Page 42 of Up from the Earth

That shouldn’t be possible.

Father Paine laughed. I nearly retched at the sound—wet and gurgling and choking. Without warning or understanding, he shunted the three of us backward, flinging us at least twenty feet from where the priest stood.

“Your wife!? What is it with your fucking pathetic excuses for gods bedding these barbaric heathens?” Pain throbbed in my side where I’d hit the ground, and blood smeared over one of Cerberus’s hind legs. “But perhaps I should be glad that that stupid bitch saw fit to pull me from my church.”

Floating up off the ground, the man raised his arms, hovering there like some false messiah.

“I didn’t havethiskind of power when I was alive.” Red lightning cracked through the darkening sky at his back. “And as the sweet Lord is my witness, I do intend to use it.”

Ripping his hands through the air, Father Paine hurled another shockwave of energy at us. The billowing clouds behind it promised a much more devastating attack, and before I could think to react with a wall of vines or even just to dodge away, Cerberus leaped in front of me, taking the brunt of the damage.

“No!” I cried out, rushing beneath his head before it could hit the ground.

A roar the size of the horizon and more tore from The King, and they swept their long cloak in an arch around us. In an instant, everything went black.

Nineteen

Finding Comfort Is The Magic Of Resilience In Action.

Needlepricksoflightslowly bled into existence. I blinked, tracking my surroundings, and quickly realized that we were back in the castle. I sensed weight settled in my lap, and I snapped my attention downward to see one of Cerberus’s heads there, the other two lying just to the side of my legs. The ache in my chest doubled down, and I gripped at the fur on his neck, feeling warmth slowly suffuse my legs.

He was bleeding.

“Do something!” I screamed, not even looking up at The King, who I knew stood nearby.

Shuffling sounds whooshed closer to me as they moved closer, the sounds of Cerberus’s whimpering cutting into my heart. Hands pushed into my field of vision as I frantically searched my son’s face for any sign of consciousness. It could tell it was The King, but the fingers and arms were thin, still tipped in black but gentle and smooth.

Looking up, I found The Queen before me, tears fogging my sight.

She held her hands over Cerberus, and a blooming warmth rippled through the air. I could sense the mending power of her magic, and my entire being sat on the edge of a vast cliff, waiting to see if it would work.

“I need you, too.” I blinked, shaking my head as I stared at The Queen; my brow furrowed so much it began to give me a headache. “The gifts you possess, lend them to the working.”

Recalling the mushroom—how I’d taken it forward in time—I gripped onto Cerberus’s fur, using that ability to turn the clock the other way. I knew I couldn’t bring back what had perished, but my son lived. Together with The Queen’s magic, we had a chance.

My palms hummed with energy as I pushed the gift of nature into them. I focused on how Cerberus’s neck and side had looked before the attack, the natural state they usually existed in. I concentrated on it with everything I had, sweat breaking out over my brow as the magic pulled energy from my body and soul.

“It’s working. Keep going.”

I stole just a moment to glance at The Queen, noting how she, too, looked to be pouring herself into the magic. The warmth from our combined magic was greater than that coming from the wound pressed to my thighs. Itwasworking.

But it needed more.

Sucking in the air, I closed my eyes, giving over to the power surging through me. I felt that connection to the core of the earth, to the core of my being. I remembered giving birth to Cerberus and seeing him grow from an infant to a small child to my proud wolf son. Tears streamed down my face, hot trails that singed my cheeks. I couldn’t lose him. I wouldn’t—not to that fucking monstrous priest.

Rage funneled in behind the fear and sorrow, bolstering me. It suffused my magic, creating this demand for anything the earth would give me to save my son. It hated the priest as much as I did. He was an abomination that went against everything in nature, against the cycle. His hatred infected the wounds that sliced through Cerberus’s flesh, searching to eat away at him, leaving him a deteriorated mess that…

Oh gods, it seeks to take him as a vessel of the priest's powers—over my dead body.

Grabbing The Queen’s hand, I squeezed, pressing our united magic into Cerberus’s soul. I could see the black, tar-like stain of sticky malice clinging to his spirit. In that place between worlds, the one that existed only in our minds, The Queen and I battled the corruption, her coalescing the malignance into one tight ball rather than the splattering infection it wanted to be and me lighting it up with the cleansing essence of spring, that time of renewal.

Time dragged on, skin over a bed of nails, but at last—exhausted and drained of power—The Queen and I pulled free of that space to find Cerberus unconscious but breathing steadily in my lap.

“It is done. He will be alright.” She held my cheek, a soft grin lifting the corner of her mouth. “He is alright.”

I smiled as I looked up at The Queen, my eyelids drooping. “That…That monster did more than just cut him. That…plaguewithin him was going to use Cerberus’s body as a vessel for the corruption.”

She nodded. “It was. I…I have seen nothing like that before. The way we were thrown back…That creature shouldn’t have the power he does. Though, there is little point in denying the fact that he does.” The Queen stroked across Cerberus’s fur, gazing down at him with a sorrowful smile. “The Priest is no longer something of the afterlife, not solely at least. He is unnatural and wrong, and whatever sickness has loomed at the edge of reality has found a home in him, making him a force to be reckoned with.”

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