“Wait. Jonas.”
A shout from behind me drew my attention. I turned and screamed.
Marcus lay almost completely submerged in the Nocumat, only his face showing. His eyes were wide, his mouth open as he gasped for breath. The whites of his eyes darkened, crimson streaking the orbs as the Nocumat swallowed him whole.
A loud explosion behind me rocketed me into the remains of the couch, and I hit my head hard enough to see stars. I wanted to run to Marcus, to save him before the last piece of him vanished.
But at that moment, my strength finally gave out, and blackness overwhelmed me.
“Marcus,” I whispered, reaching for him. I failed. I had nothing left to save him, no power within me but love to bring him back.
He was gone.
When all sensation left, I welcomed the darkness.
Chapter 38
Aerolus
“It’s too late, Aerolus,” Cadmus told me, his voice thick with grief. “He’s gone.”
“It’s never too late,” I snapped, my control frayed so badly I feared I’d never get it back. Losing my father had been traumatic enough, but losing Marcus would be like losing a part of myself.
I should never have brought my brothers and Tessa to match Sin Garu. In my arrogance, I’d wrongly compared myself to Arim, believing in my power when I knew—I knew—I was only a fledgling sorcerer. Instead of conferring with Arim on the matter, I’d blithely accepted my powers as infallible.
And now my brother was a breath from death, a victim of a dread Nocumat close to taking me with it as well into the Next.
“Fuck it. Aerolus, do something!” Cadmus yelled, trying to destroy the red giant blob devouring Marcus.
Only a hint of our brother’s dark hair remained visible.
The shock waves and ripping vegetation Cadmus aimed at the Nocumat had no effect. Its red substance absorbed every slap of force and deflected the soil and plant life back to the earth below it.
“Nothing’s working,” I said, despairing. I would gladly trade my life for my brothers.
Tessa lay sprawled on the ground a few feet away. Her heartfelt plea for Marcus before passing out hurt so much.
I felt my brother’s life sputtering. It was now or never. I gathered the most dangerous spell I knew and prayed it would save him. I wouldn’t survive, but at this point, I had no other choice.
Then a flash of white light blinded me.
“Enough already, Oxcen,” a woman said, her voice familiar and strangely alluring.
I couldn’t understand how, but I heard the Nocumat answer. It used neither words nor thought, yet still spoke. I watched in stunned disbelief as a woman took form next to Tessa.
She was a vision garbed in white, shining like the sparkle of sun off clear glass.
She shook her head. At me. “All you had to do was call me by name.” Stepping neatly over Tessa, she walked through the pooling Nocumat before I could warn her away.
But the Nocumat—Oxcen, apparently—didn’t consume her. It protested her presence like a sullen child. I watched it contract, as if shuffling its globby feet as it voiced strenuous objections to returning home.
“I don’t care. You shouldn’t have encouraged the fair one to call on you. Wait until I tell your mother what you’ve done. She hates the Dark Lords.”
The Nocumat quickly lost shape, the clone dripping into the puddle from which it had coalesced. It continued to contract, freeing Marcus, and soon withdrew altogether from the floor, rolling back into itself until only a drop remained.
Then it, too, disappeared.
Marcus lay still, but he looked none the worse for having been saturated in the monster. Cadmus remained frozen as well. He stood in the middle of the room and stared at nothing, as if unable to see or hear anything.
