Elements of Change

All Encompassing

Kammon stared at the healer and tried to wrap his head around her question. She looked at him, but she wasn't expecting an answer from him. No, her look was searching, as if she knew she needed to divine the answer on her own.

"What are you saying, Maggie?" Alvrey asked.

"I'm saying his Vow is fresh."

"That's impossible. Kammon would never take the Vow again," Ezo said.

Kammon took a deep breath and tried to ignore the others. It was hard knowing they were talking about him, but he had to. He turned his attention inward toward the place where his magic dwelt. The bond he shared with Ezo was wrapped around him, all-encompassing and overwhelming. Even when it was new, and Kammon first felt the stirrings to return to the younger man he'd met along the way, it had been too much and he tried not to look at it.

Now, with his acceptance and the intimacy they shared, it dwarfed everything else. But it wasn't the only thing there.

At the core of his magic was the darkness that had settled into his soul when he took the first Vow.

And where that vow had been left shriveled and dried up when he Disavowed, it was now whole and fresh, with veins of his darkness swelling at the base and swirling through his magic.

He pulled himself away and pushed back from the table.

"Kammon?" Ezo grabbed his arm, but Kammon pulled away.

"I don't...I don't look at it." He turned to Maggie. "The bond masks it enough that I don't need to see it. It's not possible."

Maggie stood in front of him and pushed him back into his chair. He sat while she leaned against the edge of the table in front of him. "Tell me what you saw, Kammon."

"Do you see the darkness inside me?" He asked.

She shook her head. "I haven't tried. I was feeling Ezo's magic, but his bond led back to you. I can feel the Vow that strongly on you."

Kammon nodded. "Tell me what you see then, when you look?"

He didn't warn her about the darkness. He'd said enough, and she was a master healer. He didn't need to warn her of the dangers of what was wrapped so tightly in his soul.

Maggie stared at him for a minute, but he felt her gaze turned inward. She reached a hand out and set it on his forehead, then closed her eyes. Kammon did the same, but he didn't dare to look too closely again.

Maggie stood still before him, and Kammon felt the others close at hand. More disturbing, he felt Ember growing within him in answer to some danger he couldn't sense. She burned at the back of his vision, and in the smoke, he could see the remains of a destroyed village. One rose before him, then another, and another. City after city turned to ruin on orders but by his flames. He tried to push it from his sight, but the smoke became charred bodies, and he threw himself out of the chair and through the front door. He fell to his knees on the pathway and wretched as the stench of the murdered rose around him.

"Kammon!"

He didn't know who called him, but he felt the screech of his soul as Ember burst into life above him, warning and protecting.

Then, like a wind ripping the smoke from his eyes, it was gone. He was outside Maggie's home, Ember facing the others from her resting place on his shoulder, and Ezo kneeling beside him.

"Ezo," he whispered his lover's name.

He could feel the bond flaring between them, wrapping around him from the inside out. Ezo didn't touch him, but his presence was a comfort Kammon didn't deserve.