment of pushing, she shot blue ice into the orb. Snow sprinkled, swirling around Danek’s fingers.
Danek nodded, wincing from the cold. “Now the heat.”