Chapter 18
It’s been many moons since my mother taught me the importance of flow, how a poison or illness silently trickles through the body. I can sense the poison in Kyor now, but can I help it flow out?
Once more, my Morathkian powers rise. I gather the threads of them and reach out to the man I love.
‘What are you doing?’ Kyor blinks at me, vulnerable and open. The last time I saw him like this was in the Retterheld, when he turned up at my door bleeding and in need of my help.
I healed him then, and I can do it again now.
‘Kyor, you know I love you?’
He smiles at that, resting his forehead on mine as he takes a deep breath in, like he’s breathing me in. ‘Of course.’
‘Do you trust me?’
‘Always.’ He lifts away to lock eyes with me. ‘What’s the plan, Thorn?’
‘It could be dangerous…’ I take a deep breath. ‘But I think it might work.’ I can feel the Robbard’s in his system, swirling with his healthy blood and twirling through his veins.
My mother would instinctively know what to do. She was a great healer and she taught me all she could, even after we were stripped of our magic – the theory at least. And in turn, I helped all I could in the slums.
There’s no way Kyor will trust this type of healing to the Issen healers. Maybe if I were dealing with his shoulder – a more physical injury with an obvious cause – but not something like this. Not something that might make him seem weak. In his eyes, anyway. So that means it’s on me.
My magic seems to surge, and Kyor blinks at me, feeling the invasion.
‘I’m going to try to draw the poison out. We need to get it out of you so that the dependence doesn’t come back. It’s not too late, my love. But if we don’t do this now, if I don’t do it right … we’ll have to go to the healers’ quarters.’
He blanches at that. ‘No. No, Thorn. No one can know. It would make us too vulnerable. We barely know if we can trust Magnus, let alone Stefan… No! No one can know that the prince of Wrohelm has such a weakness.’
‘I know, I know,’ I say, trying to comfort him in his panic, my fingers tightening on his. ‘Will you let me try? My magic has been enhanced by Oel, and while it’s dangerous, I think it’s our only chance.’
Oh Gods, I hope this will work.
I remind myself of the trust in my mother’s eyes when she taught me. I may have been young, but she believed in me even then. I can do this. Oel wouldn’t have gifted me more if I couldn’t handle it … would he? No. I push the thought aside.
‘Will you let me try?’ I ask again.
Kyor draws in a shaking breath, his hair wild and unkempt, his eyes tired as he nods. ‘Do it, Thorn.’
‘Okay, lie down.’ I try not to let my nerves take over. This is Kyor, the man who would walk through fire for me. I can help him. No matter how scary it feels. ‘This might hurt, my love. A lot.’
All he does is kiss me. Kisses me in a way that makes everything we’ve ever been through together feel worth it. Because together we are, and always will be, stronger. ‘I trust you, Rose Kultavaris. Always.’
He lies down on the bed and I hover my hands over his body. With a deep breath, I let my healing magic flow and close my ears to Kyor’s stifled screams.
What feels like hours later, Kyor is passed out, the cessation of all that pain having plunged him into unconsciousness, and the steady rise and fall of his chest is unbelievably reassuring as I pant, desperate for air.
I got it all. I know I did. My mother was right when she told me what to look for and how to draw it out, but when I look down at my hands, I see the black lace markings are darker, the poison I drew from Kyor darkening my palms.
I cursed myself over and over as I hovered my hands over him, drawing the tincture out drop by drop.
Even now, though, I feel I could have done more.
Looked into the pain in his shoulder. Tried to make sure it no longer hurt.
But having forced every last drop of that tincture out of him, I have nothing left to give. Not without risking burning myself out.
Exhausted, I climb into bed and rest my head in the crook of Kyor’s shoulder. His steady heartbeat is all I hear, and it feels like I barely draw breath before I’m gone.
I dream of the drums of Galreck. They beat out a tune of war.
‘Good morning.’ His voice is distant, a murmur somewhere in the back of my sleeping mind.
As his words wash over me, I snuggle deeper into his body, savouring the feel of his warmth against mine.
‘Thorn?’
‘Yes?’ I reply lazily, a small smile on my lips, but then the haze of sleep evaporates and my pulse ratchets up as I blink open my eyes and scramble upright. ‘Kyor, you’re awake.’
I clasp his face in my hands before running my thumb over his forehead. Dry. Not a drop of sweat. ‘You’re awake. Are you okay? How do you feel?’
‘I feel…’ He stretches tightly in the bed before smiling. ‘Good. I feel good. Really fucking good.’
‘Thank the Gods. I’ve never seen you in such agony. And I never want to do that again.’
His smile falters. ‘And you never will. I promise you, Thorn. I promise never to put you in that position again.’
I blink back tears at his declaration. He won’t do it.
I know it because I know him. Removing the toxin from his blood was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, but I would do it again and again to see him this clear-headed, to see my Kyor back.
‘The shoulder?’ I gesture, swallowing my emotions down hard. ‘How is it?’
Kyor crinkles his nose slightly as he sits up. ‘Nothing that a good stretch won’t fix. Probably what I should’ve done in the first place.’
‘Probably.’
Unable to keep the grin from my lips, I lean in and kiss him. Gently at first, then harder.
His fingers slide into my hair, anchoring me to him, and the world beyond our little bubble fades into silence.
For a moment, there is no poison. No Veil. No war. No difficult choices awaiting us beyond the next sunrise.
There is only the steady beat of his heart beneath my hand.
Only him.
Alive.
And for today, that is enough.
‘Okay, yes, these powers are definitely stronger,’ Stefan says later that morning as I send a barrage of ice hurtling out in completely the wrong direction.
He was ready for it, poised, hands out, knowing that at any second he might have a sheet of glass, a thousand ice daggers, or gigantic hailstones the size of boulders hurtling at him.
Fen, on the other hand, was not ready for the blast that came his way.
You understand that if you kill me, you die too, Little Raven? he says grumpily down the bond.
Wasn’t exactly deliberate, I admit. Sorry, Fen.
He huffs in my mind.
Looking at the havoc I’ve created this morning, it’s a miracle I didn’t bring the entire building down last night. My powers have got so much stronger, and it’s impossible to work out how they’re going to react.
‘I feel like if I control what I’m producing, then I can’t control where it’s going or how big it is,’ I say to Stefan. ‘Or if I do control where it’s going, then I can’t control what I’m producing. It’s a nightmare.’
‘It’s a nightmare that you will get through with practice. We hope. If not, maybe you’ll go down in Issen history as the woman who destroyed our most magnificent city.’
‘Princess!’ Kyor yells from where he sits, nonchalantly lying against his wolf.
‘What?’ I question, confused. Kyor doesn’t call me princess. He calls me Thorn or Rose. Or sometimes, if I’m lucky, Good Girl.
‘You’d go down as the princess who destroyed Isthyr,’ Kyor repeats. ‘Stef here seems to have forgotten your title.’
A rumble of annoyance rattles from the Issen’s throat, causing a smirk of satisfaction to twist the corners of Kyor’s lips.
News of my increased magic and passing stage two of the Rite has definitely spread. And with it the mixed response of the Issen I meet. There are those who bend low and scrape the ground when they see me, and then there are those who mutter under their breath when I pass.
I swear I nearly slipped on a patch of ice in the city this morning that had been deliberately placed there.
Not unlike the fall I had when I walked to the Veil that first time with Magnus.
But then again, ice is slippery. Surely I’m just being paranoid?
Though it’s not paranoia when others are out to get you, and half the Issen people clearly despise me.
‘Can we move a bit further away from the city?’ I ask Stefan as another flurry unexpectedly surges from my aching hands. Making three mediocre flakes is no longer the issue. Making less than three hundred thousand is. Accidental blizzards are my new forte.
We are no longer in the battle yard, but on the edge of the snow plains just where the jotnar attacked.
Isthyr is well in the distance, the turrets of the library only just visible beneath the swathes of low-slung cloud that have shrouded the city since morning.
But it’s still closer than I want to be when my powers are haywire.
If I destroy half the city, any chance of an invitation for William disappears in an avalanche.
Not to mention that the hundreds of deaths on my conscience would be crushing. So more distance.
‘Sure. But you know, all this tension you’re holding isn’t helping.’ Stefan takes me by the shoulders and spins me around so that my back is facing him, then digs his thumbs into the knots around my shoulder blades. ‘These muscles are so tight. You have to find a way to loosen— Ow!’
I don’t need to question what caused his sudden reaction, but I turn around anyway.
Over by the wolves, Kyor is nonchalantly picking at his nails, though the spark he shot at Stefan proves he’s nowhere near as relaxed as he’s pretending to be. There’s tension in his jaw too. Probably from holding back another smirk.
With a sharp inhale, Stefan looks at me, only to let out a long sigh.
‘Are you really all right with him behaving like that? It’s bad enough that you flaunt your relationship, let alone allow him to attack me in such a manner.’