Chapter Forty Six
In Memoriam
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Gallena’s Temple, Nythanor.
Kyra.
Kyra ran toward death.
Toward the burning beast that was so scaldingly hot, the thousands of years of compacted ice beneath him was turning glassy. Melting.
That beast was Gedeon. Encased in a cocoon of his own barbaric power, ravaging him from the inside out. His mouth was open, screaming into the night.
Nausea hit Kyra like a sudden storm.
She could feel his agony. Not the pain itself, but she knew he was breaking. Knew he had lost himself to his power, knew the agony was eating him alive.
Naal’s cool wind whipped her cheeks as it shot past her in an attempt to calm the blaze, to cool that which was set to destroy. Beside her, Nysari nocked an arrow to her bow, expression deadly. ‘Take back the order, Naal! He’ll destroy the city! Take back the order!’
Kyra ripped the bow from Nysari’s slender fingers, snapped it over her knee and threw the broken parts at the Eternal’s feet.
She didn’t wait for Nysari’s reaction before sprinting toward Gedeon.
Naal shouted after her. She pressed on. Kawai grabbed her wrist. She shoved him to the ground.
She pressed on.
Nothing else mattered. No one else mattered. Nothing and no one but Gedeon.
The sheer heat of the blaze was astounding. It should have singed the hair from her eyebrows, should have melted her skin into dripping wax. But there was a ward around her, holding strong against the flames, like another layer of skin atop her own, shielding her from harm.
Eyes squinting through the blaze, Kyra didn’t stop until she saw him. There, on his knees with his head thrown back, his chest open to the night above. He was no longer screaming.
As though there was no breath left, nothing left inside.
Her own knees hit the ice hard as she flung herself in front of him, hands gripping his head, pulling his gaze down to her.
The whites of his eyes had turned wholly black. Nothing but consuming darkness stared back at her now. No starlight winked in those inky oceans. Just soulless black, unseeing and unending.
‘Gedeon,’ she whispered, her voice barely audible over the roaring fire.
No one answered.
The flaming cocoon began to flicker and falter, closing in on them, as its power source began to fail. Gedeon’s head sagged forward, and as his previously racing pulse dipped, she felt him start to slip away.
‘No… no, NO!’
Fear as she had never known rushed her entire being.
She could not lose him. Would not lose him.
There was only one thing to do. And she knew she was the only one in any life, on any plane of existence, who could do it.
Reaching for his hand, she pressed his ice-cold palm to her chest, covering it with her own, and instinctively delved to the depths of the pit within, where her sun magic lay unused and slumbering.
Willing it to come forth. Willing it to obey.
For once… it listened.
It surged through every pore, lighting the darkness that threatened to take Gedeon away. It balanced the empty black, gave it purpose, gave it meaning, gave it life.
Then Kyra soared down the vines of her earth magic, reaching for the deepest part of him, the core of him that was becoming untethered to the world.
She willed her vines to snake around his soul, an ebbing light that was desperately holding on to his physical body, and pulled him away from the clutches of death.
The raw powers of sun and earth in the hands of Kyraena Daeiros.
Gedeon’s fire began to subside, the heat drawing closer. But with the enormous effort to wield her Warden magic, the protective ward around her began to fail.
Flames caressed her arm, and she screamed in agony as it burnt. But she didn’t break the hold.
Gedeon was coming back to his body, to himself. Those withdrawing flames were drawing back to their master, no longer out of control, no longer free from their mortal conduit with nowhere to go.
Kyra’s arm was on fire now. The stench of burning flesh seared her nostrils. But she couldn’t break the hold, not until-
The flames sputtered out completely.
Kyra’s eyes flew open just as Gedeon sagged to one side. She went with him, unable to hold him up as she gasped for air, not daring to look upon the mangled mess that was her arm.
Her power was spent, mortal and Warden magic alike gutted to nothing. Body barely able to do anything but simply breathe.
But Gedeon… he was breathing too. That was colour, the beautiful rosy pink colour of life, blooming on his cheeks.
His eyes cracked open. Stars sparkled once more.
And Kyra smiled before exhaustion swept her away.
???
Naal.
‘You did not tell me about the curse,’ Naal said, surveying her Second with measured calm, though it did not reflect how she truly felt.
Neither of them had slept. Both Earth and Fire Warden were resting in separate beds in Maida’s chambers, the former’s arm wrapped in ointment-covered cloth for the severe burn underneath. The one that would never heal.
The latter, though still unconscious and exhausted, appeared utterly unharmed.
‘I did not,’ Maida admitted. ‘You had much on your mind already. Gedeon and I were dealing with it.’
‘That was not for you to decide,’ Naal bit. ‘You should have told me.’
‘Would you have done something differently?’
‘Evidently your dealing with it did not work. He could have destroyed the entire city. Again.’
‘What would you have done to rid him of the curse, that I had not tried?’ Maida challenged.
‘Besides the point, Maida,’ Naal said through gritted teeth. ‘Had I not been there, the ice would have melted and the city would have been flooded. The snow may have shifted, even. The very landscape of this mountain may have been compromised.’
‘So, I ask you, what would you have done to prevent it?’ Maida pushed again. Bold and brazen, qualities Naal usually admired in her Second.
Now they were the ultimate frustration.
‘Sent him away!’ Naal snapped. ‘Locked him in the ice cell again. Anything to stop him from harming anyone else.’
Maida’s expression hardened. ‘That curse was placed on him by his own brother. He could not control the effects it had on him, and you want to punish him for it?’
Naal narrowed her eyes. ‘You harbour a fondness for the boy.’
‘I do,’ Maida said fiercely. ‘Because I have bothered to see what no one else has. That he has been manipulated and used by his mother his entire life. Even he does not realise the extent of the hold she has on him.’
Naal said acrimoniously, ‘And what if that boy has manipulated and used you, Maida? Spawn of a viper… I imagine his words to be quite convincing.’
‘Nysari has poisoned your ears,’ Maida said darkly.
‘Gedeon has not once spoken of his family, nor tried to convince me of his integrity. But I see it anyway. I see a young prince who knew of no other path but the one he was set toddling on as soon as he could walk.’ She levelled Naal with a cool glare.
Possibly the only Eternal who would dare do so.
‘Distrust of him aside, Naal, Gedeon is by all rights an Eternal now. An Eternal you chose to induct into this Order. How can you hope to work with him if you refuse to trust him?’
Naal ran a hand through her short grey hair. ‘I have not forgotten the attack on Phaenon. I will never forget.’
‘Neither have I, Naal. And most importantly… neither has he.’
Naal sank into the chair behind the healer’s desk, staring at the mess on its surface without really seeing it.
‘I… I feel like I am failing, Maida. I could not protect Phaenon from the prince’s attack.
I am failing at uniting Kyra with her Warden magic, failing at anticipating what the damned Empress will do next, and…
’ Her breath hitched, voice catching in her throat. ‘I have failed my mate.’
That was what it all came down to. No matter what else swarmed her mind, Win’s face was always there at the forefront. A haunting ghost.
Maida perched on the table. ‘You are old, Naal. Much older than most in this world. But you have taken on too much responsibility in your long years. You are our pramah, yes. But that does not mean you have to face the fight alone. Relieve yourself of this blame. It does not serve you.’
Though Naal heard every word, and knew her dear friend was right, only one thought grasped her attention now. ‘I don’t know where she is, Maida. I don’t know if she is even alive. But I would know, wouldn’t I? I would know if… if she…’
‘Yes,’ Maida said gently. ‘You would know if she were gone.’
It filled Naal with little relief, and she doubted whether Maida spoke from an absolute belief in what she had said, or just from consolement.
Naal nodded all the same, collecting herself.
‘When Gedeon is well again, I will meet with him and Sunsi. I will put my reservations aside and learn from them.’
‘A wise decision, my friend.’
Naal blew out a breath, then leaned her elbows on the table. ‘The curse… it is truly broken, then?’
‘Yes,’ Maida said, frowning into the flaming hearth. ‘I do not know how the girl did it, but not a remnant of it remains. I’d begun to believe the curse was unbanishable, but she eliminated it. It ought to have been impossible. How did she do it? Kyra is certainly no healer.’
‘Her magic flares with her emotions. She has little control over it and acts on impulse. It is how she was able to wield the power to strike down Zuriel. She felt threatened and her magic reacted accordingly.’ Naal paused.
‘With Gedeon… I believe she was fearful. That deep fear ignited the power to save him. To bring him back.’
‘I was not aware they had any sort of relationship,’ Maida said, eyebrows raised.
‘But she walked into his fire with barely a glance back. She snapped Nysari’s bow like it was merely a twig.
Did you see how her eyes darkened with fury?
Why was she so intent on saving him? Why risk her own life to save his? ’