Chi leaned his head next to mine, words stern. “Breathe, Bannen. You have to breathe. She’s drawing strength from you, too, through the bond. Don’t forget that. Breathe.”
I dragged in a breath, not a full one, as I couldn’t manage that quite yet. But I dragged one in, then another, forcing myself to breathe. Her skin felt cold and clammy under my hand, like a dolphin’s skin, and I kept my fingers planted against the pulse in her wrist, anxious for any proof that her heart still beat.
Sherri swore, flipped her grimoire open and snapped, “Hands off!” When everyone jerked their hands away, she threw a spell out, and it tingled over Rena for a moment like the wash of a sunset, reds and golds, and Rena finally drew in a proper breath.
Nora and Vee leapt back in, pouring magic into her again, but this time it didn’t have quite the same edge of desperation and I could see it in their faces—they’d gotten Rena through the roughest patch.
“When she said she was fine and only needed another minute, I apparently should have asked more questions,” Maksohm managed between clenched teeth.
I glared at him hard enough to melt steel.
Maksohm had trouble meeting my eyes as he apologized, “Sorry. We had a hard time estimating her magical core because her magic was in such a free spin around us. She honestly thought she could get the rest of Toh’sellor’s energy contained before she hit a critical level.”
“I can almost forgive you for this blunder because you haven’t been around Rena long enough to know that she pushes herself past her limits without warning you first,” I informed him, still hopping mad. “So the next time that I tell you to stop her, you stop her immediately.”
Vee gave me a quick smile, grimmer than she likely intended with all of the sweat and dust leaving lines on her face. “Promise.”
I deliberately tried to let go of the anger as it wasn’t helping anyone. I found it hard, harder than it should be. “Tell me she’s recovering.”
“She is,” Sherri assured me, not looking up, “we’re just giving her a little extra so she’s not down for the next three days.”
That sounded good. I found it a little easier to settle my temper. And by that I meant I no longer felt the need to dismember my teammates.
Maksohm sat back, the first to do so, lines around his eyes and mouth aging him a good decade. “Bannen, what’s your status?”
“Not moving anytime soon,” I grimaced at him.
Chi, ever helpful, rattled off my injuries. “Concussion, cracked shoulder blade, bruised lung, three broken ribs. We won’t talk about bruises, I’m pretty sure he’s covered in them. We’ll have to carry him out on a stretcher. Or put him up on the Mule.”
My mind briefly wondered about what it would be like to ride that wheeled contraption. Better or worse than a carriage? Train? I guess I’d get to see shortly.
“Yez,” Maksohm turned to face the man, “Get me a headcount for our walking wounded and carry wounded.”
“On it.” Yez popped up to his feet with as much energy as he had this morning. Fatigue? What’s that?
I hated him just a little.
“Nora, contact people outside and tell them they can let one of the barriers down. We need to keep one up for residual energy, just in case. Toh’sellor is defeated and we need help in here. Maybe if they meet us halfway with enough Mules we can get out of here and our people in proper beds tonight.”
Nora lit up at this idea and instantly drew out her communication spells, contacting the other agents outside.
I watched Maksohm coordinate getting us out of here, mind fuzzy and not completely tracking. Mostly I watched Rena breathing easily, a little color returning to her skin, so that she no longer looked like a warm corpse. Her pulse grew steadily stronger under my fingers, skin warming so she felt human instead of waxed clay. Chi stayed behind me, keeping me upright, so that I could breathe. He was a good brother that way.
It took an embarrassingly long time for my mind to realize it. “Chi. She defeated Toh’sellor, didn’t she? We won.”
“Yes, Bannen,” he answered, a smile in his voice, “we won. Well, won enough for now, as what’s contained in that box is still a puzzle for us to solve. But I think we’ve won the right to ride off into the sunset.”
That made me grin, tension bleeding out of me, making me feel lethargic and sleepy even though my body throbbed in pain. “Good. Let’s do that.”
I barely had my eyes open before I gasped out, “Bannen.”
“The two of you are so sarding predictable. I haven’t decided if it’s annoying or cute yet.” Chi leaned over me, coming into view. “You properly with me, Rena?”
A few things registered all at once. I was in a proper bed, with a ceiling over me, one that looked vaguely familiar. My room at the hotel? I think. It smelled similar, so I rolled with that guess. But I didn’t see Bannen, and that sent me wallowing upright, narrowly avoiding smacking my head against Chi’s jaw. “Bannen.”
“Next room,” he assured me, hands coming up to steady my shoulders. His skin felt unnaturally hot even with my shirt acting as a barrier, which told me a lot about my own state. The room had felt cold as I awoke but it likely wasn’t; my core temperature resided just that low right now. “You were tossing and turning a lot in your sleep, we didn’t want you aggravating his injuries. He’s alright, healing, and I slipped him some good stuff so he’s not in any pain.”
I got my feet on the floor, not sure why Chi chose to block me. “That sounds promising, but why are you stopping me?”
“Rena, I need you to listen for a second, as you’re in the sort of desperate mood that will make you leap on him, and he really can’t handle that right now. Not in his condition.”
Everything in me stilled. “What condition?”
“He’s been seen to, remember,” Chi looked at me cautiously, hands still lightly on my shoulders, ready to sit me forcefully back down. “When that whip-arm hit him in the chest, it broke three ribs, punctured a lung, broke his right shoulder blade, and gave him a concussion.”
If Chi hadn’t been holding onto me, I would have tipped sideways. It felt like my world spun, nothing quite coming into focus or making sense for a moment. Fisting my hands into Chi’s shirt, I demanded, “You think that’s alright?!”
“He’ll pull through fine, make a full recovery; we just can’t move him or jostle him for the next two weeks. We nearly reinjured him just getting him here and into a bed. He’s a little fragile at the moment.” Chi managed a sorry smile. “Hard to imagine, I know. Normally he’s tougher than nails.”
I hated the words but managed to force them down, as unpalatable as they tasted. Nodding, I drew in a shaky breath, forced myself to be reasonable. “I want to see him.”
“Of course.” Chi immediately shifted to let me through and I got all the way to my door before I realized I didn’t know which room Bannen had been put in. Chi took the lead, taking me across the hall, to his and Bannen’s room, and I felt relieved that Chi had stayed nearby to watch over both of us.
My magical core still felt drained, leaving me shaky and light headed, hair a knotted and tangled mess itching at the nape of my neck, but I ignored all of that long enough to fetch up in a chair next to Bannen’s bed. I dropped into it, reaching instinctively for Bannen’s hand, the only part of him I knew would be safe to touch.
Those dark eyes turned to me, crinkling up in a smile. “Hey,” Bannen greeted in a rough, quiet voice. “You’re up.”
“Just now.” I tried to give him a smile in return but he looked awful. His entire torso had bandages on it, and in between the white linen I could see mottled bruises across his skin, yellows and purples and greens. A bandage wrapped around his head as well and in a rare moment, his hair wasn’t in a multitude of braids. Someone had brushed them all out, likely to get easier access to his head injury. He looked smaller, younger, more vulnerable than I had ever seen him and it made my heart ache. “How are you feeling?”
“Unbelievably
tired. Better, now that I’ve seen you.” His eyes dipped closed for a moment, as if he wanted to sleep, then he forced them up again. “I think whatever Chi slipped me makes me want to sleep.”
“Only a little,” Chi answered brightly.
“And by a little you mean all the time,” Bannen grumbled, accusingly, but good natured.
“Well of course.” Chi leaned against the foot board of the bed, giving us both an understanding look. “Better for him to sleep as much as he can now. His body needs the rest.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Bannen, as usual, ignored advice about his own well-being and focused on me. “You need to eat. You were asleep for a day and a half.”
Was I really? I hadn’t even glanced out of a window since waking, but I did that now, and realized it must be late afternoon. I really had slept a good thirty hours. “How about we both eat, you take a nap, and I ask Maksohm how much paperwork is involved in getting my partner hurt on a mission?”
“Lots,” Chi informed me cheerfully.
I stared at him for a moment. “It disturbs me that you know the answer to that. How often has Vee gotten hurt?”
“Not too much, actually.” Vee stuck her head inside, smiling to see us all up. “He’s the one that gets injured and I’m the unlucky one stuck with all of the paperwork. Rena, glad to see you finally up. Maksohm asked that we notify him as soon as you had your eyes open, which of course Chi ignored, as per usual.”
“They needed a minute,” Chi defended himself mildly.
His new lover (girlfriend? partner?) gave him a speaking look that said she didn’t believe him but wouldn’t call him on it. Yet. “Rena, Bannen, you both need to eat. Something mild. I’ll fetch you some soup or rice porridge, they do amazing things with porridge in this country. Then we need you to make at least a verbal report of what went down, so we can tell Salvatore. All we’ve told him so far is that Toh’sellor has been reduced to a box of sputtering energy we can’t identify. The man understandably wants details.”
“I certainly would, in his shoes,” I agreed. All at once, it hit me, and I blew out a shocked breath. “Toh’sellor really is down, isn’t he? Not completely destroyed, but enough?”
“Enough in my book.” Chi bounced on his toes, energetic and radiating happiness. “Minions gone, barrier only partially up, and we received word that all of the shards are gone too. If that’s not a win, I don’t know what is.”
A wave of absolute relief washed over me, so profound I sank under it, my forehead fetching up against the back of Bannen’s hand. I expected to feel more in this moment, victorious, or vindicated, or something, but I didn’t. Maybe later, when I had more energy to spare and half my waking thought process didn’t focus on my injured fiancée. Right now, I just felt a profound relief that this whole insane ordeal was over and no one expected me to get back up and do the impossible.
Bannen tugged his hand free so he could brush it over my head, tangle into the hair at the nape of my neck, the pressure steady and soothing. I might have curled up a little more, happy with the contact, not at all inclined to move for the next week. Or next year, next year sounded good.
Chi leaned over to put an arm around my shoulders, hugging me to him. “You did good, Rena. Every person in this town from the tottering old men to their grandkids wants to kiss you for what you did out there. We’ve been getting a barrage of people dropping off medicines and food, new clothes, the works. They’re just so relieved and happy that thing is gone, it’s like an impromptu festival out there.”
The thought made me smile. “Really? I’m sorry we’re missing it.”
“I expect the party to still be going by the time you get out of bed,” Chi informed me, half-teasing.
Maksohm cleared his throat. “Rena.”
Very reluctantly, I lifted my head, although all I wanted to do was stay in that comfortable embrace with my Bannen and Chi bracketing me. If I didn’t like Maksohm as much as I did, I wouldn’t have found the energy to greet him. “Maksohm. I’m sorry I just collapsed on you.”
“You nearly gave me heart failure,” he informed me, still upset and on edge although his eyes were warm. “Kindly don’t do that. I already have Chi testing my heart’s strength, I don’t need you doing it as well.”
“I promise to be more careful next time.”
Bannen gave me a glare that promised a slow death if I even tried to do something this dangerous again.
Snorting, Maksohm side-stepped that neatly. “About that. Are you interested in properly joining the MISD? You’ve now seen for yourself what it’s like.”
I didn’t need to look at my familiar to know how he felt about all of this. “I’m honestly quite torn. I think I want to recuperate, get through a wedding and honeymoon, and then make a decision.”
“Thank you,” Bannen huffed gratefully. “Those are going to be stressful enough without throwing something else into the mix. You can charm us later, Maksohm. For now, let us give you the reports so that we can rest after we eat.”
“That sounds like a fine plan. And before you two can ask, the remains of Toh’sellor are tightly contained and show no signs of regaining strength. I have two agents monitoring it at all times, but it seems inert, so I’m not inclined to think it’s going to start any trouble soon.”
I let out a breath, tension bleeding out of me. My fingers reached out of their own accord to tangle once again with Bannen’s, the warmth and callused skin a boon against my own. “I’d wondered if our fix would hold. That’s very good to hear.”
“It has. Thankfully. I’ve already called Trammel to come in and study it, just in case, because I for one would rest better if no trace of this thing existed.”
“You and me both.” I smiled at him, pleased at the efficient way he’d handled things while I was dead to the world. “Trammel is definitely the man to figure it out. I of course want to know what that strange energy is, so he’d best keep me updated. It aggravates me that I couldn’t destroy that list bit of Toh’sellor.”
“I have no doubt he’ll call you in to help him. He likes you.” Maksohm hesitated before saying, “I want to say something before we start with the reports. Rena, you did something that no one else has been able to manage in centuries. You did it with a professional attitude and a smile on your face even though I know that these past few weeks have been grueling. Thank you for that, and I wanted to say a very heartfelt congratulations. We really, truly, could not have done it without you.”
In that moment I felt like every slight I’d heard throughout my childhood, every illness and ailment I’d battled, every dismissal by the Corcoran Magical Council was in turn ridiculed and turned on its head. All of that hurt faded as a man I admired and respected looked me in the eye and gave me those heartfelt words. I beamed at him without intending to, warm and weightless with a happiness I had never experienced. “Thank you, Maksohm. Thank you.”
I turned, looking at every person in the room, thinking of the rest of my team that was out in this moment, my eyes coming to rest on Bannen’s, and my smile impossibly widened. “I would have been lost without all of you. Thank you.”
Chi leaned in and pressed a kiss against my temple even as Bannen squeezed my hand. “We’d really like to keep you,” Chi told me earnestly, for once not a trace of humor in his expression. “There’s all sorts of interesting problems that I know you two can solve—not as big and scary as Toh’sellor, but still troublesome. I promise you won’t be bored and your amazing talents will not be wasted. So really consider joining up, alright?”
That all sounded intriguing. I had to admit staying with these people tipped the scales in that direction, but I wasn’t in the right mindset right now to make any promises and I knew it. Still, I couldn’t help but ask, “Interesting problems? What kind of interesting problems?”
Bannen gave a low groan. “Now he’s done it.”
Maksohm bit back a smile and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he and Chi had coordinat
ed this out beforehand, just to get my curiosity up. “Let me get a quick verbal report from both of you, and while you eat a late lunch, we can fill you in. Chi’s right, we have some long-standing problems that your magic is likely uniquely suited for. If, of course, you’re up for it.”
Was I ever. I gave Bannen a hopeful look and he just rolled his eyes, as if wondering why I even bothered to ask. Oh good, he was on board with this idea too. I should have figured, Bannen was always up for a good adventure. I quirked my eyebrows up in a hopeful look. “Not even a hint first?”
“Well,” Chi drawled with a sly wink at me, “I don’t think it’ll hurt to tell you about just one. There’s this interesting situation we have in Lalani….”
Honor Raconteur grew up all over the United States and to this day is confused about where she’s actually from. She wrote her first book at five years old and hasn’t looked back since. Her interests vary from rescuing dogs, to studying languages, to arguing with her characters. On good days, she wins the argument.
Since her debut in September 2011, Honor has released over a dozen books, mostly of the fantasy genre. She writes full time from the comfort of her home office, in her pajamas, while munching on chocolate. She has no intention of stopping anytime soon and will probably continue until something comes along to stop her.
Her website can be found here: http://www.honorraconteur.com, or if you wish to speak directly with the author, visit her on Facebook.
Table of Contents
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
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The Void Mage (The Familiar and Mage Book 2) Page 35
