Chapter 82 #2
“Yes.” Faylinn’s voice was hard, but her eyes were soft. Empathy, pity, and sorrow; all warring emotions. “If they overload your system with pain again tomorrow . . . you’ll Awaken. And your body won’t be able to support it.”
The way she spoke was so factual. I believed every word she said.
Partly because I trusted Faylinn. Partly because I’d seen it happen countless times over the past months. But mostly because I felt it. Like my own blood would kill me.
My hands shook as I framed Faylinn’s face, never peeling my eyes from hers.
“Then stay with me tomorrow? Don’t let me die alone,” I whispered, and a single tear fell from her eye, which I brushed gently away.
“Let me help you,” she whispered against my lips.
“How? It doesn’t work. We’ve seen it, Fay. Lord d’Refan is . . . wrong. You can’t hold two affinities.”
She shook her head against my own.
“He’s not wrong, Lex. He just doesn’t have all the puzzle pieces.” Her voice was barely audible, like she was telling me a dark secret.
“What do you mean, Faylinn?” I asked, daring to hope.
“In order to carry two affinities, there needs to be a conduit. An additive agent. Something that supports the body in its transition.”
She paused, and I waited for her to continue.
“A rune, Lex. There’s a specific rune that allows a person to carry two affinities. But to draw the rune, it requires a blood sacrifice from another,” she whispered against my lips.
“Blood is magic . . .” I mused back and felt her smile.
“Yes, blood is magic.”
“How do you know this, Faylinn?”
“I told you that in my village, we practice—practiced—runic magic. The ancient Blood Magic. There are texts there that date back to the fall of the gods—the Sundering. Some even predate it. Well, our elders quickly discovered that in order for the rune to work, the blood sacrifice had to come from someone who was not yet Awakened. There weren’t many unAwakened adults in our community, even fewer children.
” Her voice wavered, and I had to strain to hear her words.
Faylinn paused, breathing hard, and her words finally hit me.
Not many children. The scars on her arms before she was even placed here. Her parents selling her off but Faylinn understanding . . .
“No.” My voice broke as I came to the realization. “No, Fay. I’m not going to do that to you. Especially after what you’ve been through at their hands. At the hands of the men here. No, I won’t be another man who hurts you.”
Faylinn smiled again, but it was weak.
“But that’s the thing, Lex. You’re not taking it from me. I’m freely giving it. Let me do this one thing for you, Lex. Please. Let me give my blood for you. Let me help you live. Because if you die tomorrow, I’ll follow you straight through.”
I stroked her hair, her chin, her cheek, brushing the tears away that were freely falling.
“Okay,” I muttered, and I felt her sag in my hands. Faylinn turned her face into my palm and laid a single kiss on it before taking it from her cheek.
Hesitantly, I pulled my arms back and awkwardly held them in my lap, waiting for her next move.
“Thank you, Lex.”
My mouth was a tight line as I jerkily nodded once.
I didn’t want to die, far from it. But I also didn’t want to cause her more pain.
More than either of those, though, I didn’t want there to be an Elyria where Faylinn didn’t exist. She was kind and strong, intelligent and just good. And I believed her when she said she wouldn’t survive if I died.
I had little problem dying tomorrow if it would cause less strife for those I loved.
Dying was easy. Living . . . living was hard.
“Turn around, Lex. I’m going to place the rune in an inconspicuous spot. I don’t want them to see it tomorrow.” I obliged, pressing my bare back against the cool metal. I heard rustling from Faylinn’s cell, and I turned my head slightly to see what she was doing.
Somehow, Faylinn had worked one of the nails loose from the cell wall. I chuffed a laugh.
Resourceful minx.
I felt her presence warm my back as her hand came to rest against my left shoulder blade.
“This is going to hurt. But you need to stay quiet, okay?” she breathed against my neck.
I nodded in response.
“Okay,” she said more to herself than to me.
She took a deep breath before exhaling forcefully and pushing the nail into the skin of my neck, just under my hair.
I hissed in pain as the nail scratched against my bone.
“I’m sorry, Lex, I’m sorry. But it’s the only place I can put it. And it needs to bleed in order to work.”
“It’s fine,” I gritted through my teeth, thinking about anything other than what was happening behind my head.
Faylinn muttered words I couldn’t hear as she drew into my skin, and I could feel my blood—hot and sticky—running between my shoulder blades.
Abruptly, the nail came out of my skin, and I heard Faylinn’s hiss of pain as she cut herself open. I squeezed my eyes shut, desperately trying not to think about her hurting herself for me.
Soon, I felt the warmth of her fingertip as she traced the rune on my neck, a tingling sensation rising in my fingers and toes.
It wasn’t uncomfortable, necessarily, just foreign.
It moved quickly as Faylinn traced, traversing up my legs and arms, until I felt it everywhere.
As quickly as she began, she pulled her finger away, and I felt an explosion of warmth from somewhere within my gut.
I grunted as the sensation became all-encompassing, trying desperately to keep quiet. To keep from alerting the men in black robes.
Before I blacked out from the feeling, I heard Faylinn’s muffled cry as she fell away from the bars of the cage.
“Come, Child. Come with me.” A deep, unfamiliar voice reverberated through my mind, forcing me to consciousness.
“Who are you?” That voice I recognized—Faylinn. But she was weak.
“Fate,” the voice said with a hint of amusement.
Fate? I’m hallucinating.
I pulled my eyes open with a herculean effort, trying not to move and alert Fate—or whoever the man was—that I was awake. I needed eyes on Faylinn. I needed to protect her.
The room was bathed in darkness, a soft glow from the orb nearest the door the only light by which to see. My vision was clouded—like I was looking through fog, and I squinted to see better.
“I know you’re awake, boy,” the voice chuckled, and I abandoned all pretenses of sleeping. “If I didn’t want you awake, you wouldn’t be.”
I carefully pushed myself to a seated position, my eyes never leaving Faylinn’s prone form clutched in the man’s arms.
He was tall—impossibly tall—and gave off an aura of foreboding. I felt like I couldn’t look directly at him, but I pushed past the discomfort to gaze upon his face.
Fate wore a black cloak, but it glowed softly. I strained my eyes and could just barely make out thousands upon thousands of glowing and pulsating runes. I couldn’t see his face, so hidden by his cloak, but his voice was amorphous. I knew it, but I couldn’t place it.
The whole effect was incredibly disorienting.
My eyes focused next on Faylinn hanging limply in his arms.
“Where are you taking her?” The strength of my voice surprised me.
“Away from here. I have a . . . deal with her mother.”
I was shocked Fate answered my question. He must have seen my surprise because he chuckled lowly.
“You won’t remember anything I don’t want you to, boy. My secrets are safe,” he admitted, and I nodded my head.
“Will I remember her?” I gestured to Faylinn, and Fate shrugged his shoulders before removing one hand holding Faylinn’s body. He reached toward me, but halted, folding his arm back under her body.
“She’s marked you,” he said, almost quizzically. “And you’ve marked her. But not in the sense I would have expected. How . . . interesting.”
Marked?
My hand involuntarily flew to the back of my neck, and I felt the rune there. But it was no longer an open wound. It was smooth, flat. I knew, even without being able to see it, that it wouldn’t be visible.
“Will she be safe?” I asked when Fate supplied nothing else.
He dipped his head once.
“Yes. She will be safe.”
I nodded, wanting to demand something of him, but scared to anger a god.
Fate laughed.
“Speak your mind, boy.”
“Take away her memories of this place. And of the place before. Please. Let her forget. Let her live in peace,” I pleaded, my voice cracking.
Fate went eerily still.
“You desire her to forget everything? Even you?”
“Especially me. I don’t want her to feel guilt. Or pain. Or remember suffering. She’s good and kind. And strong. But no person should have to live through these memories,” I admitted.
“Someone has to carry the memories, Lex d’Talionis,” Fate said dryly.
“I’ll carry them,” I said without hesitation. “I’ll carry them for both of us.”
A strange humming filled the air, and Fate was suddenly in my cell, towering over me with Faylinn still in his arms. I quickly scrambled to my feet, desperate to see her face one last time.
“You are a strange human.”
I shrugged my shoulders, and Fate sighed.
“Very well, the bargain is struck. Come here.”
I shuffled closer to Fate, laying my hand on Faylinn’s arm and stroking softly.
“Goodbye, Faylinn,” I said as I leaned over and softly kissed her forehead. I hoped I never saw her again. I hoped I would see her every day for the rest of my life.
It was a conflict of emotions.
Fate reached for my forehead but paused at the last second.
“Child of Fate,” he breathed, almost in awe. “I will be seeing you again, child. I look forward to that day.”
Before I could ask what he meant, he placed a hand so cold it was almost hot on my forehead, and I screamed in agony, Faylinn’s memories assaulting my own, burrowing deep into the recesses of my mind until I didn’t know where my memories stopped and hers began.
It felt like an eternity that I screamed.
But, eventually, the assault of pain stopped and I opened my eyes.
The room was no longer foggy, the lights back to their normal level.
Faylinn’s cell was empty, Fate and Faylinn nowhere to be seen.
I smiled slightly, even as tears fell down my face.
Go, Fay. I’ll see you again in my dreams. Where you’re happy and whole, and no one can hurt you. And thank you, Fay. I promise I won’t waste the gift you gave me.
I took a breath, steeling myself for tomorrow.
Because tomorrow, I would Awaken.
And then I would live.