Page 104 of Somewhere down the Ley Line
Light coiled around him, pushed into his thoughts, fought the dark presence that had crawled in. Hands were on him, soft hands. Hands he knew. They grabbed onto his shoulders, shaking them. They touched his face, gently at first, then firmly.
You’ll ruin it, like you always ruin everything.
“Felix! Please!”
Isolde yelled at him, slapped him, kissed him. The world slowly came back into view.
With every last bit of willpower he could muster, Felix flung the collar away from him. The loud clanging of metal on stone echoed through the vaulted room, bouncing off the walls like unpleasant laughter. Felix collapsed forward, his hands on the cold tiles, his breathing fast and heavy.
Isolde’s voice was soft but urgent. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. “Look at me.”
He forced himself to lift his head. Her face swam into focus, twisted with concern. She was shaking. But her eyes, those endless pools of midnight, were what truly brought him back.
Her thumbs brushed over his cheekbones. “Are you alright?”
His throat was raw. “Yeah,” he croaked. “Fine.”
“You’re lying.”
“Probably.” He tried to smile but failed, his body uncooperative. He looked past her to the motionless figure on the stone slab. Isolde turned to follow his gaze. “I don’t think the… chain was the link between the leytouched and the Arcaenum. It seems to just be a… a leash.” Her eyes strayed to where the collar had landed near the entrance, disgust crossing her features.
Felix slowly rose to his feet, wincing as he did. His legs shook and pain throbbed in his skull; all energy had deserted him entirely. But at least that evil voice was gone.
Isolde turned to the slab and the Arcaenum behind it, the glowing threads pulsing brightly. She nodded to herself. “I think I have an idea. It feels like a wound, just… very large.” She inhaled deeply and raised her hands slowly, as if touching something he could not see. Light enveloped her, seemed to reach for her from the ground, from the air itself. Felix watched, awestruck, as one fibre of silver gracefully uncoiled itself from the rest and snapped, then dissolved into thousands of minuscule sparks. She staggered back, nearly falling to her knees.
“Woah,” Felix said as he caught her. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s too much,” she answered breathlessly. “I can’t contain it. But…” she looked down at his hands on her waist. “Stay like this?”
“Like what?”
“Hold me.”
Felix laughed. “That’s my role in all this? Hold you? Count me in.”
She gave him a look that was part amusement and part exasperation, then turned back to face the Arcaenum. His arms circled her, and he leaned his cheek against the side of her head. “Let’s do it.”
Isolde nodded, grim but determined, then directed her focus at the task before her.
In moments she was wreathed in light, her eyes closed, power coursing through her. Time froze as he held onto her; she was a kite in a storm, and he was the rock she was tethered to. She unbound the silvery strands like she played the most delicate of instruments, looking as confident and skilful as if she had done it countless times before. When the thread snapped, the binding was broken with a thrum that shook the very foundations of the mountain itself.
As the ties unravelled, so did the emaciated body on the slab. The last leytouched exhaled a final breath, and a faint light rose from his chest.
Felix watched, transfixed, as the fragile remnants of the man dissolved until there was nothing left of him, no corpse, not even bones. Just a wisp of blue and silver, spiralling upward, joining the wild current of magic.
A flicker of presence brushed against them, then was gone.
A tidal wave of force ripped through the Nexus when the Arcaenum broke free from its containment. It rampaged, surged, bounced light from wall to wall with savage abandon. Isolde trembled violently, and Felix feared, for one terrifying moment, that the power was overwhelming her – that it would consume her.
But then he realised the Arcaenum – the god-creature, the apparent source of all the world’s magic he was seeing right before his own eyes – was not lashing out in rage or vengeance. It was leaping around in pure, unadulterated joy. Like a small child with boundless energy, twisting and tumbling, surging outward into the ley lines in a flood of power.
Isolde sagged in his arms. She was pale, and her ley markings had darkened, but her eyes shone – not with magic, but with tears.
“You did it,” Felix whispered.
She smiled her proudest, fiercest smile up at him. “No.Wedid it.”
Isolde turned to face him. She looked so tired, so worn, but above all so happy. If anyone ever asked him to recall his favourite memory of her, this would be it. He wanted to say something meaningful, something profound, but the words would not come. So he simply held her as the storm of magic played out and eventually calmed down around them.
