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Náli tried to call out, and had the breath squeezed out of him. He was choking, choking, choking–
A shriek pierced the air.
Valgrind.
The Sel’s weight lifted off of him. Náli sucked in a breath and rolled onto his side, coughing. He shoved up onto one arm, heard a grunt of effort between rasping breaths, and saw that Lucian was there. He held a sword with both hands, lifted it, and caught the strike of the Sel’s blade, which had grown to the length of a massive greatsword.
Lucian gritted his teeth, arms shaking beneath the press of the Sel’s sword. “Náli,” he managed. “Get the flame. Hurry. Go to it. Consume it. Share it.”
Unsteady, pulse pounding, Náli scrambled to his feet.
The Sel glanced toward him, face contorted with fury, but Lucian swiped at his middle, and he had to retreat and parry.
“Go!” Lucian shouted, and Náli went.
He stumbled to the pillar and gripped its edge, knees so water-weak with stress he thought he might fall. Had this been the mortal plane, had he held a sword – but nothing was as he knew it, and that was a Sel inside his magic, and, and…
He had no idea what consume meant, in this instance. He watched the flame twist and writhe, far more agitated than it had been before. Cautiously, he reached toward it. Slow, slow, slow. The heat washed over his hand, hotter every inch. Would it burn him? Could he actually touch it?
“Náli!” Lucian shouted. “You have to eat it!”
He snatched his hand back. “Eat it?”
Lucian went to one knee beneath the force of the Sel’s next strike, face red with strain. “Do it!”
Náli looked back at the fire. It crackled, just as a real one would, hot enough he wanted to step back from it.
Somewhere distant beyond the veil, Valgrind screamed again.
Lucian let out a pained cry, and an ugly, wet sound followed.
Right, then.
Eyes half-closed, cursing wildly under his breath, Náli grabbed at the flame with both hands, convinced his flesh would be seared from the bone. Instead, the fire lifted, its unfueled source cupped in both palms, and though the heat touched his skin, it didn’t burn or blister it. How the bloody hell do I eat this? he wondered, but didn’t ask. Lucian was probably dying, and then that pale monster would come for him, and there was nothing for it, really.
He lifted the flame toward his mouth, and as he did, it seemed to shrink down into itself, compressing and compressing, until the heat of it tickled over his lips. “Bottoms up, I suppose,” he muttered, tipped his head back, opened his mouth, and poured it in.
It went down like strong liquor, liquid heat that seared his throat and settled like banked coals in his belly. Oddly comforting.
Between one blink and the next, he marveled. I’ve done it. And he could feel it already crackling through his veins, the dizzying headrush, the staggering thrum of power in every limb.
Then, he turned and bolted.
The landscape into which he fled had changed. It was still awash with soft gray light, but now, rather than an empty canvas, an endless stretch of a dream, he could see the ghostly shapes of houses. Small, sod-roofed cottages with fenced yards. There was ground beneath is feet, now: a path that wended between the modest homes. It was the village, the one he'd been visiting since infancy, where he’d first met Lucian. Indistinct, shrouded in mist, but there. Real. As real as anything could be in this realm.
His spirits soared. Now he knew where he was. He could get back home from here!
A wordless, human roar of rage sounded behind him, followed by the thud of running footsteps.
Náli lengthened his strides, pitched forward as he ran, arms pumping. Some instinct was drawing him toward the longhouse. If he could reach it, he could barricade himself inside and open a door back home.
Pain lanced through his belly. The heat of the flames swelled out, sharp and sudden, and forced the air from his lungs. He staggered and went to his knees, gasping. It was like the twisting of a hot knife. It was ripping him open.
Too much. It was too much magic for one person. He coughed and spat blood on the path, while the Sel’s footsteps rushed up behind him.
There was no time. No time to get to the longhouse, no time to work out how to open a gateway and cross back over. He had to go now, and he had to purge some of this magic, or he’d die here beneath the stroke of a magical Selesee sword.
Or meet a worse fate.
