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“Kalen, what’s wrong?” I panicked. Had I hurt him?
He stayed there, in a nearly fetal position, and let out shallow breaths. I didn’t dare to touch him again, for fear of hurting him more. After a moment, he finally found the strength to sit up slightly, leaning back on one hand. I gasped as he lifted his shirt, revealing a wide gash under his second rib. The wound didn’t look too deep, but thick black veins striped his muscles and spread out over most of his side in a dark bruise.
“Why hasn’t this healed,” I nearly shouted.
“Mmph….” He winced, then poked at the swollen puff of his skin and the poison began to leak out in small black lines, landing on the carpet with a sound like rain. “You need to get me inside, now,” Kalen grunted in tense bursts.
“What the hell is going on?”
The wound opened slightly, a burble of air and steam pushing the frayed edges of Kalen’s skin back, spreading and severing the wound. Kalen whimpered, but when I looked at him, he was almost laughing.
“I’m dying.”
WITH HIS ARM Adead weight around my shoulder, I dragged The Preserver from the foyer into the main house. Nearly sweating I decided that my fixation with the exuberant broadness of Kalen’s shoulders was completely justified—he was gods-damned heavy.
As gently as one might roll a twenty-foot log, I sat him on one of two couches that framed the sitting room. Glancing around at the more than exquisite lodgings, I forgot all about the seriousness of the moment.
Where are we?
Kalen moaned in pain. I looked back down at him, and watched as he lowered his hands over the wound in his abdomen, crossing his wrists and drawing them back slowly. Light coalesced in the center of his palms, strings of golden energy casting into the dark pit that burrowed into his skin. Ever so slowly, the poison was pushed out, black blood pouring onto the carpet below. I stepped back, worried the stuff might get on my shoe. Hopefully, whoever owned this house wasn’t too attached to their rug. That was a stain that would never come out.
“What by the gods, isthat?” I was trying not to be so toward with my disgust, but my resolve weakened by the second.
“Silverwood,” Kalen answered. Then he started to sit up, seeming to be in less pain. So much for dying. He gave me a look but continued. “Ash from the burnt remains of a tree called the Silver Branch in Dario’s faction. The only thing that can kill an immortal and all of their weapons were forged in it. I had to shank one out of a poor bastard just to fight them even.”
Kalen’s skin began to pale, the Light dying out in him as he used the last of his strength to partially heal his wound. His skin pulled together into a tight fold the color of grey agate.
“It was her who attacked us, wasn’t it? The Shadow Sage.”
“Yes,” he sighed. “One of her siblings must have told her you were here. Her minions slipped into the ball tonight dressed as Astralites and partygoers, and if I had to make a guess—it was Gabriel’s doing.”
“I thought we’d already established that Sages didn’t mess with anyone’s destiny?”
“They hold the virtue of autonomy in high regard. If your heart inspires you to act, the Sages will not forbid you from it, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try and sabotage your attempts to carry out whatever destiny you believe you are owed.”
“Yes, I think Ione made that quite clear,”I didn’t hide my biting tone. “Is that why they simply left us to die, then?”
“If a Sage truly did expose you to the Shadow faction, then being in the room where it happened would probably spoil the fun, don’t you think?”
And Kalen thought that Gabriel was responsible. The Time Sage had left just as quickly as his siblings, that was true, but there was something about him that left me unsure. Kalen hated him, and he hated Kalen, though I didn’t know what for. Maybe by my association with Kalen, he hated me, too. But when we met, when Gabriel looked at me, when held me in his embrace...The moment was brief, and then he’d bickered with me.
I say you, he’d said.
There was a reason, therehadto be, that when he made his choice between fate and myself, he’d chosen me.
“I don’t think it was Gabriel who sold us out,” I said to Kalen at last. His brows knitted in confusion.
“I think the leathers were a misdirect,” I explained. “Whoever helped the Shadow Sage tonight wanted us to think Gabriel was her ally, but he seemed genuinely vested in me. I’m not sure how, but I believe he may...well, I don’t know exactly. Hold some kind of emotion towards me? Dario was far too detached from our conversation, and Ione flat out declared she would kill me if I tried to move against the Shadow Sage.”
“Ione may act the loyal sister, but I assure you, protecting her family is not the only reason she threatened you. Ione fears the shifting of powers. If you take back the Light for our faction, everything changes.”
“And Dario? What does he fear?”
Kalen grunted, seemingly from his wound or the displeasure of not knowing exactly what we were up against. “I can’t be sure. Either way, we’ll have to stay low for a while. I need to find outmore about where your other stones have been hidden. Not to mention you’re in desperate need of training.”
I jerked my head towards him, offended.
Kalen smirked, planting his hand in the air for me to help him off the couch. A gleam of excitement returned to his golden eyes as he stood.
