Perian made a face. “Fire and water, I hope not!”
He kept reading, and the doctor showed up to save the day except… oh, no, was Brannal right? Was the rest of the book going to be about crying and grieving? Because the doctor was shaking his head gravely.
“I know I said she was kind of useless,” Perian said with a grimace, “but I don’t actually want her to be miserable—or to have to read about it for another quarter of the book.” He made a face. “Maybe we can just pretend to have read it?”
Brannal shot him a look. “You’re going to write to the doctor and tell her thank you and pretend it’s not a really depressing book that you never want to read again and haven’t finished?”
Perian sighed. Subterfuge was maybe not his best skill. “All right, all right. The doctor is shaking his head gravely, the heroine is crying even more loudly—I’m beginning to think she has an endless supply of tears. Have we ever seen her drink a glass of water? Maybe she’s severely dehydrated, and if only she would drink more regularly, she would behave differently.”
Brannal sounded amused. “Perian.”
“Yeah, yeah… shaking his head gravely, and then he says, ‘There is only one chance, my lady. We must summon a Life Mage and hope they can come in time. For he is on the cusp of death, and it is only the Life Mages who can—’”
Perian cut off abruptly, staring at the page.
“Perian?”
Perian looked up at Brannal blindly. Brannal’s expression of amusement changed to concern.
“What is it?”
Perian just stood there for a moment, and then he swallowed, and finished the sentence.
“‘It is only the Life Mages who can share their life energy and save the man you love.’”
He stopped again. Brannal had frozen in his seat by the fire.
“‘Lost sight of the ‘how’,” Brannal said, repeating the words from the doctor’s letter.
Perian blew out a breath, and his voice was not entirely steady as he said, “Life Magic.”
But Brannal was suddenly nodding. “Fire and water. She’s entirely right. I’m not sure how I missed it, really, except that that’s exactly what we all did; as soon as we realized that you got energy from people through sex, all anyone could think about was your being a carnalion.”
“But I’m not a carnalion.”
“A child of two words,” Brannal said, eyes bright like stars. “A child from two words who can pull energy from people through sexandwho can direct that energy to other people to heal them. No carnalion does that.”
Perian sniffed. “I thought maybe we just didn’t know.”
Brannal was shaking his head. “I don’t think so. Every bit of lore we have shows carnalions, wraiths, and nightmares pulling energy from people. None of them ever mention it being returned. There is literally, just as this ridiculous novel says, only one group of people who were ever able to dothat.”
Perian swallowed. “Life Mages. Lost after the Great Cataclysm.”
Brannal nodded again. “When the previously overrun world was rid of almost all demons.”
Perian nodded slowly. “When it must suddenly have become so much rarer for a carnalion to have a baby with a human.”
“No more children of two worlds.”
“No more Life Magic.”
“Perian,” Brannal said, staring at him with incredulity in his eyes and something stronger, pride and wonder, maybe. “You’re a Life Mage.”
Perian felt it like a full-body shiver, the realization sweeping over him, the knowledge settling in his bones.
Brannal swept him into his arms, the book forgotten, and kissed him. Every time Perian thought the world was done with him, it threw something else at him.
From most hated and feared to most sought after and secret.
