Page 143 of Cage of Starlight
“His Core,” Tory says. “I can’t.”
“Ican.”
Helner drops to Tory’s side, Jeffra shifting to make room for her. She looks entirely unlike herself, the intensity she wears like a second skin gone from her as she examines Sena’s still body.
Tory’s voice comes out a growl. “You.”
“Me,” she says. “I—when Riese asked me to ‘treat’ Sena, he phrased what I was supposed to do to him as a mercy. Maybe it was. But he didn’t deserve that. I can’t change what I did, but . . . if his Seed is gone, I can at least remove his Core.”
Tory’s muscles bunch, body charged with the need to push her as far away from Sena as he can get her. But she’s right.
“Why should I trust you?”
Her lips quirk up. “Never said you should. But I’m damn good at what I do, and I’ve never offered a freebie before. I’d suggest taking it.”
If nothing else, they can give Sena the peace of dying free from the Core.
The ground shakes. Smoke and light rush into the cocoon of vines.
The feed of warm energy from Jeffra dissipates as a cry rises up in the back. “Mom! We need you over here!”
Jeffra squeezes his shoulder. “Work to do. I’ll be back.”
“So?” Helner raises both hands. Some wild, vertiginous energy rushes into them.
“Do it.”
From everything he’s been told, the process of separating a Core from a body is an exercise in frustration. For a living Core in living flesh, that’s probably true. Helner reaches into Sena, though, with gentle hands. For all the pain it caused, removing his Core is a matter of a moment. She withdraws her cupped hands, expression complicated.
The Core she pulled from Tory was a visceral red. This one is blackish and shriveled.
“For what it’s worth, Iamsorry.” She tosses the Core into the dirt. “He had more guts than all of us. You got it from here? I need to go kill something.”
“I’ve got him.”
Her hand brushes his shoulder as she passes. “Good luck.”
Tory turns his attention back to Sena. The Core may be out, but the damage it left behind isn’t gone. He closes his eyes and sinks down, finding inflamed and infected flesh and returning it to health. He locks his elbows to support him and shakes, body throbbing. Whatever energy Jeffra gave him, it’s nearly gone.
He aches, burns, and it hurts because it matters.
He breathes, and that, too, aches, like he’s been holding his breath all this time.
He works, and he works, and Sena’s body is healed but his heart remains still.
Someone settles in beside him, lays a hand on his shoulder, and Jeffra’s warm energy flows through him again. He fists his hands inSena’s shirt and keeps going. His vision doesn’t return. He navigates Sena’s veins in the dark, the roar of his own blood filling his ears.
His body is healed, but the line betweenhereandgoneremains impassable. Sena’s heart never picks up its tune.
Sometimes it tries. Weak contractions, like shivers. Blood moves through Sena only when Tory makes it.
He keeps going.
“Damn you,” he mutters to the tune of his own heart. “You don’t get to do this.”
Somewhere along the line, freedom stopped being a mere concept and became the people he shared it with. Sena doesn’t get to bow out like some motherfucking self-sacrificing idiot. That’s not how this works.
“Shh,” Jeffra murmurs, “You’re doing so well. Now this. Feel what I’m doing.” Her warm energies root around in him, and adrenaline floods his body. “Just like that, but give it everything you have.”
