Page 57 of Elemental Affections

“Garethe,” Jeron warned.

The middle Sor’vahl shook his head. “He was going to find out eventually.”

Ezzyn’s head whipped back and forth between his brothers. “The outpost or—”

“The outpost and half the town,” Jeron said, anger giving way to grim resignation. “We’re holding on to what’s left. So far.”

So far.Ezzyn stood frozen, speech failing as his mind tried to make sense of the words. All he could manage was, “How? When?”

Den’olm was a smaller town in the eastern part of the kingdom, situated directly over the ley line to the wellspring. Bolstered by such proximity, and being a staging town for several magical pursuits and thus home to a consistent number of mages, Den’olm acted as an aggressive line of defense against the blight. It had taken increasingly more people and effort to keep the poison at bay over the years, but Den’olm had endured. For it to be all but gone, to have lost such a bastion, was unthinkable.

“A month ago,” Jeron said.

The mood in the room, so easy and light only minutes ago, had gone taut, horror mixing with gloom.

“A month,” Ezzyn repeated, voice faint. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything. We didn’t want you to—”

Ezzyn left, his brothers’ voices falling to background noise as he made for the stables.

The distance from the Sor’vahl manse in Talihn to Den’olm was less than thirty leagues. A two-day trip at a comfortable pace.

Ezzyn made it there by nightfall, changing horses along the way. The ride passed in a blur, too slow for his patience yet his memory of it later was mere snippets, his mind too consumed with anger and dread. He hated his brothers for keeping the news from him, even though the remaining sliver of his rational brain knew their reasoning made sense. He couldn’t have stopped it, but he did nothing by remaining in the Valley.

Destruction from the blight was not new for him, yet still Ezzyn was struck by the sight of the ravished town. The outpost at the far reaches had a noxious quality to the air, the ground conveying an unnatural cold, its appearance desiccated and dull gray. The abandoned buildings carried the stench of rotten wood, stone reduced to crumbling pieces, metal pitted and cracked.

Most civilians residing in the town had been evacuated, and only mages and a few supporters remained. It was almost comical to see the stark line dividing the healthy portion of remaining soil from the corrupted side. Healthy ground and buildings abutting that which was moldering and dead, nothing visible keeping them apart.

Almost nothing visible. Ezzyn found a few mages he knew from previous efforts fighting the blight. It didn’t take long to get him up to speed on Den’olm’s containment progress, not when there was so little to report. Not so much progress as holding on with all their might. He deflected questions as to his arrival, and everyone was too busy, too exhausted, to press. Of utmost importance was securing the ground around two of the surviving wells.

Ezzyn threw himself into the work. Whatever softheaded mentality had crept in while he’d been safe down in the Valley was quickly seared away the moment he dug his fingers into the corrupted ground. The sting of the poison trying to resist his fire had a welcome familiarity. How weak he’d let himself become. But it didn’t matter, not anymore. So many years spent pushing through the bite of poison against his skin meant he toughened quickly. It didn’t take long for his body to remember how to ignore exhaustion. To fight on, always. At that first lick of poison, at feeling it grudgingly recede beneath his power, Ezzyn felt a vicious stab of glee. Of relief. The emotion tore through the layers of self-recrimination and so much anger that had fogged up his mind. Finally, he was where he was meant to be. Where he should’ve been all along.

He joined a trio of fire mages working to burn off the poison saturating the land near a well. Elementalists of all disciplines worked in tandem, but fire was always in first. Their blunt if efficient spells incinerated swathes of ground, water and air coming in behind to cool and prepare the roughly treated soil for wards. The grovetenders’ followed with plantings to further breakdown traces of poison and make the area resistant to recurring damage. Wind-shapers cleansed the air as best they could. A handful of menders kept the cleanup crew physically able. Magic could only do so much for the mental drain.

Ezzyn worked through the night, ignoring shift changes and snapping at anyone who suggested he take a break. Incited his royal status without remorse. If they could just clear enough ground out from the wells, then wards could be installed to maintain some of the spellwork, reducing the need for so much in-person casting. But the poison here was strong, reinfecting the land as fast as they could cleanse it. Progress was so painfully slow he would’ve screamed if he could spare the breath.

The sound of his name being called broke through his concentration. Irritation seared through him, bubbling over into a snarl when a hand shook his shoulder.

“I fucking said—” He shrugged off the hand.

“Yes, yes, you’re the godsdamned prince. I’ve heard,” Garethe said, unruffled.

Ezzyn blinked as awareness of the rest of the world filtered back in. Pink and hazy purple streaks faded from the dawn sky.

“Come on. You need to rest.” Garethe took him by the arm and dragged him away.

“No, I’m close to—” Ezzyn protested, then shook his head. Realization clawed its way to the front of his mind. “You shouldn’t be here! It’s too—”

“You don’t get to lecture me on health and safety,” Garethe said, temper finally flaring. “You are taking a fucking break.”

Disgruntled but not yet completely devoid of his faculties, Ezzyn wriggled out of his brother’s grip as he followed him to the rest area. He accepted a plate of food and a water skin, availing himself of both under Garethe’s watchful eye.

For a while, they surveyed the activities of the town in grim silence. Guilt ate at Ezzyn, souring the taste of his food and drink. How quickly he’d forgotten the reality of the fight in Rhell. Even though he’d been researching ways to even the field, find something that was truly progress rather than another flimsy stopgap, in just four months he’d become complacent. Let himself be comfortable down in the Valley. Given to distraction instead of applying himself. Pursued petty indulgences. Grown lazy. Lax. Lost the sense of urgency Rhell needed. He’d become that which he scorned, no better than the outsider intellectuals who saw Rhell as an interesting problem on paper, far removed.

Absently, he scratched at an itch on his arm, surprised to see his flaky, grime-encrusted skin.

Sighing, Garethe fetched a first-aid kit. “You can’t do this.”

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