Page 62 of Rose and Shadows
As I rushed to her, pulling her hair out of her face, my gaze shot to Sylas.
He went to reach for her as well, to comfort her, but he started in shock and we both watched the desiccation heal of its own accord.
“How in Hades?” I uttered.
Sylas frowned, then looked from his hand, to Velra vomiting. “Motherfucker.”
Before I could ask what he’d just realized, Velra ceased vomiting, and I lifted her back onto the bed. With a sweep of my magic, I had the vomit cleaned away, then I settled with her, wrapping her up in my arms. “Breathe,little shadow. Take a few moments.”
“I don’t understand,” she rasped. “I’m not having a trauma spike at this exact moment… the throwing up… why?”
Sylas moved up close to her other side and stared at her in what appeared to be absolute shock—an extreme rarity for him.
Then he reached out and placed his hand on her belly again, skin to skin, because she was fully naked—well, apart from me now wrapped around her.
He hissed as his hand started to desiccate again.
He pulled it away. It healed instantly.
“Does this have something to do with the spell I saw the remnants of when I strode in?”
Velra winced. “That was… a mistake.”
“It surely was.”
Her gaze snapped to mine, and I had to resist the overpowering urge to delve into it now. I couldn’t harp on it when she was in physical distress.
But itwouldbe delved into later.
“If it was the spell, I should have felt it immediately afterward.” She looked to Sylas. “Right?”
“Right,” he answered distractedly, his focus on her belly.
“Sylas,” I urged. “What is it?”
“The desiccation… it’s nothing to do with my sickness. It’s not the same, even though the result looks the same. This is… it’s drawing on my necromantic energy. Feeding off it. Needing it.”
“What?” Velra asked. “It… some infection I’ve come down with? When I was in that cell with Sorin, maybe he afflicted me with something? He couldn’t harm me with brute force magic, but maybe there was a workaround to the protections we had in place?”
“No. Not an infection,” Sylas spoke.
His gaze locked on mine.
The intensity in it, his shock… then factoring in her vomiting also, certain other things that I’d put down to trauma responses just like she had… even it sounding like her magic had misfired where muting her emotions from me was concerned… the realization slammed into me.
Both brutally and… beautifully.
I couldn’t… I didn’t know how to reconcile it.
This was…. unprecedented, and that didn’t even do it justice.
“Give me your hand,” Sylas urged me.
I didn’t even hesitate for a fraction of a second.
He grasped it, then placed my palm over her belly, while his covered the back of mine—a barrier to the desiccation as he employed his magic.
“Carefully,” he told me.
