20
ASTRA
I’m drowning in regret, wishing I had confronted Otavio earlier as I watch the blood around me.
“Astra.” Nelsin crouches beside me and points at my chest. “It’s an illusion.”
The red puddle disappears, and so does the wound in my chest. I would breathe a sigh of relief if I wasn’t so stunned, so shocked.
He points at the ice around me. “His water magic was real, and so was the ice spike, but I melted it in time. I know you’re going to be angry at me, tell me I should have tried to stop him, but I had to save you.”
“Nothing would have stopped him. Look where my dagger hit him.”
Nelsin nods, and I get up and approach the heart. It’s bleeding too much.
“Can you hear me?” I ask it.
A female voice comes from nowhere. “Yes, but… dying.”
I need to do something, fast, and I recall Zorwal’s healing magic. Otavio might have some too, if he was a beautician, if adagger on his throat artery didn’t kill him. I grab the dagger from the ground, still bloody from where it hit Otavio, and lick it, then take some of the heart’s dark blood and drink it as well.
Magic assaults me, and my first instinct is to vomit, but I fear if I do it, I’ll lose the power I gained.
“Astra?” Nelsin looks worried.
“I’m fine,” I mutter
I can sense the air around me, the humidity in it, but the awareness is fading instead of getting stronger. I realize then that if the heart dies, its magic will die too. At least Otavio won’t be able to use it. But no, I can’t let the heart die. I feel then, very subtly, a magic similar to Zorwal’s healing. I can sense Nelsin’s organs, his blood pumping through his veins, sense that his body is whole.
I touch the heart.Dying. That’s obvious. The question is how to fix it. I recall when I first came here, when I cut the bonds, recall the beautiful woman I saw in this place, and try to imagine that the heart is back to what it was.
“Don’t,” the feminine voice says. “If I live, he’ll have my magic. Let me die. I can still grant you one kind of magic, cut one type of bond, if you want.”
“Can’t you go dormant? The magic will still not work, and it will give you time to heal.”
I touch the heart and I focus on that, and imagine the heart sleeping, recovering.
The voice says, “He’ll have the magic he stole.”
“I’d rather heal you.”
I focus on seeing the heart whole again, but the problem is that it makes no sense. It’s not really an organ, but not a body either, and yet I think I can keep it alive. Just barely, but perhaps enough for it to heal on its own. I think about my light, and shower it with it, and see light emanating from it. There’s life in the heart, and it’s fighting to survive again.
I chuckle with relief.
“I will rest,” the voice says. “Is there any magic you want?”
“Can you kill the Witch King?”
“I cannot, nor do I know how to do it. But I can still cut bonds.”
Bonds. I think about Azur. “Can you cut all ties to the Witch King?”
“Not all, no, but some.”
“Azur’s ties. Can you free him?”
“Yes. Cut that vine.”
