Both birds took off, but then one swooped down to pick her up. The bird’s talons were hot, but they wouldn’t burn her. Still, the summon gripped her firmly, and Nassata’s whole weight pulled earthward. Nassata clenched her teeth against the pain; her arms would be too wrenched for her to fight for a few days after this. But they got to the Nadran city of Salithsa far sooner than they possibly could have otherwise.
Somehow Esset managed to keep hold on his sanity long enough to get them to the entrance to the underground city. Toman had mercifully lost consciousness sometime shortly after they took off, although occasionally he moaned or reacted to a bit of rough air. The landing was rough too—Esset was completely exhausted and running on fumes at that point. Nassata shouted down the cave entrance for reinforcements; one Nadran sentry emerged and he and Nassata picked Toman up and began carrying him down the tunnel. Esset staggered along beside them; the summoner felt dazed and wasn’t entirely aware of his surroundings.
Then the Nadran reinforcements arrived, and Esset was picked up and carried down the tunnel, the group making far better time on Nadran coils than stumbling feet. They went straight to the healer. Esset heaved a sigh of relief when Toman was finally in a bed and under the healer’s attention, so relieved that he began to sway on his feet. Nassata took his arm before he could fall asleep upright and led him to another bed.
Esset didn’t remember anything after that.
Esset was shocked awake by a nightmare sometime during the night. He couldn’t remember a single detail the moment he woke, but the feeling stayed with him. Unfortunately, his memory of recent events wasn’t much better. Esset felt his stomach clench and his throat tighten as he frantically looked around the room.
“Whoa! Calm down, Esset, it’s all right.” Nassata was right beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him. “Toman’s right here.” She looked towards his brother to point him in the right direction. Esset saw his brother then, asleep in the bed beside him. Kessa was on the other side of the bed, coiled around a large cushion. She perked up a little when she saw Esset looking at her, but she was clearly there for Toman, not the summoner. And Toman didn’t look good. His skin was pale and a bit waxy, and his sleep was obviously drug-induced. But at least he was sleeping quietly, if not peacefully, and he had fresh bandages and clothes. The Nadran healer had looked after him, but there was only so much that could be done without the aid of time or magic.
“He’s out of danger,” Nassata assured Esset, knowing how bad the animator looked. “Thanks to you, he’ll live. He’ll get better.”
“Oh Brightfire… How did this happen?” Esset buried his face in his hands and tried to get a handle on his emotions.
“Esset, what did happen?” Nassata asked gently, her hand still on his shoulder to comfort him.
“We trusted her…” Esset murmured. Nassata waited patiently for him to explain, and eventually he did.
“I don’t know exactly what happened, but it was the healer, Lady Ateala. I, I didn’t just trust her, I liked her. I thought of her as a friend. I don’t know what happened, why it happened, but I’d left him alone with her. I’d done it before and nothing had happened, but this time he had his gloves.” Suddenly he looked up, alarmed. Where were the gloves? They had to make sure they were safe, not in the wrong hands.
“The gloves!” Esset exclaimed, but Nassata was already withdrawing them from her braided harness, where she’d been keeping them.
“They’re right here,” she said, passing them to him. He instantly relaxed.
“Thanks…” he murmured in relief.
“You were in complete shock yesterday by the time we got the two of you down here. We couldn’t figure out what the issue was with the gloves until Kessa came and explained it. I’ve been keeping them safe,” Nassata explained.
“Thank you, Nassata. We owe you so much,” Esset said genuinely. He was on the verge of an emotional collapse, and he struggled to control himself.
“We are only doing what we can.” Nassata squeezed his shoulder to reassure him it was nothing. “Go on with your story.” Esset took a deep breath and picked up the narrative again.
“She’d sent me on an errand, across town. When I was on my way back, my clothes jerked all of a sudden, towards the house. It was Toman—it was the only call for help he could manage, I guess, before Ateala took the gloves from him. He trusted her too. But he wasn’t well. It was my job to protect him, to make sure he was okay.” Esset was getting worked up again, but Nassata forestalled him before he could sink into a full, guilt-ridden tirade.
“Esset, he’s going to be okay. Come on now, what happened next?” The teal Nadra coaxed him. Esset was so distraught he missed the steely anger deep in her eyes, the hidden ferocity directed at the one who’d dared hurt her friends.
“I tried to get back to him right away, but Ateala had some kind of magic keeping me away. I got through it, but I took too long. By the time I got there, she’d, she’d taken his arm—” Esset choked and couldn’t stop tears from rolling down his cheeks. There was no stopping the flood of guilt, the feeling of failure. Across the room, Kessa gently slipped her hand under Toman’s and held it.
“Go on,” Nassata prompted gently, her compassion and sympathy towards Esset overpowering her anger at Lady Ateala. She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“When I opened to the door to the room, she’d already… It was already too late. Somehow, I summoned something I’d never summoned before. The Guardian… I don’t know how. But I killed her, and then I called you for help.” He had failed, at the worst possible time, when he could not have been needed more. His brother had lost an arm, because of him.
“Esset.” He didn’t respond to Nassata this time—the story had been told.
“Esset!” She gave him a shake, not to be denied, and this time he raised his brown eyes to her brilliant teal ones.
“Esset, you saved your brother’s life. Twice. He’s alive because of you, and because of you, those gloves aren’t going to be used for evil. You did that—you did all you could. She was smart, and she tricked you. She hurt your brother, but he will live—because of you. Without you, he’d be dead, and she’d have the gloves. Do you understand that?” Nassata demanded forcefully. Esset dropped his eyes from hers, and she gave him another shake.
“Esset!” When she had eye contact again, she continued.
“Say it with me—he’s alive because of you. Say it.”
“He’s alive because of me.” It was a half-hearted statement, said to satisfy her, to get her to leave him alone.
“Good,” Nassata said, letting him go and letting him drop his eyes this time. “Now you work on believing that, okay?”
She waited until she got a half-hearted nod from him.
“Okay. Now lie back down and try to get some rest. I’ll have some food brought in the morning, it’s not too far away. Kessa or myself will always be here if you need anything, and we’ll keep watch for you. No one will hurt you here, and they certainly won’t get to your brother. Rest.” She reached out to him again and this time laid a heavy hand on his shoulder to get him to lie back down.
Esset was in extremely low spirits the next day, although he did lend a hand to the Nadra by helping them hunt the remaining Reshkin. There had been a bit of a resurgence in their population, but nothing huge, and the Nadra made a bigger dent in their numbers than usual with Esset’s support. Esset didn’t actually leave the room, however; instead he summoned a wolf and used its body and senses to help the Nadra remotely.
Esset had banished his wolf for the day and was stretching after his body’s long spell of inactivity when Nassata showed up at his room. She reached through the curtain and beckoned for him to come out. Tilting his head to the side, he obeyed. When he emerged, he found another Nadra, a rust-colored male, beside Nassata.
“I thought you’d want to hear this,” Nassata said without preamble. “Terress, please continue.”
Terre
ss dipped his head and spoke.
“I’ve just returned from the human town. There was an uproar when the healer was discovered dead, so I and the other Nadra left there kept our distance. But then…it got quiet. Awfully quiet. We went to investigate, but the first few people either fled before us or were so disoriented that they couldn’t remember their own names. A wider search determined that others had suddenly been struck with maladies. One woman we found dead. I came for reinforcements,” he explained.
“We just came from the council—it was an easy decision for them to send a relief group. We need the good relations with the town, if nothing else,” Nassata added. Esset knew the Nadra were also simply the type to help if they could.
“But what’s wrong with them? What happened?” Esset pressed. He’d come to know and like a good number of the townsfolk.
“We don’t know,” Terress said with a shrug. “There is no sign. One spoke of it being the ‘Hand of Bright Hyrishal,’ repercussions for the healer’s death, but no one looked particularly convinced.”
“Do you think…” Esset looked away, leaving the sentence unfinished.
“What?” Nassata asked. Esset steeled himself, feeling obligated to answer.
“Do you think it was Ateala? She had us fooled, after all. What if she fooled them too? What if she…hurt them too?” he asked. The black guilt he felt for Toman’s condition intensified as the harm inflicted on the villagers was added to it. How could he have been so blind?
“It’s possible,” Nassata said, her voice sympathetic. “Hopefully Toman can tell us more about what happened.”
“Hopefully.” Esset’s voice was still bleak.
Toman opened his eyes again a day and a half after they arrived in Salithsa. Esset was eating lunch when Toman woke, but it was Kessa who saw his eyes open first.
“Toman!” she exclaimed happily, drawing Esset’s attention. Toman immediately tried to move, but Esset had already dropped his food back on his plate and reached out to pin Toman’s shoulders to the bed.
“Easy, brother, don’t try to move,” the summoner warned. Toman had already winced at the pain his attempt had caused, so he didn’t argue.
“What—” Toman’s voice cracked, his throat bone-dry.
“Ssh.” Another late warning. Kessa picked up a mug from the table—it had a long, winding straw poking out the top.
“Here, drink some water. Through the straw now,” she said, placing the straw right next to his lips so he could suck through it. A brief drink worked wonders.
Toman relaxed for a moment, then began looking around the room, taking in his surroundings. His mind was foggy, trying to catch up after being asleep too long; then it all came rushing back. He was in pain, in his side, chest, and arm.
“No!” he suddenly exclaimed—he’d tried to move his left arm. There was sensation, as if there were something there, but there wasn’t actually anything. There was pain, but his limb was gone. He tried to sit up again, frantic.
“Toman! Don’t sit up!” Esset had his hands on Toman’s shoulders again, keeping him down. Toman felt the pain in his chest and side—and in his arm, too—as he struggled briefly.
“It’s gone,” he cried pitifully. It tortured Esset as much to see Toman now as it had to see him in his physical state in the first place.
“I know, brother,” Esset said, bowing his head. “I’m sorry.” He was suddenly overcome with the need to escape the room—his soul felt black with guilt, and he couldn’t stand being in the small room for a moment longer. Toman stopped trying to force himself up into a sitting position, so Esset backed off, removing his hands and standing up. Toman was sweating in the pain he’d caused himself in moving, and Esset couldn’t bear to see him suffering one moment longer.
The summoner suddenly turned away wordlessly and escaped the room.
Toman watched him go, wanting to call out to stop him, but the air seemed to stick in his throat. There were too many emotions to deal with, and the pain—he couldn’t deal with it all himself. Kessa was there, and she was adorable, but she didn’t know him—especially not the way Esset did. Toman’s mind was foggy with pain and painkillers both, so it didn’t even occur to him to wonder why Esset had left—all he knew was that he wanted his brother beside him.
“Kessa,” Toman murmured, even though it was basically unnecessary to say her name to get her attention. “Thank you for being here.”
“Of course,” the little painted Nadra said. “Is there anything you need?”
“Please, could you bring Esset back?” he requested. She nodded right away and headed for the door. She pushed the beaded curtain aside and saw that he was still just right outside the entryway. She let the curtain fall shut on her tail and put a tentative hand on the summoner’s arm.
“Esset? Your brother needs you,” she said softly when he looked at her. “I’ll wait out here.” The rest of her coils slithered out of the room and into the hallway. Esset nodded, but he still didn’t say anything as he turned and went back into the room.
Toman had never been great about opening up about how he was feeling, even to Esset. But he knew he needed to talk to his brother, if only to keep from thinking about his arm and panicking or letting the memories of what Lady Ateala had done to him in that brief time from playing over and over in his mind.
“What happened?” Toman asked. “Y’know, after she…” He averted his eyes. “After.”
“I killed her,” Esset said, looking away too.
Toman relaxed a hairsbreadth and looked back. “But, what happened?”
“Well, you must have managed to animate my clothes for just a second—they kind of jumped, so I figured you must be in trouble to do something like that… Anyways, when I opened the door and saw what she’d done, I summoned the Guardian.”
“That’s a new one,” Toman said.
“Yeah…it was pretty powerful, but it sapped a lot of my personal energy, and the conditions I can call it under seem to be pretty limited,” Esset semi-explained.
Toman waited, but Esset had nothing more to say. Toman frowned, recognizing that something must be wrong for Esset not to be all excited about a new summon.
“Come on, Esset. This Guardian sounds pretty cool, what’d it look like?” Toman prompted, feigning energy that he did not have. Esset gave him an unreadable look for a moment, and Toman didn’t know if he was guessing his bluff or if he was surprised or what.
But Esset answered, so at least there was progress. “The Guardian wasn’t like other summons… It was almost like I summoned it inside of myself. I had this huge, flaming sword in my hand, and…” He paused, and for a second, he seemed like his old self. “I think I had wings. Y’know, like in pictures of guardian angels? Except fiery. No halo though, that’s for sure, but there was this kind of fiery glow around me. I remember the heat, but I didn’t feel hot at all. It was bizarre.”
“You mean cool,” Toman corrected him. He still felt the weight of what he’d been through upon him, but for a moment, he was distracted. “Bright Hyrishal, Esset, you would’ve looked totally scary.”
“I melted a knife right out of her hands,” Esset put in almost as an afterthought.
“As I was saying: scary. Cool,” Toman repeated. He was impressed, and although he didn’t quite manage to force a smile in his state, he thought he’d succeeded in lightening the mood for a moment.
“But I was too late,” Esset said, suddenly pitching forward and running his hands through his short brown hair. He pulled at the permanently messy mass, wracked with guilt. “Toman, I’m so sorry. I should have known, I should have come sooner, I should have never left, I—”
“Jonathan, you send those thoughts straight to the Darkfires where they belong,” Toman said forcefully, lapsing back to using Esset’s given name. Now he could read Esset’s expression—that one was definitely surprise.
“You saved my life, Jonathan. She tricked us both, and an entire town of people, and more beyond that, no doubt. She
used magic, too, small stuff that no one noticed, but stuff that got her what she wanted. There was no way we could have known, not either of us. And you saved my life not once, but twice. You saved me from the Reshkin’s venom by bringing me to her, and then you saved me from her.
“Besides, we knew what we were getting into when we decided to go after Moloch,” Toman murmured after a moment of silence. “She may not have had his power, but she was exactly his kind of weapon. We’re just lucky he thought we weren’t worth bothering with… This…time.” With a massive sigh, he lapsed back into slumber the moment after he finished speaking, leaving Esset to wonder if Toman’s words had still been lucid at the end.
When Toman opened his eyes again, he was absolutely ravenous. He looked around but saw Esset in a deep trance, no doubt helping the Nadra. When he rolled his head to look to the other side, he saw Kessa there. She’d found their sewing kit and was apparently taking it upon herself to fix the shirt that Lady Ateala had destroyed. Somehow the stains had been washed out of it, but repairing the cloth was proving more difficult. There was a rather mangled line of stitches along the tears, but she was intent on getting it right. Toman found himself looking at her face, creased in absolute concentration as she deliberately placed one stitch after another…in the wrong place. It was adorable, especially since it wasn’t even his shirt—it had been a borrowed one that he’d worn while sick in bed at the false healer’s.
“You don’t have to fix that, you know,” Toman murmured, his voice still a bit hoarse. She looked up in surprise and poked her finger with the needle.
“Ow! You’re awake!” she exclaimed. She put the shirt aside, having forgotten it already. “How are you feeling?”
Calling On Fire (Book 1) Page 27
