Chapter 3 Ambrose Wisteryn #3
“Sylas has not been erased after all. And that will continue to be the case if cooler heads prevail and you allow me to concentrate,” I spoke calmly, despite the strain I was feeling.
I saw Remnant discreetly scent me. “Hades, old friend. Unbelievable.” He shook his head. “And unfathomably reckless for you.” His gaze flicked to Ketheron, before returning to mine. “These days, anyway, with promises made to your treasure.”
“Well, circumstances being what they were…”
“He had to,” Ketheron growled at him, all too fiercely, as he was already struggling as it was to remain calm while seeing me in this state and knowing the true dangers of it.
“Had to what, Keth?” Lazriel asked. “Sylas isn’t…
erased? So he will be in the Valley, then?
We just have to wait until we find Win and bring him back to us, then we can retrieve him?
” He glared at me, but it lacked ferocity.
He looked more worried than anything. “I know your whole maintain-the-balance-at-all-costs thing, but this is Sylas. Okay? It’s Sylas. Do you hear me?”
“I don’t think he’s in the Valley either,” Kai spoke, eyeing me and Ketheron curiously.
Nyx smiled up at him. “Everything is gonna be okay.”
“If my gorgeous isn’t bombarded any longer,” Ketheron ground out. And then he was shoving past everyone while wrapped around me, essentially shielding me with his body, while he used his own as a battering ram to take us to the guest room in question.
I felt a roll of Cassius and Velra’s magic just as we reached the threshold.
Perfect timing. I turned and addressed them both.
“Velra, I need you to erect a powerful illusion around this Rifted Cradle with Cassius. Kai, boost its potency. What I’m about to do can’t be felt, or the world will know that Sylas was technically dead, the world without a necromancer for hours on end.
That, combined with the Winter uproar, could very well push things over the edge—people storming your home, Temperance using it as an opportunity to snatch him in a bid to hurt Winter through their necromantic link. ”
“They won’t get through us,” Cassius rumbled.
“They have the means to stop an unkillable being in Winter. Your family consists of their target’s greatest and most powerful protectors.
Do you really think they wouldn’t have the means to see to that if it came down to it?
Which it has with Ruxnoth publicizing all of that to the entire supernatural world. ”
“The only thing offering resistance to an attack of that nature is Risen Reckoning being invoked on the living—Sylas. If they sense weakness, tactically that’s an opening they never believed possible before,” Remnant added, thankfully.
“Ryker, Kai, and Ariana have shielded Sylas’ death from being felt, but any change to that will dissolve that falsity and be felt by those closely monitoring him and things of this nature. ”
“Stop. Hold up,” Lazriel spoke. “Go back a couple of panic levels.”
“Yes,” Velra agreed, frowning at the state of me. “You spoke about Sylas ‘being dead’ in the past tense. Kai’s saying he’s not in the Valley, but he’s not actually erased either. Are you saying that—”
“I’m saying that I have the means to bring Sylas back.”
Startlement didn’t even cover it as they all stared at me.
Shock? Awe? Disbelief? Cautious hope?
All of the above, certainly.
“You warped the effect of the Spiral Thorn,” Kai surmised.
“Essentially, I was able to prevent a kill-condition from fully firing.”
“What about the True Celestial aspect imbued in it?” Cassius queried.
Ketheron ran his hand in front of me. “Hence the pained and struggling state of him, Cassius.”
“My goodness,” Cassius exclaimed. “Remarkable.”
“Yes,” I sighed. “Now, let’s see to it, shall we?”
I turned then, with Ketheron’s help, and stepped across the threshold into the guest room.
Here goes a miracle.
It was difficult to reconcile seeing him this way.
Prone.
Unconscious.
Inactive.
Powerless.
He was always on the move, always impacting something.
Yet here he was now appearing deceased, just without the unsavory physical symptoms, as he lay inside the Restoration Chamber, a white sheet over his lower half, his bare chest on display where the wound through his heart was hidden beneath a gauze pad.
His head rested on a plush forest-green pillow, which I recognized as Lazriel’s favorite he usually slept on—there was a lot of oversharing that I’d been privy to since my relationship with Ketheron, as he couldn’t always draw a line between what was open information and what was private.
“The heavy-duty concealment spell is up,” Ketheron informed me, knowing my focus was only on this now.
He’d also reinforced the room with his power.
The home had already been created by him predominantly so it could sustain a great deal, including a toddler Winter who hadn’t been able to control his power.
“I’ll ensure they remain at a distance,” Remnant confirmed when I’d mentioned that I couldn’t have eruptions of magic interfering.
Ketheron’s was different as it was merely reinforcement he’d erected that wouldn’t interfere with the spell.
Whilst Velra, Cassius, and Kai were currently considered volatile by my standards and if things didn’t progress smoothly with what I was about to do, it was highly possible they could lash out or try to assist.
While I’d rather Lazriel in his current state wasn’t in the room either, he didn’t possess magic. And his father was right beside him, so any outbursts would easily be contained.
And as for Remnant… well, he was a steadying force. Through anything and everything. It was clear to me that he thought of Sylas much like a son. But he also considered him a vital pillar of the supernatural world, which I knew he’d be focusing on through this.
“Okay,” I spoke, drawing in a calming breath, then peeling away the gauze pad over Sylas’ chest, revealing the stab wound.
It was a simple puncture in appearance—nothing like the concentric rings branded into my own flesh.
All that lethal architecture had been diverted to me.
If it had fully manifested on him instead, Sylas Morgrave would truly be no more.
It was no longer bleeding given his current state—his heart not beating and him presenting as deceased.
I pressed my right palm over it, my black magical glow radiating out. “I’ve got you, Almighty Necromancer.” I smiled sadly. “My friend. Fellow keeper of the balance.”
Through the connection that Ruxnoth had established with Winter via blood imbued into the Spiral Thorn, he’d been able to weaponize Winter’s bloodline connection to Sylas and the necromantic resonance of the father-son bond, riding the Sylas-Winter Necromancy link to make the heart-stab with the Spiral Thorn into a true kill condition for Sylas.
It had broken Sylas’ usual necromantic immunity and thereby locked the kill in as absolute.
Until I’d intervened, essentially pausing it.
So in order to undo that, I had to draw out the essence of it remaining in Sylas’ wound itself, knowing that the abomination wouldn’t have taken any chances. I couldn’t heal that wound either, and nobody had clearly been able to, as it was still open. It was ‘locked’ by what Ruxnoth had wrought.
I had to break the arrangement of the concentric circles in practicality—those I’d pulled onto myself, the magical wound mark I’d seen to earlier.
The combination was what would have led to a lethal strike.
And not just lethal, but actually erasing Sylas from existence entirely—that part I’d felt Ruxnoth enact through his ability to transmute.
He’d done that with a death blow. Incredibly dangerous and violating.
As if killing somebody who was so vital to the balance nowadays wasn’t already a supreme violation.
So, to break the circle arrangement, I needed to draw out the crimson one from my magical replication of the wound—Sylas’ aspect—and infuse it into the stab wound in Sylas’ chest. Then his wound would still be there, still have occurred once I broke this paused state, but it wouldn’t be lethal.
Just… uncomfortable. Until it could then be healed.
As for the amber circle and the midnight-blue one marking me—Winter and Ruxnoth respectively—I had to separate Winter’s by using my ability to warp how magic and certain spells behaved and have Winter’s magic attack Ruxnoth’s.
It would be creating the opposite of what Ruxnoth had, which was fusing them together.
And once I had Winter’s free, it would break the connection between them going forward, which would give Winter some protection down there in Sanctus until we could extract him.
I would then trap Ruxnoth’s power and the blood essence infused in it.
With a spark of my magic, I dematerialized my robe and tunic, leaving me just in my navy pants and leather ankle boots.
I heard a choked sound from Lazriel and a curse from Remnant as they caught sight of the nasty magical wound on my chest.
Currently, my black magic was swirling around the circles, with glowing, jagged veins spreading outward—different to the ones I was already marked with.
The glowing aspect for one, and the jagged nature of them—and, yes, the fact that it was decaying my body, threatening to kill me the longer I held all of this at bay.
I hovered my left hand over the site, calling my black power, a stable glow emanating.
And then I pulled with my right hand on Sylas and my left on me.
I grunted as the crimson core in mine began trickling out into the air in a twisting weave.
At the same time, a midnight-blue trail pulled from Sylas’ stab wound—the residue of the Spiral Thorn true kill condition left there. I hadn’t been able to take it all, needing it a little in order to create this connection between us now, to allow me to do this.