A Shield of Faith (BOOK 4)

Chapter 39

YUVEN

Though the chains of death loosened its grip, he found himself staring it down all the same whenever the world went into the sea of ink swallowing all the color in a single breath. He rested his head against his brow while he waited for Maria to finish her work at the alchemy station.

Herbs crushed and squeezed into the alembic to mix with the boils of water with a continuous, adjusted dose until it stuck. Shadows rested under her eyes from the endless, sleepless nights she sat through with her, and Miesero shut himself up in the Warden post tower. At least Adara's lessons provide us both with something. She, an actual foundation for her magick, and I... a new test of mine. He unfurled his fingers to release the wave of winter up his fingertips into sparkled crystals, no longer clogged by rust and blood. Lighter. He shook off the frozen tears from his fingers when Maria left the station with a box of phials.

"These should do you until I figure out something a tad stronger," she said. "I want you to try taking only one a day with these ones." Her fingers brushed along his when she placed the box in his arms. "Seeing as your flashes are no longer directly caused by the corruption, we have to switch up the medicinal ingredients." Maria pinched her chin and waddled around him. "I'll figure something out until then — not only that... I have to help Adara with her fire core..."

"I can handle the rest if you can get her into the right mindset... seeing as she apparently takes my forwardness in offense," Yuven grumbled and tucked the box underneath his arm. "I can no longer trust Fenrer to give her the motivation she needs during her lessons — at least, actual motivation, because now he is an added distraction. If he is around she loses the focus in external focus." He headed out of the Infirmary, all too glad to put it behind him for what he hoped would be a while yet. Yuven waited for Maria to speed up her pace to match his, and they continued to the one of many spiraling staircases into the living towers of the Wardens, though with Maria spending most of her time in an Infirmary bed instead of the comfort of her room, it left him with a worrying taste in his mouth instead of constant rust.

"Maria," he said as they came to a stop in front of the wood door lined with a marble frame. "We need to talk." Ushered inside her room, he put the box on the dresser nearest the door, clicking it open to ready the first nightly dose. In her silence, he found his voice, "You need not hide the fact that you haven't been taking your ease since the Expulsion Event." He hoisted his coat off his shoulders and put it on the hook as Maria sat on the end of the bed. His fingers trailed down the inner leather hem, shaking out his feathers. "I know it... was upsetting."

"Can you make me another flower?"

It tingled across his fingertips, a flimsy touch through the thick fog of death. Mist swirled on his palm when he tensed his fist and it bloomed into a flower of purest ice. Ice hushed off the petals and settled underneath the flames inside the lamp above his head. The stem grew from the bridges of his fingers when he let it float higher, before whisking it from the air, turning to her on his heel. Held between his thumb and forefinger, he stretched his arm out to her. Her hand wrapped around his wrist, and he brought himself closer as he let the icy rose go into the wind of her fire. It slid off his palm into hers, where she brought it up to her nose. His arm hung limp at his side as amber twine grew from the stem to scatter the petals, and she leaned back on the bed. "Of course it was upsetting," she admitted to none but him. "I could only hope that my research brought me to the right conclusion — and that you needn't suffer anymore."

Yuven stood in the mist, then breached it to come closer to her, their knees touching. "You have been working hard," he acknowledged. "You told me things weren't quite over yet, do you have something in mind?"

Her amber gaze flicked to him, piercing him through his heart at its bright radiance. "You won't like the idea I have." Onto her feet, Yuven went still when her hands went to his shoulders at the sound of the harbor bells. "I was talking to Neven earlier, about the environment in Naveera." Her hands fell down to his elbows, but he listened all the same for her reasoning. "I was thinking of temporarily going over to Irimount, to help him set up the Outpost. I didn't get a good chance to check on their underground farms — your people lived somehow, Yuven, even with the odds stacked against them. I want to do some studying on native herbs and medicine." His tongue stuck to the top of his mouth. Manacles clanged against his wrists when he moved them against his stomach. Dread weighed down his brow, but he stopped the argument when Maria brushed his feathers back. "I need to study everything I come across to see if it would help others," she said to his wordless dismay. "Your physiology is so different from mine, Yuven... what may work for someone else's flashes may not work for you. I'm hoping native flora may... control your flashes more efficiently."