Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 128: Putrid

"Melzri's pet," the vicar said simperingly as Mawar arced toward him in the air. "You should've stayed in the kennel she created for you in Etril, girl," he said maliciously, entirely unphased by the waves of power wafting off the retainer.

I rushed forward with a mindfire stamp, but Mawar would reach the vicar first. Mardeth smiled toothily, his blind eye glinting with malevolence. He threw Sevren's limp body at the charging retainer.

She's going to rip him apart, I immediately recognized. She's not thinking straight!

I thrust my hands out, trusting in Lady Dawn to help guide my magic as I skidded to a halt. Oath clattered to the floor as I ignored it, engaging my telekinesis emblem. I quested out with my mind, grasping the tumbling body with my mind.

My emblem, predictably, smashed straight through the Denoir heir's weakened mana defenses. I pulled downward for all I was worth, barely yanking my friend out of Mawar's path of decay.

Sweat beaded on my brow from the speed of the action, but the hint of surprise on the vicar's wretched mug was worth the expenditure. Then Mawar hit him like a truck.

A streak of wispy black carried the vicar and the retainer back through the cavern, far away from me.

I leapt forward, catching Sevren's body before setting him down. My eyes darted over the Denoir heir's form, tracing his tendrils of heartfire and signs of weakness. I instinctively ignored the rampaging crash of Mawar's battle with the Vicar of Plague, instead sinking into the clinical observation of a surgeon.

His other wounds are deep and dangerous, I thought, noting where divots of sludge had carved through Sevren's flesh like a knife through meat. But those aren't the worst. The green acid is static.

The worst damage was the Denoir heir's right arm, where Mardeth had held him like a toy. The flesh around his wrist had been melted to the bone, five distinct marks showing where the bastard of a vicar had grasped my friend. But even that wasn't the worst.

Some of Mardeth's sludge had infiltrated Sevren's bloodstream. I could sense it as it gradually ate its way along his mana channels like a parasite, slowly but surely carving its way toward his core.

I exhaled, then called my lifeforce to the fore, laying my hands on the Denoir heir's chest. "Sevren," I said quietly. The man groaned in pain, his eyes fluttering weakly. "I need you to think of why you fight," I continued, engaging my healing. Orange-purple lifeforce flashed over my palms. "Think about Caera, okay? Your sister wouldn't want you to die here," I added with gritted teeth.

The aether of my heart seeped along my palms as I tried to enmesh my emotions with those of the Denoir heir.

That was the simple part. We were more alike than different. The thrum of my heartfire clicked easily into place as I synchronized myself with him. His own heartfire flared in response, the heat driving away his wounds.

His body began to mend along his ribs and thighs, where that horrid vicar had taken gouges from his flesh. But when his own fire met the scalding mana of Mardeth's scourge, it faltered for the barest moment.

"You aren't going to let this beat you," I said through hissed teeth. "You've denied your Fate once. What's one more time?" I said, calling with voice and aether at once.

Sevren's red lifeforce began to push back the taint of the vicar. Before, it had reached past his elbow. Yet through our combined efforts, the green infection that showed through his veins and mana channels gradually receded.

"Mardeth," Sevren choked out, "His horns..." he said with fitful breath, his teal eyes unfocused. "They're in the crystal. Nailed to the blood. Don't know why..."