Page 6 of Ignited Spirits
My heart squeezes painfully in my chest at his struggle. “You don’t have to, then. Just let me know when you’re ready to go back into your body.”
I hope he’s ready sometime soon. I can already feel the consequences of healing him trying to swallow me whole, and I’d rather do that after I know Archer is okay. I’ll never rush him, though.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Archer sits quietly for a moment before blowing out a choppy breath. “I’m ready.”
My eyebrows raise at how quickly he decided that. “You’re sure? There’s no rush.”
Cracking his knuckles nervously, Archer lifts his chin and tries to appear confident. “I’m sure. It’s not going to get any less weird if we wait, so might as well get it over with now.”
I nod and open my mouth to ask Cerberus what to do next before I realize I need to tell Archer something important. “Hey, sunny boy?”
“Yeah?”
I flick my eyes between his for a long moment before finally rushing out, “I love you.” Even though I’m not good with emotions, I still need to tell him how I feel about him before I try to bring him back. As much as I hope it works, everything about what I’m trying to do is uncharted territory. We could lose Archer forever. Nothing can possibly make that better, but at least he’ll have some idea of how much he means to me.
A massive grin lights up his face. “That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard. Now let’s get this show on the road. What do I need to do?” He scoots closer to his body before turning back to me. “Oh, and I love you, too, sunshine.”
I give him the biggest smile I can manage right now, which isn’t more than a half-hearted twitch of my lips. He’s stilltechnically dead, and everything with Lua turned into a bigger mess than I ever imagined. I’m not feeling a whole lot of hope or joy right now.
“I don’t really know. I’ve never done this before.” Turning to Cerberus, I nervously rub my hands on my dirty, blood-soaked jeans. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“You have to guide his soul back to his body. Now that it is healed, his soul should sink back into it. You will have to create soul ties that anchor his spirit where it belongs. Otherwise, it will drift back out again,”Cer informs me.
I blink at them a few times because I have no idea what soul ties are or how to form them. “How do I do that?”
“We don’t know. Sorry,sagana! I know you’ll figure it out!”Russ tells me, his optimism not really making me feel much better.
I’m supposed to just make up how to tether a soul to its body on the fly. No biggie. I’m sure nothing can go wrong with this half-baked plan.
Resisting the urge to scream at the universe, I shove my frustration down. I need to focus. “Can you lie down where your body is?” I ask Archer.
He looks back and forth between his body a few times before shrugging. “It’ll be strange, but I can do that.”
Hopping up, Archer cautiously approaches his own prone form. When his foot moves through his body, he startles but shakes it off quickly. Plopping down into a sitting position, Archer carefully lies back until he seems to disappear.
Blowing out a choppy breath, I close my eyes. My magic works when I envision what I want to happen, so I guess that’s what I’ll do here. I picture my magic wrapping around Archer’s soul at various points all over his body. For each spot I try to anchor his soul, I make sure to loop my power multiple times and finish with a knot.
The more places I try to tie his soul to his body, the more drained I feel. I’m leaving pieces of my magic all over Archer. Worry about whether I’ll have enough power to heal myself after healing Archer tries to creep in, but I push it down. I can only focus on one problem at a time.
What feels like an eternity later, I finish with the last soul tie. I probably anchored it in at least fifty places, so hopefully his soul won’t randomly pop out.
That’d be awkward.
Hesitantly opening my eyes, I’m disappointed to see that Archer’s body doesn’t look any different. He’s still unconscious, and there’s no evidence his soul is back where it belongs. My shoulders slump when I realize that my attempts to tie down his soul must not have worked.
“You can sit up, Archer,” I call in a weary voice, beyond drained from all the magic I just expended to do…nothing, apparently.
When I get no response, my brows scrunch in confusion. I look over at Cerberus in concern, wondering if they know what’s happening.
Russ lets his doggie tongue loll out of his mouth and yips happily.“You did it! I knew you could!”
My eyes widen. “I did? How can you tell?”
Bear’s chest puffs up in pride as he nods.“We can see the soul ties you created. We were watching you work, and you included an impressive number of them. His soul isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.”
A smile creeps across my lips at figuring out how to anchor Archer’s soul on the first try. It slips as he doesn’t so much as twitch, much less wake up. “Oh. Then why isn’t he awake?”
“His soul has to fully merge with his physical form once more. He should wake up in the next day or so.”Cer pauses for a moment as he seems to figure out how to word what he wantsto say next.“If he hasn’t woken up in forty-eight hours, then his soul has died.”
