Page 39 of The Mage on the Hill
“Find a voice,” Darius rasped out desperately. “One voice. One stream.”
Toby stiffened in his arms, back arched, eyes rolling back. Every fiber in him screaming for a different outcome, Darius put a palm on the ground and pulled on his Earth magic, ready at any second to surround Toby with an impenetrable shield of clay and stone.
Animus screamed around them in a widening vortex, deafening him. He might have joked with Toby about how little danger would be involved, but he’d never seen a Major Arcanum react this way before. Sound vibrated through his hand on Toby’s back, perhaps a desperate cry or a scream, he had no way to know. In that instant, a sharp spear of a thought tore a gasp from him. He was an idiot.
One voice. One consciousness. He reached with his own Animus, the magic of his own soul, and wrapped around Toby’s struggling, flailing magic. Distantly, he was aware they’d fallen off the log, Darius on his back, Toby’s head on his chest. The frightening glory of Toby’s wild magic took up the rest of his attention—the deafening, blinding, dizzying chaos of thought and sensation. His own power, his experience, meant he could contain it, dam it up temporarily, but no one could completely silence a flood of that magnitude.
No. Force wasn’t an option here. He twined around Toby gently, taking his cue from the plants trying their best to reach for him, caressing, whispering.I’m here, I’m here, I’m here…. Reach for me.
Too panicked to return the request gently, Toby’s magic slammed into Darius, sending tendrils of power flying before he could regain control. Earth heaved under them in response. Rocks cracked and showers of pebbles rolled down the hill to smack into the log that served as a barricade. Darius had nearly reached a point of complete despair when Toby stopped struggling so abruptly, the stomach-dropping sensation was like plummeting off a cliff. Caught up in Tsunami Toby, Darius tumbled for several terrified moments, losing track of all the streams of magic around them, his placement in the world, and even his own body.
Then a giant sluice gate opened in Toby’s awareness, a conduit through which he could direct the flood, and Tobychanneled. A roar of magic at first as his wild magic finally found its natural course through the web, then gradually slowing to a more sustainable stream. Darius became aware of the woods again to find an early-spring toad staring down at him from the fallen log. Birds filled the trees around them, calling and singing. A scurry of squirrels peered out from the ferns on the far side of the clearing.
But the plants—the plants—arrested Darius’s attention. Every stem, every spring flower, every leaf reached toward Toby as if he were the sun.
Darius lifted his head from the leaves to find Toby sprawled across him, eyes closed. Cautiously, Darius allowed himself to stroke the thick black hair and smooth the white stripe back from Toby’s forehead.He is the sun, in this moment, theirs, mine.So perfect.
Twigs poked him in the back. His left leg was cramping. He felt wrung out and far older than forty, but he wasn’t moving for the world. Toby would come back in his own time, safe. Finally safe.
Chapter Eleven
STUFF ACHED.More of athat was a tough hill to climbache than anI think I’m dyingone, though. A steadythud-thumpsounded directly under Toby’s ear, and it took him a minute to figure out that it was Darius’s heart. He lifted his head to find Darius watching him with something other than his usual glare. The fond warmth of his regard and the little smile tugging at his mouth had Toby grinning.
“Hey, there. We did okay, right? I mean, I think it worked?”
“Ha. You think.” Darius combed a leaf out of Toby’s hair. “Yes. Channeled. Animus-Crystallogen.”
Toby wriggled up Darius’s body, got anoofwhen he kneed a sensitive spot, and flung his arms around Darius’s neck. “Gods. Thank you, thank you so freaking much. You’re amazing and wonderful and I’m going to freakinglive!”
To his astonishment, Darius wrapped long arms around him in return and murmured in his ear, “You’re… amazing. You. Did it.”
“Guess I couldn’t just sit on my unplaceable butt and wait for something to happen.” Toby nuzzled at Darius’s throat, happy to be surrounded by his scent. “It was weird shit. Like I was being turned inside out in pieces. But this wasn’tmedoing this. You had to bring me here. You had to show me where the door was.” Toby fought the sudden constriction of his throat. “Without you, I’d be so dead.”
“Toby….”
Darius stroked his back, and something in his voice made Toby raise his head. How could an ice-blue eye exude heat like that? How did that work? He pushed Darius’s hat the rest of the way off his head and, after a quick internal debate, pushed the eye patch off as well. Darius didn’t stop him, which he took as a good sign. Encouragement, even. Too old, too weird, too much his teacher—none of that mattered anymore. It hadn’t mattered for a while now, but he’d been too much of a coward to do anything about it.
He wanted Darius so badly. Wariness had slid over into a hard crush, then into whatever this was. What he did know was that he and Darius understood each other. They felt right together. Toby wriggled to get more of himself on top.Soright together.
The soft sound from Darius didn’t seem to be protest. Toby leaned in and kissed his forehead gently, then his scarred cheek and the blank skin where his right eye had once been. He kept his movements slow and careful out of consideration for sore muscles and so Darius would be less liable to balk.
“Toby.” His name was a ragged whisper torn from Darius’s throat.
“Need me to stop?” Toby murmured as he kissed down the unscarred side of Darius’s face.
“Yes… no.Gods.”
Hands on either side of Darius’s shoulders, Toby pushed up far enough for a better view. “Hey. Look at me.”Ah, there’s my griffin glare. “It’s eitheryes, I want thiswithout waffling or I’m stopping.”
Darius blew out a hard breath. “We shouldn’t.”
“Age doesn’t matter. We’re both adults. The teacher thing? You won’t be that forever. This is more like a half-semester course. What else you got?”
“You’re… beautiful.”
“Well, thanks. I think I’m a bony reed with a skunk stripe, but I appreciate it.” Toby stroked a wild lock of hair from Darius’s forehead. “You think you’re ugly. Just because you have scars.” He traced the white edges of those scars. “Disagree with me all you want, but I think you’re hot. Like ghost pepper, oh my gods, I put too much of that in my chilihot. You earned your scars doing something that should’ve been impossible. You saved Zubayr and a good portion of a city doing it. Those scars? They’re a map of what you’ve accomplished. They’re you and they’re perfect.”
Darius had squeezed his eye shut and clamped his jaw.
