Chapter 59
“Never have I felt such power harnessed by humans. I questioned the Black One’s truth before. Even with the Oath that binds his soul. Not now. Nyth will fall to them. I must find new hunting grounds.”
~Words from the Darkness
Azric
Rhaskar Thorne is in bed as the sun peaks over the horizon, and I appear before him with Fiona on my shoulder. Her body is still shaking, and I can feel the life fleeing from her.
“Get up!” I snarl at the man Fiona once called Father.
His eyes snap open, and his hand moves in my direction.
I know the movement for what it is, for what Fiona used it for: to call dragonfire from his fingertips.
The Mark of the Phoenix. He hasn’t even pulled the blankets off him, and he’s already attacking me.
Good on him for not hesitating. As the dragonfire roars toward me, I fill my mind with joy, a requirement for magic from the House of Flames. They stop mid-air, frozen in place.
“I’m not here to kill you,” I say. “Fiona is dying, and you might be the only one who can help her.”
The old man with the snake tattoo up his cheek looks from me to his adopted daughter, and I’ll give him credit for acting quickly. He gets out of bed and throws on a robe without saying a word as he processes the situation.
When he turns to me, he says, “Tell me everything. And quickly.”
I nod to him, and he opens the door. We hurry to his study, where I already know he has his laboratory, and I tell him what happened as well as about the crystal that rests in my pocket.
He doesn’t interrupt or ask questions as I speak, but when we get to his study, he stops me. “Give me the crystal,” he says.
I do, my teeth clenched as Fiona’s shaking slows. Gods, she’s almost gone. He holds the crystal up to the light. It’s glowing with a pure white light unlike the crystal that had been in the Hunter’s breastplate who had killed Nyxthos. That had been as black as pitch.
“I can infuse her with this power,” he says slowly, “but that won’t bind the power to her soul. That won’t replace Nyxthos’s power. I… I don’t have the skills to infuse souls with power.”
Dragons can manipulate souls. Inni says the words in my head, and suddenly the wall behind Rhaskar melts as if someone had poured hot water on a wall of ice.
All five dragons stand just outside his study, their heads poking through the hole in the wall.
Ainslee and Rhion stand beside them. Vyran must have brought them all here.
Rhaskar’s arm shakes as though he’s trying to remind himself not to use magic against the dragons, that they aren’t the enemies currently.
“Inni put my soul into my body when I was born,” I say. “She says that dragons can manipulate them.”
Rhaskar takes a moment to stare at Inni before saying, “Why didn’t you release Vesper’s soul? It would be as easy as breaking the crystal, wouldn’t it?”
Vyran is the one who speaks. “No, it would not. Breaking the crystal would simply release her power, but her soul would be stuck within the shards. She would never become a swimmer again. She would never return to the Endless Sea to be drawn into another body.”
Rhion speaks up, a little uncertainty in his voice, and his eyes move to Sidon as he steps into the room. “Couldn’t you use enchanting to draw her from the crystal just like I’d use it to pull power from spellstones?”
Sidon looks to the King of Steel and cocks his head. “It could be done, but the energetic release would be explosive. Everyone in Stormhaven would die instantly if it were done now.”
Rhaskar steps toward the massive dragon and Rhion. “What if the power was anchored? What if it were tied to a soul, if it were tied to a body?”
Sidon’s head whips toward Rhaskar, and my heart races as I see the excitement on his face. “It could work. But there is no way to bind power to a body like that within the enchanting discipline.”
Rhaskar smiles. “I do not do enchanting. My limitations differ from yours. Individually, I don’t know that either of us could do this, but together… together we might.” His smile grows as he takes control of the situation. “We will need to work quickly because there isn’t much time left…”
I sit beside the bed where Fiona lies motionless.
Her eyes are wide open as she stares at the ceiling.
The sheets are covered in blood from her newest Mark which won’t stop bleeding.
I hold her hand, not daring to leave the room as everyone waits to see what happens.
I’m no enchanter, nor am I a Priest, so when Sidon, Rhion, and Rhaskar started describing their plan, I stepped out of the way.
As long as they knew what they were doing, I wasn’t going to interrupt. There wasn’t enough time as it was.
But now, everything hinges on my little Priestess rather than dragons and Fae.
Now, the only thing we can do is trust. She was supposed to die tonight; that much is clear.
A god, probably Saelira, had told her the night we’d been so close to becoming something more than allies.
It’s why she’d pulled back as much as I had.
Knowing her, she was doing it to protect me.
I changed things by breaking that glass bead, by pulling Caeldra’s power to that specific spot at that specific time. At least I hope it did.
Now Fiona is fighting for her life and her soul. It was breaking, falling apart after Nyxthos’s magic began to fade from it. She has to hold on to Vesper’s soul, to bond with a dragon similarly to how Inni and I are tied together.
She is strong. She will survive this. Sidon is sure that they have done everything possible. Inni’s voice isn’t as reassuring as she thinks it is, though. I can hear the wavering tone in it. She’s hopeful, but she isn’t sure.
I squeeze Fiona’s hand tighter. “You will come back to me, Little Priestess. You do not get to leave me. Not now. Not ever.”