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Phae stared down at her hands and then at the stone cup toppled next to Shion’s brother. She made it to her feet somehow and hefted the stone chalice. She didn’t bother taking his Tay al-Ard. It would be useless to him, for he bore no memories and thus had nowhere to go. She stared at the chalice, at the designs carved into the side. It was a strange engraving of a tree with many vine-like limbs and blooming fruit. There was a man with a strange halo carved into it sitting on a throne. Images of serpents clung to the vines. There were other beings carved into it as well, one kneeling and raising a single hand. Another grabbed a fruit from the vine. It was the story of Shirikant and Shion. The entire legend had been painstakingly engraved into the stone chalice.
“What must we do?” Shion asked her, trembling from the memories they had endured. He stared at her worriedly, his expression tightening with the impending sense of more pain to come.
She stared at the bubbling cauldron, seeing the sheen of it. She understood how Shirikant had cursed it. His memories were now hers too. It would take one with the fireblood to tame the fire unleashed inside Pontfadog. And she knew the Seneschal had foreseen she would have it.
Phae reached out a calming hand. “Pericanthas. Sericanthas. Thas.”
She felt heat from the pool gathering together. Blue flames began to dance atop the frenzied churn of bubbles. The flames grew brighter and coalesced into a sphere that floated to her hand and then absorbed into her skin. She felt a rush of magic as her fireblood responded to it, meshing the magics together, taming them. A haze of steam lingered over the pool, the heat dissipating quickly. Soon the pool was a glassy sheen, still as a mirror.
Both she and Shion crouched near the edge of it.
“I must drink it, mustn’t I?” Shion whispered, looking at her.
Her heart ached. “Yes. The Plague is a protection to this place, a way of defending it against intruders and to prevent those who haven’t earned the right to enter.”
“Yes, I know,” Shion said. “He joined the magics together, somehow.”
“He used fire to bind them,” Phae explained. “I’ve taken that away. If you drink from the pool, your body will separate the Plague from the quicksilver.” She closed her eyes, sorting through the memories. “You must suffer the effects of the Plague in order to rid it from the pool. It will be painful.”
He looked her in the eye. “It must be done.” He gripped the stone chalice and dipped it into the calm mirror surface. The liquid rippled and filled the cup.
Shion raised it to his lips and drank it down, wincing with each swallow. Phae watched a series of hives appear on his face and skin, boils that swelled and turned livid. He groaned with pain, staring at his arms, his hands, watching the pustules ripple and quiver. He shuddered, his entire body trembling like a tree shaken in a windstorm. Before the first effects of the Plague had run their course, he dipped the cup a second time into the pool and drank it down. Phae watched in mute horror as another Plague was unleashed on him. Then another.
She clung to him and wept.
“This is the last one,” Phae whispered, tearstains on her cheeks. The pool was almost empty.
“Help . . . me. Please. To drink . . . it.” He lay trembling, exhausted—blistered and pocked.
She dipped the chalice into the dwindled, shallow pool, a volcanic pockmark in the dim green haze of phosphorescent light. Small beads of quicksilver seemed to draw themselves into the stone cup when she tipped it down at the bottom to gather the last. The final Plague sat quivering in the dregs of silver. She stared at it, wondering if she should drink it herself.
“No,” Shion said, choking, his face puffy and ravaged. His bloodshot eyes were full of suffering and also with the knowledge that she was tempted to drink it herself. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and gently raised the cup to his mouth, tilting it so that he drank the final bit, the dregs of the Plague.
He winced, sputtering and choking, his body trembling under the multiple and varied symptoms of the Plagues of mortality. His breath was in shallow gasps, his forehead wrinkled with unbearable agony. He looked at her pleadingly, his expression begging it to be over. Vomit stained his shirt and purple bruises covered his lumpy skin in patches. Every breath brought a pained shudder.
“It is done,” she said.
Shirikant sat across from them, staring at the empty pool. He sat in brooding silence, watching but not understanding. He had asked a few questions, but nothing they said made sense to him. He watched, uncomprehending that his entire plan for destroying the world was being purged, sip by sip.
