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Once Eno got the stubborn flames flickering in the center of the camp, he stepped back, brushing his hands off on his pants. Rayne moved next to Eno, his arms folded across his chest as he frowned at Caelan.
“Are you ready?” Rayne asked, his voice heavy with worry.
Caelan took a deep breath and nodded, releasing it quickly. “Yeah. I got this. I’m sure I’m only a little rusty.”
“This isn’t a good way to find out if you are.”
The prince grinned at his advisor as he took a step closer to the fire. He stared into the bright orange and yellow flames as they jumped and danced. Thick smoke billowed up from the damp, green wood, but it didn’t seem to deter Caelan. He looked over at Drayce, his grin growing wider just as he stepped right into the fire.
“What?” Drayce shouted. Panic slammed through him, sending his heart surging to his throat. He dug his toes into the dirt, prepared to launch himself at Caelan, to knock him out of the flames, but he stopped himself as Caelan continued to smile at him.
The fire wasn’t burning him.
Drayce’s breath left him in a rush. He was kneeling on the ground, both hands clenched in the dirt in front of him. His arms trembled and his brain was a swirl of random and confusing thoughts. Was this the Godstone? Or something else? And if it was something else, that couldn’t possibly be good.
For now, Drayce shoved those confusing questions aside and watched his friend. Caelan’s eyes slipped shut and he lifted his open hands up to about chest level. The air around him sparked and shimmered with strange greenish specs before a green glow shot up into the air from his friend. The light went up only five or six feet above the camp and cascaded over them like a dome. A protective bubble.
When the green glow reached the ground, it disappeared again and Drayce blinked, leaving him wondering if he could trust his eyes. Magic. His best friend could do magic.
Holy shit! His best friend could freaking do magic!
“That should hold at least until we are ready to leave,” Caelan murmured, drawing Drayce’s eyes to him. He watched as his friend carefully stepped out of the flames. There were no burns or scorch marks on his clothes, as if he hadn’t just been standing in the middle of the campfire.
“Any trouble?” Rayne inquired.
Caelan looked over his shoulder toward the west and shook his head slowly. “No, not really. I could feel the distance from the Godstone. I’ve never been so far from it when putting up the protection spell.”
“Something we should keep in mind as we get into Caspagir,” Rayne replied with a small nod.
“With any luck, we shouldn’t need it while in Sirelis.”
“True. Now, to bed. We start at dawn,” Rayne countered sharply.
Drayce did not need to be told twice. As interesting as Caelan’s magic show had been, he needed sleep. Drayce turned around and practically crawled into the tent, pausing only long enough to kick off his shoes before curling up inside his sleeping bag. He didn’t bother zipping it, just pulled the flap over so he could quickly get free if there was a problem.
A moment later, Caelan crawled into the tent beside him, groaning and grumbling like an old man as he dropped onto his sleeping bag.
Of course, now that he was lying flat on his back in the dark with the chance to sleep, he was wide awake, his mind going a million miles an hour.
“Dude,” Drayce whispered. “Did that hurt?”
“What?” Caelan moaned.
“Standing in the fire.”
His friend made a noise and turned over so that he wasn’t actually sleeping on his face. “No. It was warm but didn’t burn.”
“And that…bubble will keep out all the bite-y things?”
Caelan snorted. “More like the things trying to kill you. The mosquitoes can still get through.”
“Little vampire fuckers,” Drayce muttered, and Caelan huffed out a tired laugh. He stared up at the top of the tent, though it was barely more than a black shadow. There was a soft murmur of conversation between Eno and Rayne, but their words were swallowed up by the crackle and snap of the fire. Minutes ticked by, and the excitement of the magic faded under the weight of why they needed the spell in the first place.
“Cael,” Drayce whispered.
Caelan groaned. Something that was probably a mix of “What?” and “Go to sleep.”
“I’m sorry about that fight back there. I fucked up, and it won’t happen again.”
Caelan sighed heavily, but it sounded like there was less irritation that Drayce wasn’t letting him sleep and more anger at other things. “You can’t let him get to you. Eno can be a fucking dick. He was out of line earlier.”
“Shhh…he can hear you,” Drayce hissed, turning on his side to face Caelan.
