Page 100 of Cage of Starlight
The realization leaves him dizzy.
Suddenly, he understands his mother’s warnings in a way he never could before. He doesn’t know what she wanted back when she was free, but he knows with a certainty that sucks the breath from his lungs that losing it hurt her badly enough to turn her eyes only to survival.
To want something is to give that thing permission to hurt you; it’s so much easier to remain whole when you’re alone. Tory hasn’t even lost anything yet—stars, he doesn’t even have it—but it hurts already, a dizzying throb that steals the heat from his fingers and lips and leaves him shivering, his head a rockslide of catastrophes. Tory forces them away before they can crush him.
He can fix this. Somehow, they’ll fix this.
Sena’s hand slips off the canteen when he reaches up to grab it.
Five days.
Toryshoves the thought someplace dark and small and far away.
“Here.” Hasra did this so much better, cupping his head and pouring sip after sip into Tory’s mouth when he was too weak to move. Tory’s movements are stilted. He pours water on Sena’s face twice before he gets the speed of it right. It’s worthwhile, though, because Sena gives him one of those dry, unimpressed looks thathasto mean he’s not doing too badly. The third try, Sena supports the canteen with one of his own hands and tips it up, nearly draining it in a series of desperate gulps.
“Hey, Sena?”
The silence between question and response stretches taut.
“Mm?”
He’s spent his whole life swallowing words. Turns out speaking the ones he really means hurts just as bad. “You don’t get to die.”
Sena hums, thoughtful. “Not your choice.”
He can choose not to watch. “I wouldn’t make you go back, but—something. We’ll figure something else out.”
Sena tries a lopsided smile Tory translates asfat chance.“Maybe.”
“Tell me you won’t go off and die. I’ll—I’ll keep looking for answers until the last minute. I’ll even do all the heavy lifting since you’re such a mess. You hear me? We’ll fix this.”
“In five days?”
“Promise me you’ll try.”
Sena mumbles something close enough topromisefor Tory to hold him to it.
Sena’s eyes slip closed, his thick, dark lashes a startling contrast to the pallor of his face. Underneath his eyes and in thehollows beneath his brow, by the bridge of his nose, the thin skin lies bruise-purple.
Tory scoots back, reaches inside himself for his healing energies. He finds them, alive and thriving. But what use are they if he can’t use them? A broken rib, a fever and cough would be so easy to fix. The body is a stubborn thing. It wants to be well. Tory would barely suffer at all to make it like they never happened.
But he can’t sense Sena’s healing energies beyond the chaotic crackle of his Seed. He doesn’t dare to expand them again and earn the wrath of everyone here, but perhaps he can crush them down instead, maybe small enough to be able to heal Sena—
“Hold on,” he murmurs. “I’m going to try something.”
The energy responds to him as readily as it did with Iri, but it’s dense beyond imagination. It doesn’t want to shrink. He pushes it, but Sena starts trembling before Tory gets it down to half its size, fingernails scrabbling at his skin like it hurts. Tory lets it go, and it snaps back. Tory grits his teeth. Maybe he can healaroundit. Make it withdraw from Sena in a localized way so he can heal him bit by bit.
Nothing. There’s toomuch.Far too much. “Damn it, Sena.”
Maybe Iri will have some idea—
Tory aches. Iri can’t help them anymore.
Even eight inkhstones weren’t enough to fully suppress Sena’s power. Tory presses his hand over Sena’s uniform and reaches for his own healing energies. He’s the Worldseed, one of the First Children. He and Sena are supposed to be able to do the impossible.
But there’s nothing.
“Useless.”Helplessness carves hollows in his gut.
