Chapter 21 Lysa #2
“Look at me,” she commanded, her hips snapping forward, forcing a gasp from him. “I am the only one who can touch you without burning.”
Fenrik’s hands gripped the sheets. He thrust up to meet her, harsh and desperate. The sound of skin slapping skin echoed in the silence, wet and hollow. He was hard obviously, but his eyes were squeezed shut.
“Say it,” Kelda hissed, riding him faster, her breath coming in short, sharp pants. “Say who saves you.”
Fenrik arched his back, a guttural roar tearing from his throat as he spilled into her.
“Lysa,” he choked out, the name like a jagged prayer.
Kelda froze. In the vision, her face twisted. She climbed off him, leaving him panting and shivering in the dark, and wiped herself with a corner of the sheet.
“She isn’t real,” Kelda said, leaning down to tap his temple. “You imagined her.”
“This is not real, it’s a lie,” Fenrik said.
The scene dissolved into sparks.
The study again, but darker. Fenrik was alone, holding the moonflower. He pressed it into the parchment I now held in the real world. He looked at where the wyrmling was hiding.
“Find her,” Fenrik whispered to the creature—to me. His eyes were clear. “Find her before I forget her for good.”
I gasped, wrenched back into my own body so fast I nearly tipped over. Maren was shouting my name, but the roar of Fenrik’s despair was still deafening in my ears. The parchment within Kirion’s claw felt like it was burning a brand into my skin.
“Lysa?” Maren’s hands were on my shoulders, shaking me. “You went pale as death. What happened?”
I stared at the crumpled parchment in my hand, then at the wyrmling whose breathing had now hitched into a steady, albeit shallow, rhythm. The silver rot on his scales had stopped spreading, held in check by the gold thread of magic I’d woven through him.
“It was never me,” I said, the truth settling, and displacing the guilt I’d carried for days.
“The instability, the house shaking, the creatures going mad, it really wasn’t because my magic was incompatible.
It was perfectly compatible. The shadow dragon was fighting me off like antibodies fighting a virus. ”
Maren unscrewed a jar of pungent, amber salve. “Start talking while we work.”
Together, we smeared the thick paste over Kirion’s cracked hide. The wyrmling didn’t wake, sedated by the sheer exhaustion of his flight, but he leaned unconsciously into the warmth of my hands.
“Kelda,” I said, my voice trembling. “She’s not treating him. She’s rewriting him. I saw... I saw them. In his bedroom.”
Maren paused, her hands slick with balm. “In his bed?”
I nodded, feeling heat scald my cheeks. “She was on top of him. Riding him. But Maren, it wasn’t.
.. he wasn’t there. It was like she was feeding on him, using the act to anchor her illusions into his skin.
He was in agony, and when he finished...
” I swallowed hard, looking at my own palms. “He called out my name.”
Maren let out a low, appreciative whistle, rocking back on her heels. She wiped her hands on a rag, her dark eyes sparkling with a mix of horror and amusement. “Well. That’s complicated.”
“It’s horrifying,” I snapped, checking Kirion’s pulse again.
“It is, but think about it, Lysa. You’re the medic here, magic follows the path of least resistance, right? Eros—desire—is the strongest conduit for raw magic. It’s why Brewworkers use dragonfire to heat the cauldrons.”
She gestured with a greasy finger. “Kelda is cold magic. Illusion and stasis. She’s trying to freeze him in a moment of compliance. That’s why it hurts him. It’s like trying to fuck an iceberg.”
I choked on a laugh that sounded more like a sob. “Maren!”
“I’m serious! She’s a cold, lifeless bitch. But you?” Maren poked me in the chest. “You said your magic looked gold when it touched him. Gold is heat. Gold is alchemy. Transmutation.” She leaned in, her grin widening. “You told me you two almost tore the study apart during that storm.”
“He didn’t want to take advantage of me!” I defended, though the memory of his hard body pressed against mine made my core clench.
“Honey,” Maren drawled, “he’s literally screaming your name while balls-deep in the villain. His body knows the difference. Kelda is draining him dry with that frost-bitten cooch of hers, and you’re over here wringing your hands because you’re afraid you might actually save him with a good toss.”
“It’s not just about sex,” I mumbled, though my skin felt too tight.
“It’s never just about sex with mages, Lysa.
It’s about energy transfer. He needs fuel to burn out that shadow.
You’re a walking furnace of golden, transmuting magic, and you left him starving.
” Maren stood up, nudging Kirion’s sleeping form gently with her toe.
“He’ll stay here. He’s safe with me. Pip can sneak him scraps of ham. ”
I stood too, wiping the last of the salve from my fingers.
“You’re right,” I said, smoothing my apron. “He’s starving. And I’m done being afraid of the heat.”
Maren smirked, handing me my cloak. “Good. Go get your husband back. And this time, for the love of the gods, don’t leave him frustrated. So much depends on it.”
“Do you think their sex might have been an illusion, though? That’s what Fenrik said.”
Maren shrugged. “Does it make any difference?”
I didn’t stop running until the slate roof of the infirmary loomed out of the mist. My lungs burned, and the rain had soaked through my cloak, plastering my shirt to my skin, but the cold was nothing compared to the fire Kirion’s memory had ignited in my blood.
I burst through the back entrance, intending to grab my travel pack and leave before I could second-guess myself. “Briony, I need the heavy winter cloak and—“
The words died in my throat.
The prep room, a sanctuary of silence and drying herbs, sounded like a battlefield. Or a vigorous wrestling match involved in a landslide. Jars rattled on the shelves as a slapping sound echoed off the stone walls, punctuated by a moan that was definitely not related to a magical injury.
I froze.
On the main worktable, right on top of a pile of drying sage bundles, was my sister.
And buried between her spread thighs, gripping her hips like he was trying to steer a runaway carriage, was Lorin, the shy silversmiths’s son.
He wasn’t shy now. He was working between my little sister’s legs with a devotion that bordered on religious, his trousers pooled around his ankles, revealing a truly pale, frantic backside that clenched tight with every enthusiastic bob of his head.
“Oh, yes—right there, don’t you dare stop or I’ll hex you!“ Briony cried out, her head thrown back, braids swinging wildly as her heels dug into the poor boy’s shoulders.
I stood there for three heartbeats, my brain refusing to process the scene. Then Lorin let out a muffled, triumphant sound against her, and Briony’s back arched off the table, sending a jar of pickled newt eyes crashing to the floor.
“Oh, sweet Gods,” I managed, squeezing my eyes shut. “Lorin, if you don’t come up for air, you’re going to suffocate.”
The scream that followed was harmonized perfectly. There was a frantic scramble of limbs, a thud as Lorin slipped on the sage and went crashing to the floorboards, and the sound of Briony frantically tugging her skirts down.
“Lysa!” Briony squeaked. She was flushed a brilliant scarlet, her chest heaving, her blouse unbuttoned almost to her navel. “We—I—he was helping me with... inventory.”
Lorin poked his head up from behind the table, face smeared with what I prayed was just... well, actually, I didn’t want to know. He looked like he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole. “Inventory,” he said.
“Inventory doesn’t usually involve oral fixation, Briony,” I said, rubbing my temples. The absurdity of it: me, the married woman, fleeing a nightmare of repression only to walk in on my baby sister getting partially devoured on the herb table, almost made me laugh hysterically.
“I’m going back,” I said, the humor vanishing as quickly as it came. “To the manor. Kelda... she’s doing something to him, something terrible.”
Briony blinked, the flush fading from her cheeks. She looked at Lorin, then back to me, and seemingly grew three inches taller. She hopped off the table, ignoring her dishevelled hair, and marched over to me.
She gripped my shoulders hard. Her green eyes, so full of dreams, were now hard.
“Go,” she said, her voice fierce and devoid of its naivete. “I can manage the clinic. I know the recipes better than Father realizes.” She glanced back at the boy, who was frantically pulling up his trousers. “Clearly, we work well together under pressure.”
The door banged open behind me, and Maren stumbled in, shaking water from her wrap. She took one look at the scattered sage, the broken jar, and Lorin’s red face.
“Well,” Maren drawled, stepping over a stray boot. “Smells like musk and poor decisions in here. Good for you, girl. Break him in early.”
Lorin made a sound like a dying goose.
Maren ignored him, sidling up to me and shoving a heavy leather satchel into my chest. “I packed the nasty stuff. Restoratives, sure, but also strong binding agents—wolfsbane concentrate and iron-shavings. If that bitch tries to get into your head, throw the black powder in her eyes.”
I clutched the bag, the weight of it grounding me.
“The whole town feels wrong, Lysa,” Maren warned, her humour evaporating as she looked past me, toward the dark line of the cliffs visible through the windows.
“The air tastes like ash. Like something is eating at the foundation of the valley itself. If it’s centred at that manor, you’re the only one who can walk into the eye of the storm without being torn apart. ”
“I know.” I fumbled through the locked cabinet in the corner and fished out the stolen map I’d taken from the bookstore, the one showing the ley-lines. Then, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the vial Kelda had given me—the “pain relief” meant for Fenrik.
If Kelda wanted to play with poisons and illusions, she was about to learn that Arcane Medicine required knowing exactly how to dismantle a body before you could heal it.
I turned for the door, Maren’s bag bumping against my hip, but the bell above the entrance jingled before I could reach the latch.
My father stood in the doorway, shaking a wet umbrella.
He looked weary, the lines around his eyes etched deep, but he blinked rapidly as he took in the scene.
He looked at the shattered jar of newt eyes.
He looked at the crushed sage on the floor.
Finally, his gaze landed on Lorin, who was currently trying to make himself invisible by pressing his back flat against the shelving unit, his shirt buttoned wrong so that one side hung lower than the other.
“Why is the silversmith’s boy trying to merge with the drywall?” Father asked, his voice mild but perplexed.
“He slipped,” Briony said quickly, smoothing her wild hair.
“Slipped,” Father squinted at the floor. “On the premium sage? Did you wrestle a garden gnome on the sorting table?”
Lorin made a strangled noise. “I was inspecting the integrity of the table, sir. For... safety.”
Father stared at him. “With your belt unbuckled? Is the integrity dependent on your trousers being loose, son?”
“It’s a new technique,” Maren supplied helpfully from the corner, leaning against a stack of crates with a wicked grin. “Ventilation aids focus.”
Father sighed, the long, suffering exhale of a man who has decided that ignorance is not just bliss, but clever survival strategy. “Right. Well. Button up boy, before you catch a draft in your ambition.”
He stepped over the puddle of pickle juice and crushed herbs, ignoring Briony’s mortified squeak, and caught my arm just as I reached for the handle. His grip was tight.
“You’re going back,” he said.
“I have to,” I said, meeting his eyes. “He’s in trouble, Da. Real trouble.”
“I know.” He reached into his vest pocket. “I saw the river turning black. I felt the floorboards shaking, I’ve already lived through a Collapse once. I’m surprised more people don’t remember.”
He pressed something into my palm. It was warm, and hummed against my skin, a small glass vial filled with liquid the color of fresh blood, swirling with flecks of gold.
“Your mother made this,” he said, his voice thickening. “She brewed it the year before she died. Kept it in the false bottom of the safe.”
My breath caught. “Is this...”
“Dragonheart extract, undiluted. Distilled from the fire-gland of a voluntary donor.” He closed my fingers over the glass, his calloused thumb brushing my knuckles.
“It’s pure magical adrenaline, Lysa. It will force your channels open wider than they were meant to go.
It will let you push past your limits—past exhaustion, past the Quieting, past everything. ”
He looked at me with a mixture of pride and grief. “Only once. If you take it, your heart might not stop racing for a week. Or it might just stop.”
“Dragonheart surges aren’t healing,” Maren said. “They’re borrowing time from the body. You don’t recover what they take.”
“Why give it to me then?” I asked him, feeling the heat of the vial seeping into my palm.
“Because you have your mother’s look in your eye, when she left to help the Stormgarde folks all those years ago,” he said softly.
“ The one that says you’re going to do something incredibly stupid and incredibly brave.
And I can’t stop you.” He squeezed my hand.
“Don’t let the darkness win, little bird. ”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and shoved the vial into my pocket, right next to Kelda’s poison.
“I won’t,” I promised.
I threw the door open. The wind howled, carrying a new scent of rot from the valley. Without looking back, I ran. I sprinted into the gathering dark, towards the cliffs.