Page 139 of Rose and Shadows
“This is… it’s really something,” Sylas managed.
His awe and the joyful glint in his eyes was all too short-lived, as it was for us all, when his magic started sparking uncontrollably again. “Ambrose… where is he? He must have the core and Corvin’s magic… I had it before I passed out.”
“Kai has them both now,” I told him. “He’s prepping the spell as we speak.”
Sylas started. “He’s… what?”
The urge to go to him was intense, but I stayed back.
It wasn’t that I thought he’d actually hurt me or the baby—or any of us in a substantial way—it was that he needed the distance to feel safe for us right now. Lazriel nuzzled against me and I saw Cassius giving me a nod of reassurance.
So, instead, I stayed where I was. “We wanted to have the spell done before you woke up, but you roused a hell of a lot faster than we thought. As soon as Ambrose arrived with you, he handed over the core and the magic to Kai, knowing the two of you had been working on a cure for a long time, knowing Kai would have the means to see to it.”
He frowned at me for a moment. “Ah, to spare me the pain?”
“To spare you the trauma.”
“Of yet another fucking horrific medical procedure. On top of the torture it sounds like you just experienced too… it’s way too much, Sylas,” Lazriel said.
A haunted look clouded Sylas’ face for a moment, before he quickly blinked it away. Then he lifted a shoulder. “It is what it is. Given what I am, it’s par for the course.”
“Never gonna accept that,” Lazriel growled.
“No. We won’t.”
“This will be the last,” Cassius added. “Then we fight, we prevail, and all the rest falls away into memory. The future will be a salve upon it all.”
“Wow, Cas,” Lazriel said, grinning out at him. “That was verging on romantic. In an epic fucking way.”
Cassius smiled back at him. “Indeed.”
I was smiling too, and I even saw Sylas crack a smile, despite how distressed he clearly was at not being in full control of his power, and what he’d just endured compounding the already heavy burden of everything.
“There’s hope to be had here,” I told him, gesturing at the four of us, and then my belly. “Real, tangible hope. Okay? Do you hear us?”
He scrubbed his hand over his face, his magic sparking erratically not harming him as he did so, but definitely irritating him. “Yeah,” he offered. “Of course.” He shifted his weight and carefully pushed off the bed without using his sparking hands. His eyes darkened as he rose to his feet. “Besides, I owe those motherfuckers a reckoning. We all do.”
24
~Cassius~
Sylas was nervous.
For a myriad of reasons, considering everything happening and what was at stake. But specific to this moment in time said nervousness was rooted in the fact thathewould not be in control of the spell that was about to be performed.
Kai would have command of it.
And as much as Sylas had faith and trust in Kai, he didn’t do well when control was not in his hands. Especially when it came to matters of magic.
That was further intensified because of what this spell was—the key to permanently restoring him after all these years he’d suffered through sickness and weakening.
I stood at the ready beside him, my palms upturned and live with my power, prepared to react defensively to shield everyone should the sparking he was experiencing escalate.
Velra and Lazriel were a hundred feet away on the cobblestone path beside the entrance into the Rifted Cradle where Ketheron and I had fashioned our castle of a home.
It had been my suggestion to perform therestorationspell within this protective environment. Protective in this case beingin the sense that if Sylas lost control or ruptured, the damage could not impact the outside world beyond this Rifted Cradle construct. Any magic usage or outbursts would be contained within this special dimensional space.
As for within the space, though, and up close where Kai needed to be in order to perform the spell… that was more complicated.
