Page 42 of Lera of Lunos
Every bit but a small stream of power that the blue-purple moss I lie on leeches through the gash over my fractured wrist. The magic’s pressure releases slightly, the edge of its insanity softening as the moss laps it up like a cat sipping cream. For just an instant that feels like a lifetime, I watch it in wonder.
The velvet moss drinks from my echoed magic. Thirstily, yes, but not viciously.
It takes without malice. It justis.Like the forgiving sands beneath Tye’s horizontal bar, the moss is the Gloom’s great buffer, keeping the magic in check. In balance.
No wonder the moss is growing before our very eyes now—it’s sprouting in response to the influx of magic that Griorgi’s portal has summoned, the blue-purple strands trying to absorb the extra power and return the Gloom to balance.
My hand closes around a clump of moss, its tendrils caressing my skin. Velvet and thick as a tiger’s fur. The only living thing native to the Gloom.
“You aren’t a parasite at all,” I whisper to the moss, the realization trickling through my blood. “You are a symbiont, aren’t you?”
The moss encircles my bleeding wrist, lapping more and more of my magic as it gains strength. With some of the power siphoned away, I can breathe again. At least for a little while. I draw a shuddering breath, a new plan settling over me. One that will let my males live.
“Brace yourself,” I order River. With no time to wait for his nod, I grasp the growling dark-brown cord of his earth magic and jam its tip into the floor. The resulting quake is violent enough to knock everyone off their feet without destroying the temple, stars be thanked.
With the magic’s pressure momentarily relieved, all the cords of power inside me are finally malleable. Obedient to my command.
Euphoria washes over me as the magic I’ve only battled and endured thus far suddenly opens an inviting hand. The uncomfortable sparks under my skin turn to a pleasurable tickle; the pressure in my ears, behind my eyes, turns to a soft, massaging warmth. The phantom keening in my ears turns into an orchestra, its glorious music already filling my soul. Awaiting my direction.
Stars. I could exist in this instant forever.
Except I can’t. To get rid of the corruption that Griorgi and Jawrar brought into Lunos’s Gloom, the moss needs to be allowed to do its job. But it needs to work faster. Much, much faster. Which means all the magic still growing stronger inside me must be given over to it, the Gloom’s blue guardian.
Working quickly, I entwine the four cords of the males’ magic together, for the first time truly braiding the strands into one mighty weave. Into a single new cord whose power is unequal to any known in Lunos.
I fumble around on the ground, wrapping my fingers around a piece of sharp marble debris.
“What are you doing?” Ten paces away, a groaning Griorgi struggles to his knees, his dazed eyes somehow full of both hate and the same abstract curiosity I’ve seen in Autumn’s. “I know you are behind the magic’s assault. Will you give it up to attack us with a sharp stone?”
“I’ve worked out the one disadvantage of your immortality,” I tell him, my hand tightening around the shard, bracing for what must be done. We thought I needed to gather power to triumph over Mors. In truth, I need to give it away. “Immortals can’t live without magic.” Twisting toward River, I raise my voice, shouting one final order to my quint commander. “Get the quint off the moss.”
My words are still ringing from the walls when I plunge the stone dagger deep into my vein and slice, gifting the strongest magic in Lunos to the Gloom’s soft blue sentinel. “Do what you do best, my friend,” I whisper to the moss, my mind already fuzzy from blood loss. “Balance the Gloom free of Griorgi’s corruption.”
32
River
River screamed as blood gushed from Leralynn’s arm. Scrambling to his feet, he sprinted for her, heedless of the shackles that would yank him back. Yet it wasn’t shackles that stopped him two steps into the run. It wasmoss.
Ankle high only a moment earlier, the blue parasite suddenly sprouted into a thick violet forest, a glowing, sponge-like mass towering above his head, creating a wall around his circle of stone. The strands touching River’s bare hands burned with liquid fire so painful that he jerked back, panting wildly.
What the bloody stars just happened?
One moment, they’d been an instant from certain death. The two lashes of Leralynn’s power had weakened the temple, the inevitable third one certain to finish it off. River knew it. So did Leralynn. River had seen as much in her eyes. Jawrar and Griorgi had known it too, the former disappearing into the Subgloom while the latter surveyed the crumbles of his promised empire with wide-eyed fury.
And itwascrumbled. Leralynn’s initial blow had cracked the floor, destroying the rune that the king had spent so much time perfecting. The portal of liquid darkness was slowly shrinking, with no more qoru entering this world. Half the monsters already here were pinned beneath fallen chunks of ceiling and pillar. Another moment and they too would have died, buried beneath the temple’s dome.
River had been ready for the end. Had been ready ever since closing those Mors-forged cuffs over his own wrists. Stars knew he’d tried, had reached out with his magic just to let the cuffs crush him, to try to keep his blood from Griorgi’s hands. But the king had been too intelligent for such antics, and the things he’d done to Coal and Shade to gain River’s compliance... Yes. River had been more than ready, regretting only his inability to touch Leralynn one last time.
He had found her gaze though. Held it as she readied for the final blow...
And sliced open her arm instead.
River turned in a circle. The five-pace-wide space around him was bare but for the remains of the rune and the slowly shrinking portal. Beyond that, he saw nothing. His space was an island in a sea of purple.
A very unpleasant sea, judging from the screams of agony coming from within it.
Get the quint off the moss.
