Chapter 29
HARK
Jack’s leg shook against Hark’s as they waited outside the healer’s office.
This was the sixth time they’d come here, and though it had given Jack a modicum of improvement, Hark didn’t think he would ever forget the screams that came from his friend’s mouth.
He certainly wasn’t looking forward to hearing them again.
The healer – Nia – had tried countless methods to cure Jack from whatever magic had struck him one night when they had been trying to rescue mages from the border.
None of these methods had worked until a week ago when she had finally felt comfortable enough in her own magic to try and draw it out of Jack.
He had bellowed and screamed loudly enough that the citizens of Flambriar had frozen in the streets.
But it had been the only thing that had given him a shred of comfort. For two days afterwards he had managed to walk straighter, and the cloudiness of his eyes had cleared slightly. Kase had been at his side through all of it, just as she was now, her knees as jittery as Jack’s.
‘You know, I half wish Reinhart were here. She’d have some wisecrack that would make me less nervous about feeling my blood boil,’ Jack said with a grim laugh.
His blood boiling – that’s what he’d told them it felt like.
Nia’s magic attached itself to the magic inside Jack and siphoned it into Nia.
The healer, although she hadn’t screamed out in pain like Jack had, had been slick with sweat the last time, her lip bleeding where she’d bitten it from the strain.
Both of them had told Nia they would find another way, but she’d brushed them off and said she owed it to them.
For saving her. For the accidental strike of magic Jack had sustained when all he had been doing was trying to rescue the mages from the camp on the northern border.
‘Wisecrack? Try completely insulting and not fit for the ears of anyone under the age of eighteen or above the age of fifty,’ Kase snorted.
Hark smothered a laugh. Gods, he loved his friends.
Loved that despite their differences they’d all accepted Arla into the fold.
Fuck, he missed her. She was a bolstering strength that he wished was here right now.
When she was with him, well, everything seemed a little easier.
A little more doable. Like the world actually might not end.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. Arla loved when he did that. Had told him so multiple times. Especially when his hands were on her and she was soft and lovely and—Fuck he needed to get it together. ‘Are you sure you want to do this down here? Nia could come up to the hall. It—’
‘Shut up, Stappen,’ Jack said. ‘I come here just like any other patient. I don’t want special treatment just because I’m part of your court.’
Your court.
Like he was a king or something.
It wasn’t Hark’s court. They’d all started saying it and he despised it.
He wasn’t in charge of them; they shouldn’t have to answer to him and yet …
they did. Without question. They followed Arla’s whims too – that, he could understand.
She was born of a bloodline so ancient and worshipped that it would be utter blasphemy to go against what she said.
It hadn’t stopped them all bickering endlessly though, had it?
He was about to say so when the door swung open before he could voice any of it.
‘Jack, hello.’ Nia’s cheery face appeared in the doorway, her tanned skin looking far healthier than it had done when they had left her last week. ‘Are you all ready?’
Were they all ready? Because it wasn’t just Jack who would be inside that room. Hark and Kase would be there too, holding Jack to the bed as Nia sent her magic through him.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ Kase said with a sigh, wringing her hands together as she followed Jack and Nia through the door. Hark reached for her elbow, leaning down to whisper in her ear.
‘You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to. Seb said he would come.’
Kase turned to face him, those dazzling blue eyes as hard as ice chips. ‘I won’t leave him.’
There was nothing else to say. Jack was already lying down on the infirmary bed. The room was bright, airy. It smelt fresh, and the walls had been painted a soft shade of beige. It was soothing, almost, in contrast to what was about to happen.
Nia was quiet as she plaited her dark hair into short braids that barely touched her shoulders.
She was a kind woman, with soft curves and an appetite for the cheeses Hark had made sure to deliver last week as a thank-you.
She always spoke softly, with an accent Hark couldn’t quite place – originally from Gravidum, perhaps.
Her voice was a balm to the pain she was about to inflict.
Jack’s legs were restless again.
‘I hear you found some relief in the days that followed our last session,’ Nia said, moving to stand by the side of the bed. ‘That means we’re heading in the right direction. We’ve touched the magic inside you. Now we need to tug.’
Jack swallowed, nodding his head curtly. Hark was sure Kase’s hands trembled where she wrung them on the front of her sweater. He’d seen Arla do it when she was nervous, too.
‘Just keep going,’ Jack said gruffly. ‘The sooner we get it out the sooner we can forget this ever happened.’
Nia lowered her eyes, the tilt of her chin the only acknowledgement. There was no warning as she brought her hands to rest over Jack’s body.
And then he began screaming.
‘Enough, please…’
Jack had been screaming the words for the past half hour.
Kase wasn’t trying to hide the tears now as they ran silently down her cheeks, her grip on Jack’s wrists never wavering as he bucked and thrashed beneath her hold.
Hark held onto his friend’s ankles, pinning him to the bed as Nia continued to chant and roam her hands across the surface of Jack’s broken body.
A thick sheen of sweat coated the healer, and Hark was sure her legs would buckle at any moment, but she didn’t relent.
The air felt alive, as if the corruption of magic in Jack’s blood was being siphoned off into the room and cursing him for ever possessing it.
Sweat was slick on Hark’s skin too, the strain of holding his friend down burning through every part of him.
Screams tore through them all, a sound so visceral Hark didn’t think he would ever be able to unhear it.
Kase shook as she held Jack’s wrists, but not for a single moment did she stop murmuring to him.
Nia moved her hands again, and the sound that left Jack’s throat was enough to shatter worlds.
‘It’s okay, you’re okay,’ Kase sobbed, lowering her head to his as if whatever remained of her strength could be passed onto Jack. She flinched as he screamed again. ‘It’s all right, we’re here.’
Fuck, this was breaking his heart.
This was all his fucking fault.
He had told his friends to start extracting mages from the border whilst he was still stationed in Hadalyn. He had been the one to demand they keep going, even though his father’s soldiers were becoming wise to the raids and had started fighting back.
He was the reason Jack had been hurt and was having to go through this. He didn’t know how he’d ever look Kase in the eyes again. Jack was strong, he … well, he knew his friend would take this in his stride just as he did with everything that had ever been thrown at him.
But Kase … Kase had been through too much already. Kase had been at the mercy of her uncle’s unkind hands after she’d watched her mother die of a wasting sickness. Hark couldn’t imagine how fucked-up this was for her.
Wet, rasping noises came from Nia’s lips, almost drowned out by the hoarse howls from Jack. Kase didn’t try to hide the way she was breaking as heaving sobs wracked her body. She still didn’t let go, not while Jack still undulated on the bed.
He couldn’t take much more of this. None of them could.
But then, as quickly as blinking, Jack relaxed into the bed, his eyes closing, the bulging veins on his head smoothing out as he became … peaceful.
Nia stumbled backwards, sending jars of herbs and medicines crashing to the floor as she struggled to catch herself on the table behind them. Hark reached for her, steadying the woman who looked as though she were mere seconds away from collapsing.
‘I’ll be right as rain soon. Just need to sit down,’ she panted as he helped her to the leather armchair in the corner of the room. He moved as though his body wasn’t his own, collecting the healer a jug of water and pouring it into a glass for her. She drank it greedily.
‘Thank you,’ Hark said lowly. ‘For what you’re doing for him. I know it can’t be easy.’
Nia waved a wand. ‘It is the least I can do to repay what you all did to rescue us. My pain won’t be half as bad as his.’
They both turned to look at Jack’s unconscious body, the rise and fall of his chest the only indication he was still alive.
Kase had draped herself over him, her head rising with the movement of his chest as she held onto his poor body.
Fuck, he hated to see her like this – to see any of his friends like this.
‘Look after them both,’ Nia said. ‘Magic is often the hardest ailment to pull from the body. It isn’t pleasant for any who are involved in it.’
Kase looked up at them then, her face as pale as her hair, eyes bloodshot and lined with silver as she pried herself from Jack.
She was silent as she left the room and Hark knew the ghosts of everything that had come before hounded her out of the healer’s office. Perhaps they were all destined to be broken.
Hark found Kase sitting on the balcony of the sitting room, her legs dangling over the side of the railing as she perched precariously on top.
She looked so small, so insignificant against the sprawling city beneath them, steadily growing each day.
Perhaps the vastness of the world would be enough to drown out the thoughts in her head.