Page 67 of Elemental Affections

“Ezzyn wouldn’t— It’s not like that. I stand on my own work.”

He gave her a patronizing smile. “That’s cute.”

Annoyance flashed up, striking through her indistinct fear. “He’s never used his influence on my behalf.”

“Oh, Ana.” Brint slowly shook his head, as if talking to a small child. “You really believe that, don’t you?”

“Anadae, Brint. That shouldn’t be—”

“He pushed your proposal for this trip. Pushed even harder for a fellowship next year. Half the investors with the Restorers were only convinced to sign on because he talked up your partnership and the results you’ve had.” Brint gave her a sidelong glance. “And the benefits of having a Helm on call.”

“No,” Dae said, voice flattening. “He wouldn’t say that.”

Brint’s shoulders lifted in a delicate shrug. “His kingdom is dying, and they’ve gotten the first sign of hope since the war. Hard to fault the man for doing whatever it takes.”

Cold washed over her, dousing her annoyance. Buoying the fear.

Dae batted it away, trying to rally her conviction. Brint had to be lying, yet Dae knew how desperate Ezzyn was to stop the poison. She closed her eyes against Brint’s damning words, but she couldn’t shake the image of Ezzyn’s cracked, bleeding hands.

“He was talking to the king about it a lot during the meetings. Look,” Brint said, expression open, free of the façade Dae had grown so used to seeing. “I know I was an asshole for a lot of our past, and I’m not proud of it, but at least we knew up front that it was always business first.”

This wasn’t a business relationship. She cared about Ezzyn as she never had for Brint. He cared for her; she was sure of it.

But … he’d been so distant, focused to the detriment of all else. Ezzyn in Rhell was unlike the man she’d known at Sylveren. At the school, they’d been working toward a cure, working together. Here, they might’ve landed something substantial, yet she’d felt held at arm’s length. Not partners, not even a close assistant, hardly better than any of the other mages with whom he was somewhat acquainted. More like a tool, a useful one—valuable, perhaps, but impersonal. And hadn’t the attraction between them led to nothing more than a casual arrangement?

“…need someone, you know, just to talk to, I’m always—”

“I have to go. Goodnight.”

Dae left, Brint’s reply a vague sound behind her. She needed to find Ezzyn. Needed to tell him of the feelings she’d been harboring, too afraid to voice them because she feared the changes such words inevitably brought. She needed to find him, needed to know. Know if Brint was still an enterprising liar. No, she already knew it, but she had to hear Ezzyn confirm.

He wasn’t in his house or the field tent, but she noticed one of the packing crates had its lid askew. It contained replacement wards with a layered ice charm like the one on her successful experiment, the spells bolstered but untried.

Dae went out into the night, steps slowing in the northeastern section of Den’olm as her eyes caught a lone figure illuminated by the telltale glow of magic.

Ezzyn knelt on the ground well past the latest boundary markers. Had his hands splayed across the tainted dirt. He gave no sign that he heard her calling his name.

“Ezzyn.” Dae went to touch his shoulder, a stunned gasp freezing her hand inches away. Red stains spread from his bandaged hands, dark lines emerging from beneath where the cloth ended around his wrist, snaking up his forearms.

Dae seized him by both shoulders and dragged him back. “Ezzyn, enough!”

He’d been pushing too hard, had long since passed the point where a minor healing would suffice to undo the damage he’d wrought. Such concerns were easy to push away as he poured his fire into the earth, ignoring the sting in his hands until the pain faded to the background. Jeron had ordered Ezzyn back to Sylveren to finish out the term, unmoved by his discontent with the containment measures they had in place for Den’olm. The mages here were fine, but he’d seen the poison break through too many times. It happened when he’d been present, too, but that was easier to stomach than the thought of Den’olm falling because he was safe on the other side of the mountains, too far to react.

Ezzyn let himself go numb to the poison licking at his skin. It was worth it if he could buy them any more room, even an inch, anything to add to the buffer zone.

Jostling broke his concentration, and with it severed, the sense of pain roared back in. He cursed, both at the interruption and the cramps seizing his fingers.

“Ezzyn, enough!”

Anadae.

“What?” he snarled, freeing himself from her grasp.

“What?” she echoed, exasperation plain. “Look at your hands!”

“I’m fine.” Gods all fucking break, why did no one else understand what was needed? “There isn’t much time. I have to— Anadae!” She’d grabbed the wards he’d left on the ground and started back toward his field tent. “Get back here.”

“The enchantments on these aren’t done.” She kept walking, tone clipped. “If you place them now, you’re just wasting people’s time and magic.”

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