Brenn’s eyes darkened. “I will try,” he rasped. “But I warn you, I don’t know what will happen.”
“I don’t care what happens to you or me,” Asterious growled. “Just save her before it’s too late!” He snatched the midnight shard from Brenn’s grasp and placed it in Caramyn’s open palm. “Now do what needs to be done! If it kills me and saves her, you’ll have done the world two favors in one.”
With a heavy sigh, Brenn stooped to slice Caramyn’s open hand with the fragment, a line of bright crimson oozing from the cut. “Now yours. So that your life can flow to her through the connection the Blade creates,” he said.
Asterious did as he instructed, hands trembling as he swiped the broken blade across his own palm. He gazed down at Caramyn, her eyes now closed as though she was sleeping. Still beautiful. His rose, wilting before him as he longed for nothing more than to see those striking eyes of amethyst once more, knowing that if—when—her eyes opened again, he would not be alive to see it. But it was a cruel price he would gladly pay.
Brenn placed the bloodied shard over Caramyn’s heart, lifted his hands with a nod, and began an incantation. Words flowed from him, different from Sinevia’s dark rune spells. Lighter, more poetic. More hopeful.
As though struggling against some invisible entity, Brenn fought to get out his words. A stream of light flowed forth from the broken blade, weakening as it stretched toward the wound in Asterious’ palm, its glow dimming with the effort. The prince waited, expecting to feel the life pulled from him at any moment, but with bitter, aching disappointment, he felt nothing.
“Stop holding back, mage!” cried Asterious.
Brenn’s eyes sharpened with coldness as he shot a threatening glare at the prince.
“I do this only forher. Not for you.Neverfor you.”
With a shout that reverberated so loud it might split the Veil, Brenn opened his arms wide. He called the Shadows in his enchanted language, and they merged with the golden current of his healing Light magic, twisting and intertwining with renewed strength. Whatever repercussions could come of it, Asterious decided it couldn't be worse than letting Caramyn die.
The blinding glow of light coiled within the spiraling starkness of Shadows snaked from the blade, over Caramyn’s heart, crawling like ivy up her arm and then Asterious’. As Brenn chanted harder, sweat now beading on his brow, a sudden crushing pain gripped Asterious’ heart, tightening withrelentless strength far more intense than even the pain he’d felt under Sinevia’s curse.
Despite the agony, he stilled his quivering body by reassuring himself that the pain meant his life was now being transferred to Caramyn. The pressure in his chest grew suffocating, and his heartbeat thundered in his ears, slowing beneath the crushing sensation. And just as he felt he could no longer bear it, Caramyn’s eyes flew open. Her chest rose as she dragged in a sharp, desperate breath, color blooming back into her face. And with the certainty of her survival seared into him at last, he finally let go.
63
Beyond Blood or Vow
Caramyn
Caramyn woke to Asterious looming over her, swaying weakly, his eyes pained and depleted. She bolted upright at the worrisome sight of him and the steady snaps of flames that sounded too close to ignore. She glanced down to where there was once a deep wound and the feeling of blood pooling in her lungs, but now there was only a scarlet stain on freshly healed skin, and a deep, steady breath in her chest. She winced from the sudden sting of a fresh wound on her palm.
She reached for Asterious, the marks of agony across his face now turned to those of relief. But then, the light in those silver-grey eyes dimmed as he fell forward into her arms.
The lifeless prince draped across her lap, heavy in her arms, as flames lapped at every corner. And there was Brenn in the midst of it all, somehow. She thought she had heard his voice earlier as she slipped in and out of consciousness. And now, that same voice was desperate, as he stood yelling to the blackened sky as Shadows swarmed like flocking birds.
“What’s happening, Brenn?” Her voice quivered.
“I…I tried to heal you. The prince begged me to save you. But I fear what I may have done.”
“What?” Something like unfettered rage stirred beneath Caramyn’s skin, like she might explode any minute, and nothing could stop it. Like every small, unwelcome sound, or a single wrong word from Brenn, could release the fury building in her bones. “So you killed him…to save me?”
A strange, untamed strength took hold from somewhere within and worked its way outwards, like a fire igniting with nowhere to go. Black fire tinged with purple hues snaked its way down her arms and settled into burning orbs of black and violet flames in each hand. Behind her, flaming raven wings of blackfire unfurled, casting shadows that writhed like living smoke.
And every move, every breath, every thought, was driven by one thing—desire for vengeance upon the man who’d taken Asterious from her.
Her heart and hands ablaze with raw, unstoppable power, Caramyn lunged toward Brenn, feeling herself becoming something she didn’t recognize. And it was only the sound of her name that stopped her.
“Caramyn.”
She whirled around at the sound of Asterious’ voice, her flaming wings folding, the amethyst flames still coiling up her wrists.
“You’re alive?” She whispered.
Asterious nodded, his voice like low, calm thunder. “I’m still here.”
She glanced back at Brenn, who still grasped at the sides of his head, shielding himself from her wrath. And suddenly, she realized how close she’d come to scorching him to death. “I’m…I’m sorry, Brenn. I didn’t mean to…I don’t know what happened to—”
“I think I do,” Asterious said quietly, pain cutting through his composure. “And if I’m right, I’ll beg your forgiveness until my last breath, Caramyn. Because this is something I never meant for you to carry.” He lifted his shirt to reveal the silvery-black veins of the Blackheart curse—still there, but utterly transformed. No longer did they consume his entire torso, no longer did they claw inward toward his heart. Now they originated from a single point at the center of his spine, branching outward and up, jagged, wing-like veins blooming outward across the left half of his back and chest, as though reaching for something beyond his own body. The markings flowed down his left arm to his fingertips, no longer crawling towards his heart, but yearning outward. “You hold the balance. You took half of my darkness, and half of my Light.”
