Blood of the Sea, Chapter Fourty-Three

Chapter 43: Frostbite

Veyda

The cold burns like every nerve ending is set on fire. It consumes her, leaving her with no room to think nor breath with which to scream. The scream of the ice-white Thralkin still rings in her ears as though embedded in the very ice encasing her.

It feels like an eternity, slowly suffocating under the ice even as her magic scrapes at it, trying to break her out. Eventually, however, her world does fade to black, her breath burning in her lungs for lack of air. Maybe this is how I go after all the plans I’ve made. Enya would laugh. Put down like a diseased thing. Suffocated beneath the magic of another.

The warmth registers first, spilling across her skin like a breath of fresh air.

No - that is a breath of fresh air.

She comes to, coughing and sucking desperate lung-fulls into her starved body. Her magic is weak, barely noticeable as it crawls across the stone and onto her chest. The fragments of it shattered, sharp and frigid, and it takes too long for it to be absorbed into her skin. She looks up, realizing there’s someone leaning over her, though it takes even longer for her to recognize - “Iblis?”

“My Queen. I thought you were lost to us.”

“So… so did… I.” Her voice crackles and breaks, and though she swallows, her throat is dry and it offers no relief.

“What happened?”

Veyda rolls to her side, only now noticing the black of her fingers. The mark encompasses her left hand more than her right, but on both sides, it trails up, lessening before reaching her elbow. It’s an ugly reminder that she almost died.

Sitting up, Veyda holds her hands out to Iblis, closing her eyes against the fatigue pulling at her. Iblis’ warm hands encompass hers, but she doesn’t feel his magic flutter against her skin like it does every time she gets healed. She squints her eyes open at him, and the old man merely shrugs. “I’ve done all I can, Veyda. Some things cannot be healed. Some magics bite too deep.”

Veyda pulls her hands away from him, disgusted, though it’s hard to tell if it’s more with herself or the feeble man who has watched her grow up. “I’ll ask Aella to adjust a few gowns. Long sleeves should be sufficient.”

Iblis bows, a hint of a smile upon his lips. “As you wish, my Queen.”

Veyda growls and turns on her heel, nearly losing her balance before her elder catches her.

The healer says nothing, and the two mages shuffle their way indoors.

A desperate sort of thirst making itself known in the fragile feeling of the push and pull of Veyda’s muscles under her skin. She shivers, knowing a new sort of brittle, bone deep cold.

The Thralkin wanted to save Kildangan? Veyda shakes her head. Let them beg Fellabris to be merciful toward the souls of the soon to be departed.