Tatsu stretched out on the ground like he was preparing to sleep.
“Tatsu,” Yudai whispered, a gasp for air.
“Take what you need and then stop it,” Tatsu said. “I don’t know if my blood will have the same power as Nota’s, but some part of it must work. I could open the magical barrier around you. When Nota coded the drain, Zakio was able to control it as well.”
“This is terrible.”
His fingers scrambled across the rock to find Tatsu’s, and Tatsu gave them a reassuring squeeze that he didn’t wholly believe. There was a moment of nothing before Yudai surged forward to kiss Tatsu, hard and angry, though Tatsu wasn’t sure where the rage was directed.
“I didn’t ask for this,” Yudai said, breath warm against Tatsu’s cheek.
“That’s why I’m offering.” Tatsu sucked in a deep lungful of air. “You can do this.”
Yudai sat back on his heels as his hand fell away.
“Only enough to break through some of the barrier,” he said, a promise that curdled in Tatsu’s stomach, “and then I’m done.”
“Only enough,” Tatsu agreed.
Yudai closed his eyes and put his hands against Tatsu’s arm as if trying to anchor himself. The air within the den stilled and thickened, until Tatsu was afraid he was no longer able to breathe. When the siphon began, Tatsu could feel it—inside his lungs, inside his heart, the magic pressed against his ribs and threatened to split him in two. He might not possess any magic, but his mother’s blood was singing beneath his skin, and it had to be enough to satiate the drain. Bits of the magic were humming against his ears, remnants and whispers of what he could’ve been if the ability had been passed along.
Pinpricks rose up along the bare skin of his neck and face. He could feel it when the siphon slid into his bones; it was hot, a fire blazing up from his core, and then the pain started. Every one of his nerves began to ache and throb as the drain demanded and took, carving out the parts that had once belonged to him and himself alone. His body fought on instinct, spine arching, and when the pain reached a frenzied peak, he thought it’d be over.
Then the siphon flared out, expanding in a hot rush that Tatsu thought was burning the flesh clean from his body. Whatever control Yudai had been exercising was gone. There was an awful scream that only belatedly registered as his own, an inhuman noise of misery wrenched free from his throat as the drain overtook him entirely. Only anguish remained. He couldn’t feel the ground beneath his back or Yudai’s hands on his arm. There was nothing but an awful bursting sensation that he would have sworn was his muscles being cleaved from his bones, a spasm so strong that the brunt of it, had he been coherent, would’ve caused him to vomit.
Dimly, he registered Yudai crying out with his name, but then the white heat overwhelmed his senses, and there was nothing.
Nineteen
The tall towers of Runon’s castle stretched up towards the sky. Behind the white stones, the moon winked in and out of existence as clouds passed in front of it, and beneath its flickering glow, the ground was black with shadows. He couldn’t recall exactly what the palace looked like, but it was there, solid and commanding, just as one of the doors creaked open to welcome him inside.
A quick look back out showed a wooden cart, though the horse had been let go. The cart rested at a sharp angle against the ground, the back raised so high that the boxes held within had fallen to the front in an ungraceful heap. There was a man behind the wagon, and at first glance, it seemed that he was securing the wheels. A second look showed that his hunched position was to hide instead, and after a second of stillness, he raised his head up to peek around.
It was a physical blow to see the man’s face—it was his father. His father without the gray that had peppered through his hair, without the deep lines that had set in his face from years of worry and isolation. His father as he might have looked twenty-five years ago when his life was still young and open, before Tatsu was born. His father remained crouched behind the cart for a long time until there were footsteps quick and light from inside the open door to the castle halls, and a figure darted out.
It was a woman with a high coiled circle of hair and dark-colored robes, and she flew into his father’s embrace in a flurry of sighs.
His father’s arms wrapped tightly around her shoulders, drawing her in so far that her face was completely hidden in the folds of his shirt.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered, and her words were clipped and accented, like her tongue was unused to the sounds and struggling to produce them. “You can’t be here.”
“Before we leave, I had to come back.” One of his father’s hands moved to her cheek and stroked the skin there. When she pulled back slightly, the clouds overhead cleared, and the moonlight fell unobstructed against her face.
She was Runonian. After a single thud so hard it throbbed, Tatsu’s heart threatened to stop entirely—she was his mother.
“There are rumors about the king,” his father said, and his voice dropped low, as if he suddenly remembered that the castle door was still ajar. “They say he’s gone mad.”
His mother shook her head. “He is not well.”
“If he’s gone mad, then come with me.” His father leaned forward, pressed with urgency. “I can’t leave you here—”
“I can’t go.” Her fingers curled tighter around his arms, bunching the fabric and tugging it into harsh creases. “I can’t leave.”
“You can’t stay. It’s not safe.”
“I’ll never be safe,” his mother sighed.
“Nota.”
She let go and stepped backwards, curling her arms around herself. “You have to go where it’s safe.”
“Please reconsider,” his father pleaded.
His mother shook her head and took another shaky step backwards. Even in the darkness, Tatsu could see her shoulders heaving. Beneath the magic and the dark robes, she was just a young woman, barely older than twenty, and it hurt to see so much of his own features reflected back at him. She put a trembling hand to her mouth.
“Please,” his father tried one last time, but Tatsu could see it was a lost cause. His mother was moving back towards the still-open door, and the shadows slid over her face until she was shrouded in darkness again.
“Just go,” she whispered. Then she disappeared back into the castle, and the scene faded away as Tatsu’s reality roared back into being with heavy, painful pangs.
Somehow, despite it all, he managed to open his eyes, though not enough to register anything more than a crease of bright orange glow, which burned and prompted him to squeeze his eyes shut again. He teetered wildly on the precipice of unconsciousness with the surge of pain that filled every crevice and only just managed to keep his mind aware. Dimly, the events came flooding back, jumbled and fuzzy until Tatsu could piece together why every nerve in his body was throbbing with the beats of his heart.
Yudai had used the siphon on him.
He tried to open his mouth and move, and neither really worked. All that came out was a low, ragged-sounding moan. The second time he opened his eyes, he was prepared for the onslaught of light and squinted against it until shapes materialized in front of his face—dark, wide eyes and wisps of wavy black hair.
“Hey,” Alesh said. There was so much tenderness in her tone that Tatsu didn’t trust his own senses that she was really there. The last time they’d spoken had been in anger, and she could have been another dream. One of her hands was on his forehead, fingers gently running through his hair, and the sensation was more grounding than anything else. “You’re finally awake.”
What happened? Tatsu attempted. It came out a blurred string of unintelligible syllables, but she seemed to understand anyway.
“You’ve been out for a week. We weren’t sure… well, when we found you again, we weren’t sure that you would even last another night.”
“How…?” Tatsu asked.
“We’d been following your trail with Jotin since you le
ft the mages,” Alesh told him. Then her expression shifted, corners of her mouth curving down. “After we got to the pass, you weren’t hard to find.”
There was something dark in her tone, but Tatsu’s head was spinning too much to press the topic further. His stomach ached—the empty pangs of a body gone far too long without food—and the nauseating hunger verified Alesh’s claim. He’d been unconscious for quite some time, long enough that trying to move even just his fingers and toes was an impossible feat. The strange dream he’d had of his parents remained at the forefront of his thoughts, even as the rest of the sleepy cobwebs faded.
“Yudai…?” The absence of Yudai next to him was troubling. The other man should have been there in Alesh’s position, spine hunched with anxious exhaustion as he kept watch.
“He’s here,” Alesh said and then rolled her eyes as she looked away from Tatsu and across the room. “Your boyfriend is having some trouble with his guilt and thinks that you’re angry with him.”
There was a miserable sputter from somewhere beyond Tatsu’s line of sight. He tried to move his limbs again, and the second attempt stirred twinges in his muscles, a promising sign that his body would reconnect the threads with time.
“Not…” he began.
“I know.” Alesh smiled briefly down at him before her hand stilled in the mussed strands of his hair. It took a moment for him to realize why—another shadow was moving at the corner of his sight, rounding the fire.
After some hesitation, he heard Yudai’s soft, tentative call. “Tatsu?”
Tatsu’s fingers twitched in response. Alesh stood and moved out of the way so Yudai could slide into her vacated spot.
“Gods,” Yudai whispered, voice wavering. “I’m so sorry, Tatsu—I’m so, so sorry.”
Tatsu wanted to tell him that it wasn’t his fault. It’d never been his idea to begin with, and Tatsu had always known the risks. There was another flare of pain in his chest, aching so fierce that the outline of Yudai’s head blurred, and Tatsu had to swallow down the sting of hot bile. In the end, all he could do was jerk his fingers sharply, and at least Yudai understood that. He grabbed Tatsu’s hand and squeezed.
“I shouldn’t have agreed to this,” he said. “I hurt you because I was selfish enough to think my life was more important.”
Tatsu couldn’t summon enough energy to disagree, so he hoped that his sigh was enough. Yudai leaned in over Tatsu’s face and traced his other fingers over the line of Tatsu’s cheek.
“I’m so sorry. I thought… I thought you were dead.”
His voice dropped down to little more than an angry breath as he continued, “Gods, I thought I’d killed you.”
Weariness was overtaking Tatsu as his body sank down into an aching need for further rest. His eyelids fluttered closed against his will, even though he fought against the heaviness. He was still aware of Yudai’s warmth beside him and fingers against his skin, and both caused his heart to thrum in contentment.
Stay, he wanted to say, but he couldn’t get the plea out.
Yudai clutched Tatsu’s fingers tighter. “Sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up—I promise.”
The next time Tatsu woke, he felt better. His head was clearer and his memories had fallen back in order. Opening his eyes and blinking at the fire took markedly less energy, even with the dull ache in his temples. With Yudai’s and Alesh’s help, he was able to sit up and lean against the cave wall, and the small action felt like a triumph.
When his eyes landed on Ral seated by the edge of the flames, she grinned widely at him.
“Better,” she said.
“Where’s Jotin?” Tatsu asked.
“He’s out trying to find some food,” Alesh said. “It’s been taking him quite some time to get out past—well, to find anything that we can eat. He’ll be back before nightfall if all goes well.”
Yudai’s arm against Tatsu’s was trembling, and Tatsu turned, slow and stiff, to look at him.
“I should have asked you to practice with the siphon before you used it on me,” he said.
Yudai smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“That was a phenomenally stupid idea you two came up with on your own,” Alesh said, “but you should eat something. We’ve got a few pieces of meat left.”
It took him longer than he liked to get the food down, but afterwards, his stomach ceased its moaning. His arms and legs began to feel more like his limbs again and less like strange, foreign objects attached to his body. A few experiments in bending his elbows and knees proved that he still had all his mobility, even the sensations in his bad hand that he’d only recently gotten back.
Yudai stuck close by his side without saying much.
“Did it work?” Tatsu asked him. It was the question that’d been languishing on the tip of his tongue for too long.
“I’m sorry,” Yudai replied, and regret shadowed his face. “I couldn’t control it and I just—I lost any hold I had on it.”
It stung to know that all the pain had been for nothing, and swallowing the bitterness made Tatsu feel queasy. He tried to keep the emotions off his face, but from the way Yudai’s eyes dropped down, he wasn’t sure he succeeded.
“Don’t,” Tatsu said. “Don’t put this on yourself. We tried.”
“And look where that got us.”
“I’m going to be fine,” Tatsu told him.
Yudai shook his head. “I’m not talking about you.”
Tatsu’s eyes slid to Alesh, who was standing near the fire with her arms crossed over her chest, watching them both with undisguised interest. She shrugged, the action pulling at the fabric of her shirt.
“You said we were easy to find,” Tatsu said slowly. When he looked to Yudai again, the other wouldn’t meet his gaze, letting his chin fall down to rest on his knees as he picked at a bit of dirt on the floor of the cave. “What did you mean?”
“You should see it for yourself,” Alesh replied. “Can you stand?”
He could, but only with her assistance. As Alesh helped him hobble towards the cave entrance, he turned back to find Yudai still crouched down near the floor. He looked miserable and made no move to follow them out. Tatsu could hear the light scraping of his fingernails against the rock.
Ral, however, scrambled to her feet and slipped out of the cave with them.
The truth was, Tatsu had been prepared for it. He’d known it was coming as he struggled to stand, piecing the situation together that had unfolded after he’d succumbed to the siphon and the darkness. But seeing it spread out in front of him felt much different than the gnawing worry that churned in his gut.
The trees lining the sloping mountainside around them were dead—brown and gnarled, curled down into the withered stalks of skeletal fingers reaching for a second chance at life.
The siphon’s grotesque aftermath, months after Tatsu had thought he’d never have to see such an expansive swath of it again.
Tatsu inhaled deeply, and let the air go with a low, slow hiss.
“This is how we found you once you’d started into the pass,” Alesh said softly, almost like she didn’t want her words to travel back to Yudai, who was still hunched down around himself in the cave.
“How far?”
“About halfway,” Alesh replied, “and spread out like the points of a star.”
“Sad,” Ral said and bent down to brush her fingers over the dead grass nearest to their boots. “All sad now.”
“This is why it didn’t work,” Tatsu said. “He lost control of it, and it just… exploded.”
Alesh eyed him warily. “I understand what you were trying to do, but going into this without any help or support—”
“I know. I didn’t think you’d follow us.”
“I can’t believe you left without us,” Alesh shot back.
Tatsu’s legs trembled beneath his weight, feeling like jelly. “I’m sorry. I was angry, and I just reacted. I shouldn’t have left you behind—it was wrong.”
H
e paused, doing another sweep of the ruined landscape before he said, “And you were right about Leil.”
“Gone now,” Ral said. “No more red. No more black.”
Alesh didn’t look particularly happy to be correct; instead, her face softened as she shifted beneath Tatsu’s arm slung heavy over her shoulders.
“I shouldn’t have taken matters into my own hands,” Alesh admitted. “So maybe we were both wrong.”
“And look what’s happened because of it,” Tatsu said.
“Ah.” Alesh squinted into the distance, past the black, twisted branches that curved down around the rocks and thickened near the road, a beige snake against the brown. “I see Jotin coming back. That’s earlier than I expected.”
“Again!” Ral cried with an insistent tug at Tatsu’s sleeve. “Again, Tatsu.”
Her fingers slid down to circle Tatsu’s wrist.
“The worst happened again,” Tatsu agreed, but Ral frowned and pulled at him, trying to corral him back into the shadowy den.
“Yudai again,” Ral said. “Do again.”
“Yudai?” Tatsu asked. “You… you want Yudai to use the siphon again?”
Ral beamed her slow, wide smile at him.
“Ral, no,” Alesh said. “It’s dangerous, and look what already happened! There’s no telling what further damage the magic could cause.”
Tatsu let Ral tug him back into the cave. Yudai was crouched in the same position that they’d left him in, but he must have been listening to at least the last part of their conversation, because he was watching them with suspicious eyes as they came in.
“Yudai again,” Ral repeated.
“You can’t be serious,” Yudai said. “There’s not a chance I’ll—”
His words trailed off when Ral moved to stand in front of him and pulled the heavy Oldirr necklace out from under her blouse. She didn’t hesitate before leaning forward to drop it into Yudai’s hand.
The Mage Heir Page 24
