Page 210 of Brimstone

“Fine.” The former Lord of Midnight didn’t look at Fisher. It continued staring at me. “If it meanssomuch to you, then I will answer your question. But in return for a question of my own.”

“Anything. Ask!”

The Hazrax made that perturbing clicking sound at the back of its throat. “What does itfeellike . . . to lose something that you love so dearly?”

The strangest question. Had it never known loss before? Had it been so sheltered its entire existence that it hadneverlost anyone that it cared about? The odds seemed impossible, especially when you considered how old the creature was.Iwas well equipped to answer it, though. I’d experienced more than my fair share of loss in my lifetime. My mother. My father.The few friends I’d been stupid enough to make when I was younger, back in the Third. There were bodies piled high in the mausoleum ofmymemory. “It feels like trying to make sand flow backward in an hourglass. It feels like being surrounded by people and being the only one who can’t find the air in the room. It’s drowning on dry land. It’s the hollow ache of something that you know, from that moment on, will always be missing. It is a pain so acute and incurable that poets, pirates, and politicians alike die from it. And it never ends.”

The Hazrax’s robes blew about it on the gentle, icy breeze. It was silent. For a long time, it remained that way. And then: “The fox’s soul is still with you. It is currently sitting at your feet. It seems that the beast hasn’t realized that it’s dead yet. It follows you like a little lost shadow. Does that make you feel better?”

Onyx hadn’t gone. He was still here with me. I glanced down at my boots, knowing what he would look like if I could see him—glassy eyes black as little chips of jet, looking up at me so trustingly, so full of love—and I shook my head. “No. It doesn’t make me feel better. But I am hoping it’ll make what I’m about to do easier.”

Give him to me, Fisher. Please. I need him.

What are you going to do?Fisher asked, sounding cautious, but he did as I asked. I took Onyx from him and dropped down on my knees in the snow.

“Belikon and Madra were afraid of the Alchemists. They were afraid, because the people who came before me were capable of things they would never be able to do. The Alchemists sought perfect knowledge, and they possessed remarkable control over elemental magic. But they also chased immortality. I don’t want to make anyone immortal. But if I’m capable of healing myself from awful burns and a hole in my chest, then I can heal a tiny fox.”

The Hazrax had already been fairly still, but now it froze, its entire being locked in place as if cast in marble.

Fisher laid a hand on my shoulder, dropping down beside me in the snow. “Saeris, that’s not . . .” The second his eyes met mine, he abandoned whatever he had been about to say, though. “Never mind. If you think you can do it, then I believe you,” he said.

“Such a thing is impossible,” the Hazrax said. “The Alchemists tried and failed for centuries to bring their Fae loved ones back from the dead.”

“And I’m sure they tried very hard,” I bit out, already pulling my magic into me. “But they were trying to bring back people. Onyx is tiny. IknowI can do it.” The reserve of energy inside me flooded and brimmed over. I kept on drawing my magic to me, regardless, the words Taladaius had spoken to me once in his office at the Fool’s Paradise playing on a loop inside my head.The fact that your hands are healed now, after the damage I just witnessed, implies that you also have regenerative magic. Physical magic. Power over the body. At some point, you might be able to heal others with your abilities . . .

“No amount of magic can cheat death,” the Hazrax said, in a pitying tone.

“That’s true.” I held up my hand for the Hazrax to see—the faint glimmers of light that had returned and were trailing around the outline of the rune it had given to me. “But with the gift you gave to me, I’m betting I canundoit for a moment.”

“You want toundodeath?” it said disbelievingly.

“I do.” My magic was making me dizzy now. Such a tide of it poured into me, gaining momentum, saturating my entire being. I let it come, welcoming it in, allowing it to fill me until the rush of it felt almost unstoppable.

“All this for afox?” the Hazrax scoffed. “Speak to her, Child of Shadow. Make her see sense. She’ll kill herself before she revives the animal.”

I wanted to tell Fisher not to stop me, but the power relaying around my body was too great now. I couldn’t find the clarity to speak, not even into his mind. Fisher’s hand pressed into the small of my back—strong, warm, comforting. I waited for the words of common sense to come . . .

Fisher spoke with resolve. “He isn’t just a fox. He’s family. And if Saeris says she’s going to save him, then she’s going to.”

“Such blind faith?”

“Inher? Yes,” Fisher answered.

“And if she dies while trying to accomplish this fool’s errand?”

I felt my mate’s shrug. “It is her life to spend.Herdecision. I will respect it.”

The sheer volume of power was starting to hurt now. It clawed at my insides as if my body were a cage and it wanted to get out. I wouldn’t be able to hold it for much longer. I concentrated on splitting it down the middle. I called on a part of myself that I’d never reached for before—on a rune I didn’t even have yet—and I fucking hoped with every last part of me that this would work.

“Look at me, child,” the Hazrax ordered. “All magic has its limits. If you proceed any further, you will shatter the rune I gave you. You will not be able to use it to save anyone else. You will not be able to use it to free your other friends fromtheiroaths, as you freed your mate.”

I didn’t care.

There would be another way to free the others. I would find one.Makeone if I had to. Right now, I was saving Onyx. I could sense the flicker of his spirit there, sitting next to me in the snow, watching me as I held my hands over his cold body.

“Do it, Osha,” Fisher whispered.

The Hazrax’s rune blazed, lighting up the night. The creature had called it a silent rune, had said that it didn’t possess magic the way my others did, but it sure as hell responded when I forced the flow of my magicintoit.