He sat back. “Ease it? How?”
She flipped open the book, thumbing through its pages until she came to the enchantment she sought. An inked drawing of a bud near to opening had been marked beside the title.
Overcome
She turned it outward and held it for him to see. “I’ve been studying this ever since I—” She cleared her throat and pivoted from revealing more of her story. “For some weeks now. And I think I’ve started to understand what each of these incantations might do. You see here?” She tapped the line. “This alludes to despair, or a desperation. It’s interesting, really, because—”
She glanced up in time to catch Viktar’s perplexed expression. “Well. Anyway. I think it’s worth a try.”
“If you say so, Necromancer.”
Lux’s heart stuttered over the title, and though she cleared her throat immediately following and swore she’d ignore it, it didn’t matter. She was still cast back.
Shaw’s arm shifted beneath her body, his opposite draped across her waist. Her corset was gone, tossed to the floor, and now only a thin yellow silk separated his rough hands from her skin.
She pressed against his warmth, her fingertips trailing along the line of his bare shoulder. Her eyes closed when he feathered a kiss across one temple then the other.
“I won’t ask you to stay, Necromancer. But know I’ll be thinking of this moment every day you’re not with me.”
She sniffed, flipping the book back to face her. “It also might hurt some.”
“Is that what sent you to the floor?”
“No.” She scanned the pages, unfocused. “Exhaustion did that.”
But the thing of it was she didn’t feel exhausted—at all. The buzz in her fingertips quickened, an energy she’d not ever felt, and she laid the book upon the desk to distract herself. “I will need your hands,” she said.
He complied at once.
Saints above, devil below. Allow me to—
It felt like sinking. Not in a suffocating sort of way, but in a weighted, languid, relax-in-the-bath way. And just as she could feellifeblood during a revival, she could sense the soul the same.
It wasn’t such a shock this time, since discovering her own soul that day, how overgrown and twisted its encasement had become, and Shaw’s—the fresh absoluteness of his. If she must compare Viktar’s to either of theirs, it would most be like that of the boy she’d left behind.
Outside, her eyes were closed, but inside, she scrutinized every clawed branch. She worked her nails into the minuscule spacesbetween, pitying Viktar’s pained gasp; it couldn’t be helped. When she’d enough of a hold, she began.
“Pressure builds in the time beneath. No rest nor reprieve, it will not sleep. A stone is strong and still it’s worn. A yielding is to remain alone.
Reach for aid, surface slow.
To Overcome is to fight from below.”
The buzzing in her fingertips now entered every part of her. Lux felt as if she were vibrating, unable to stay still no matter how she fought. And that energy seemed to pour from her, lighting the darkness, until that poisonous cage flamed its last. Until all that remained was unfettered brilliance and dissipating ash.
She recognized that terrible sensation seeping through her at its demise.How awful,she thought.
It was hopelessness.
Later,aloneatherdesk, Lux scrawledhopeacross the bottom of the enchantment’s page.
Once, she would have never fathomed markingTheRisen, and now she’d done it twice. She flipped the pages until she came to another. BeneathUntethershe’d writtenforgiveness.Two enchantments now to pry away a consuming darkness. At least with thisOvercomeshe didn’t faint.
Her finger traced the word, and at the final letter, her hand lifted away. Mothlock’s Manuscripts did not have a copy ofThe Risen.Was it because her brilliance was rare, and the book deemed unsellable? Or was the book itself rare? Maybe the bookseller didn’t have a copy because none could be found. What had he even meant when he’d labeled it a dark brilliance anyway?
Lux reached down into the pack tipped at her feet. Her fingers skipped over the wrapped book of art until she pulled a frame free.
The crow’s wings beat a steady rhythm, the sunshine lighting her face. Lux closed her eyes for several heartbeats to better absorb its warmth, and when she opened them, she felt lighter for it. No matter how far she’d gone away, she would never be without this piece of home. Her hands gripped its edges gently as she propped it at the desk’s back. She’d been wary to bring it out in her travels, worried some sudden rain or wind would come and destroy its beauty, but here, it would be safe.
