Page 39 of Forged in Flame and Shadow

“We’d like to see him,” Leons says.

“Of course, Your Highness,” Yanda says. “But I must warn you, he’s much changed since the last time you were here.”

I feel Leon tense a little more beside me, and as the dryads turn to lead us deeper into the Sanctuary, I brush my fingers against the back of his hand, reminding him I’m here.

The healers usher us into another chamber, and immediately I understand the need for the burning herbs outside. There’s a fetid smell, like something rotten and decaying. It’s the smell of death.

As the dryads step aside, they reveal a long bed inside the chamber. My heart stops, because for a moment I think there’s a corpse lying in it. Then the body in bed shifts slightly.

It’s hard to tell what Fairon would have looked like before he got sick, because now he looks less like a man and more likea skeleton. His skin is sallow, almost yellow at the edges, and stretched over hollow cheeks and a pointed chin. His hair is still dark, like Leon’s. When I look closely, I see a ghost of the same graceful features I’ve so often admired on his brother.

Leon goes to stand behind him, reaching out to lay a hand on Fairon’s shoulder.

“It’s me, Fairon. I’ve come home,” he says in a low voice. I can’t bear to look at the expression on his face, so I focus on Fairon and see the crown prince tilt his neck an inch and open his eyes.

“L…Leon…” Fairon’s voice is a grating rasp. No sooner does he get the word out than he starts to cough. Leon lifts his painfully thin brother to sit upright.

The coughing fit worsens once they have him sitting up against some pillows. Fairon’s body shakes as he releases a deep, guttural noise over and over. I fight to keep my face neutral, although I want to wince at the noise, punctuated as it is by such desperate wheezes. The dryads rub Fairon’s back as Leon tries to lean him forward a little, hand still on his shoulder.

There’s a splattering noise, and something black and dense spills from Fairon’s mouth, staining the white sheets. I notice a washcloth by a basin in the corner and rush to wet it, hurrying forward.

Whatever Fairon has coughed up is dark like ink, but thick as mud. He splutters, and a few more globs of it drip onto the sheets. Then he slumps back, his eyes fluttering closed with exhaustion. I lift the wet cloth to wipe the residue from his chin as the dryads hurry to remove the soiled sheets.

“Thank you,” Leon says to the dryads as they bow and leave the chamber with the sheets, murmuring about being back soon with new ones.

“Thankyou,” he then says to me, looking meaningfully at the washcloth.

“It’s nothing,” I reply, unable to meet his gaze. I’m too afraid of the hope I might see there. Seeing Fairon’s condition has shown me how massive the task ahead of me is. Leon’s brother is no wilted flower. He’s a living, breathing person, and death has its grip wrapped firmly around him.

“Do you think you’re ready to try now?” Leon asks. “Maybe just see what you can feel with your magic?”

I exhale. This is, after all, what I came here for. However dire Fairon’s condition, I have to try.

“Alright,” I say.

I close my eyes and run through the process that’s familiar to me by now. First, I locate the heat in my veins, feeling its warmth but taking care not to release it. Then, I reach out for my orbital magic, the power that influences things outside myself, and bring it as close as I can to the heat.

Then I go looking for Fairon’s celestial flame.

It turns out practicing on the sunflowers was a good idea, after all. As plants, their inner spark was already small and further diminished by the starvation Gallis put them through. It helps me now, because Fairon’s inner spark is frighteningly weak. It flickers in and out of my awareness, so faint it’s hard to hold in my mind’s eye.

I can sense the darkness around it too, squatting inside him like some foul parasite, swallowing up what must’ve once been a fierce, burning light and turning it into this frail ember.

Before I can do anything else, my magic starts to come alive. It’s like it’s instinctively drawn to Fairon. I try to gently pull it back, but it just speeds up, rushing from me toward his celestial flame.

I panic when my first try doesn’t immediately make it stop. My power is pouring into Fairon, and I know too well what happens to anything I overload with my celestial magic. Images of the dead, blackened sunflowers spring to my mind. My fear mounting, I make another, frenzied tug on my magic, yanking it free of Fairon and breaking the connection.

I hear a rattling gasp, and my eyes fly open. Fairon’s not only coughing again, but his whole body is shaking uncontrollably, his thin limbs jerking as he has some kind of seizure. The dryads rush in to help Leon hold him down, smearing a paste over his mouth and praying rapidly in old Agathyrian.

I stumble backward, feeling sick as I watch them work.Idid that. My clumsy magic use made things worse for this poor man who has already suffered enough. Granted, I don’t quite know what happened or why my power was so drawn to him—it never acted like that with the sunflowers—but I should’ve been more careful.

The dryads’ efforts to soothe Fairon are successful. His limbs grow still, and they’re able to tuck them back under fresh sheets. With the white material drawn right up to his chin, I’m struck once again by how much he already looks like a corpse.

Did I bring him closer to the brink just now? I shouldn’t be messing with things I don’t understand. Gallis put ideas into myhead, and I could’ve done real damage with my incompetence. I need to stop this.

“Leon, I?—”

I’m cut off by the sound of raised voices carrying through the Sanctuary from the front chamber.

---