The Necromancer’s Light by Tavia Lark

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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Shae

Izen’s words creep into Shae’s mind. It’s nearly impossible to continue chanting the banishing spell with the demon’s threats and promises dancing through his heart.

Take your place by my side. Be obedient, and I’ll let your pretty paladin live.

Shae doesn’t trust the promises, but he trusts the threats. He keeps chanting, with his hands in the center of the circle drawn in Arthur’s blood. Power courses through him. Not necromancy, but simple witchcraft, the sort he was born with, the sort he used to summon Izen in the first place. The earth is wet and real against his palms, but he doesn’t feel grounded. He’s unmoored and scared.

Izen must be scared too, if he’s trying to bargain. Shae just has to finish the spell, and everything will be fine.

So stubborn,Izen sighs in his mind. That’s all right. I like you that way. There’s a whistling, rushing sound. Shae glances up and sees the wind swirling around the shield barrier. Arthur’s figure staggers through the golden light and the windswept dirt, and a dark blade suddenly appears in Izen’s hand. Fear spikes through Shae’s heart as Izen drawls, And his soul will taste so, so sweet.

The demon lunges forward in a blur of shadow. Light flares, and Arthur’s sword flies from his hand. Arthur’s on his knees, then on his back, and Izen’s sword is coming down, and Shae still has three lines of the spell left to recite. There isn’t enough time.

He doesn’t even think before breaking off the spell. He screams a single word, both a spell and a prayer: Arthur’s name.

It rips from his throat with all the force and magic he possesses. He flings out his hand, and power pours into his grasp. Different magics all combining—the coldness inside him. The dark obedience in the nearest corpses. The blood in the earth. The radiance of Arthur’s god. The barrier dissolves around Shae, spiraling through the darkness he holds, strengthening and sharpening it.

He flings the spear of power towards Izen’s heart and feels the impact in his own chest. The moment hangs. The sword vanishes from Izen’s hand, and he arches in a rictus of pain. A scream pours from his throat and roars hell-bound through the air, as great an impact as Shae’s bolt of power. He freezes into the scream, cracks of red and black appearing in his gray skin.

His sword vanishes. The rest of him turns to ash and crumbles away.

Ears ringing, Shae scrambles to his knees, then his feet. Falls back to his knees. Finds his feet again and staggers forward, past fallen, twitching corpses, to where Arthur lies.

Shae collapses at his side, so dizzy he can barely see anything besides the blood. He reaches for a pulse—and Arthur grabs his hands.

The grip is tight and warm, and relief blooms through Shae’s chest. He takes a rough, painful breath. “Are you all right? You’re hurt, I thought you were—”

“I’m fine,” Arthur says roughly, his voice clearing Shae’s head. His eyes are open.

“You don’t look fine, you’re covered in blood.” Shae pulls his hands from Arthur’s grasp and starts touching him, feeling his living warmth, cataloguing every cut and scrape he can find. There aren’t as many or as bad as he feared, but he’s still in a heightened state of fear. He’s afraid to believe that Arthur’s okay. “Let me look at you.”

“I said I’m fine,” Arthur says, almost laughing, and sits up, heedless of Shae’s fluttering. He grabs Shae, both hands on his face to hold him still. The heat of his touch pierces through Shae’s heart. “We’re both fine,” he says, and kisses him.

Only when Arthur’s lips cover his, sharing breath and warmth and love, does Shae believe him.

He’s reluctant to pull away, and whines a little when Arthur breaks the kiss and starts touching his shoulders, his arms, his sides. Silently checking Shae over for injuries too, Shae’s pretty sure, but he doesn’t call Arthur out on his hypocrisy. He’s too thrilled and grateful that Arthur’s still here, still with him, to touch him like this. He never wants this to stop.

“Did it work?” Arthur asks, and Shae’s eyes widen.

He broke off the spell and killed Izen without banishing him. All the power Izen granted Shae remains on this plane, still hooked into his soul. He’ll carry this darkness with him the rest of his life.

He should be devastated, but he isn’t.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, laughing because it’s true. All this work, all this pain and desperate effort, for a failed spell, and he doesn’t care. “No, it didn’t work. I couldn’t banish him in time, so I killed him.”

Arthur exhales sharply and pulls Shae into a tight embrace. “Radiance, Shae. I’m sorry. I couldn’t hold him off long enough.”

Shae melts into him, coasting on the high of Arthur’s proximity, the relentless drum of his heartbeat. “It’s my fault,” he says fiercely. “I waited too long to deal with this, and the array broke. This was a stupid plan. But I’m serious. It doesn’t matter.”

“We’ll find another way,” Arthur says. “There are mage healers in Ostaris, or we could even try to find an Enoran temple in Praia. There has to be another way to help you.”

A wave of affection washes through Shae. He laughs and grabs Arthur’s beautiful face to force him to look at him. “I don’t care. I can live with this power,” he says quietly. “I’ve done it for ten years. And I think I’ve been lying to myself that I’d be okay, and everyone would stop hating me, if I just got rid of it. Nothing’s that simple, right?” He leans in for a brief breath of a kiss, then whispers, “I can live with this power, but I don’t want to live without you.”

Arthur’s breath hitches. He touches Shae’s face, his lips, with trembling, callused fingers. “What a coincidence,” he says, a smile slowly spreading across his face. “I’d say the same to you.” He kisses the corner of Shae’s lips. Then his forehead. Every touch is sweeter than sunlight. Then he pulls back and starts digging around in his belt pouch.

A moment later, Shae is glad he’s already sitting down, because when Arthur looks at him again, he’s holding a ring.

It’s beautiful. Gleaming silver and yellow topaz. Almost as bright as the look in Arthur’s eyes.

“When the hell did you buy that?” Shae says, his voice gone high with shock.

Arthur laughs, low and rich, and Shae wants to sink into the sound forever. “I bought it in Hannick,” he answers, smiling. “It reminded me of you. I thought you could embed a spell in it or something, and I meant to give it to you just as a normal gift.”

“Do you normally give rings to people?” Shae asks. “Wait, in Hannick? That was weeks ago! You barely knew me!”

“I knew you enough that I wanted to make you happy,” Arthur says. “And yeah, I realized pretty quickly that this wasn’t a normal gift. So that’s not why I’m giving it to you now.” He swallows, and his smile drops to a more serious expression. “Shae.”

Panicking, Shae covers Arthur’s mouth with both hands. “Before you ask anything of the sort,” he says sternly, “we both need baths, and you need to see a healer. I can’t think about anything in this condition.”

Arthur laughs under his hands. Kisses his palm. “Fair enough. Will you take the ring now anyway?”

Shae feels himself flushing. “Yes,” he says, the warmth tickling through his veins. “Yes, okay.”

He lets Arthur take his left hand, currently bare, and slide the silver band onto his fourth finger. The metal is already warm from Arthur’s touch. It fits perfectly.

The wind whistles around them, carrying the scent of ash and blood and dead flesh. The sky is bright blue above the scattered corpses, and Shae is the happiest he’s ever been.

Then a familiar female voice creaks from behind them. “Moon Mother’s tits, what the fuck is going on here?”