Chapter 46: Magical Block

(I painted this in Procreate, using other paintings I’d done before and cobbled them together into a new painting with the oil paint brushes. - Chaiga T. Cheska)

“Is he breathing?!” hissed Oren as Bran crouched over their cousin, his ear pressed close, listening for the rise and fall of Nix’s chest. It was faint, but it was there, and relief rushed through Bran at the fragile movement. He straightened and felt for Nix’s pulse, finding it too, though it fluttered weakly beneath his fingertips.

Nix lay still and limp, head lolling to one side, eyes shut, his runic patterns flickering feebly across his arms and neck like dying embers. Oren leaned close, peering at his cousin, watching Bran scramble over to his healing supplies. Bran pulled out a corked bottle, uncorked it, and waved it under Nix’s nose. There was no reaction at all.

“What’s happened to him?!”

Bran grunted and did not respond, already back to digging through his supplies. He pulled out a bunch of dried herbs, snapped off a leaf, crumpled it to dust between his fingers, and pressed it to his cousin’s throat. The effect was immediate. Nix’s eyes snapped open, and he yelped, grabbing at the powdery leaf at his throat and flinging it as far from himself as possible, glowering at Bran with a sharp, wounded fury.

“What was that for?” growled Nix, gasping and glaring at his cousin, who was sitting back on his heels with an expression of relief and astonishment spread across his face. Oren reached over and seized Nix’s shoulders, forcing him to look at him.

“Are you alright? What happened?”

Before Nix could respond, they heard a sound behind them and looked over to see Tavik had slumped onto his side, his eyes closed and his breathing shallow. Oren released his grip on his cousin and looked from Nix, who remained sitting and seemed to be breathing normally, to his brother lying on the ground. He reached out and pressed a hand to Tavik’s chest, needing the reassurance of feeling his brother’s breath beneath his palm. Oren turned to Bran, who was already pulling out his healing supplies and crouching beside Tavik, checking his brother’s vitals with quick, practised movements.

“What is going on?!” Oren demanded to anyone who might answer, dividing his gaze between his unconscious brother and his cousin, trying to make sense of the magical bond that seemed determined to unhinge them both. He looked up at the scribe and the elf, who had not moved at all and were watching the scene as if it were some strange theatrical performance unfolding before them.

“Why didn’t the anchoring technique work with my cousin and brother?” Oren asked, putting a steadying hand out to Nix, who was looking pale again.

Liv frowned, a small tightening of her features, and instead of responding to Oren, she turned to whisper something to Olis. Anger flared in Oren, sharp and uncharacteristic, directed at both the elf and the scribe. He waited, impatient and taut, for them to remember he had asked a question.

After a few moments, Liv turned back towards him, though she did not answer. Instead she stepped around the fire, Olis close beside her, and hovered her hand over Tavik’s face. Oren and Bran watched her, their bodies tense, and Liv seemed to learn something from the gesture. She shifted and held her hand above Nix’s face in the same way. Nix looked back at her with a suspicious, narrowing gaze, his shoulders stiffening as her presence drew close.

Liv sat back on her heels and tilted her head, studying the half-elves with a puzzled intensity. They were confusing, yet familiar, their life threads vibrating in a pattern that almost matched the members of her own family. There was something else woven through them that did not make sense to her, something she assumed belonged to their Lightweaver half, whatever that meant. She still did not understand the blue boy or his strange runic markings that flickered across his indigo skin as though they had a mind of their own. He was strange, and yet powerful, and she could see his magic like a surging tide deep beneath his skin. She felt in her bones that this boy should be protected, that there was a familiarity in him that echoed her own family, though she could not say how.

She focused on the oldest boy, who was watching her with growing irritation. “These two have a life force bound to their tether, it seems,” she said slowly, trying to find the right words for what she had sensed in both of them. “Whatever this tether is, it is not elvish magic, nor, I think, MirMarnian, but of another world, and something I cannot guide. And perhaps…” She looked at Tavik with interest as the boy stirred but did not wake. “Perhaps their lessons in anchoring their magic belong to another place, one I feel should happen soon, before death pulls them through a portal no one can retrieve them from.”

Oren and Bran flinched as if struck. Bran pressed closer to Tavik, protective and wary, while Oren gripped first Nix’s shoulder, then Tavik’s. They exchanged a worried look before turning back to the elf.

“I can open portals to other places,” said Bran, talking and thinking fast, panic rising in him as he looked between Nix and Tavik. “Is it Tioria we have to go to find someone to help them? Can I open a portal to get there?!”

Olis laid a hand on Bran’s shoulder, smiling in a way meant to reassure. “It is not as dire as this, little wizard. I suspect this exercise has merely drained the energy from the tether. Look, your brother is waking up, see.” He indicated with his chin towards Tavik, whose eyes fluttered open and then widened as he realised everyone was staring at him and he was somehow on the ground. Tavik struggled upright and pushed his brothers’ worried hands away, looking suspiciously at Nix and then at Olis and Liv.

“What are you all doing hovering over me?!”

Oren peered at him. “You passed out, Tav… again.”

Tavik gave him a long, affronted look. “What do you mean again?! That was once, thank you very much!”

Oren sighed, looking pointedly at his brother. “Are you forgetting passing out whilst we were at the Burrowbacks, Tav?!”

“That was ages ago. Honestly, Oren. So dramatic.”

Tavik looked over at Nix, assessing him, feeling through the tether that his cousin’s pain had ebbed away, and relief settled through him. He spoke through the tether, a quiet thread of thought. “Sorry, Nix.”

Nix took a breath and pushed reassurance towards Tavik, a quiet pulse through the tether, then stood up, needing space, needing distance, because he was not used to everyone sitting so close to him. He felt steadier, though still sore, and he needed to think by himself about what Liv had said. He needed darkness too, so he ignored his cousins’ protests and slunk into the deepest shadow of the shelter, letting his natural instinct rise and take over, the one that helped him fade into shadow. He shut his eyes as he crouched there, letting himself drift into his thoughts, half aware of the others, half folded into the dark.

Tavik understood what Nix needed, and just as he had said when they were with the Burrowbacks, he stated plainly to everyone, “Nix needs darkness; leave him be.”

Oren and Bran looked at Tavik, remembering, understanding, and then irritated him by taking up positions sitting on either side of him. Olis and Liv retreated to the other side of the fire and dropped into a murmured, whispered conversation the brothers could not hear and were honestly too tired to bother with.

Tavik poked the fire back to life and deliberately ignored his brothers, who were staring at him on either side.

Oren poked him when Tavik continued to ignore them, and Tavik jolted, glaring at Oren with a sharp, startled look. “Are you alright, Tav?” murmured Oren. “You worried us.”

Bran tried to hug Tavik, a sudden desperate movement, and Tavik shoved him off. Bran toppled sideways, scrambled back up and said, breathless, “I don’t want you to die, Tav.”

Tavik looked at Bran, saw the pain sitting raw in his brother’s eyes, and sighed. He set down his stick and drew both his brothers in, draping his arms around their shoulders, pulling them close in a rough, uneven embrace. “I’m not going to die, don’t worry. Nix and I just have to learn how to use our magic, that’s all.”

They sat like that for a moment, silent, held in a peace that did not quite settle, with thin cracks running through it, because Oren and Bran still felt something was wrong with their brother. Bran turned to look at Tavik’s profile as the firelight flickered over his features, and thought how tired Tavik looked, not the ordinary tiredness of a night wearing on, not the kind that came from refusing to sleep, but a deeper tiredness, something bone-heavy, as if Tavik were carrying something too large for himself. “You’ve got a secret, haven’t you, Tav?” Bran murmured.

Tavik’s head snapped around, eyes narrowing. “What do you mean?!”

Oren shifted on Tavik’s other side. “Bran’s right. You’re struggling with something, Tav.”

Tavik pulled his arms away from their shoulders, hunched over, hugging his knees, flicking his eyes briefly towards Liv and Olis across from them, feeling too the quiet watchfulness of Nix far behind them in the shadows. He swallowed and dropped his head, staring at his knees, concentrating on the smallness of that space.

Oren and Bran watched their brother, and they had known all their lives that Tavik was terrible at keeping anything from them, had always been, even when they were very small. Anything Tavik tried to keep from them would slowly eat away at him, gnawing at his thoughts until he could barely function, until he would eventually have to share it with one or both of them before it broke him completely. Tavik knew it, and they knew it. It was only a matter of time, and the knowledge made Tavik feel sick, because the idea of sharing a secret that could alter the course of history, a secret that could result in all of them or just one of them not being born, was too much for him to bear.

Tavik’s eyes stung, and the worried gazes of his brothers pressed in on either side of him. He suddenly stood, turned, and ran into the alcove’s darkness. He nearly collided with Nix, who reflexively reached out to stop Tavik from crashing headlong into the lowered stone ceiling. Tavik stood where his cousin had stopped him, leaned his head against the cool stone, his back to the fire, and whispered to Nix, “I can’t keep this from them. This feels wrong. I have to tell them, Nix.”