Page 171 of Stars in Aura

Sulfiqar hesitated, but he acquiesced with a wave of his weakening hand.

His Witchmen whispered the ritual, their voices threading into his skull and his metanoids, which conjured a slew of ancient herbs, roots, and celestial seeds.

A mortar of polished night stone appeared before Ki’Remi, filled with the components his ancestors had once used to heal kings and warriors before the age of gods.

K’Shivi whispered into his psyche.The antidote’s potency must be fused with your noids, son. It has to meld with your blood and infuse itself before you place his hands on Sulfiqar’s decaying form.

Ki’Remi sucked his teeth and then got to work.

He went on one knee and crushed the ingredients within the mortar into a thick, glimmering paste.

Then, gathering the resulting mash into a ball, he pressed it onto his chest.

A wave of burning energy seared through him as the antitoxin worked its way under the surface of his skin.

His metanoids reacted.

The cure ignited inside his bloodstream, traveling through him like wildfire.

His spine arched, convulsing, as if every nerve, molecule, and fiber of his existence was being rewritten.

His breath turned to fire.

His veins burned with liquid lightning.

With a growl, he stood and prowled toward the Divine Deity, his Rider form at the head of the quartet of Witchmen.

The four silhouettes wrapped themselves around the Most High Deity and then, with a flash of light, melded with the divine entity.

An immense energy exchange lit up the chamber so bright that Issa fell to her knees, covering her eyes with a forearm, her eyes tight shut as the radiance bloomed with intense brilliance.

Pure, heightened force flooded the god, Ki’Remi’s metanoids coating his withering body, fusing with his essence, knitting back the decaying threads of his immortality.

Sulfiqar gasped.

His limbs stopped quivering. His eyes lost their glassy, fevered edge.

The rot eating away at his celestial core slowed, then reversed.

The god’s breath steadied, and each celestial cell was reborn.

Ki’Remi detected a final power surge exiting his frame as he collapsed. The seer, Soothsayer, and Sorcerer forms of himself imploded and disappeared.

He hit the ground with a brutal thud, his appendages convulsing, his entire being wracked with searing agony as he absorbed Sulfiqar’s sickness, detritus, and death-carrying motes.

A ragged cry ripped from his throat, his chest arching upward as if his very soul was trying to escape his body.

His metanoids ignited and overloaded, the ratcheting scorching heat from their attempts to repair and heal him coursing through him too fast with raw torridness.

The Witchmen who’d retreated into his mind burned with righteous fury, flaming hard to safeguard their scion’s essence of life.

The pain was excruciating.

From somewhere, far away, Issa screamed his name.

He was unable to move or save himself except fall.

Into an endless, neverending, dark abyss.

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