*Content warning: severe injury, blood, fantasy violence.
Jeron left Sage Belden and the few others he’d gathered along the way in the Mageguild tent, the safest place he could think of. He kept an eye out for threats, satisfied they were far enough away from melee. He pushed through the tent flaps, blinded for a moment by the bright early spring sun.
How could such a beautiful day become so ugly? Black smoke rose toward the pristine blue sky, back toward the Waystone. Back where he’d left Niamh.
Someone screamed, the sound filled with such pain that his own heart clenched in sympathy. It, too, was coming from the direction of the Waystone. A cold sweat sprang up on his skin. Jeron ran, half-blinded by fear, not even checking for other attackers.
He staggered to a stop next to a Mechanae that smoked and sparked, tarry liquid spraying from gouge marks in its armor. It wasn’t moving, but he heard something on the opposite side. A scrabbling noise and soft sounds of pain.
Someone was trapped beneath it.
He could scarcely draw breath, his heart beat against his ribs so frantically. He ran to the other side, toward the sound of the person who needed help and—
“Oh damn. No. No, no, no,” Jeron moaned. Niamh…
He dropped to his knees beside her just as her eyes snapped open, huge with pain. Pleading. Gold-brown eyes he had seen narrowed at him in humor, impatience and a few times, even what he had hoped (against hope, and prayed to the Source) was affectionate warmth.
Niamh’s voice surrounded him, sharp with pain. “The key. I have to find the key, and then they’ll stop—”
“Niamh, it’s me, Jeron,” he said. “I need you to focus on my voice.”
“I have t-to f-find the k-key,” she stuttered feverishly.
“Stay with me. Please.”
Jeron ran his hands through his short hair, frantic. How in all the hells could he get her out from under the pile of jagged metal and safely to a healer? A clamor erupted from behind him. He wheeled to face the newcomer. Moya stood at his side, her brown eyes taking in the situation.
“Help me, mage. Over there. You’ll lift when I say.” Moya pointed to the machine’s left side before heading to the right. Jeron obeyed, guarding Niamh’s head from any falling debris.
“Now,” Moya ordered.
Jeron lifted at the same instant as Moya did, both of them groaning in effort. Metal creaked as the remains of the Mechanae toppled to one side, leaving Niamh exposed.
The wreckage crushed her right leg below the knee, blood seeping into the surrounding earth. There was no healing power that could save it, but he prayed to the Source that there was still time to save Niamh. Jeron knelt beside her and felt for her pulse. It was faint and slow.
“Niamh, can you hear me?” Jeron spoke near her ear, but she didn’t respond. He turned to Moya, sticken. “I have to help. I can’t let her lie here like this.” His voice shook so hard he had to force the words into being.
Moya nodded curtly, then knelt next to them. She quickly removed Niamh’s armor near the wound, cutting away leather straps and padded cloth with a dagger.
“I brought a few first-aid supplies with me,” Moya said, tears streaking her cheeks. “I was walking away from you, toward the west field when it happened. There was a flash of green lightning in the camp, then a Mechanae charged like a bull through the supplies, knocking people out of its way and blowing up munitions. It was trying to get to the Waystone, but Hawke and a group of soldiers blocked the creature and took care of it, I think. I saw the smoke over here and…”
Moya paused in her torrent of words, sniffling.
“She protected me and another mage. Handled these creatures all on her own.” Jeron swiped away tears that threatened a deluge if he didn’t get his act together. “I need to get myself together. We have little time. Moya, if you could guard us—”
“You’ve got it,” Moya said with a fierce nod. She offered the first-aid satchel to Jeron then stood above him and Niamh, sword raised in guard position.
Jeron rocked back and forth on his heels where he knelt, mind racing as he tried to dig up a solution from his memories, from his Academy days and studies with Sage Boran. He worked with magic and machines, not in healing flesh and souls. Still, something surely existed amongst all the detritus Jeron had collected over the years, something that could help Niamh — incantations of protection, pain-dulling, anything.
“Come on, you ass,” he chided himself. “Think.”
Niamh sighed brokenly. He was out of time.
Jeron bowed his head close to her face and chanted a healing spell under his breath, the words weak at first, but gaining power as he forced himself to focus. Fingertips tangled in the cool grass, he called to the leymagic surrounding him: his own elemental affinity, air, rushing from nearby leylines, ruffling his robes. He murmured soothing spell words, bending his will to them until a blanket of calming power hovered above Niamh.
All around them, his magic hummed softly, signaling the Source’s goodness, healing, and peace. It still wasn’t enough. He needed something more. Something bigger.
“Damn. I’m out of options.” Jeron’s hands shook, heart thudding wildly against his ribs.
But there is always another option, even if it comes with substantial risk, Jeron thought, a strange stillness descending over him. The last option, and Sage Boran had taught him that as well.
He knew he could do it. And he knew the cost of the spell he was about to try—had seen other mages permanently diminished by less. But Niamh’s face, slack with pain, drove away all hesitation. If this was the price of her survival, he would pay it willingly.
“I’ve got to do a Hallowed Healing,” he muttered, not realizing he’d spoken out loud.
“Hallowed Healing?” Moya asked. “That sounds powerful.”
“You could say that,” Jeron said, not wanting to dwell on the subject. Hallowed Healings were a Mageguild secret, and for good reason.
He shivered away his fear and forced himself to think through the steps for the most powerful healing spell that a single mage could use without killing themselves. It was simple—at least, simple in theory.
The runes and incantation were easy enough a novice could do them, but there was nothing simple about the physical toll the spell took on a mage. Its energy cost was high enough that even the most experienced healers approached this leymagic with wariness. Jeron had done nothing like this.
He reached for the kit Moya had brought and dug out what he needed. Jeron glanced down at Niamh’s leg, fighting away a wave of despair, then draped the wounds in feverbane-soaked bandages. With one finger, he sketched the spell runes around them, tracing them in the air already charged with his magic, then he grabbed Niamh’s hand in his.
“Live. Heal. Thrive. By the light of the Source, live, heal, thrive!”
Wind roared in Jeron’s ears, and his vision blurred as his leymagic surged over Niamh. His eyes squeezed shut, yet somehow everything was blood-scarlet and unwholesome green. Sickly green lightning flashed through it all, a terrible and evil leymagic that was like nothing he had ever seen before.
Jeron struggled to change the visions assaulting his mind as Niamh’s nightmares washed over him. Visions of marching Mechanae, their treads and metallic claws thudding through mud, their normally gentle whirring noises warped into screams. Behind the screams, he sensed another voice, or voices, whispering, cajoling, and threatening by turns. And something else… a block, a wall.
A secret.
Jeron fought away his fear and cast back to his happiest memories. Memories of home, of peace and laughter. Memories of his family’s garden, bees buzzing sleepily around the plants in the warm summer sun; of crystalline winters and houses hugged by snow.
He could almost smell the brisk evergreen perfume of his favorite tree—an ancient, towering pine—and called the air leymagic to which his power most responded. The rustle of its branches, its secret language of sighs carried on a remembered breeze into this bloody moment.
Surprise broke his concentration; he could sense her. Something else was behind the panic and pain in Niamh’s mind. A powerful presence—the desire to live, a wish for hope.
“Then I’ll give you hope,” he whispered.
Yes, there would be a cost to him for all of this, but that didn’t matter. Not when Niamh’s life was on the line. This was a time for drastic measures.
Jeron again touched the magic surrounding him and repeated the words of the spell. He commanded his peaceful memories to take over Niamh’s bloody visions, new snow driving away the poisonous green light and screeching Mechanae.
“Live. Heal. Thrive. By the light of the Source, live, heal, thrive!” Jeron pushed all of his remaining energy into the healing spell. He did not even realize he was crying out until Moya shook him by the shoulders so hard his teeth rattled in his head.
“Jeron, come back to us. Jeron!”
Suddenly everything was bright again. Jeron blinked away dizziness, Moya’s face swimming into focus above him. The world felt shaky, wrong somehow. Niamh. He forced himself upright, ignoring the way the world spun.
“Did she… Is she alright?” The words came out rough, his voice husky with emotion.
“She is alive, thanks to you,” Moya said, and there was no mistaking the relief in her voice.
“Ah. Good. That’s very, very good,” Jeron said, then passed out cold.
—
Niamh dreamed. Though was it dreaming if there were smells, sounds, and awful sensations? Was someone calling her name?
Something tickled her throat, rusty and salty. The world was nothing but pain. She heard a warm, deep voice that made her turn away from the hurt and fear. A tall man leaned closer, his green eyes familiar. He smiled. She knew that smile…
Niamh tried to smile back, but nothing was working. Why, she could not remember. Something nagged at the back of her mind—a word forming from mist and confusion and splashes of red.
A voice echoed around her. Words took shape. “Live. Heal. Thrive. By the light of the Source, live, heal, thrive.…”
Howling Mechanae drowned out the voice, replacing it with their own directive.
FIND THE KEY, OR ALL OF AHRA WILL PAY.
Lizzie Sinclaire 