Page 51 of The Lost Art of Revealing Hidden Truths (The Lost Arts #3)

Perian nodded, and once Cormal was overruled, she was able to come and sit in the cell as well.

This put her in proximity to Perian, but it also put her nice and close to Renny, and that was exactly what would be needed if something were to go wrong—or possibly even if something went right, for her or Kee.

Renny squeezed his hands.

“It’s going to be fine,” she told him. “We trust you.”

“Thank you, Renny. Kee.” He swallowed, his throat thick. “I don’t really know what I’m doing, you know that. But all this time, I’ve been accidentally sharing energy with you just by being near you, so at the very least, that’s what I’m doing right now.”

“You’ve been making such a difference,” Renny said, beaming at him. “Promise!”

He smiled at her. “But this is something I’ve never done before, something I don’t actually know if I can do.”

Renny squeezed his hands. “It’s going to be fine, Perian. You’re thinking about it all wrong, you know.”

“Am I?” he asked, partly bemused because she should know even less about this than he did, but also not really surprised that she knew his own brain better than he did.

“I’m going to tell you a secret,” she said.

He nodded.

She leaned closer. “Kee followed you. To his secret spot in the woods. I mean, he rode Prince Horsey with you. That’s why I went to see you off.”

He stared at her, his mouth actually falling open in his shock. He snapped it shut and demanded, “What? ”

She nodded, encouragingly. “Don’t you see?

He’s never been able to separate from me like that, but for the first time, he was able to go with you, and I was fine while you were both gone.

You’re already doing what you’re trying to do.

You’ve got more energy now, and you’re going to try to get it to us on purpose, which is great.

But Perian, you care about us, and you’ve been doing exactly what we needed since the moment we met you. You already know what to do.”

He was crying again, but he couldn’t seem to help himself, and Renny flung her arms around him and he held her tight, ignoring the expected commentary from Cormal. Everyone else watched silently.

Perian sniffed. “Thank you, Renny. I care about the two of you very much, and I just want you to be well. I will, uh, try to keep that in mind.”

She smiled at him encouragingly, like this was way more about helping him achieve the new goal he had set for himself than something that might actually change her life. She settled back on the floor in front of him.

She gave him the courage to blow out a breath and try to get settled inside of himself.

It was one thing to say that he needed to push energy out to someone else, and it was another to actually do it.

And then the doctor said, “The injury is not the same, but you’ve already done this, too.”

His eyes popped open, and he looked over at her.

“I’m going to tell you something, and I hope you’re ready to hear it.”

He nodded.

“The wound that Molun received should have unquestionably been fatal.”

He froze.

“The demon snapped the bone, tore through a large chunk of his thigh, and undoubtedly severed the femoral artery. Based solely on the amount of blood you and he were covered in, I could have told you that. That sort of wound is fatal in minutes.”

Perian stared at her, stunned.

The doctor smiled faintly. “And yet, when I peeled back those makeshift bandages, what did I find? Plenty of damage, some of it quite severe, but despite the fact that the femoral artery was unquestionably right where it should have been severed, it wasn’t . Or should I say, it wasn’t anymore.”

Perian sucked in a breath. The doctor was staring straight at him, and he couldn’t look away.

“My tonics are good, Perian, but they’re not that good.

” She huffed something that was almost a laugh.

“There’s nothing in this world that should have kept him alive long enough to get back to me—except for you.

You drained yourself to exhaustion and poured everything you had into him being well, so he was . ”

Perian huffed out an incredulous breath. Because he had done that, hadn’t he? He just hadn’t known that it was literally working . He’d told Molun that the wound wasn’t that bad, that the tonics were the best, that the doctor was going to help him, that he’d be fine… and he was .

Meanwhile, Perian had been exhausted and loopy, and he’d just kept crawling back into the man’s bed. And Brannal had known to feed him and let him keep coming back, so he could keep giving his energy to Molun.

Wow. The doctor was right. This was something he’d done before, and that meant it was something he could do again.

It was a different kind of injury, just like the doctor had said, but surely the principle was the same.

Perian nodded to her, looked again at Renny, her little face so dear to him. He thought of Kee, whom he’d never seen, but who’d been there with his sister the whole time. They’d had their weird, relayed conversations—they’d made it work, but Perian wanted it to be better for them.

He wanted them to be whole. So he’d focus on his love of them, focus on how much he wanted them to be better, on all this energy that he’d pulled inside himself, all this love that he had to give.

When Venoran had been attacking him, Perian had reached for the other man’s energy, and he’d grabbed onto it and pulled.

Now, he was trying to do the opposite, was trying to take all of the energy he’d stored inside himself, and he was trying to push it out.

He was trying to push it into someone he’d never seen, but Renny had described Kee to him, made them stand side by side for comparison.

This was a man who was a bit taller than Perian, and broader in the shoulders. He took after his father, and even right around his sixteenth birthday party, he’d taken the time to try to reassure his mother about his father’s health .

He’d tried to steal a kiss from Cormal, and while Perian thought that indicated extremely questionable taste, he remembered being sixteen and hormonal.

He was a boy who’d sneaked away from the castle and then managed to convince two Mage Warriors to indulge him in those escapes so that he could still experience a little freedom.

He was a man whom Prince Horsey loved so much that he hadn’t let another person on his back until Perian had come to the castle.

He was a brother whose sister loved him so dearly that even when she found out that he was accidentally draining her, she didn’t care about that, she just wanted her brother.

Kee had done everything right, had tried to protect his sister when the wraiths had gone after her, and whatever had happened in that horrendous battle, he’d somehow lost his body.

It didn’t matter how anymore; all that mattered was that Perian had the sort of energy that Kee needed, energy that he could also use to survive, so that he wouldn’t need to use his sister’s.

Perian had so much energy right now, and he wanted Kee to have it.

If there was anyone in the entire castle who deserved it, it was Kee and Renny.

They’d coped with this terrible situation to the very best of their abilities for years.

They loved one another, and they supported one another, and there was nothing that Perian wanted more than to help them right now.

He’d willed Molun well because he believed so fiercely that he couldn’t die.

Renny and Kee were going to be well, too.

He wanted other people to be able to see Kee.

He wanted Kee to be able to communicate with whoever he wanted.

He wanted him to be able to read every book in the Old Tongue if that was what he wished.

He wanted him to be able to ride Prince Horsey again.

Seven years was too long for anyone to be trapped like that, and Perian just wouldn’t have it anymore. He had all this energy, and he was freely offering it. He was giving it right to Kee so that he would be whole again, so that Renny would be whole again.

He heard a gasp and opened his eyes. He could almost see it now, a flicker in the space where Kee was sitting, something there that hadn’t been there before.

He redoubled his efforts. There was something there. There was something that only Renny had been able to see for almost seven years, but that ended today.

A bead of sweat dribbled down Perian’s face and dropped off his chin. It made him realize he was sweating a lot, an ache growing in his head. He squinted his eyes at the spot where Kee was, where he’d seen that flicker.

This was working . Perian just had to keep pushing.

He hadn’t known the effort that it took to hold Molun’s wound together, and that hadn’t stopped him. He’d done it with sheer willpower and hope. He could do it again.

He could feel a bit of a tug inside of him, something a bit uncomfortable, but he kept pushing.

Kee really needed the opportunity to actually kiss someone, right?

Even if Perian thought Cormal was the worst choice in the world, if that was who Kee wanted, then Perian wanted him to have that chance.

There were so many things that Kee needed to experience.

He hadn’t felt the sun or the rain in years.

He hadn’t been able to touch his father’s hand one last time before he died.

They both deserved so much more than that.

He sucked in a breath. Renny had been right. Kee was with her, and they could all see it now, even if it was a patchy, weirdly flickering swirl of energy that was next to her, that flickered almost into the shape of a person and then flickered out again.

But that was Kee. It was getting harder now, the pull so strong that it felt a little like it might pull too much out of Perian.

But he remembered this when he’d been with Molun, when he’d started to get dizzy and then when his legs wouldn’t hold him up.

He knew now how important it was to keep pushing.

He heard the sound of labored breathing and realized belatedly that it was his own. But that didn’t matter. Perian pushed harder, fed all of his energy to Kee, kept that connection lit up between them, because Kee and Renny had to be well.

And finally, before his very eyes, the image of Kee began to appear properly. Perian could see his eyes, first, gray like his sister’s, then his form, bigger than Perian had expected despite Renny’s description.

Yes, there he was, broad shoulders and thick thighs. He was sitting cross-legged, just like Renny was.

Perian swayed. It was a good thing he was already on the floor.

The doctor’s hands steadied him, and she cautioned, “I think that’s enough.”

Kee was still a bit see-through, though, even if Perian could see him.

This was definitely not enough. He pushed harder, even though the world was starting to go fuzzy around the edges.

But that was all right, as long as Kee got solider, as long as he was sitting there next to his sister, and Perian could see him, just as alive and present as Perian was.

Just a little bit more—

Pain spiked, sudden and excruciating.

“That’s enough!”

Someone was yelling.

The world wavered, swirling unexpectedly, and then it dissolved.