Page 70 of Zel
“Then tell me what we need to do so I might shine even brighter.”
“You have partaken of myrapunzelfor twenty winters, and thirty days longer while in my presence. You have proven worthier than I ever could have imagined and made it to this preordained night. The rest now is simple.”
Ulrich drew them back from the center of the room and raised a hand, drawing in the air what then manifested on the floor as glowing violet symbols.
A bisected circle large enough for them to stand in, only this time, in the center of the line was a smaller circle interrupting the division. Ulrich led Zel into the glowing ring, positioning Zel in the top half and Ulrich in the bottom.
Energy surged within Zel as soon as they were situated, as if the symbol of prolonged life—an exchange of it, given the center circle?—heightened the magic about to be shared.
Zel thought perhaps he heard something outside, but Ulrich clasped his hands, keeping Zel’s attention on his beloved. He had the sudden wish that he was in his mother’s wedding dress instead of his assassin garb, but there would come a time to don it again.
“We entered this circle together, and so all you need to do now, Zel, is to absorb my magic with a willing kiss.”
“How though? What do I do differently than a normal kiss?”
“For me, it became second nature after ages of feeding on souls. For you, once our lips are sealed, imagine you are drawing out my power, feeding on my aura, my essence, my soul, and it will begin to enter you.”
“That’s it? I just have to imagine it?”
“Same as when you use your magic to braid your hair. Will it, and it will be.”
Whatever haunted Ulrich’s eyes as Zel clutched his hands, lifted onto his toes, and invited Ulrich to once again lean down and press their mouths together, Zel knew that his devotion, hislovecould banish it. This kiss was softer than the others, and at first, Zel wasn’t sure how to begin other than enjoying the connection. He tried to imagine drawing out of Ulrich all the beauty and galactic splendor the sorcerer exuded, to drink it down like wine.
The first surges of power stole Zel’s breath away, and he pressed their lips together more firmly. The next was less a torrent and more a steady flow. He fought to maintain that capacity, taking it in like being flooded with… light? Joy? No wonder devouring the essence from another soothed Ulrich’s pain. It felt incredible.
“That’s it,” Ulrich said when Zel paused for breath, “just like that, little cabbage.”
Zel tugged Ulrich closer, sealing their lips again, though neither crossed the line of their respective halves of the circle. He returned to draining Ulrich’s magic at the same steady pace, but there seemed to be no end to it. The longer the exchange continued, the more Zel could feel how much there was to take. The more he took, the better it felt to taste the next gulp.
And the rougher Ulrich’s blackened hand felt.
Zel paused once more, this time to look at their clasped hands. Ulrich’s cursed one was not merely sunken, it was more skeletal than ever, like the skin had rotted to black bone.
“It is all right. You are doing splendidly,” Ulrich said, but the strain in his voice caused Zel to look up again.
Despite seeming in pain, Ulrich glanced at either side of Zel’s head and smiled. Zel hadn’t realized it, but his hair was growing.
“Keep going,” Ulrich urged.
As boundless as Ulrich’s magic seemed, when Zel returned to kissing him, he started to sense an end to it, like an echo following the sustained stream to indicate when the well would finally be dry. As Zel drank it in, slower and slower, he felt the growth of his hair cascade past his shoulders and down his back. It was returning to its previous grandeur with the consumption of Ulrich’s potent power.
Zel willed some of its strands to coil around Ulrich’s wrist, and Ulrich sighed in contentment, relieved of his pain. But when Zelpeeked down at the hand, it only looked slightly revived, not whole the way it usually reacted.
The well was nearly dry already. There was something very tempting about the last few swallows, promising more than the pleasure and fullness and power Zel felt, but he feared succumbing to that hunger and not being able to stop.
Then Ulrich stopped them both.
“That is enough.”
Ulrich’s knees gave way, and Zel clutched after him. Though he felt an insurmountable strength within him now, he let them slowly sink to the floor. It wasn’t only Ulrich’s shriveled arm that looked worse for wear. The whole of him looked awful, pallid and limp with the loss of his glittering vivacity. “Was it too much?”
“N-no. It was exactly enough,” Ulrich answered weakly.
“I am immortal now?”
“No. And you will not be.”
“What…?”
