Page 49 of Shadows and Flames (Twin Blades #2)
The lantern released a soft, yellow light, casting our faces in a strange mix of shadows and sending sharp cuts of technicolor where it collided with the mist from the waterfall.
My brother went to the hearth, inspecting it with narrowed focus, and released a drop of flame.
I’d watched my brother ignite countless fires over our lives.
Some necessary, some for fun to see how things would burn, and some to expel the emotions he was experiencing.
Those would grow particularly hot, turning white or even blue.
During the years after Roza’s death, he and Leandro would disappear into the forest together, returning with the smell of flames choking all who brushed past them. And I followed the twins, once, when they went far, far away from the Well, released their fire on boulders, and screamed .
Now, my brother was cut off from his goddess, Zoko who supplied the endless fuel, and when he stood, I tried my best to communicate understanding. Without the ever-changing color in his irises, the Fire that lived inside of him, he was… sunken. Underwater.
“Right, so here are all your pouches.” Tana spread them out on the bed, remembering somehow whose was whose when we hadn’t labeled them at all. I’d made two, while we were biding our time on the Morovan ship, and she grouped them together nearest the corner of the tightly made bed.
Meline snatched up her two, and my brother took his. Leaving the witch with two as well, but she didn’t take them both. Instead, she offered one to Fenix, grinning from ear to ear. “Here, you can use this one.”
He began to reach for it, hesitated, then stuffed his hands in his pockets once more. “Nah, I don’t even know what…” He shook his head. “It’s fine.”
But Tana was undeterred. I slumped into one of the white, ornate chairs in the room, already seeing where this was going.
Meline and Elián took the other seats, staring at each other with longing and fear and love, and whatever else newly reconnected lovers did.
She caressed him, ran her fingers through his hair, and he…
let her do it. Opened up for her, showing so vividly the emotions he typically locked down.
I could only see the edges, while his attention was on her, but even that was more than I’d seen from him through most of our lives.
It was burn rocks, drink, or retreat with him. Without fail.
Now, he let himself be kissed with a care that made my throat tighten. Bloody wood in here was burning with more of that godyx-awful perfume.
“So, where are you from, Fenix?” Tana asked companionably while guiding him through the sprigs and herbs to choose from.
He was perched on the edge of the bed, as if he couldn’t bear to be closer to her but also couldn’t fathom not taking that inch. “Um, Vharas, actually. That’s why I was, uh, on the ship. With you all.”
Tana hummed, holding flat her palm for Fenix to give her the leaf and flowers he selected. She met the small instant of skin contact with a genial, reassuring smile, and started talking him through tying the sachet. Her attention was on the twine and the cotton, but I saw the way he melted.
Stubborn, wanting nothing less but needing nothing more.
He hung on every sunny word from her mouth, fumbled his way through tying off the pouch himself, and when she instructed him to think of someone he wanted to speak protection over, I would bet my immortal life savings on who he picked.
“I’m really glad you’re here, Fenix,” Tana said absently, and it took everything in me not to groan. Instead, I silently slapped my forehead and looked to my brother and his lover. Those brows were raised, while his queen was doing the opposite.
The Vyrkos stammered, so entranced by the witch and her words that he didn’t take in our blatant eavesdropping. “Uh-um, thank you.” And the bastard even blushed . Lad was going to embarrass himself with this witch who saw him as a patient of hers and nothing more.
“How many years are you?”
My sardonic question unraveled whatever spell she was unwittingly putting him under, and his hair swung as he swiveled to me.
He clenched the pouch in his fist but not tight enough to crush what was inside.
“Thirty years. What’s it matter?” The room swelled with silence, even the fire ceased crackling.
And I burst into tears, laughter. Thirty years ?
I figured the lad was young, but he was basically the same age as our ward .
What did he think he was going to do with a witch who’d been saving lives for centuries before he was even born ?
I wasn’t the biggest fan of her and her meddling ways, but what was he, a child , going to do with a female like her?
“Well,” Tana cleared her throat and finally took up her pouches, “we’ve all been thirty years, once. You already seem—wiser than I was at that age.”
Her poor attempt at pacifying him just made me descend into more snickers, which made him angrier, like a babe toddling around and throwing tantrums. No wonder he’d thought it a good idea to glom onto a journey with Lylithans he didn’t know, all for a chance to be around someone far out of his range.
“Oh, godyx, I needed that. Thanks, lad.”
“I’m not a ‘lad. ’”
“Sure you are. I’ve got boots older than you. Embrace it.” I slapped him on the back as we all stood before the hearth. “Perhaps we’ll give you an easier go, now that we all know immaturity is at play.”
He mumbled under his breath, something about wondering what our excuses were, but it was all in good fun. Something we desperately needed in this unknown realm. Where we had no clear path to the caregiver our young acolyte had lost.
When we’d gone to the children’s home, me and Nogón, Whitley and their sister, Lydia, met with us in the small courtyard outside.
The children buzzed about, playing by themselves or being nosy in the way children were, but despite the caregiver’s best efforts to care for the children, I smelled the grief in the air.
The longing for their mate that Whitley sang with each heartbeat.
The life they created with their family, with hands still painted by mating marks.
I’d no opportunity to interact with this Francie, but by the devotion of their mate and the fondness with which Marco spoke of her, she was important. To Meline, the witch, Nogón, the lad, and me because she was important to all of them .
“So, you can utter the names aloud if you wish, or you may silently recite them to yourself. Either way, the most important parts are the name, your prayer of well-being, then throwing the sachet on the fire to release it.”
No one spoke theirs aloud, but the names coursed around the room nonetheless. Like the breeze flowing from the valley surrounding us. Lost beneath the roar of the water outside that was slowly becoming a dull crashing to my acclimating senses, our prayers were silent mutterings.
Shadow magic was sacred, as my brother liked to remind me, though not nearly as intricate as the sort Tana wielded to drive out sickness or stave off death.
But even my slithering, whispering vow was quieted, here.
What use this ritual would have when our Mother and Godyxes would not hear it, I was unsure.
Could They see us now, in this strange place with these beings of pointed ears and famished beauty?
Were They still guiding us with Their all-knowing hands?
I was an adopted child of Zoko but a born follower of Thryx and Aeras. The Twin Godyxes were those of reason, ingenuity, finesse, and craft. They were the most knowledgeable of the five Siblings, if legend were to be believed, but were They aware of this place outside of Their reach?
I felt the pouches in each of my hands, rolling them like the smoothed stones from the Ralthan riverside that I still kept in my room at the Well. The names I selected, the two I wished more protection than for myself, formed a chant in my thoughts as I watched the others toss their pouches in.
Sage, lavender, chamomile, thyme, and other aromas I was familiar with but couldn’t name filled the room. For a moment before the scent shifted to the next, and the next, while we all enacted this ritual that was as personal as it was communal.
And rather than berating my comrades to divulge who they cast their spells for, I made another, beseeching prayer to Thryx and Aeras. To the Godyx of Technology and Innovation, I asked for wit, for the lad to have knowledge and continued learning. To take no shit and keep thriving.
And to the Godyx of Love, Art, and Wisdom, I asked for my brother’s heart to be protected. For this love to be the safe and nurturing comfort he’d needed all his life. Since his parents were taken from him, since his brother was taken from him.
I asked my Godyxes to protect not only Marco and Nogón’s lives but also their spirits.