Prince of Air and Darkness (The Darkest Court)

She stares at her son, her gaze full of fear and longing and worry, even as she curls her body back from him. “They bound him with iron,” she whispers.

“Yes. I got it off him as quickly as I could. But that’s why we need to do something.” I step toward her, but she retreats, mouth contorting. I stop. “You can’t touch him?”

She holds up her hand and the red blisters marring her pale skin speak the truth better than any words could.

“Shit.” I drop to a knee and lay Roark down.

“I can’t help. But you can heal him,” she says. “Make him stronger.”

The greyish cast of his skin has worsened and his breathing slips between shallow gasps and a horrible dry rattle. The ley line swirls around me, my growing concern feeding its frenzied need to see Roark whole again.

Heat sparks in my veins and I fight down the urge to channel all that raw power into him. He isn’t conscious. He couldn’t shape it this time. It would devour him instead, burn him out until there was nothing left, just like it did the crops, the plants I practiced on, the kidnappers and guard. The ley line can’t heal; it can destroy. Fear deadens my limbs and traps me in place, forcing me to watch the life draining out of Roark because I can’t do anything else.

“Please,” I beg, my voice breaking, “don’t make me do this. I’ll hurt him.”

I wrench my gaze up, even though that effort alone makes me shake and sweat. Mab kneels on the edge of some invisible boundary, her hands planted on the floor, body taut as she stares at Roark, a mirror of my own desperate pose.

“You won’t,” she promises me. “You’d never hurt him. Look at him.”

I do. I can’t tear my gaze away.

“He has always trusted you. He has always fought for you.” Her voice dips lower, rough with emotion. “He has loved you for so long. If you ask, he will come back to you, even from the edge of death itself.”

The ley line hums in the back of my mind, urging me to give it free rein. We’ll find him there. Return him to you. Faith, our dearest one.

My hands shake when I raise them to Roark’s supine figure, resting one on his shoulder, the other above the brutal burn on his wrist. Mab leans in as I settle myself into a kneeling position.

“Give me back my son,” she whispers. “Do that, and I will give you anything you desire.”

The air rushes from my lungs at her promise. Anything. The most impossible gift would be within reach. Even Roark’s freedom.

I lock eyes with her. “Swear it,” I growl. “For the life of your son, swear it.”

“You have my promise, Phineas Smith.”

The binding words shut around us with an echo like thunder and I reach for the ley line as it starts up toward me out of the earth.

We meet halfway. It crackles in my grasp, but it doesn’t fight me. We’re in perfect agreement. I direct its power into Roark and it goes, chasing after whatever part of him has fled while I work to restore the shell.

His injuries are worse than I realized and the ley line keens as the full extent of the damage is revealed to us. His shirt was sliced to ribbons, granting better access for the iron to touch his skin. They did the same to his pants. Nearly his whole body is marked with the burns. The deepest are over his wrists and ankles where the skin around the edges is blackened.

The ley line gives of itself in a continuous stream, bolstering Roark while I tease away threads and begin to work on the most critical of his injuries. I start with the bruises continuing to blossom in his organs. As those heal, I move to the broken bones. They’re so fragile, like the broken stalks of plants after the weight of an early snowfall. I tack the power to the bone and use it to knit the breaks together. Every millimeter the broken edges move closer, the more the ley line calls its approval. I reset each break and wrap it with more energy, willing it to bind back together, even when my eyes sting from the sweat dripping into them. The cuts close as his flesh stretches and grows and fills those voids.

The burns take the longest. By now I can sense the iron. It hangs in his skin, works its way deeper, blackening everything it touches. The ley line pulses and I spread more of its magick through his body, sliding it into his muscles to work like armor plates beneath the flesh, stopping the iron’s toxic leaching. When that cancerous spread doesn’t move deeper, I breathe and prepare for the final task. The iron must be removed from the sites of the burns.

I start with his wrists and ankles, the marks that make my stomach churn. The oozing, gaping wounds still seem to give off supernatural heat. I weave the slenderest threads of magick into his raw skin. Tiny, delicate stitches of power hold the weakened flesh together, scorching away the remnants of the metallic poison. When those new bands of energy endure and shine beneath his skin, I return to the smaller burns, the crisscrossing pattern of links over the rest of his body.

I don’t know how long it takes before they, too, are purged. By the time I lift my hands from his body, Roark glows. I’ve painted him with liquid starshine and it blazes over him and courses through the air. The ley line has woven itself into every inch of his body, suffused him with its potential. I’ve felt this before, the perilous naissance of my power. The last time was on the farm and later had to face the destruction I’d wrought.

Forget, the ley line says. Life goes on.

“I’ll grant you anything,” Mab whispers.

With Roark’s freedom, we’ll be limitless. I focus on that and the ley line understands, croons the thought back to me until there’s nothing else in my brain except hope and faith and the promise of our future together.

I tip my head back and close my eyes. Heal him.

The magick flares and the world echoes its passing. And then it’s gone.