The silence in the outpost tower was profound, broken only by the crackle of the small hearth-fire Nylas had lit and the ragged sound of Elara's own breathing. The surfeit of power within her was a sunless star, heavy and hot in her chest where the cold had been. She felt… stretched thin, like a vessel containing an ocean.
Kaelen had not moved from his kneeling position beside the bed. He watched her with the unwavering focus of a scholar who has just witnessed a fundamental law of the universe rewrite itself. The shock had receded from his face, replaced by a deep, analytical intensity.
"Can you move?" he asked, his voice low.
Elara pushed herself up on her elbows. A wave of dizziness and unnatural energy washed through her. Her limbs felt both leaden and humming with potential. "I think so."
"Slowly." He offered a hand, not to help her up, but as a point of balance. She took it, his fingers closing around hers—a solid, grounding anchor in the swirling tide inside her. As she sat up, the simple wool blanket slipped, revealing the new mark on her sternum. It was barely visible now, just a faint silver tracery like a scar made of moonlight, but it pulsed in time with her heartbeat, a soft, internal glow.
Kaelen's eyes dropped to it, his thumb unconsciously brushing over the back of her hand. "Does it hurt?"
"No. It feels… full. Too full." She met his gaze. "What did I do?"
"You performed a feat of thaumaturgical alchemy that should be impossible," he said, releasing her hand and standing, beginning to pace again, but slower now, thoughtful. "Blight is anti-magic. It is entropy given form. A Siphon's void is also a form of entropy. You forced two negatives to create a positive. You turned a weapon of unmaking into a reservoir of pure potential energy." He stopped, looking at her. "The power you hold now is neutral, but vast. It is the life-force of an entire blight-zone, refined and condensed."
The implication settled over her, heavier than any blanket. She hadn't just healed herself. She had absorbed the stolen essence of a dying land. The weight of that felt both sacred and grotesque.
"What do I do with it?" The question was a whisper.
"For now, nothing," Kaelen said firmly. "You are a crucible that has just endured a forging. The metal is molten. You must let it cool, let it settle, or it will shatter the vessel." He moved to a small chest against the wall, retrieving a waterskin and a simple clay cup. He poured water and brought it to her. "Drink. Your body has been through a war."
She drank, the water tasting of nothing, a bland relief against the psychic aftertaste of corruption and victory.
A knock sounded at the door—a sharp, respectful rap. Nylas.
"Enter," Kaelen called, not taking his eyes off Elara.
The Shade-Walker captain stepped in, her sharp gaze sweeping the room and landing on Elara, assessing her upright position, the faded mark. A flicker of surprise, quickly masked. "Your Majesty. The perimeter is secure. Lord Vorian awaits below. He is… agitated."
"He can wait," Kaelen said. "Has there been any change at the breach?"
"The scouts report the emanations have lessened by approximately thirty percent since the… incident. The visible creep of the vines has stopped." Nylas's tone was carefully neutral, but her eyes held a new, wary respect when they flicked to Elara. "It seems the wound has been weakened."
Weakened because I stole its lunch, Elara thought with a hysterical edge. She had literally consumed the problem.
"Good," Kaelen said. "Maintain watch. We remain here tonight. I want a full rotation of guards, double strength. And Nylas?" He waited until the captain met his eyes. "What happened in this room does not leave it. To anyone. Is that clear?"
"By your command, Your Majesty." Nylas bowed sharply and withdrew.
When the door closed, Kaelen returned his attention to Elara. "We cannot return to the keep yet. You are a walking anomaly. The amount of power you're radiating, even contained, would be like a bonfire in a dark room to any skilled mage in the court. We need time for it to… integrate. To become a part of your signature, not a flare attached to it."
"So we stay here? In the blight-zone?" The idea was unsettling. The air still tasted of death and magic-starvation.
"It is the perfect camouflage," he said. "The residual sickness in the air will mask your energy signature. And here, we can monitor the breach, and you can learn to manage what you now hold without prying eyes." He sat on the edge of the bed, the weight of the day seeming to settle on him for the first time. "We will begin at first light. For now, you must rest. True rest. I will guard the door."
He meant to sleep outside. The thought of being alone in this stone room with the churning ocean inside her was suddenly terrifying.
"No." The word was out before she could stop it. He raised an eyebrow. She flushed, but held his gaze. "The power… it's restless. I don't know if I can…" She trailed off, unwilling to voice the fear that in sleep, her control would slip, and the forge-fire within her would spill out.
He understood. He looked at the narrow bed, then at the floor by the hearth. "I will remain. But you will sleep."
He didn't ask for permission. He simply moved to the hearth, using his cloak as a pillow, and lay down with his back to her, a dark, still silhouette against the low flames. The message was clear: he was there, but he was granting her privacy.
Exhaustion, deeper than any she had ever known, finally won over the buzzing energy. She lay back down, pulling the blanket up to her chin. She stared at the rough-hewn stone ceiling, feeling the strange, heavy pulse of the purified blight-power in sync with her heart. She listened to the soft crackle of the fire and the steady, even sound of Kaelen's breathing.
Her last thought before sleep dragged her under was not of power or poison or kings, but of the simple, solid warmth of another presence in the dark, keeping watch while she fought her battles within.
---
She woke to grey light filtering through a high, narrow window. For a moment, she was disoriented, the weight in her chest foreign and alarming. Then memory returned.
Kaelen was already up. He stood by the window, looking out over the blighted landscape, a cup of something steaming in his hand. He had washed his face; his dark hair was damp at the temples. He looked less like a king and more like a campaign-hardened general in the bleak dawn.
"How do you feel?" he asked without turning.
Elara sat up, taking internal stock. The overwhelming, dizzying fullness had receded somewhat, settling into a deep, steady hum. The mark on her chest was warm to the touch. "Stable. Still… charged."
"Good." He turned, handing her the cup. It was a bitter, herbal tea. "Drink this. It will help ground you." He watched as she sipped. "Today, we begin your real education. You have graduated from practicing on ward-stones. You now hold a reservoir. You must learn to tap it, to channel it. Not with the hunger's reflex, but with a sculptor's precision."
After a spare breakfast brought by a silent Shade-Walker, they descended from the tower. The air outside was still thin and poisoned, but the palpable dread around the outpost had lessened. In the square, the breach still hung in the air, but it was quieter, its emanations diminished, the flow of stolen energy to the east-southeast now a trickle compared to yesterday's torrent.
Kaelen led her to a clear area away from the watching guards. "The power within you is neutral. It has no nature of its own. That is its strength and its danger. You must give it purpose. We will start with the simplest act of creation: light."
He held up his own hand, and a small, cool sphere of witch-light appeared above his palm. "This is a basic luminescence spell. The energy pattern is simple, stable." He let it vanish. "Now, you. Do not reach for the energy in the air. It is sick and weak here. Reach inside. Visualize the pattern of the light. Then, from your reservoir, draw a single thread of power and shape it into that pattern."
It sounded impossible. She had only ever taken, never made.
She closed her eyes, focusing inward. The reservoir was a deep, placid lake of silver energy. She imagined a needle, a single thread. She tried to pull it up.
A geyser erupted.
A blast of raw, silver-white force shot from her outstretched palm, not forming light, but a concussive wave of pure energy that ripped through the air and shattered the brittle remains of a blighted tree fifty paces away with a sound like thunder.
Elara stumbled back, shocked. The guards around the perimeter snapped to attention, hands on weapons. Kaelen didn't flinch.
"A thread, Elara," he said, his voice calm. "Not a tidal wave. You are drawing from an ocean. You must learn to think in drops. Again."
And so it went. For hours. Her attempts ranged from pathetic sputters to violent, uncontrolled surges. She destroyed a patch of ground, startled the shadow-steeds, and once, in frustration, accidentally channeled the energy into a wave of intense cold that froze the moisture in the air into a shower of glittering, dead frost.
It was maddening. The power was there, limitless, but it was like trying to perform micro-surgery with a giant's axe.
At midday, sweating and trembling with strain, she finally managed it. A tiny, wobbling sphere of soft white light, no bigger than a pearl, hovered above her palm. It was crude, leaking energy, but it was light. She had created something.
She looked up at Kaelen, a ragged smile of triumph on her lips.
He didn't smile back. His expression was solemn. "Remember this feeling," he said quietly. "The first act of creation is always the hardest. And the most dangerous. Because now you know you can do it. The question becomes, what will you choose to create next?"
He looked past her, toward the weakened, weeping breach in the square. "And what, I wonder, will we create to seal that?"