Chapter 52 #2
“Xaimur wasn’t pleased to know she was empowering the mortals.
After all, how could he corrupt them if they were magical?
” We dodge a puddle of wolf guts. “So he used his own magic to try and destroy the island, hence this massive crater we’re in.
But Orvena took Azidel and hid him in a blessed temple.
That temple.” He tips his head at Elphar’s temple, which is a short distance ahead.
“Elphar was the son of Azidel, and he possessed magic, too. He traveled often and brought back a lot of food, goods, and treasure as a way to thank Orvena for protecting them. But I assume it all became too much. Xaimur kept throwing his creatures at Azidel in hopes of stealing his power. He killed off many mortals while this happened, so Azidel decided to send Elphar away from Noreven for good. No one truly knows what happened between Orvena and Azidel afterward, but what we do know is nothing created by Xaimur can enter that temple.”
“And you studied all of this?” I ask, side-eyeing him.
Thane places me on the ground next to Algar, who is resting his head on a large stone with his eyes closed. His skin looks ashen and devoid of its usual color.
“Yes.” Thane takes the wrap off of my thigh. “It’s healing. Good.”
I look down with him, watching the skin slowly stitch back together.
Rynthea lifts her head. Her chest is covered in blood, but her first wounds are slowly healing.
“Rynthea. Are you okay?” I ask.
“Stupid hound nicked me again, but I’ll be all right.” A grunt slips out of her as she wipes some of the blood off her buffers.
I put my focus on Algar. “Algar?”
He doesn’t budge.
Worry niggles at me. “Algar?” I try again.
Rynthea’s eyebrows pull together as she slides closer to him. “Hey. Algar?” She shakes him by the shoulder, causing his head to loll to the side.
“What happened to him?” I move closer, ignoring the lingering pain in my thigh.
“I don’t know. He was just fine,” Rynthea replies in a panicky voice.
Thane drops to one knee and gives Algar a thorough once-over. Then he pulls him forward by his shirt to reveal the back of his neck. I gasp, and Rynthea and I both lean backward when we see the slimy, bloated gray thing attached to his skin.
“Shit. It’s a leech.” Thane lifts a hand above Algar’s neck, and the leech’s skin sizzles before it falls off and curls into a crisp on the jungle floor. I back away as Thane uses his magic to flick it away from us.
“I’ve seen leeches,” Rynthea says, head shaking. “Never that size or that color.”
“Welcome to The Shallows,” Thane mutters. “Help me lay him all the way down.”
Rynthea helps place Algar flat on his back. His lips are now turning blue, and more of the color is draining from his face.
“It must’ve been venomous.” Thane opens Algar’s mouth to reveal yellow foam accumulating on the perimeter of his tongue.
“No.” My chest tightens. “How do we get it out of him?”
Panic begins to set in as we realize the severity of his situation.
Thane sighs, dropping his head. “I can draw it out…”
“Okay, so do it!” Rynthea demands, perched on her knees now.
“It’s not that simple,” Thane retorts. “He’s on the brink of death. To bring him back, that’ll require me to tap into full black magic.”
“Aren’t you already using that?” Rynthea questions with a frown. “With all the shadows that come off of you when you fight. Seems pretty black to me!”
“That’s not full black magic,” he counters. “You need a source to do that. What you’ve seen me using is gray magic, which means I use little parts of black and merge it with the white, which is safer. That’s what we were taught in The Shadow Guild.”
“Wait a minute. The what?” Rynthea counters.
Thane eyes her. “That’s beside the point right now. We need to focus on Algar.”
I can tell it takes everything in her not to blow up on him. But he’s right. Algar is more important right now than whatever fucked-up-ness happened in Thane’s past.
“What happens if you use it?” I ask him.
“My thoughts become corrupted,” he answers in a lower voice.
“I can lose control. Once the black magic sucks away all my energy, I’m forced to find energy elsewhere.
Normally from another sorcerer…or a mortal, which is why I said you need a source to continuously use black magic.
” He pauses, eyes falling to Algar again.
“As my own control slips away, it makes it easier for someone more powerful to control me, too.”
I frown. “Like who?”
“You know who.”
I pause, blinking. I know exactly who.
“Well, Algar needs us,” I assert. “We can’t let him die. You’ll have to use it, just this once.”
“I agree,” says Rynthea. “You’re strong. I’m sure you can control it.”
Thane looks down at Algar, his brows furrowing and his hands curling into fists. He shakes his head left and right, as if battling with his own thoughts. Then, with a sigh, he closes his eyes and exhales.
“You and Rynthea need to move back,” he instructs.
We do as we’re told, shifting farther away from the men. He sets his hands above Algar’s chest, and instead of his eyes sparking their usual gold, they darken. The bright gold transitions to black, and inky veins crawl along the whites of his eyes.
The amber in his palms melts away to be replaced with tendrils of black. This isn’t like the shadows he gives off when fighting or defending. This is a thick, inky smoke—one that could suffocate a person if he wanted it to.
Thane’s lips are moving, but he’s speaking too low for me to understand. It has to be a sorcerer’s chant of some kind. The more his lips move, more smoke appears, curling around his hands and snaking up his forearms. As he repeats the incantation, droplets are being drawn out of Algar’s chest.
They accumulate into one yellowish ball no bigger than a cherry. Thane finally stops chanting and shifts the venom a great distance away from us. It splashes abruptly on the ground. Thane finally drops his hands with a weary grunt. The shadows disappear, almost as if his body has absorbed them.
“Thane?” I call softly.
He flicks his gaze my way with a ticking jaw, and my breath hitches. His eyes are still black, and there is something cold about his stare. Something truly menacing.
It terrifies me.
Rynthea leans forward and glares at Thane, blocking me with an arm across my chest, her other hand on the dagger at her waist.
“Snap out of it, sorcerer,” Rynthea warns.
Thane closes his eyes, breathing in through his nostrils. When he exhales and opens his eyes again, they’re back to normal. Mostly.
“A-are you okay?” I ask warily.
“Fine,” he mumbles, looking away.
Algar sucks in a sharp breath and springs up, immediately drawing one of his daggers and babbling incoherently.
“Settle down.” Rynthea goes to him, forcing his arm down. She can’t help but laugh.
“What the shadows just happened?” he wheezes.
“Thane just saved your life,” Rynthea informs him.
“Did he? I knew he still cared about me.” Algar looks for his friend, but Thane is already wandering away.
I press my hands to a nearby stone to stand but can’t pull my eyes away from Thane. His hands are shaking as he stares at them, lines of concern etched into his forehead.
Yes, Thane saved Algar’s life. He barely hesitated to do so, despite the repercussions he could’ve faced from using black magic.
But was it the right thing to do? Did we push him too far?
As I stare at him, recalling that cold, wicked look in his eyes, I wonder just how much it has cost him to save our friend.