Page 64 of The Lost Art of Revealing Hidden Truths (The Lost Arts #3)

I think that in the wonder of the abilities and the shock of the allegations, you lost sight of the how . Understandable, under the circumstances, but extremely important. I apologize for the prose, but I think you need to read it.

Perian stared at it, then handed it to Brannal, who looked as puzzled as he was.

“Give it a try?” Perian said.

Brannal nodded, which began their tradition of taking turns reading it aloud each night.

Because they could only take it in small doses.

The book was small, leather-bound, and a bit battered.

It was old, the language dated, flowery, stilted and overblown.

It was extremely dramatic and featured a ridiculous heroine who seemed to spend the entire book needing to be rescued.

“Ugh!” Perian yelled. “Why can’t you just escape on your own? You’re not even locked in!”

The reading had gotten slower when they’d started interjecting their own commentary, but it had become a more enjoyable process.

“I think she’s in shock,” Brannal pointed out.

“She can’t be in shock through the whole book!” Perian protested.

“Well, shocking things keep happening,” he pointed out.

“And the correct response is to try to deal with them!”

Brannal regarded him with amusement. “That is certainly how some people react. I’m not sure you realize that you are, perhaps, not exactly typical.”

Perian regarded him with bemusement. “You think I haven’t realized that I’m not exactly typical?”

But Brannal was shaking his head. “I don’t mean being a child of two worlds. I mean that bad things happen to you, and you just… keep going.”

“As opposed to stopping?”

Brannal huffed a breath, looking at Perian carefully. “Yes, actually. After someone was burned badly and cut badly in training exercises, they could legitimately decide they were never doing that again. ”

“Oh,” Perian said, considering this. “Right. Yes, I suppose that would have been a way to deal with it.”

Brannal huffed a laugh. “But you just kept coming back. You didn’t let it scare you. You have such a big heart, Perian, and a willingness to look for the best in people. It’s so very admirable.”

“Thank you,” Perian said, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “That means a lot, coming from you, with all the muscles and the most dangerous job in the country.”

He’d learned over the weeks that it was all right to bring that up, that even if Brannal wasn’t Summus or a Mage Warrior anymore, he didn’t want to pretend it had never happened.

“You have the spirit of a Warrior,” Brannal said with a smile. “We don’t always win, we can’t beat everyone, but we keep trying to protect and defend.”

“So my body might be lacking, but my heart’s in the right place, is that it?”

Brannal laughed. “Just to be clear, you have the most delectable body, and I wouldn’t change anything about it.”

“Maybe you should come show me how much you like it.”

Truthfully, the novel-reading devolved into sex a lot , especially because the hero and heroine were never having it.

“Why don’t they just get on with it? I think they’d both feel better!” Perian complained.

“Maybe the author is saving it up for the finale? So it will have more impact?” Brannal suggested.

“The possibility of getting to the finale would be greatly increased if they would at least have sex,” Perian grumbled. “Did the doctor think we were really this bored? I don’t understand.”

Brannal shrugged. “It doesn’t really seem like the sort of thing she would enjoy, but maybe there’s a terrible-novel-reading part of her that she wanted to share with you.”

Perian snorted a laugh. “Oh, is this her deep, dark secret, and she’s sharing it with us now that she knows my secret?”

Brannal laughed as well. “That’s an idea, isn’t it?”

Perian was pretty sure the doctor had figured his secret out a long time ago. But she’d still supported him, which meant a lot.

So he was trying to persevere with the book.

About three quarters of the way through, after a terrible fight with the villains, the hero was gravely wounded. The heroine was being as useless as always, unfortunately.

“Do you think we could rewrite it?” Perian asked.

Brannal laughed. “You want us to write a book?”

Perian shrugged. “We could do it better, surely. I mean, do you want this to be the sort of book that Renny reads? What would she be learning?”

“How to be a swashbuckling hero?”

Perian nodded. “That’s true. She would make a great swashbuckling hero. But I like to think she would fall in love with someone with at least a little more gumption than this.”

“We don’t always pick who we fall in love with,” Brannal said. “Sometimes, it just happens.”

Perian, who’d been pacing while Brannal read, popped over to give him a kiss, and Brannal took the opportunity to pawn the book off on him.

“Your turn!”

Perian made an annoyed noise, but he dutifully started reading aloud, detailing how at least the heroine had a servant who was smart enough to call a doctor.

“Seriously,” Perian said. “Was she just going to sit there and weep while he died? Ooh, wouldn’t it be way more interesting if the hero fell in love with him ?”

Brannal laughed. “Shall I start taking notes for your new version?”

“Yes, please!” Perian said happily. “We’re not going to be nearly so wordy, so it’s going to be, like, a quarter of this size. I’m confident we can do it!”

“Go on. Let’s find out if he dies and the rest of the book is the heroine crying.”

Perian made a face. “Fire and water, I hope not!”

He kept reading, and the doctor showed up to save the day except… oh, no, was Brannal right? Was the rest of the book going to be about crying and grieving? Because the doctor was shaking his head gravely.

“I know I said she was kind of useless,” Perian said with a grimace, “but I don’t actually want her to be miserable—or to have to read about it for another quarter of the book.” He made a face. “Maybe we can just pretend to have read it?”

Brannal shot him a look. “You’re going to write to the doctor and tell her thank you and pretend it’s not a really depressing book that you never want to read again and haven’t finished? ”

Perian sighed. Subterfuge was maybe not his best skill.

“All right, all right. The doctor is shaking his head gravely, the heroine is crying even more loudly—I’m beginning to think she has an endless supply of tears.

Have we ever seen her drink a glass of water?

Maybe she’s severely dehydrated, and if only she would drink more regularly, she would behave differently. ”

Brannal sounded amused. “Perian.”

“Yeah, yeah… shaking his head gravely, and then he says, ‘There is only one chance, my lady. We must summon a Life Mage and hope they can come in time. For he is on the cusp of death, and it is only the Life Mages who can—’”

Perian cut off abruptly, staring at the page.

“Perian?”

Perian looked up at Brannal blindly. Brannal’s expression of amusement changed to concern.

“What is it?”

Perian just stood there for a moment, and then he swallowed, and finished the sentence.

“‘It is only the Life Mages who can share their life energy and save the man you love.’”

He stopped again. Brannal had frozen in his seat by the fire.

“‘Lost sight of the ‘how’,” Brannal said, repeating the words from the doctor’s letter.

Perian blew out a breath, and his voice was not entirely steady as he said, “Life Magic.”

But Brannal was suddenly nodding. “Fire and water. She’s entirely right. I’m not sure how I missed it, really, except that that’s exactly what we all did; as soon as we realized that you got energy from people through sex, all anyone could think about was your being a carnalion.”

“But I’m not a carnalion.”

“A child of two words,” Brannal said, eyes bright like stars. “A child from two words who can pull energy from people through sex and who can direct that energy to other people to heal them. No carnalion does that.”

Perian sniffed. “I thought maybe we just didn’t know.”

Brannal was shaking his head. “I don’t think so.

Every bit of lore we have shows carnalions, wraiths, and nightmares pulling energy from people.

None of them ever mention it being returned.

There is literally, just as this ridiculous novel says, only one group of people who were ever able to do that. ”

Perian swallowed. “Life Mages. Lost after the Great Cataclysm.”

Brannal nodded again. “When the previously overrun world was rid of almost all demons.”

Perian nodded slowly. “When it must suddenly have become so much rarer for a carnalion to have a baby with a human.”

“No more children of two worlds.”

“No more Life Magic.”

“Perian,” Brannal said, staring at him with incredulity in his eyes and something stronger, pride and wonder, maybe. “You’re a Life Mage.”

Perian felt it like a full-body shiver, the realization sweeping over him, the knowledge settling in his bones.

Brannal swept him into his arms, the book forgotten, and kissed him. Every time Perian thought the world was done with him, it threw something else at him.

From most hated and feared to most sought after and secret.

“I’m a Life Mage,” Perian repeated, clinging to the other man. “Wow.”

Brannal let out a huff that was almost a laugh, and Perian felt himself relax.

“It’s a huge shock, but at the same time, it actually explains a lot.” He held up the book that was still clasped in one hand. “Please tell me this isn’t the best I can expect for instruction and guidance.”

Brannal made a face. “I’m afraid so little is known about the Life Mages. We can write to the Mages at the Great Library, but their records have been thoroughly searched in the years since Princess Larenia fell ill. I don’t think more clear texts exist.”

Perian sighed. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that the end of this travesty of a novel is a how-to guide on Life Magic.”

Laughing softly, Brannal said, “I think it unlikely. But consider what you’ve already learned how to do.”

Perian blinked at him.

Brannal leaned in to press a quick kiss to his lips.

“Perian, you’ve been accelerating your own healing, feeding energy to a prince you didn’t even know existed at first, and putting healing magic into salves.

You saved Molun from what should have been a fatal injury and rendered the Prince visible again while restoring the Princess to her former good health.

And that was mostly without knowing you were doing it.

I’m certain we can figure this out, even if it takes some trial and error. ”

Perian beamed at him, buoyed not just by this recitation of what he’d managed but also by the mention of the “we”. Perian had thought once that Brannal had picked Summus over him, and instead, Brannal had proved that he chose Perian over everything else.

“It’s harder to heal people if I’m stuck here, though,” Perian pointed out practically. “They’ll just think I’m luring people in to feed off them if I have people come, won’t they?”

Brannal made a face. “Perhaps. But I imagine there’s plenty we can learn first about what you can do. And your idea about making the salve was a good one. The situation remains volatile right now, but in six months or a year? With luck, they’ll have forgotten all about us.”

“You’re the best Summus they’ve ever had,” Perian told him. “They’re not ever going to forget you.”

Brannal shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not sure how they can forget the person responsible for giving them Prince Kinan back, but they seemed determined to make the attempt. That’s on them. What we do with our lives is up to us.”

Perian squared his shoulders. “You’re right. We can’t get rid of my travel ban, but it ceased to matter when you showed up. You’re all I ever wanted. You’re all I need to be happy.”

Brannal kissed him. “I feel exactly the same way, dear heart. I know you worry I’ll get bored here, but I assure you that I regard our time together as the adventure of a lifetime.”

Yes, it was exactly that. Perhaps Brannal wasn’t Summus anymore and wasn’t saving the world one demon at a time.

Maybe all they’d do now was make salve, argue with an opinionated horse, and send letters to their friends.

Perhaps Brannal could train novices who didn’t want to go to the castle or the Great Library to learn.

Whatever they chose, they’d be doing it together, and that was all that really mattered.

“I love you,” Perian said softly. “I love everything about you.”

Brannal smiled, his dark eyes bright and soft. “And I love you, dear heart, exactly as you are.”