Last Rites (Darkling Mage 6)

“Now,” Carver said. “If you’re quite sure about this?”

I wasn’t. Not at all. To either side of me, Asher and Herald stood with their gifts readied and wielded, their faces stony, yet still betraying worry, and fear. But I nodded.

“Right then,” Carver said, placing his hand on my chest. “It’s time to fix your heart.”

Chapter 20

I winced, and I grimaced. I thrashed against the table, my fingers digging through the mattress into to the stone altar beneath me, my teeth clenched so hard I was afraid they were going to shatter.

Carver had only just started, reaching his hand into my chest – into my fucking chest – and already the world was bathed in needles and blood and fire. He gestured with his other hand, and I screamed.

Who knew how he could do it, but I’d heard of how this worked before. From Mama Rosa, of all people. She’d seen Filipino healers who could reach into the bodies of humans, bloodlessly penetrating their skin, digging around within their flesh to retrieve everything from tumors to bullets. Carver might have learned from her, or this could have been some ancient form of healing that he’d studied.

Whatever it was hurt more than anything I’d ever felt in my entire life.

Tears streamed down my face as Carver probed my heart, as his fingers, whether they were solid or ethereal, dug around inside my chest, searching for the shard of the Eldest’s star-metal. Silently I cursed Thea for ever doing this to me, for plunging her dagger in my flesh and planting that first seed of corruption. Carver bent in closer for a better look, his eye glowing amber, and his hand pushed further into my body as he did. I threw my head back and wailed.

A hand made of fire. Imagine that a hand made of fire had reached into an open wound in your chest, placed its searing fingers against your very heart, then pressed, squeezing tighter, harder. But no blood was leaving my body. There was no wound to speak of, only the scorching, raging pain of intense arcane fire burning me from the inside out. I blinked fresh tears away, my vision blurred as I stared at the darkness far above me, at the faces of the three men working on my redemption – or alternately, if this went way wrong, my death.

Asher said nothing, his hands held inches apart, a ball of green energy rotating slowly between his fingers, absorbing the power produced by my anguish. Izanami had said it herself. The gods of death could feed on terror, on pain – it made sense that a necromancer like Asher would play the role of collector. I watched as the orb in his hands filled with a bright green fluid, the very essence of hurt and suffering.

It wasn’t filling fast enough.

“Breathe,” Herald said, his bare hand sweeping at my forehead. “I’ve got you. You’ve got this.”

All I could think of was how he was getting his hands dirty and damp with my sweat. In my delirium, it was almost funny how he didn’t mind. But that was where his magic was focused, violet tendrils of healing energy sinking into my body, designed to mitigate the damage to my insides and dampen the pain. A kind of magical anesthetic, meant to numb.

And it wasn’t working. Not really.

“No drugs,” Carver had explained when I brought up the idea. “That would affect the quality of your suffering.” He pursed his lips when he saw me frowning. “I apologize for how clinical that sounds, but it is the truth. We have one shot at this, and we need to make it count.”

The entire point of this exercise had initially been to retrieve the shard of star-metal, to finally remove it from my heart and somehow destroy it. Maybe then the Old Ones would wander off, leave the earth alone. But the more Carver tugged and probed, the more I knew that the process would end up killing me. This wasn’t the way to go. Hell, there were no other options, frankly, apart from death.

“Enough,” I begged. “Please, stop. The shard isn’t budging. I can’t take anymore.”

Asher’s face cracked, but he bit his lip, focusing on the ball of pain between his fingers. Carver gave it a quick glance, then nodded.

“Just a little more, Dustin. We need to fill Asher’s phial. We’re almost there. Can you do that for us?”

I nodded, hopeful. Then I screamed. I wept.

“Hang in there,” Herald muttered, his other hand clutching mine, our fingers interlaced. I hadn’t even noticed until he squeezed. “You’re going to be fine, Dust.”

I looked into his eyes, watching the reflection of violet and orange and green magic swirling and pulsing in the lens of his glasses. So many mages to do this one job, I thought, and to what end?

No, I told myself. That wasn’t the right way to look at it. All that meant was that I had enough people to support me through this, to literally hold my hand. I grimaced again, clenching my teeth as I stared unflinchingly into Herald’s eyes.

It meant there were people who cared.

Carver placed one hand on my throat. “One last nudge,” he said. “The phial is nearly full. Are you ready?”

Eyes wild, I looked at him, suddenly realizing I couldn’t speak. I nodded instead, then shut my eyes.

Softly, Carver spoke again. “Forgive me.”

Inside my chest, a white-hot gauntlet closed around my heart. My body stiffened, and my back lifted off the table in a horrible, crooked arch. The air left my lungs in one final, deafening scream.

When I opened my eyes again, the pain was gone. My forehead was still slick with sweat, but the rest of me was warmer, covered in something soft, like a blanket. I thought back to the time that Thea had stabbed me with her dagger, putting me into a magical sleep, a kind of torpor. I thought of the morgue.