A Shield of Faith (BOOK 4)

Chapter 30

MARIA

I'm running out of room in this ledger, and I'm no closer to trying to predict these expulsion waves. Days she spent pouring over huge tomes of old information and adjusted knowledge built her to this single moment of miraculous audacity. Yuven's attention wavered along the waves of the rocky roof, and she checked the timer on her crucible for his next round of nutrition. Stardust measured and laced into the herbal treatments and mushed meats to boil into a palatable broth. One he could hold down for longer than ten seconds. Maria sent another glyphic burst into the starter before moving to his side. "Your food will be ready soon." Her hand rested on his chest. "I made a little extra in case an expulsion brings it right back up.

"Hm." His hum came out a weak, birdlike croak. "Let me guess, mush with a side of mush, added with a dash of mush. I wish I could eat something with actual taste — I think I would even take Fenrer's odd tolerance for stuffed liver." He adjusted his knees underneath the blankets and pressed his cheek into the pillow. Thin trails of tears swept down his nose, and his violet gaze traced her. "Maria... he is not doing well, is he? I know he is not. He is my Oathbound." His lips parted to reveal his too pale tongue, drained of the blood the core swallowed for magick before leaving a corrupted ooze instead.

"Both of you need to learn how to worry about yourselves." Maria patted his chest and put the cover on the crucible to gather the steam. "You two have a feedback loop between each-other. You should know that better than I. It is why I've been insisting you rest so when the time comes, you can fight." Her fingers clumped the buttons on his shirt, and a fearful little girl clung onto her confidence in her research. "So, I know the mush is unpleasant, but when this is all over... you can eat whatever you want."

Yuven's pupils widened into lavender moons. "Anything I want? Anything, and I will not have to worry about the fact that all food tastes rotten and fermented to me?"

"That's the prevailing theory that I'm hoping for." Her hand moved up to his shoulder, touching the base of his collarbone. "Of course, I think it'd be safer for you to stay on your restricted diet and work our way up, but how about we focus on what's in front of us?" she said to herself more than Yuven, who needed the little pieces of hope she could provide in a death sentence. "I've drawn up a lot of possibilities pertaining to my research, but the big hurdle..."

"Tipping the balance of my soul," Yuven said with a wet cough. "To counteract the pitch dark, you must pierce it with blinding light. Fenrer would laugh. He has always told me the world will always seek equilibrium, the fundamental tenant of the Ancient faith, and for every Corruptor it means erasing us, because by the time we expel it... there is nothing left of light." He brushed his brow with his forearm. "Maria..." She frowned at the soft sob on his voice. "Do you believe as he does? Faith in some higher power with so much control, but without the wherewithal to act upon it. How does that make the Ancients any better than monarchs?"

Maria studied him as he wiped at his tears. "I believe only what is right in front of me, what I can find about the world," she answered, and he lowered his arm onto his chest. "If we act like the answers are eternally out of our reach by divine providence... then we will never get anywhere, but Fenrer finds his answers through them, and if that gives him the light in this world made out of darkness, then who am I to argue the truth he made for himself?" Maria tapped her fingers against the desk along with the weighted metronome for keeping time of Yuven's life, entranced into the texts of Healers with a lack of understanding of the Corruption, but with her insatiable curiosity on finding an answer when most gave up on the answer. 'Death is a constant. Death is not our enemy. Derelicts are our enemy, and they are not the comfort of death. They are depravity incarnate. We forestall its embrace,' Yuo instructed. 'But it is a reprieve in itself, a new start. A new definition.'