The Warden

Chapter 31

Kyla's voice trailed off. Her head lolled to the side and her body went slack. Her ragged, labored breathing began to fade.

Thrashing his lifelight about, sweat formed on Masis forehead from the exertion. Each breath became a pant. He formed his lifelight into various weapons: a massive club, an impossibly pointed lance, a heavy war hammer. He assaulted the mesmer, slashing and pummeling it. Nothing worked. It endured the onslaught with no signs of weakening.

His eyes came open again to find Lady Kyla still. Too still. He put two fingers to her throat and barely found her rhythm. It faded further with every pulse. Her breathing was almost imperceptible.

Masis squeezed his eyes shut. Where light is darkness can only endure by permission?!

What did that mean? Masis did not want the mesmer. He did not allow it to stay. He had been fighting it every day for weeks. He had not given it permission.

Tears, hot and welling, filled his eyes. Some few drops spilled over, running down his cheeks to fall on Kyla's face. A sob shuddered out of him.

"Can I save no one?" he asked to the empty air. Tipping his face toward the sky, moonlight spilling over it, Masis bellowed, the sound raw and harrowed. "Will they all be taken from me?"

Masis clenched his jaw. "No."

He stoked his lifelight. Only by permission.

Those words became his mantra.

Only by permission. Only by permission. Only by permission.

He did not attack the mesmer's strands this time. In his mindeye he drew closer, examining them as he had not before. What he had first thought of as strands became smokier, less distinct and solid. Rather than webs of say a spider made of strong silk, the mesmer was more a fog or shadow, somehow enduring on Masis' lifelight's bright surface. By all accounts this flimsy material should have simply faded away. Near Masis' lifelight it seemed ludicrous, like a shadow surviving under Wilo's scrutiny.

Only by permission, thought Masis again, his face drawing inward as he observed this paradox.

He did not push. He did not pummel or attack. He simply willed his lifelight to brighten, to enliven along those lines where the mesmer ran.

It faded with little resistance.

Masis shook as the ilk evaporated. A smile broke out along his lips. It died, as his mindeye flew open to the outside world and Kyla's rapidly fading lifelight.

A single spark remained. Ignoring her lack of rhythm, overlooking the fact that her chest did not rise or fall, Masis latched onto it, refusing to let her slip away while forcing his lifelight into her body. It cascaded about her frame, seeking out every tear and break. Mending the bones, sealing the flesh, correcting the ectopia of any stray bit. As her body healed, Kyla's lifelight resurged, seemingly by its own stubbornness. It stabilized at a little more than what an animal would have.

That explains a few things, thought Masis, withdrawing into himself. He peered at Kyla and expelled an exhausted breath as he saw the rise and fall of her chest.

Kyla threw herself onto her side, retching blood. Vomit's sour, stale reek mixed with the iron-heavy air, completely spoiling anything pleasant that remained about the glade. Slumping onto her back, Kyla opened her eyes while extending her hand up to Masis.

"Help me up," she croaked.

Obliging, Masis pulled her into a sitting position. She smacked him on the back of his head before he could pull away. In truth, he did not try.

"You fool," said Kyla, spitting. "You Manu cursed wightie! Shadow you! What were you thinking? Oh, wait, you weren't. I told you to leave, not to stay here and save me. I don't care if you did purge the mesmer and manage to save my life," she hit him again, "that blasted nightling got away and it won't be long before it returns with reinforcements. Do you want them to find the venom? Is that what you want, idiot?"

Masis took the verbal assault. He just knelt there grinning, every word music to his ears.

I think she'll make a full recovery, he thought.

"Oh, stop your grinning and help me up." Kyla thrust her hand at him. "We have to get out of here before the wighties arrive," her voice raised in volume for emphasis, "which won't be easy with me being weak from healing. It was a sloppy job you did this time. Sloppy, indeed."

Rising to his feet, a grin still fixed to his lips, Masis helped Kyla to her feet, as she kept haranguing him for his foolish choice. He bore it. There was nothing else to do. Looking about as Kyla caught her breath, an insulting mumble still present, Masis scanned the tree line, awkwardly employing his mindeye as well, something he had only done twice and while looking at people right next to him. Nothing stirred in the woods about them, as though what had happened had driven everything, every insect and beast, from the surrounding area.

Kyla fell silent, drawing Masis' attention back to her.

She stood evenly. Her head cocked in a familiar angle. The corners of her mouth pulled down into a frown but her lips puckered upward, while her brow slumped, creasing in the middle. Masis detected words milling about in her mind.

"Masis," she said.

"Yes?"

"Thank you." Kyla thrust her arm toward Masis. He hesitated, stunned, before he clasped his hand about her forearm in a warrior's embrace.

Did she just say thank you? wondered Masis, blinking. "You're welcome."

Sniffing once, she broke the clasp. "Now, let's move. We'll probably die because what you did."

Grinning again, Masis followed after the cantankerous woman, her pace brisk but markedly slower than usual.

*DON'T FORGET TO VOTE*