Ketheron’s voice reached me through my deeply meditative state.
In all fairness, he had been so incredibly patient throughout this process.
A process that was dangerous, deeply intense, and possessing stakes that couldn’t have been higher.
Yet, through all of that, the distress it had afflicted him with, he’d afforded me the quiet I’d needed.
My rich black tendrils swirled around me as we remained concealed within one of my magical planes out of reach of everyone and everything.
Only Ketheron and I knew of its existence. Not even Remnant was privy to it. This one was reserved solely for emergency situations.
Just like the one we’d found ourselves in just mere hours ago.
When Winter had sent that text communication to Ketheron.
Given what we were already privy to, due to our clandestine observations of all parties involved, we’d been able to read between the lines.
Tiny God:Can we meet? Need your help with a spell for Grimoire Creation class. It’s got a Celestial element and I want to be extra careful with it.
That had been his message to my love.
We had been aware that Winter had been conducting investigations into Ruxnoth’s connection to him. The precise nature of it hadn’t been known to us due to safeguards Winter had employed. Yet we’d confirmed that he was working on a way to break Ruxnoth’s influence over him, and to also break the heathen himself and even Sanctus. Winter had a self-sacrificial approach to things, so we’d also predicted that his solution involved jeopardizing himself, likely allowing Ruxnoth to pull him into Sanctus. At the same time, we had been deeply concealed the day that Vaxan had retrieved that Celestial power from Taen, wherein Kai Hunter had then shown up, later followed by Sylas. We’d heard all where their plan to develop an anti-Celestial spell using Vaxan’s vibrational resonance was concerned.
While we’d experienced a huge, time-consuming setback regarding locating entry points into Sanctus due to the falsities Ruxnoth had created, we certainly hadn’t been sitting idly by during that. And while Ketheron had determined that no Celestial weapons existed any longer, he had discovered the existence of Ruxnoth’s Spiral Thorn. Not technically considered a weapon, but a tool. Also, it hadn’t been forged on the Celestial Plane, only recently by Ruxnoth himself using his perversion of Celestial magic.
A few years back, Sylas had refused to allow me to use some of his necromantic energy to imbue my black-magic protégés, so they could wield necromantic magic to an extent—both to take some of the weight off him and as a fail-safe in case he was ever incapacitated.
But even though he’d refused that, he hadn’t actually refused me. As a result, the portion of his energy that I was keeping safe also enabled me to track the stability of his magic—and his wellbeing. It meant that I’d been able to react in time earlier to Ruxnoth’s use of the Spiral Thorn.
I drew in a steadying breath, then opened my eyes.
Looking out at Ketheron, I confirmed, “I’ve got him.”
The utter relief all over him was almost painful.
They were family to him, and I understood how very deep his connection to them ran.
So deep, in fact, that he’d yet to even tell them that we had decided to move in together. That, however, could hardly be addressed now—not with this awful turn of events.
My entire being shook as I pushed to my feet, my tendrils still swirling around me, as they had to remain doing until I completed the process I’d put in place.
I’d had to ensure it was stabilized first, however, before moving on to the next stage could even be considered viable. And it had taken due time to accomplish that first aspect.
Thankfully, my target had responded favorably. His power was great, yes. Well, colossal. However, his strength of will was far beyond even that. Especially nowadays with it being fueled by his love for his family—and for hisson.
Ketheron wrapped his arms around me and supported my weight against him, one of the very few I’d ever met who wasn’t daunted by my black magic being live when touching me. Thankfully, it couldn’t actually harm him or impact him negatively either. Otherwise I would never have allowed it, regardless. He was far too precious to me—nothing would be allowed to damage him in any way whatsoever.
“Thank you, treasure,” I breathed, reaching out and stroking his cheek, to which he did that absolutely adorable thing of purring in response and his eyes fluttering closed briefly.
“No, you are the one to be thanked, my gorgeous. What you’ve done here today… I can’t even properly convey the magnitude of it.”
“Well, let us save the commendations once full success has been achieved, not just in part.”
I’d dealt with dire situations with extreme stakes many times over the years. But this… the weight to succeed, the burden of failure not being an option… this was another thing entirely.
“You’re deeply concerned,” he surmised when I’d shaken his praise off.
Like it had burned me. Like I couldn’t stand it touching me yet.
