Page 19 of Shadowing Bright
Vaia huffed.“Why would you?I am very obviously not content with the situation.”
“Well, your family forced you into the situation, and my family was just happy to find someone with compatible energies.You don’t know how rare you are.”
“I have a pretty good idea.”
A soft knock on the doorframe got her attention.She smiled.“Archmage Artemis.What are you here for?”
“Oh, no one knows about the familiar mage-creature connection like I do.Well, my familiar does, but I distracted him by sending him for pizza.He doesn’t need to be here for this.”
Vaia was wary.“I thought your specialty was portals?”
“What is a familiar link but a connection between two points.A gateway for power.”Artemis grinned.
Vaia snorted.“Nobody else wanted to come.”
“Bingo.He’s dragon-sired, and you are a Depford.That is a lot of raw power that can go wrong.Fortunately, I am confident.”
She pulled a scroll out.“Now, here we go.This is an acknowledgement that you both want the familiar link dissolved.Now that you are both adults, it is binding.”
She created a lap desk, and it settled over Vaia, keeping her legs free.The archmage patted her own backside and found a pen.“There we go.Read it.Read it carefully.”
Vaia read it and blinked.“Oh.No way.”
“Way.Keep reading.”
Azreen frowned but kept silent.He waited for his turn.
Vaia looked at the final line, took a deep breath, and signed it.She turned the scroll to Azreen and said, “Please.”
He took it and found the same clause that had startled her.He nodded and signed the agreement to break the contract.
Artemis grinned and scribbled her own signature with an enormous flourish.“Nice.There go the formalities.”
The archmage looked at both of them.“I am going to open a vortex between you two, and it is going to take the off-gassing that Vaia has been building up over the last decade.”
“Put your hands out, Vaia’s over Azreen’s palms, close but not touching.”
Artemis adjusted their hands until they were the right width apart.She smiled and said, “The link is now severed.Boom.”She snapped her fingers.
Vaia felt nothing for a moment, and then a tether that kept tension on her broke, and her energy roared into all the hollow spaces.The space between their hands lit up, and that was where Artemis had put the portal.It was taking the extra.
When Vaia’s energy stopped its surging, she lay back, shivering.“Oh, that feels better.How do you feel, Azreen?”
He looked around and frowned then stepped toward her and picked her up.
Artemis smiled.“You were always there for him, so he forgot what it felt like to have you gone.He’s going to be super clingy for a while.I tried to do this with Tannic, but someone gave me a fatal wound the day before I would have been free of him.Azreen could have broken the connection unilaterally.It’s rare for them to allow the familiar to initiate it.”
Vaia glared at the other mage and said, “You couldn’t have warned me?”
“Naw, this is way funnier.Well, your familiar link is gone, but you still have the sharing available via your much more basic wedded link.”Artemis gathered everything she needed and disappeared.
Vaia looked down at Azreen’s arm across her chest and shoulder, and another around her back, supporting her.His cheek was pressed to the top of her head.“I want the link back.I am missing you.”
“No, but you can continue holding me as long as you don’t yank me around.My leg is burning.”
Azreen held his hand out over her thigh, and she felt the burn die and relaxed.“Thank you.”
He did the same for her ribs, and she smiled.“Thank you.Now I can just get the bill and find outwhy the hell there is an under-the-bed monster guarding my door.”
