CHP22

While Acryan slept his last night in that body, a young Sael took coarselight to their Leston cabin, excited to visit his father’s bondmate, Niala. He loved her as his mother and fretted almost as much as his father over her impending birth. Carrying her large belly made her tired all the time now, signaling it would be any day when Sael would arrive to find her arms full and belly empty.

She and Kael had discussed names in the weeks prior. They carried a boy, and Kael wanted to name him something strong, Ryel, for being of the storm, born in controversy. He would be born of a golden-haired Anael woman with equally golden amber eyes and a raven Acerrai man, both seraph born. Kael a king, and she a princess.

Sael had thrown his attempt in the hat, Tanael, of the stone, for he would surely be strong from his father’s might and his mother’s stubbornness.

They laughed, and Niala agreed that Sael’s choice sounded far better than Kael’s. When she had quietly announced what name she had thought of, Kael and Sael laughed until they cried.

“I think it’s a good name, Briel!”

“Of happiness!?” Kael dabbed tears of laughter from his eyes.

“There is no power or threat in that name!” Sael laughed, for his mother named him Sa’el, of Sun’s fire. Kael’s name originated from a swear they used, a short syllable of threat, ‘cinders’ literally translated but meant the remnants of a fire, of ashes and coals. Ka was what fire left behind.

“There doesn’t have to be power or threat in a name. He will be born of happiness and will be happy,” She insisted.

“He can be happy but still have a strong name. Raiel! He can be of thunder!” Kael suggested.

She pouted and had refused to speak more of it that evening. Nevertheless, Sael still felt terrible over it.

He had brought her strawberries, something she had craved so often during her pregnancy. He doubted she’d eat them, but he wanted an excuse to see her and seek comfort in her presence. Sael needed reassurance, to know if he made his father proud. Kael had left more responsibilities to him while he dealt with dragons on their eastern borders. Their populations had gone unchecked in Kael’s father’s regime and had started its own sort of ongoing war to deal with them.

“Dyana! Niala!” he called out to her as he knocked a few times and slipped in. The door glided on new hinges, the wood still fresh and splintery, with every inch of the place immaculate and already set up for a child.

Or it had been, at least.

A bassinet sat in the living room on its side, blankets spilled.

White feathers littered the ground.

Blood dotted the floor.

The scent of burnt mana and strange ault lingered.

Not a soul remained, save for himself, and terror twisted in his gut.

He took coarselight back to the castle, his magic crackling over his skin.

He searched for his father, blind with panic. Sael couldn’t find him anywhere. He searched high and low, pleading with anyone to tell him where his father’s schedule had him. None would, but he noticed a smugness in an elder. Something had been done.

No!

“What did you do?” his voice held a hiss in his throat as his tail snapped.

The elder quirked a smile, “Couldn’t hide her from us forever, boy. We’re protecting our future; we are.” Sael’s fires crackled over his fingers, unstable and unskilled. He had little idea how to use them yet, but his hand shot straight out, instinct taking over. The retching noises from the elder’s mouth were the sweetest thing he had heard that entire day.

Sael didn’t even turn his head to see what he left behind.

Ka. What remains after the fire. My fire.

He wiped his hand on his tunic and went to the only place his birth mother would be dumb enough to attempt something foul. He hoped he wasn’t too late.

“No,” Sael breathed as the scent of blood curled about him. He bolted through the castle, tore down the dungeon doors, rooms that hadn’t been used since Kael’s grandfather, and shallow breaths panted through the darkness, followed by weak whimpers. He cast his black fire over the wall and focused his energy to light the lanterns that lined the weeping flagstones, bolting off to find where she’d been taken.

“Sael,” she said, stuttering. Her voice came in a wheeze, and he didn’t want to light the lantern for this room. He closed his eyes, held his breath, and dimly lit the lantern. It guttered with his dark fire for a moment before brightening.

“Sael, please help; I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” She choked and whimpered, shivering. Felice had been a wielder of ice. Blue flames lit her eyes from within the dim darkness. She subsisted, barely off her own mana working within her.

“Dyana!” His shout choked into a sob as something crunched underfoot. Feathers. Pristine white feathers freckled in a tan that glimmered golden in sunlight. Blood soaked them, blood everywhere.

Sael knew death, had killed before. He knew what blood and battle looked like and had stood strong in his sparring and in the arena for his people’s sport to prove himself a proper prince. Then, a rushing noise filled his ears as the world fell away from him.

This was different. This was not death. This was murder. This was evil, and his vision blurred. He never had fainted but wanted to do so now.

Felice’s wings lay limp on the floor, several feet from her body.

Bloody stumps protruded from her back, and the puddle of blood around her spread in a dark halo. Beyond all belief, Sael sensed no life in her, but she breathed, her mana the only thing left. No healing could save her now.

Ice flowed through her, keeping her cold and barely alive.

“Sael… I am so sorry,” She wheezed, her chest shuddering. Amid the blood on the floor spread tainted water, broken mother’s water soaking her linens and dress. Spidering bruises showed through torn clothes over every inch of her body, save for her tender belly. She must have curled around it to protect her baby.

She had been due in less than a week’s time.

“Dyana.” He whispered, the last syllable lost in his throat. He paid no mind to the blood but rushed to her to use what little healing he had. His mana had been practiced, but his fires had no strength, and she grabbed his hand with shaken composure. Chains rattled.

She was cold, dead cold.

“Take the baby from me. Take him to Shythe.” Her pupils constricted into pinpricks despite the dimness.

Her wrists jangled with chains, as did her feet, keeping her on her side as she used every drop of mana she could to survive, to keep her body cold enough to keep her heart rate low enough to draw out just a few more moments of life.

“Take the baby from me,” She pleaded.

“I can’t. I can’t. Dyana, what are you wanting?”

“I taught you halflight. Sael, I’m dead. Take him from me, hide the child. Take him to Shythe.” She gripped his arm with death’s strength.

His heart seized. Halflight was never to be used on flesh.

“I can’t do that. It’ll kill you. I can’t lose you, Dyana. Dyana, please don’t,” Sael sobbed.

“If I really earned that name, and if you really love me, you’ll do it.” Her pinprick pupils wandered as she started to fade. Her breaths grew short and weaker.

Sael spun his black fire over his hands. Then, because he could do nothing else, he sobbed.

“Dyana,” He whimpered, focusing on his mana, on her teachings. He imagined his body being that of light itself, material and matter passing through like grains of sand through a sea of pebbles, becoming whole on the other side.

“You’re my son. I love you. Tell Kael. Tell him I lo-.” Her breath gave out, lips finishing her sentence in silence “-ve him.”

“N’na,” he whispered through his tears, watching her bloody lips twitch. He’d not called her that since he could read on his own, but she needed to hear it one last time at least. “I love you, N’na.”

Sael wound his black fire over his fingers, let it fade away. He’d never seen his mana so strong before as he laid his hands over her belly and let them plunge through her skin like water through a sieve. He hadn’t thought this far ahead, and his fingers twisted through the waters of her belly and surrounded the small still child. Black fire shot over his fingertips within her as he found the baby's cord, and his hands surrounded it, lifting slowly as through her flesh the child materialized into this world.

Sael tied the cord with slippery hands, tightening it as best he could as he held the lifeless infant in his hands. He had read so many books leading up to this, so excited to have a brother and scared for Niala’s sake. He put the baby on its front in his lap, angled down, patting its back with gentle smacks. For a moment, the child coughed, struggling to take a breath, and Sael was torn between the horror of his mother laying there with empty eyes, still pregnant in appearance, and the choke of life from his new brother, the only thing that would keep Kael from complete and total destruction.

Sael struggled free of his robes.

So much blood surrounded them, soaking his clothing as he wrapped the child. Another breath did not come. The child went limp; no more did it breathe.

A tiny black-haired infant lay in his arms, cold. He clutched to the bundle, harsh sobs on his breath as he forced his mana through his hands; every ounce of healing magic he possessed funneled into him.

“Shythe… Shythe… They have healers. They have that strange healer, the doctor they called him,” He breathed to himself, staggering to stand as his bare feet slipped in the blood.

He squinted his eyes shut. He’d just taken coarselight not too long ago. He depleted his mana, but found reserves, found something dark within himself that he tapped into, and gasped with sickening feeling as he took coarselight and staggered through the courtyard of the apartments to the palace.

“Shythe!” He screamed at the top of his lungs. His mana and strength abandoned him as he staggered. His feet left glistening crimson footprints.

“Shyyyythe!” He retched, straining his vocal cords as his powerful lungs did their best to shout around the sob.

A vision of white came bolting into the courtyard, Revik, their healer in tow. Both smelled of alcohol, and it sobered in their veins cold.

“He isn’t breathing. Help him, please,” Sael sobbed as he fell to his knees and thrust the bundle of his robes to them.

“They killed her. They killed Niala. They cut her wings. She made… I- Dyana. They killed her,” Sael sobbed, and Shythe stepped away from the bundle in horror.

Revik took it from him, gently pulling away the cloth. His eyes traveled over so much blood coating the babe, the bundle, the boy before them.

“You half-lighted him from her corpse,” Shythe said quietly.

“They do not know. He has to be hidden. He’s the last piece of Dyana! You can’t even tell he was taken from her.” He tore at his hair, tatsuli-inked hands still splattered with blood.

“Dyana?” Shythe covered his lips with his shaking hand, grief and misery pouring from him. “You called her mother?”

“I DO NOT CALL ERYTHMIA MOTHER. SHE IS DAMSIRE ONLY. She murdered Niala. Niala is my mother! Dyana! Dyana,” he sobbed, bringing his bloody hands to his face as Revik’s grave expression grew dark and despondent.

“There is nothing I can do.” Revik held green fires swimming over his hand.

“Please! I will give my crown, anything. I will lay myself on a blade. I will subjugate myself, end the war, anything I can do when I take the crown. I will give my life,” Sael shouted, his cries loud and echoing as Shythe stared down at him with such miserable pity.

“It’s too late.” Revik’s hand moved, and the green light stopped.