Scaling Moss and Stone ✔️ || #ONC2022

| Chapter Fifteen |

With one last deafening yell, lightning struck her.

Kealie felt the beautiful, wicked electricity bouncing through her veins as she transmuted the power in her body and sent it rushing into the man beneath her.

The brother she barely knew.

And yet the only being she'd come to love.

Kealie clenched her eyes tight even as the light faded and the power disappeared. She was shaking, afraid. Paralyzed.

It didn't work.

It couldn't have worked.

She squeezed her hands so tight, her nails drew blood in her palms. Her heart was as calm as the sea after a storm, even as she, herself, verged on breaking.

"Are you going to open your eyes?" a voice whispered, chuckling.

Kealie shook her head.

"No," she replied.

Her voice shattered.

She didn't want to know.

She didn't want to see.

"You're going to have to look at me eventually," the masculine voice said.

Kealie resisted the urge to blink, to look.

Everything, her whole kingdom, had been destroyed. She had taken everything from her family, just as they had from her.

She felt soft, wet hands cup the base of her jaw. A comforting, gentle embrace that sent her over the edge.

Kealie opened her eyes to find Nixian kneeling in front of her, his jacket and shirt nothing more than ash and dust. She searched him wildly, jerking away to see that his pants were now charred shorts and the boots he was wearing were gone.

Healthy.

He was healed.

She coughed, choking as she reached out to touch his bare chest, no longer black and disfigured.

"I-I," she stammered. "What... how..."

Nixian grinned the playful grin she'd grown to love so much and raised his brows at her. "You sealed yourself... You sealed yourself for me..."

She blinked again, still shaking. "How, I didn't know how, all I wanted was-"

"For me to live," Nixian answered for her, giving her a knowing smile. "You wanted me to live."

Kealie nodded, tears burning in her eyes.

"Enough of that," he said, pulling her into his chest and holding her tight. "No more crying."

She was trembling with the force it took to restrain the crushing weight, but she listened. He was right. There would be plenty of time for it later.

"Someone is going to have to sew Luverie back together," Nixian said calmly, his analytical tone creeping back in. "You're the only one left."

Despite wanting to argue about her sister or her step father, she came to realize how impossible the effort would be. Exposed and traitorous, they'd likely be hunted.

She was the only one.

Kealie found herself nodding as she pulled away from him. An exhaustion was seeping into her bones quickly, corrupting her willpower.

She needed to stand.

Needed to move.

So without thinking, Kealie got to her feet and wandered over to the corner of the stage where many Nerydian citizens had stayed behind.