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n_wilkinsona/n: Regretfully unbeta'ed, yet another update before the New Year. Please enjoy.
Title: Whispers of Yesterday
Series: Infinity's End, Book Two
Description: Now firmly entrenched in the Theravada -- and firmly involved with Gale as well -- Ione discovers the hidden sides of both Grayshire and Theravada. She questions her own decisions -- and her feelings -- as the war takes on a more murderous, personal turn for the worst.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21)
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Chapter Ten
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The medbay would have been silent, were it not for the sound of bubbling liquids, Cyrus moving around, and the chatter of people passing in the hallway beyond the door. Gale didn’t mind the quiet so much. It made it easier to count each of Ione’s breaths, making sure that they hadn’t stopped when he wasn’t paying attention. Gale’s ears were attuned to them, to the point he felt he was breathing in tandem with her. It was the least he could do.
Her left hand was clasped in his, the right far too mottled with bruising from the poison that coursed through her system. Gale, after waking from his meager half hour nap, hadn’t moved from his current position. A chair had been brought in for his use, and it was far from uncomfortable, but he had no plans to leave. There wasn’t anything more he could do than sit here and watch Ione deteriorate.
Her condition worsened with the passing hours, until a day had passed. Azriel hadn’t returned, and things weren’t looking so good. Ione wasn’t looking well. Her skin was ashy, thin like paper. She burned with fever, but her hands were clammy to the touch and she constantly shivered. Her breathing was laborious, rattling in her lungs. She’d woken once or twice, but only to blearily look at him before slipping back into unconsciousness.
Gale couldn’t hide it. He was worried. So worried that his stomach had tied in knots, coiling with the anger and frustration that continued to grow inside of him.
Worse was her aether. It rose and fell in infrequent waves. Sometimes flooding the room so strongly that vials shook and glass shattered and furniture wobbled. Other times, it would decline so rapidly that Gale could barely feel even the tiniest flicker of magic. As though she had died, only for it to rebound again, vibrating around her skin like an anxious cloak.
A day later, and they still had no answers.
Siobhan had devoted herself to discovering the name of the poison. She had intently studied both the dart and Anisa’s poniard, which had been retrieved by Ishmael’s team. It was discovered that the toxin had been applied fresh and was only active for a limited time unless introduced into the bloodstream. There had been little, if any, active sample to harvest. And even what she could isolate from Kieran and Ione’s bloodstream proved difficult to identify.
All she could do was apologize and look at Gale with tired, worn eyes. She hadn’t slept since the morning before, working tirelessly to try and cure her master. Her eyes had filled with tears as she’d apologized, looking close to collapsing, saying that she just wasn’t Master Kieran. She didn’t know what else to do.
Gale had told her to get some rest. That she’d done well and worked hard. All the while feeling as though he was the one who had failed. Siobhan had looked devastated. Her inability to find the magic solution weighed heavily on her.
It weighed on them all.
“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” Cyrus said quietly, eyes shifting from each one of Siobhan’s reports, her neat handwriting filling page after page. “I don’t even know how to classify it. Venom? Toxin? What’s it supposed to do? Any natural poison would have killed them by now. But this… this is doing something else.”
Gale sighed. “Which is probably why Siobhan can’t identify it. There’s no pre-existing toxin to match it to. It’s not existed up until now.” His lips curled into a bitter smirk. “We should feel honored that Grayshire made so much effort to kill us.”
The stress of the past day had taken its toll on him, every nerve wrung tight.
“Master Arlen…”
“Don’t call me that,” Gale snapped, and instantly regretted his harsh tone. Cyrus didn’t deserve it, and probably wouldn’t even understand why hearing that title only worsened Gale’s guilt. He was master of nothing.
He sucked in a breath, and forced himself to calm. “Just… keep looking. Please,” Gale said, and shifted his attention back to Ione, whose lips were moving without sound. Gale wasn’t sure what to call her state. She wasn’t sleeping. She wasn’t quite unconscious. But she wasn’t entirely aware either.
Ione shivered again, despite the flush of cold sweat breaking out over her body, the goosebumps on her arms. Gale frowned and reached for the small tub by the bed, lifting a wet rag from it and squeezing out the excess water before dotting at Ione’s forehead. Cyrus had said it would keep her cool and it certainly seemed to lower her temperature, even if only temporarily.
Her lips moved again, wordless, and Ione’s head shifted toward his hand, instinctively moving toward the relieving coolness. Her eyes fluttered open, their usual amber color dulled yellow and lifeless by her sickness, her gaze bleary and unfocused. Once again, she hovered on the edge of unconsciousness.
“… Gale?” Her voice was a whisper, little more than a croak.
He leaned forward, swallowing over a lump in his throat. “I’m here,” Gale said softly, knowing that Ione’s head was likely pounding and loud noises would only exacerbate that effect.
Though bleary, Ione’s lips twitched toward a smile. “Of course you are,” she said, and her eyes shifted as though trying to search the room, but too blinded by pain to locate anything. “Uncle Kieran?”
“You should know better than me,” Gale said. “Kieran has the luck of the foolish. He’s doing better than you are.” The humor fell flat and lifeless, Gale cursing himself for his inability to communicate properly. If he’d meant to reassure her, he’d probably failed miserably.
Relief flickered across Ione’s pale face. No doubt worry for her uncle had been fueling fever-driven nightmares.
Gale dotted the wet cloth over her forehead, squeezing her fingers. “We’re going to figure this out,” he said, a fierceness sharpening his tone. “Cyrus and Siobhan and the boss when he gets here. We’ll find the antidote. Don’t worry.”
Gale couldn’t be sure that Ione heard him or not. She had already slipped back into sleep as he spoke, her breathing taking on a more ragged edge. But at least she looked alive. Compared to Kieran at any rate.
Wetting the rag and wringing out the water once again, Gale looked over at the nearest bed, where Kieran lay, motionless and still as death. His body had sunk into the mattress and he didn’t twitch, despite the fever that must have raged in his body. He looked like a doll, just waiting for someone to wind the key or mold his limbs into appropriate poses. Gale couldn’t tell if Kieran was getting worse or better. He couldn’t feel the scientist at all.
Yes, he’d lied to Ione. He’d do it again and again. She didn’t need to know that her uncle might never wake up, even if they found the antidote.
Worry again trampled up and down Gale’s spine, trodding over his heart, and he returned his attention to Ione, feeling completely helpless. He couldn’t do anything to fight this. There was no battle; there wasn’t a visible enemy. Gale could only wait and trust and hope and chase away the nightmares – the fever dreams – when they came.
He didn’t know what Ione saw because she only muttered incoherently, but Gale could imagine. Faye and the icy depths of the Iapetus. Ophelia and death and being much, much too late. Anisa and blood-stained hands and a brief hope of being able to return home. Yes, Gale could guess what haunted Ione’s dreams, highlighted by each spike in Ione’s aether. Each tell-tale rise and fall, coiling briefly with Gale’s own before skittering away again as though he were something foul and diseased.
It hurt, like a tangible blow, feeling like a rejection even though Gale knew it wasn’t. But each time it happened, the anger inside Gale grew a little more. Each time he soothed Ione’s nightmares or dabbed her forehead or tried to calm her raging aether, Gale felt the ire bloom. Until it was a white-hot and yet cold fury in the pit of his belly. It took every effort not to storm into Grayshire, slashing his way to the truth, finding out who had created the vile toxin and just how to cure it. To demand that they give him what he needed.
Wrath turned inward, folded in upon itself, twisting into something worse, something a lot like hatred.
Gale had learned to despise Grayshire. He had learned to hate its false god and its foolish rules and the plutocracy. He’d come to hate what his own family had been capable of doing, what other noble families had done. After saving Sabriel, Gale had joined Azriel because he fully believed in what Azriel was doing. He wanted to see the old ways abolished and laid to waste. Gale wanted to dethrone that false deity and replace Grayshire with a new order, a proper order. Gale had learned to despise everything that Grayshire stood for.
Despite all that, Gale had not hated, hadn’t loathed, hadn’t wasted his breath on the darkest of emotions. He had carefully primed his anger and all the varying shades of it. Had used the fury to his advantage, had let it shape his strength, his bonds, his magic. He’d let it drive him to grow stronger, to master his aether. But he had never let it control him. Now, however, hatred was nestling inside of him with spiny roots, digging into all the cracks in his heart. And Gale was hard pressed to stop it.
By all rights, it should have been him. Gale should have been poisoned. He should have been the target of the assassin’s blade. After all, he was the face, the name of the Theravada. He was the one Grayshire should want to destroy. Yet, they had aimed for Ione and Kieran, who admittedly were both traitors to Grayshire, but compared to Gale, they were two more in a string of traitors. It should have been Gale.
It burned his blood, set his fingers to twitching. He thought of his blade, just waiting to find battle and revenge. He thought of Sabriel’s cold hunt for vengeance. He thought about losing Ione and Gale felt himself cracking, felt his control on his aether slipping away from him, slipping into a mad glee, a dangerous lust for death.
There was a presence on the edge of Gale’s senses, registered briefly before a hand settled on his. If it weren’t for the voice that immediately followed, familiar in its timbre, Gale would have reacted violently. As it were, he had to rein himself in.
“Gale,” Azriel reprimanded gently. “You will hurt them,” he said, his fingers calm and soothing, though firm as they gripped his fingers.
As if to punctuate his words, the sound of glass breaking filled the room, snapping Gale from his reverie. He blinked and focused, realizing belatedly that his aether was snapping around the room violently.
The shattering noise had been Cyrus dropping one of his bottles of medicine as he gasped for breath, one hand clamped onto a table as he struggled to remain standing. And to the two patients, whose aether flickered on a minute-by-minute basis, it must have felt like an immense pressure had settled on their chests. Though Ione appeared to have weathered it better than Kieran. To be perfectly honest, Ione almost seemed to be leaning into the power as she would Gale himself, perhaps recognizing her lover unconsciously.
Wincing, Gale quickly reined in the lashing tendrils of his aether, allowing Cyrus to breathe again. He looked into Azriel’s eyes and realized that Azriel’s hand had stopped his own from clenching around the washcloth too tightly. He had already squeezed a few drops of water onto Ione’s face, splashing her cheek.
”Sorry,” he murmured, dropping his head as he lightened his death grip on the wet rag.
Azriel drew back and straightened, gaze both understanding and carefully guarded. “I understand your anger,” he said, and his eyes flicked to Kieran, softening with concern. “But the hatred will only cloud your judgment. Ione needs you now. Not your anger.”
Ducking his head, Gale let his hair slide across his forehead, an action that was very reminiscent of his childhood and a habit he couldn’t break. “I know,” he said, feeling every bit the naughty child as he gently wiped the water from Ione’s face and tossed the rag into the bowl on the bedside table.
The pressure of his aether within the room vanished as though sucked out of the air, giving Cyrus chance to breathe. Gale shot him a look of apology, but his former assistant merely waved it off and went to fetch a broom and dustpan.
Sighing to himself, Gale glanced at Azriel. “When did you get here?”
“Just now,” Azriel said after a moment more of watching him. He turned toward Kieran’s bed, moving to sit on the edge of it. “It would have been sooner, but there was a meeting I couldn’t miss. It would raise suspicions.” The back of his hand pressed to Kieran’s cheek gently and Azriel frowned. “He must have known something, to be so desperate.”
“Kieran?”
Azriel inclined his head, shoulders slumping as his other hand fiddled with the blankets tucked carefully around Kieran’s sleeping form. “It’s a last resort, cryosis is. Or so Kieran explained to me. As much as it might have saved his life, it may have also killed him.”
“He probably thought he had no choice,” Gwydion chirped, stirring from her sleep where she sat on the curve of Kieran’s headboard. Her wings fluttered as she alit on Azriel’s shoulder, giving him a playful nudge with her head. “Kieran knows the consequences of Grayshire’s poison better than anyone.”
“Why is that?” Cyrus asked, returning with the necessary supplies to clean up the mess Gale’s lack of control had caused.
Gwydion fluffed her brown feathers, head cocking oddly. “He helped design half of them, as his father had before him.”
Fingers carding through dark hair, Azriel gently brushed it out of Kieran’s face. Gale had removed Kieran’s glasses earlier, folding them and setting them on the bedside table. “The Azura created the cryosis state as a failsafe,” he added, once again proving his knowledge of all things. “It’s only weakness is that one can’t monitor the patient’s condition. Cryosis will only slow things down. It won’t prevent the poison from killing him.”
“All the more reason to find the antidote as soon as possible,” Cyrus said.
“A task easier said than done,” Azriel admitted and his shoulders slumped. “I’ve at least identified the poison’s main purpose, though I still have no clue how it’s doing it or why.” He dragged a hand over his hair. “It’s turning them into Merihem, albeit at a much slower pace.”
Gale felt his jaw literally drop, as his gut twisted and his heart pounded uncontrollably. “You mean… whatever caused the Merihem in the first place has poisoned them?”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” Azriel murmured, his lips curving with a bitter smile. “The very thing Kieran was searching for in Varos may be the very thing that kills him. An untainted, pure form of the Varos toxin.”
Cyrus finished sweeping up the mess, dropping it into a nearby wastebasket. “You just got here. How did you figure it out already?”
“Siobhan caught up to me before I made it to the medbay. She filled me in on the details. It didn’t take long to connect one with the other,” Azriel explained. “Especially after skimming through the results of her recent tests.”
Gale rubbed his temple with his free hand. “I told her to get some rest,” he muttered.
“It wasn’t working. She said she felt better to be trying and obligated to figure out something.” Azriel shifted toward Gale, though he didn’t move from the edge of Kieran’s bed. “It’s probably only because of Fenris and Aponi that Ione hasn’t succumbed yet.”
The wolf had been rather listless in the last twenty four hours. Even now, he was curled up at the foot of Ione’s bed, fast asleep, not even stirring for the conversation around him. Exhaustion rippled in evident waves through Fenris’ aether and Aponi wasn’t much better from her perch near Ione’s head, wings drooping lifelessly. She, at least, was conscious.
“We’re doing what we can,” Aponi said, her voice soft and breathy. “We’ve got hold of her so she doesn’t slip into the darkness, but our strength isn’t without end. Eventually, it will run out as well.”
Gale stared at the small butterfly, disliking the direction her words were taking him. “You’ll fade.”
Her wings fluttered. “Yes.”
Gale couldn’t believe his ears. For a forest spirit, fading was the same as death. Their magic depleted, they would cease to exist. Aponi and Fenris were killing themselves to save Ione, to keep her from suffering the same fate as those infected by Varos. That was why Ione hadn’t succumbed yet. If Azriel was right, and Gale didn’t doubt he was, and the poison was gradually turning Ione and Kieran into Merihem, Ione’s familiars were the only thing keeping it from overcoming her, keeping her human.
His breath left him in a shallow gasp. “You risk much.”
Fenris stirred on the end of the bed, lifting his head to regard Gale with sad, gold eyes. “We risk everything,” he said tiredly.
Gale’s fingers unconsciously tightened around Ione’s. If they couldn’t save her, they would lose more than just Ione. They would lose Fenris and Aponi as well, valued heartbeats of the forest. And Grayshire had done this.
Grayshire was the reason Ione was dying, that Fenris and Aponi were slowly fading. Their arrogance was turning Ione into a Merihem, one of those foul tainted creatures, so pitiable and broken. Hungry for relief, desperate for magic, roaming and killing, her only solace would be death.
Gale would lose her, just like that. Ione who had leapt into his heart as easily as if she’d always belonged there, with her sly smile and her charming clumsiness and her fierce, stubborn pride. His throat suddenly felt tight and burning, heart thundering so strongly in his chest, he couldn’t breathe from the force of it. His eyes prickled as fear collided with despair, turning into a disordered knot inside his chest.
They’d be forced to kill her, what was left of her. Ione would be gone; Gale left alone all over again. And Gale could do nothing. Here, he was helpless. Nothing of the Arlen’s vaunted healing skills were any use. Cyrus, who still was really just a novice, couldn’t find a solution. Siobhan was practically killing herself, but she was only an amateur herself. Gale, for all his power and all his position and all his magic, was useless. Ineffectual. He could do nothing but watch her die.
No. He wouldn’t do it. Gale refused.
Gritting his teeth, Gale rose to his feet, gently loosening his hold on Ione’s hand and tucking it close to her body. He leaned over, pressing a kiss to her feverish forehead. A small sound escaped her lips, her head instinctively turning toward his lips.
“Gale?” Azriel’s voice was quizzical, questioning.
“I’m not going to sit here and watch anymore,” he said lowly, his aether strangely calm for the fire burning inside of him. For the whipping wind and the torrential rain and the howling storm. “If we don’t have the means to make an antidote, then I’ll simply have to find out who does.” He moved around the edge of the bed, making a mental list.
His sword was back in his quarters. He’d have to retrieve the blade first. And change his clothes. The heavy, unwieldy draping of his robes would only serve to hamper him. Inari would want to come, so he’d have to find her, and Gale had no doubt Malcolm would want to join him. Show Grayshire just who else they’d lost as allies.
“Gale!” Fingers enclosed about his upper arm, dragging him to a halt. “That’s suicide,” Azriel said, his brown eyes dark with emotion and worry. He was falling apart, too, but Azriel couldn’t show it. He was the boss; he had to be strong.
Gale shook his head. “I don’t care,” he said, though he didn’t jerk away from Azriel. The boss didn’t deserve it. “I’m not going to sit here and watch her die and do nothing.” He could feel tension vibrating his body as he met Azriel’s eyes. “I’m tired of feeling helpless.”
“I understand,” Azriel replied gently, and he loosed his hold, drawing himself to his full height which still lagged behind Gale’s. “But foolishly running into Grayshire won’t do us any good either.” He sighed. “We’re not going to be able to figure out the antidote. Not without Kieran.”
“So why are you stopping me?”
“I’m not.” Azriel worked his jaw. “There’s one option we still have left. One that won’t require any bloodshed.”
Gale was skeptical, along with a tad bit disappointed. The rage inside of him desperately needed an outlet. “What are you talking about?”
Offering up a thin smile, Azriel shook his head “You’ll see when I return, hopefully, with an antidote in tow.” He turned back toward Kieran’s bed, one hand cupping the scientist’s cheek, which was probably burning with fever. “Look after him for me please.”
“You don’t even have to ask,” Gale said, a thickness in his throat. “Just… make it quick Azriel. I have the feeling we don’t have much time.”
Azriel’s gaze lingered on Kieran, his expression cracking for just an instant, revealing the depth of anxiety swirling inside of him. “Even less than you think.”
* * *
a/n: Feedback is always welcome and appreciated. Tomorrow is Friday and in honor of the New Year, Flash Fiction Friday. See you then!
Title: Whispers of Yesterday
Series: Infinity's End, Book Two
Description: Now firmly entrenched in the Theravada -- and firmly involved with Gale as well -- Ione discovers the hidden sides of both Grayshire and Theravada. She questions her own decisions -- and her feelings -- as the war takes on a more murderous, personal turn for the worst.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21)
Chapter Ten
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The medbay would have been silent, were it not for the sound of bubbling liquids, Cyrus moving around, and the chatter of people passing in the hallway beyond the door. Gale didn’t mind the quiet so much. It made it easier to count each of Ione’s breaths, making sure that they hadn’t stopped when he wasn’t paying attention. Gale’s ears were attuned to them, to the point he felt he was breathing in tandem with her. It was the least he could do.
Her left hand was clasped in his, the right far too mottled with bruising from the poison that coursed through her system. Gale, after waking from his meager half hour nap, hadn’t moved from his current position. A chair had been brought in for his use, and it was far from uncomfortable, but he had no plans to leave. There wasn’t anything more he could do than sit here and watch Ione deteriorate.
Her condition worsened with the passing hours, until a day had passed. Azriel hadn’t returned, and things weren’t looking so good. Ione wasn’t looking well. Her skin was ashy, thin like paper. She burned with fever, but her hands were clammy to the touch and she constantly shivered. Her breathing was laborious, rattling in her lungs. She’d woken once or twice, but only to blearily look at him before slipping back into unconsciousness.
Gale couldn’t hide it. He was worried. So worried that his stomach had tied in knots, coiling with the anger and frustration that continued to grow inside of him.
Worse was her aether. It rose and fell in infrequent waves. Sometimes flooding the room so strongly that vials shook and glass shattered and furniture wobbled. Other times, it would decline so rapidly that Gale could barely feel even the tiniest flicker of magic. As though she had died, only for it to rebound again, vibrating around her skin like an anxious cloak.
A day later, and they still had no answers.
Siobhan had devoted herself to discovering the name of the poison. She had intently studied both the dart and Anisa’s poniard, which had been retrieved by Ishmael’s team. It was discovered that the toxin had been applied fresh and was only active for a limited time unless introduced into the bloodstream. There had been little, if any, active sample to harvest. And even what she could isolate from Kieran and Ione’s bloodstream proved difficult to identify.
All she could do was apologize and look at Gale with tired, worn eyes. She hadn’t slept since the morning before, working tirelessly to try and cure her master. Her eyes had filled with tears as she’d apologized, looking close to collapsing, saying that she just wasn’t Master Kieran. She didn’t know what else to do.
Gale had told her to get some rest. That she’d done well and worked hard. All the while feeling as though he was the one who had failed. Siobhan had looked devastated. Her inability to find the magic solution weighed heavily on her.
It weighed on them all.
“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” Cyrus said quietly, eyes shifting from each one of Siobhan’s reports, her neat handwriting filling page after page. “I don’t even know how to classify it. Venom? Toxin? What’s it supposed to do? Any natural poison would have killed them by now. But this… this is doing something else.”
Gale sighed. “Which is probably why Siobhan can’t identify it. There’s no pre-existing toxin to match it to. It’s not existed up until now.” His lips curled into a bitter smirk. “We should feel honored that Grayshire made so much effort to kill us.”
The stress of the past day had taken its toll on him, every nerve wrung tight.
“Master Arlen…”
“Don’t call me that,” Gale snapped, and instantly regretted his harsh tone. Cyrus didn’t deserve it, and probably wouldn’t even understand why hearing that title only worsened Gale’s guilt. He was master of nothing.
He sucked in a breath, and forced himself to calm. “Just… keep looking. Please,” Gale said, and shifted his attention back to Ione, whose lips were moving without sound. Gale wasn’t sure what to call her state. She wasn’t sleeping. She wasn’t quite unconscious. But she wasn’t entirely aware either.
Ione shivered again, despite the flush of cold sweat breaking out over her body, the goosebumps on her arms. Gale frowned and reached for the small tub by the bed, lifting a wet rag from it and squeezing out the excess water before dotting at Ione’s forehead. Cyrus had said it would keep her cool and it certainly seemed to lower her temperature, even if only temporarily.
Her lips moved again, wordless, and Ione’s head shifted toward his hand, instinctively moving toward the relieving coolness. Her eyes fluttered open, their usual amber color dulled yellow and lifeless by her sickness, her gaze bleary and unfocused. Once again, she hovered on the edge of unconsciousness.
“… Gale?” Her voice was a whisper, little more than a croak.
He leaned forward, swallowing over a lump in his throat. “I’m here,” Gale said softly, knowing that Ione’s head was likely pounding and loud noises would only exacerbate that effect.
Though bleary, Ione’s lips twitched toward a smile. “Of course you are,” she said, and her eyes shifted as though trying to search the room, but too blinded by pain to locate anything. “Uncle Kieran?”
“You should know better than me,” Gale said. “Kieran has the luck of the foolish. He’s doing better than you are.” The humor fell flat and lifeless, Gale cursing himself for his inability to communicate properly. If he’d meant to reassure her, he’d probably failed miserably.
Relief flickered across Ione’s pale face. No doubt worry for her uncle had been fueling fever-driven nightmares.
Gale dotted the wet cloth over her forehead, squeezing her fingers. “We’re going to figure this out,” he said, a fierceness sharpening his tone. “Cyrus and Siobhan and the boss when he gets here. We’ll find the antidote. Don’t worry.”
Gale couldn’t be sure that Ione heard him or not. She had already slipped back into sleep as he spoke, her breathing taking on a more ragged edge. But at least she looked alive. Compared to Kieran at any rate.
Wetting the rag and wringing out the water once again, Gale looked over at the nearest bed, where Kieran lay, motionless and still as death. His body had sunk into the mattress and he didn’t twitch, despite the fever that must have raged in his body. He looked like a doll, just waiting for someone to wind the key or mold his limbs into appropriate poses. Gale couldn’t tell if Kieran was getting worse or better. He couldn’t feel the scientist at all.
Yes, he’d lied to Ione. He’d do it again and again. She didn’t need to know that her uncle might never wake up, even if they found the antidote.
Worry again trampled up and down Gale’s spine, trodding over his heart, and he returned his attention to Ione, feeling completely helpless. He couldn’t do anything to fight this. There was no battle; there wasn’t a visible enemy. Gale could only wait and trust and hope and chase away the nightmares – the fever dreams – when they came.
He didn’t know what Ione saw because she only muttered incoherently, but Gale could imagine. Faye and the icy depths of the Iapetus. Ophelia and death and being much, much too late. Anisa and blood-stained hands and a brief hope of being able to return home. Yes, Gale could guess what haunted Ione’s dreams, highlighted by each spike in Ione’s aether. Each tell-tale rise and fall, coiling briefly with Gale’s own before skittering away again as though he were something foul and diseased.
It hurt, like a tangible blow, feeling like a rejection even though Gale knew it wasn’t. But each time it happened, the anger inside Gale grew a little more. Each time he soothed Ione’s nightmares or dabbed her forehead or tried to calm her raging aether, Gale felt the ire bloom. Until it was a white-hot and yet cold fury in the pit of his belly. It took every effort not to storm into Grayshire, slashing his way to the truth, finding out who had created the vile toxin and just how to cure it. To demand that they give him what he needed.
Wrath turned inward, folded in upon itself, twisting into something worse, something a lot like hatred.
Gale had learned to despise Grayshire. He had learned to hate its false god and its foolish rules and the plutocracy. He’d come to hate what his own family had been capable of doing, what other noble families had done. After saving Sabriel, Gale had joined Azriel because he fully believed in what Azriel was doing. He wanted to see the old ways abolished and laid to waste. Gale wanted to dethrone that false deity and replace Grayshire with a new order, a proper order. Gale had learned to despise everything that Grayshire stood for.
Despite all that, Gale had not hated, hadn’t loathed, hadn’t wasted his breath on the darkest of emotions. He had carefully primed his anger and all the varying shades of it. Had used the fury to his advantage, had let it shape his strength, his bonds, his magic. He’d let it drive him to grow stronger, to master his aether. But he had never let it control him. Now, however, hatred was nestling inside of him with spiny roots, digging into all the cracks in his heart. And Gale was hard pressed to stop it.
By all rights, it should have been him. Gale should have been poisoned. He should have been the target of the assassin’s blade. After all, he was the face, the name of the Theravada. He was the one Grayshire should want to destroy. Yet, they had aimed for Ione and Kieran, who admittedly were both traitors to Grayshire, but compared to Gale, they were two more in a string of traitors. It should have been Gale.
It burned his blood, set his fingers to twitching. He thought of his blade, just waiting to find battle and revenge. He thought of Sabriel’s cold hunt for vengeance. He thought about losing Ione and Gale felt himself cracking, felt his control on his aether slipping away from him, slipping into a mad glee, a dangerous lust for death.
There was a presence on the edge of Gale’s senses, registered briefly before a hand settled on his. If it weren’t for the voice that immediately followed, familiar in its timbre, Gale would have reacted violently. As it were, he had to rein himself in.
“Gale,” Azriel reprimanded gently. “You will hurt them,” he said, his fingers calm and soothing, though firm as they gripped his fingers.
As if to punctuate his words, the sound of glass breaking filled the room, snapping Gale from his reverie. He blinked and focused, realizing belatedly that his aether was snapping around the room violently.
The shattering noise had been Cyrus dropping one of his bottles of medicine as he gasped for breath, one hand clamped onto a table as he struggled to remain standing. And to the two patients, whose aether flickered on a minute-by-minute basis, it must have felt like an immense pressure had settled on their chests. Though Ione appeared to have weathered it better than Kieran. To be perfectly honest, Ione almost seemed to be leaning into the power as she would Gale himself, perhaps recognizing her lover unconsciously.
Wincing, Gale quickly reined in the lashing tendrils of his aether, allowing Cyrus to breathe again. He looked into Azriel’s eyes and realized that Azriel’s hand had stopped his own from clenching around the washcloth too tightly. He had already squeezed a few drops of water onto Ione’s face, splashing her cheek.
”Sorry,” he murmured, dropping his head as he lightened his death grip on the wet rag.
Azriel drew back and straightened, gaze both understanding and carefully guarded. “I understand your anger,” he said, and his eyes flicked to Kieran, softening with concern. “But the hatred will only cloud your judgment. Ione needs you now. Not your anger.”
Ducking his head, Gale let his hair slide across his forehead, an action that was very reminiscent of his childhood and a habit he couldn’t break. “I know,” he said, feeling every bit the naughty child as he gently wiped the water from Ione’s face and tossed the rag into the bowl on the bedside table.
The pressure of his aether within the room vanished as though sucked out of the air, giving Cyrus chance to breathe. Gale shot him a look of apology, but his former assistant merely waved it off and went to fetch a broom and dustpan.
Sighing to himself, Gale glanced at Azriel. “When did you get here?”
“Just now,” Azriel said after a moment more of watching him. He turned toward Kieran’s bed, moving to sit on the edge of it. “It would have been sooner, but there was a meeting I couldn’t miss. It would raise suspicions.” The back of his hand pressed to Kieran’s cheek gently and Azriel frowned. “He must have known something, to be so desperate.”
“Kieran?”
Azriel inclined his head, shoulders slumping as his other hand fiddled with the blankets tucked carefully around Kieran’s sleeping form. “It’s a last resort, cryosis is. Or so Kieran explained to me. As much as it might have saved his life, it may have also killed him.”
“He probably thought he had no choice,” Gwydion chirped, stirring from her sleep where she sat on the curve of Kieran’s headboard. Her wings fluttered as she alit on Azriel’s shoulder, giving him a playful nudge with her head. “Kieran knows the consequences of Grayshire’s poison better than anyone.”
“Why is that?” Cyrus asked, returning with the necessary supplies to clean up the mess Gale’s lack of control had caused.
Gwydion fluffed her brown feathers, head cocking oddly. “He helped design half of them, as his father had before him.”
Fingers carding through dark hair, Azriel gently brushed it out of Kieran’s face. Gale had removed Kieran’s glasses earlier, folding them and setting them on the bedside table. “The Azura created the cryosis state as a failsafe,” he added, once again proving his knowledge of all things. “It’s only weakness is that one can’t monitor the patient’s condition. Cryosis will only slow things down. It won’t prevent the poison from killing him.”
“All the more reason to find the antidote as soon as possible,” Cyrus said.
“A task easier said than done,” Azriel admitted and his shoulders slumped. “I’ve at least identified the poison’s main purpose, though I still have no clue how it’s doing it or why.” He dragged a hand over his hair. “It’s turning them into Merihem, albeit at a much slower pace.”
Gale felt his jaw literally drop, as his gut twisted and his heart pounded uncontrollably. “You mean… whatever caused the Merihem in the first place has poisoned them?”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” Azriel murmured, his lips curving with a bitter smile. “The very thing Kieran was searching for in Varos may be the very thing that kills him. An untainted, pure form of the Varos toxin.”
Cyrus finished sweeping up the mess, dropping it into a nearby wastebasket. “You just got here. How did you figure it out already?”
“Siobhan caught up to me before I made it to the medbay. She filled me in on the details. It didn’t take long to connect one with the other,” Azriel explained. “Especially after skimming through the results of her recent tests.”
Gale rubbed his temple with his free hand. “I told her to get some rest,” he muttered.
“It wasn’t working. She said she felt better to be trying and obligated to figure out something.” Azriel shifted toward Gale, though he didn’t move from the edge of Kieran’s bed. “It’s probably only because of Fenris and Aponi that Ione hasn’t succumbed yet.”
The wolf had been rather listless in the last twenty four hours. Even now, he was curled up at the foot of Ione’s bed, fast asleep, not even stirring for the conversation around him. Exhaustion rippled in evident waves through Fenris’ aether and Aponi wasn’t much better from her perch near Ione’s head, wings drooping lifelessly. She, at least, was conscious.
“We’re doing what we can,” Aponi said, her voice soft and breathy. “We’ve got hold of her so she doesn’t slip into the darkness, but our strength isn’t without end. Eventually, it will run out as well.”
Gale stared at the small butterfly, disliking the direction her words were taking him. “You’ll fade.”
Her wings fluttered. “Yes.”
Gale couldn’t believe his ears. For a forest spirit, fading was the same as death. Their magic depleted, they would cease to exist. Aponi and Fenris were killing themselves to save Ione, to keep her from suffering the same fate as those infected by Varos. That was why Ione hadn’t succumbed yet. If Azriel was right, and Gale didn’t doubt he was, and the poison was gradually turning Ione and Kieran into Merihem, Ione’s familiars were the only thing keeping it from overcoming her, keeping her human.
His breath left him in a shallow gasp. “You risk much.”
Fenris stirred on the end of the bed, lifting his head to regard Gale with sad, gold eyes. “We risk everything,” he said tiredly.
Gale’s fingers unconsciously tightened around Ione’s. If they couldn’t save her, they would lose more than just Ione. They would lose Fenris and Aponi as well, valued heartbeats of the forest. And Grayshire had done this.
Grayshire was the reason Ione was dying, that Fenris and Aponi were slowly fading. Their arrogance was turning Ione into a Merihem, one of those foul tainted creatures, so pitiable and broken. Hungry for relief, desperate for magic, roaming and killing, her only solace would be death.
Gale would lose her, just like that. Ione who had leapt into his heart as easily as if she’d always belonged there, with her sly smile and her charming clumsiness and her fierce, stubborn pride. His throat suddenly felt tight and burning, heart thundering so strongly in his chest, he couldn’t breathe from the force of it. His eyes prickled as fear collided with despair, turning into a disordered knot inside his chest.
They’d be forced to kill her, what was left of her. Ione would be gone; Gale left alone all over again. And Gale could do nothing. Here, he was helpless. Nothing of the Arlen’s vaunted healing skills were any use. Cyrus, who still was really just a novice, couldn’t find a solution. Siobhan was practically killing herself, but she was only an amateur herself. Gale, for all his power and all his position and all his magic, was useless. Ineffectual. He could do nothing but watch her die.
No. He wouldn’t do it. Gale refused.
Gritting his teeth, Gale rose to his feet, gently loosening his hold on Ione’s hand and tucking it close to her body. He leaned over, pressing a kiss to her feverish forehead. A small sound escaped her lips, her head instinctively turning toward his lips.
“Gale?” Azriel’s voice was quizzical, questioning.
“I’m not going to sit here and watch anymore,” he said lowly, his aether strangely calm for the fire burning inside of him. For the whipping wind and the torrential rain and the howling storm. “If we don’t have the means to make an antidote, then I’ll simply have to find out who does.” He moved around the edge of the bed, making a mental list.
His sword was back in his quarters. He’d have to retrieve the blade first. And change his clothes. The heavy, unwieldy draping of his robes would only serve to hamper him. Inari would want to come, so he’d have to find her, and Gale had no doubt Malcolm would want to join him. Show Grayshire just who else they’d lost as allies.
“Gale!” Fingers enclosed about his upper arm, dragging him to a halt. “That’s suicide,” Azriel said, his brown eyes dark with emotion and worry. He was falling apart, too, but Azriel couldn’t show it. He was the boss; he had to be strong.
Gale shook his head. “I don’t care,” he said, though he didn’t jerk away from Azriel. The boss didn’t deserve it. “I’m not going to sit here and watch her die and do nothing.” He could feel tension vibrating his body as he met Azriel’s eyes. “I’m tired of feeling helpless.”
“I understand,” Azriel replied gently, and he loosed his hold, drawing himself to his full height which still lagged behind Gale’s. “But foolishly running into Grayshire won’t do us any good either.” He sighed. “We’re not going to be able to figure out the antidote. Not without Kieran.”
“So why are you stopping me?”
“I’m not.” Azriel worked his jaw. “There’s one option we still have left. One that won’t require any bloodshed.”
Gale was skeptical, along with a tad bit disappointed. The rage inside of him desperately needed an outlet. “What are you talking about?”
Offering up a thin smile, Azriel shook his head “You’ll see when I return, hopefully, with an antidote in tow.” He turned back toward Kieran’s bed, one hand cupping the scientist’s cheek, which was probably burning with fever. “Look after him for me please.”
“You don’t even have to ask,” Gale said, a thickness in his throat. “Just… make it quick Azriel. I have the feeling we don’t have much time.”
Azriel’s gaze lingered on Kieran, his expression cracking for just an instant, revealing the depth of anxiety swirling inside of him. “Even less than you think.”
a/n: Feedback is always welcome and appreciated. Tomorrow is Friday and in honor of the New Year, Flash Fiction Friday. See you then!
