Page 110 of Shadows and Flames
Perhaps because what extended forth was not just Fire but Death as well. A combination of us, like braided rope, trailed forth and engulfed the poison that infected my brother.
It burned green.
Whether from the mixture of Death and Fire, or the toxic stuff itself, my power burned it up while… while Meline’s absorbed the smoke it released. Removing it from existence entirely.
I shuddered and called back my—our—powers, and they retreated readily. Flames absorbed back into my skin, and Death trailed back to my queen behind me. When I glanced over at her, worried how this use of our powers affected her, her shoulders were slumped and her mouth pinched.
Meline smacked her lips and scowled. “That was…disgusting.”
I huffed and shook my head, trying to clear the tiredness worming even further in.
“A miracle, more like.” Cera watched us with a different sort of interest. One that didn’t raise my hackles but made me feel…dissected.
“Um,” Tana’s voice was now quiet, her words now timid. “It’s growing back.” She bit her lip and sniffed while I nearly collapsed. How long could Cera pull out what ailed him until his body…
I could not bear to think it.
Tom was now unconscious, brow furrowed in sleep, but his breathing sounded smooth. No longer crackling with what occluded his lungs and throat. For now.
The High Priestess grimly looked upon my brother. “We will need to repeat the process, extracting as the malignancy matures while attacking the remnants it replicates from. Not impossible, but lengthy. Tiresome for him.”
Just as I’d thought. Feared. But as difficult the High Priestess enjoyed being in moments of jest, the peace she’d brought to my brother in this moment was enough to win her my trust. For me to feel solidified in my conviction to leave him in her hands.
“I must go.” To the Well. To fulfill my responsibilities to my fellow Shadows, to my brother and sister, and to the young boy who put his trust in us.
Meline appeared at my side, glaring. “Youmust go?”
Did she—I frowned. Only… only members and mates were allowed past the illusion. Mamá had not even set foot in the Well, only traveling so far as the barrier that upon crossing, would turn the trespasser around, skirting the Well completely and into the forest surrounding.
Another cruel twist of fate from the Goddesses. The Well was only a couple of days’ ride from Ralthas. A week if one was one foot and traveling swiftly.
Had I been at the Well when she lost Soleil? Drinking myself into a hallucinative, incoherent state? When I had cleared myself of that particular stage of grief, there had been no trace of her in Ralthas, one of the first cities I visited when I resumed searching.
“El,” Meline brought me back to her rage. “You’re just staring at me and scowling. You arenotfacing them alone.”
I had been thinking, not angry with her. But she seemed furious with me, barely succeeding in steadying the tremble in her lip. The uncertain searching as she looked at me.
I opened my mouth, trying to choose my words carefully when there were too many to grasp. She waited, growing warier by the second, until I managed, “You will not be able to go into the Well, my queen.”
Meline huffed and stood straighter. The others, save for Tom, watched us in intrigued silence. “I don’t care. If I have to travel up to the border and stand on the other side while you present Marco to me, healthy and safe, that’s what I will do.”
“And if all is not that simple?” Cera muttered. “You wish to fight the usurpation alone, Master Elián?”
Meline bristled, and I felt the room chill a few degrees. “No.” She pointed a black finger at me. “Not in this realm or any other are we going to be apart again, Elián. Not in any world are we facing a threat of this magnitude without the other. Especially not fuckingCal.” She nearly spit at her feet, uttering the name of the King of Krisla. Her former lover.
“Meline.” Censure bled into the way I spoke her name. She was not Shadow. She had made no vows to us, and at least one Shadow had tried to kill her. I would not lose her again.
“It’s settled,” Meline declared and faced the room. Now, I was scowling out of anger. Frustration. “El and I will go to The Shadows and pull them from Cal’s clutches. Cera will heal Tomás, and Tana will…” she trailed off, hesitant in a way I’d not seen her address her cousin.
The witch filled in the direction of this parting of ways. “I will stay here. Aid in Tomás’s recovery under Cera’s guidance.”
“And what will you do, Vyrkos?”
Fenix sneered at the High Priestess. “I have a name, you witch.”
Tana sputtered, lip curling and fists clenching, though the slight was not directed at her. “Show some goddess-damnedrespect, Fenix.”
To his credit, the male in love with Tana looked properly chastised. Freezing, retracting his fangs, and staring at his feet in capitulation. His pale jaw tensed enough to shatter glass. “I’ll stay. To help.”
