Chapter 62 Two Favors in One
Two Favors in One
Asterious
As his senses flooded back, the visions in his mind slipped away like ghosts, leaving him to face a reality just as horrifying—a burning forest, a broken blade, and his mate lifeless on the snow, an ominous tear forming in the Veil before them.
Nothing mattered. Not the smoke stinging his nostrils with each inhale of the smog and cinders. Not the wildfire, not the bloodied melting snow, not the blackened trees that seemed to bow to their dying queen. Nothing mattered but her.
If she was gone, let him die with her. Let him be damned to be a prowling mindless beast for all eternity. It would be far more merciful than a lifetime spent without his mate.
Sinevia had taken her from him and left him here to watch her fade. And with her had vanished a shard of the Blade—a sign that she was not defeated, but gone by choice with a relic she’d no doubt taken for dark purposes far more sinister than he could imagine.
He dropped to his knees and gathered her into his arms. There was no gasp of breath, no hint of life to be found in her limp body, and even as hellfire illuminated the forest around them, the entire world fell dark to Asterious.
“No,” he whispered, a lump burning in his throat. “Cara, please...”
She clung to him with a feeble touch. Those dusky violet eyes fluttered shut over an emotion he could not decipher beyond pain and fear. His chest hollowed as he held her, watching a thin line of blood trickle from her mouth.
“No!”
Shadows snaked around them like vipers ready to strike, hissing and wailing their mournful song.
As her life flickered, so did the cracks forming in the Veil, as though her fading soul was splitting it open.
And now as it rippled with the weakening of her heartbeats, the arms of the Veil reached out, Shadows surrounding her like a mantle, coming for her, as if clawing at some desperate attempt to save itself by reclaiming her.
“You can’t take her!” His desperate shouts turned to cries, through blinding tears that he could not swallow back. “You can’t take her! You can’t! You can’t…”
He buried his face into her neck, nestling into her hair as though he could revive her with the anguish in his cries. And there he felt the faintest slip of breath graze his ear.
There was still some life left in her.
He clutched her hopelessly, rocking her back and forth on the ground as embers and Shadow danced around them. His howls overpowered the roaring flames, filling the Woods with desperate pleas to whatever gods or winds or ancient fates were listening. To save her. To save his mate.
And at his most hopeless, as he stared down at her, he noticed something peeking out from her pocket. It was the talisman Brenn had given her, and all at once Asterious remembered what he’d overheard him tell her on the ship.
Use this. I will come.
He clutched the charm, whispering the name, and prayed it would be enough.
Long moments followed filled with nothing but the agonizing crackling of fire and the sounds of the writhing Shadows within the Veil echoing their cries as they demanded their keeper.
Asterious watched Caramyn’s chest, counting the seconds in between her feeble last breaths. He squeezed her cold hand, a tear falling onto her wound and mixing with the blood oozing from her stomach.
Footsteps made him jump, and the smallest bit of hope sprung up within him at the sight of Brenn walking toward them through the flames. He did not understand how it was possible for him to find them, or how he’d gotten here. But he didn’t give a damn.
“Help her…please!” His voice cracked.
Brenn looked at Caramyn with gentle, pitied eyes, before addressing the prince. “I don’t know what I can do for her.” He crouched down beside Caramyn, placing a steady hand on her neck. Asterious watched, unable to blink as the warmth of her skin faded to a cold pallor despite the fire’s glow.
“You’re telling me there’s nothing that can save her?” Asterious hit the ground with his fist so hard he thought the earth might crack beneath it. “Aren’t you the healer who spoke so highly of your magic? What good is it if you can’t save her?”
Brenn swallowed, his brow beginning to sweat as the flames drew dangerously near. He wouldn’t look at Asterious. Shadows shifted around him, whispering, threatening to take Caramyn once and for all as the tear in the Veil grew wider.
He finally spoke. “Reviving someone from the brink of death…it just isn’t done. And even if it could be, a life cannot be given without a life taken. Healing magic takes this very seriously.”
“Use mine.” Asterious spat.
“It means you’ll die.” Brenn glanced up at him.
“I don’t care. Use it. Take my life and save Caramyn’s. I gladly give it up for hers.”
Brenn hesitated before looking back down at the dying girl. “This may not work the way you want it to, Asterious, I’m begging you to reconsider—”
“Fucking save her!” the prince roared.
Brenn nodded stiffly. “Very well,” he said. “I...I need a vessel. Something forged to channel magic.”
Asterious turned to glimpse his shreds of clothing lying nearby, immediately thinking of an object that could suffice. He scrambled to his feet, searching the torn shirt for his mother’s ring. It was there, somehow undisturbed in the shirt pocket, thank the Shattered gods.
He couldn’t work it out of the fabric fast enough, and held it up, breathless. “Will this work?”
Brenn studied the ring. “Is it enchanted already?”
“Yes, by Lightborn magic.”
Brenn frowned. “I can't undo the enchantment. Is there anything else?”
“Damn it, Brenn!” Asterious threw the ring into the fire, glancing over once more at Caramyn’s lifeless form. She had to be gone by now.
Then a glint of something caught his eye, the firelight reflecting off something in the ground beyond where they stood.
The broken blade of the Shadowblood’s sword.
It had been strong enough to hold whatever power had exploded from it when it splintered into pieces.
Surely it could channel a healing spell strong enough to pull Caramyn from the arms of death.
He rushed over, grabbing a fragment of the blade and sprinting back to Brenn. The fire should have swallowed them now, but the Shadows seemed to be slowing the flames as they prowled, circling in wait, to claim Caramyn the second she slipped from this world.
“This will work. It has to work.” He held the shard up to Brenn’s face, the reflection of his own eyes staring back at him in the obsidian blade.
Brenn reached out to take the broken piece, his fingers tense and his expression leery. “This is a Shadow relic. I don’t know what catastrophe could ensue by channeling Light magic with a Shadow vessel. I know better than to dabble in something that may very well steal my soul in return.”
Asterious’ gaze hardened. “I’ll damn your soul and my own a thousand times if it means saving hers. She is a Shadowblood. It will not corrupt her.”
Brenn’s eyes darkened. “I will try,” he rasped. “But I warn you, I don’t know what will happen.”
“I don’t care what happens to you or me,” Asterious growled. “Just save her before it’s too late!” He snatched the midnight shard from Brenn’s grasp and placed it in Caramyn’s open palm. “Now do what needs to be done! If it kills me and saves her, you’ll have done the world two favors in one.”
With a heavy sigh, Brenn stooped to slice Caramyn’s open hand with the fragment, a line of bright crimson oozing from the cut. “Now yours. So that your life can flow to her through the connection the Blade creates,” he said.
Asterious did as he instructed, hands trembling as he swiped the broken blade across his own palm.
He gazed down at Caramyn, her eyes now closed as though she was sleeping.
Still beautiful. His rose, wilting before him as he longed for nothing more than to see those striking eyes of amethyst once more, knowing that if—when—her eyes opened again, he would not be alive to see it.
But it was a cruel price he would gladly pay.
Brenn placed the bloodied shard over Caramyn’s heart, lifted his hands with a nod, and began an incantation. Words flowed from him, different from Sinevia’s dark rune spells. Lighter, more poetic. More hopeful.
As though struggling against some invisible entity, Brenn fought to get out his words.
A stream of light flowed forth from the broken blade, weakening as it stretched toward the wound in Asterious’ palm, its glow dimming with the effort.
The prince waited, expecting to feel the life pulled from him at any moment, but with bitter, aching disappointment, he felt nothing.
“Stop holding back, mage!” cried Asterious.
Brenn’s eyes sharpened with coldness as he shot a threatening glare at the prince.
“I do this only for her. Not for you. Never for you.”
With a shout that reverberated so loud it might split the Veil, Brenn opened his arms wide.
He called the Shadows in his enchanted language, and they merged with the golden current of his healing Light magic, twisting and intertwining with renewed strength.
Whatever repercussions could come of it, Asterious decided it couldn't be worse than letting Caramyn die.
The blinding glow of light coiled within the spiraling starkness of Shadows snaked from the blade, over Caramyn’s heart, crawling like ivy up her arm and then Asterious’.
As Brenn chanted harder, sweat now beading on his brow, a sudden crushing pain gripped Asterious’ heart, tightening with relentless strength far more intense than even the pain he’d felt under Sinevia’s curse.
Despite the agony, he stilled his quivering body by reassuring himself that the pain meant his life was now being transferred to Caramyn.
The pressure in his chest grew suffocating, and his heartbeat thundered in his ears, slowing beneath the crushing sensation.
And just as he felt he could no longer bear it, Caramyn’s eyes flew open.
Her chest rose as she dragged in a sharp, desperate breath, color blooming back into her face.
And with the certainty of her survival seared into him at last, he finally let go.