i hear the wicked get no rest, but when you do
---------- i hope you dream of me
Her soul resists, so the magician pulls harder. It is not tangible, this battle of spirits, and so the curse creature does not focus on the tangible world. The smell of burnt grass, the brush of wind, the bright summer sun - it all fades. Using Gale’s abilities he can See Tantalize, the life she has lived and the life she will not, countless possibilities that blink slowly out of existence as the life drains from her body.
Then the snake’s fang sink into his shoulder, and the burning gaze of the newly-arrived queen splits his neck open.
Gale snarls, skittering back from the fallen buckskin mare and out of the range of Cheri’s gaze. The snake holds tightly, wrapping itself around him, and there is a strange coldness where its fangs have struck.
Poison, he realizes, something that Gale has never been good at Healing.
So rather than allow his body to attempt it, and drain itself needlessly of magic in the process, Gale instead becomes something that cannot be poisoned.
Shadow, dark and thick, replaces flesh, until there is no body at all for the snake to cling to. He watches the pair of them - Obscene and Cheri - with glowing blue eyes, the only bright point in his dark shape. The arrival of the mares has spoiled his plan, and the Empathy flutters within him, threatening to turn the rage and guilt and sorrow that stream out of Obscene into something far less useful. He still has time to force it into Tantalize before she dies, he thinks.
But will he have the strength to get away afterward?
Worry rises, his own worry, and the strength it gives his magic comes with a bitter taste. He is tired of these Feelings, of this Empathy, of the uncertainty that comes with each interaction. He wants only to rid himself of it, but the Fae and the Queen stand in his way.
Could he kill them?
Yes, he thinks, he could. But he wouldn’t survive. It is not worth the risk, nothing is worth that risk. (One thing is, but he has locked it away far in the North). He must survive, even if it means he has to suffer through the burden of this Empathy a while longer.
“Thank you for the invitation,” He says, the meaning of the words as hollow as the sound of them, emanating from an insubstantial mouth. Only now does he recognize the crystals growing from the green-eyed mare, and realize she is the one that inspired such a visceral reaction in the Fae Prince. It is impossible to tell that he frowns, wearing the shadows as he is, and he says nothing, only disappears.
GALE |
