Page 114 of A Baron of Bonds
He had his arms folded, Ilyenna’s head resting on his shoulder. The slightest smirk twitched on his lips, but he kept his gaze on me.
“Yes, Rell, something like that. You must focus your mind on what exactly you wish to do. What is your purpose with your power in that moment? Siphon your magic and have a reason. If you do not, Felgren will guess for you.”
I took a breath, my eyes catching on Karus for just a moment, sitting at the end of the tree, her hands wringing in her lap. Her anxious energy did not help, but I exhaled slowly, focusing on what I wanted to produce.
“Simulair Solum,” I spoke, focusing back on my ball of light as it warmed in my hands, a defined brilliance of sunshine lighting its surface. I held it as long as I could, the heat and heaviness difficult to steady for more than a few minutes before I ended the spell, folding my hands closed to snuff out the light.
Karus and I had agreed the first thing I should focus on was the length of time I could hold the spell, not the size of the orb.
“Why don’t you just use this spell in front of Pompeii and see if he’s better?” Philius asked, sitting next to Karus, his own arms folded across his chest.
“I have. Briefly, but it was worth a try. This Black Lung illness is contained within his chest and sunlight does nothing for it.”
Karus rose and began to pace. “What was the spell like for you, Mychael? The one that cured the Black Fever. You were there. Did it look like anything? Could you see it?”
He stood as well, his hand moving to his side where, as a guard, his sword had been sheathed. Remembering he no longer wore one, he rubbed his chin instead. “I was stationed at the castle at the time, but I didn’t see anything. I remember the cries of relief throughout the city and the cheers, but…I certainly don’t remember a glowing sun.”
Karus nodded. “I didn’t see anything either. It was as if one minute Philius was on the brink of death and the next, he was just sleeping peacefully.”
The Prince slid his jaw to the side and looked my way. “How is it Heimlen was able to cure thousands of people at once and you can barely hold a spell for a few minutes? Are you less of a Baron than he was?”
It was the wrong thing to say.
Not just as a spoiled princeling to someone with greater power, but as a channeler to his Baron.
The shock had barely enough time to register to the other six of them before I called the wind to push them away from the fallen tree. The entire moss-laden piece of the forest rose, and Philius scrambled to find purchase.
He grunted in an effort to stay wrapped around the trunk as it lifted higher into the air. I tilted my head slowly, the trunk following the movement, rotating and threatening a vertical, upright position.
“Rev.” Karus came to my side and touched my arm as the other five channelers either laughed or grimaced while Philius yelled for help, now slipping down the mossy surface of the trunk a good fifteen feet off the ground. His legs wrapped around the thick of it while his blackened fingers struggled to grip the bark.
I stepped forward out of Karus’s reach, my hands shoved in my pockets, a grin on my face. I’d hoped I’d be the one to put Philius in his place.
“How is it,” I drawled, “that a Prince of Hyrithia, born into a role of privilege and diplomacy, can speak with such disrespect and think there will be no consequence?”
“Help!” he shouted, sliding another foot down the tree as it came to a forty-five degree angle above the ground.
I heard a gasp from Ilyenna behind me, but I did not look back. I’d never had to do anything close to this with any of my other channelers. Each one of them understood their role in Felgren as well as mine.
Philius would come to that understanding today.
“Put me down!” His demand was confident, full of conviction that his order would be met as it always had been in his castle.
“You’ve not yet answered my question, but I will answer yours.” I kept my eyes on him, high above me. “Heimlen took weeks, possibly months to find the cure to the illness he created from the Blight. He had access to Viridis and all of its books on medicus conduit magic. This cure will take time to find, but wewillfind it. And as for theSimulair Solumspell,”—I glanced back at Karus who watched Philius with unease—“even the most powerful magic wielder here cannot hold it for long, and when she does, she cannot seem to break it. It is the same spell that took her memories and would have killed her if I had not knocked her over and broken it for her.”
Sixty degrees. He slipped further.
“So, yes, I cannot hold the spell for long, but you will not doubt my power again, nor my ability to put you in your proper place in this forest, which can be up there, dangling on that tree, or down here with your fellow channelers who understand what it means to respect their Baron.”
Eighty degrees. He squeezed his eyes shut and orange sparks flared at his fingertips, singeing the dead wood as he began a slow slide downward.
I turned around to address my channelers and the most powerful one among us. “Our next task is to attempt to get into Viridis’s medicus hall. I want each of you to head to the library, and research anything you can find on it. Many of the conduit memoirs mention it in their books. Start there.”
I stepped in front of Karus specifically, ignoring the shouts from Philius that he could not hold on any longer. Her face was tight with worry, and I knew she struggled to hold her tongue. I kissed her cheek and whispered in her ear, “I’ll handle this. Go check on Pompeii, will you?”
She nodded slowly with so much she wanted to say forcing its way across our tether, but she bit her lips inwardly and turned, following the channelers back to the Fortress.
I watched them go, a thin branch from a nearby willow tree snapping taught around Philius’s ankle as his grip faltered and he began to fall. I let go of the tree trunk and heard it crash to the ground, turning back around to see him dangling a good six feet from the earth, his arms hanging, his black coils bouncing along with the rest of him.
