"I know," she says, her voice gentle but firm. "I know you're tired. I know you're hurt. But... it's my wish. You know... I told you about Christmas. It's a time for hope. For wishes."
She looks at me, her blue eyes shining with tears and something fierce.
"This is my Christmas wish, Threk. For you. For you to be... to be healed. To be free of what they did to you. To be... you."
Her words hit me.
Healed.
Magic.
No.
A cold panic seizes me, chasing the warmth away. I push back, away from her touch, my body tensing.
Magic is pain. Magic is agony. Magic is Larda's face, sneering. It is the elven chant that burns like acid in my skull. It is the red haze. It is the cage.
Magic is the monster. Magic is not a cure.
"No," I growl, the word torn from my chest. "No. Magic... hurts."
"No, Threk, not this magic," she pleads, moving after me. "Maeve said it was old magic. Clean magic. Not theirs."
She is wrong. All magic is poison.
And then... I feel it.
The pull.
It is the same pull I felt before, the one that led me here. It is still there. West. Up.
It is different from dark elf magic.
The elven magic is hot and red and screams.
This... is quiet. It is low and warm and deep. It hums under my skin, like the rumble I make in my chest when I hold her. It smells like damp earth and lightning and stone.
It is not poisonous. It feels... clean.
But... healed.
I look at her. She wants me healed. She wants me changed.
A new fear. A cold fear.
She met the monster. She saved the monster. She lay with the monster.
If this magic changes me... if I am not the monster... will she still want me? Will I still be her Threk?
The doubt is an agony worse than the Worg-bite.
I look at her face, so full of hope. For me.
But it does not matter.
It does not matter if I change. It does not matter if I am afraid.
This is her wish. Christmas.
