Chương 11: Chapter 12: Conduit

Did I do that? But I know the answer. I shouldn't even be asking the question. I definitely just did that. Xan crouches down to where I'm heaving my empty guts up on the freshly turned earth.

"Ria…?" Their voice cracks. They clear their throat and try again.

"Ria? That's… how did you… what did you do?" I laugh, cough, and spit a bit. Then, I use what minuscule amount of energy remains to shoot them a look of sheer well, I guess I buried our attackers. My lungs aren't working properly. They spasm. Pain shoots through me as I try to speak, try to breathe even. I should be able to breathe. Isn't that usually involuntary? Xan's voice trails off, concern masking their face. They reach out hesitantly to touch my back, rubbing small circles.

Which is gutsy, considering how much I hate being touched by other people. But right now, it's helping. I'm not sure how, but it is. Anything to make breathing easier. Slowly, I begin to relax; my racing heart calms. But the energy remains gone, all of it. I don't even think I can move my limbs.

"Well," Xan goes on to say, their gaze focused on my face like they're trying to read a book, "I mean, obviously you can do this. But, like…define this?"

"Obviously," I croak out, gesturing around us at the torn-up area.

"I opened the ground." I need to get away from the disturbed earth, where not six feet away from me there's gore-streaked flesh still sticking out of the now blood-muddied ground. Trying to stand back up causes me to fall unceremoniously on my backside. The whole forest spins. Everything aches. Every vein. Every muscle. Every single fiber of my being. And it's loud in here. Like there's a crowded amphitheater full of people talking in their seats. Except they're all talking directly in my head.

I lean back and look up at the canopy. The serene peacefulness of the dimming sky leaks through to me. If only I could shut out that noise. If I don't look at the ground, I can pretend nothing happened. What do I do with this? How do I navigate it?

"You can't tell anyone about this. No one," I say, suddenly sure that until I figure this out, I need to be cautious. I must speak with Lennick. He'll know. He has to. At the very least he'll know why my body feels drained, brittle, like a husk of what it was. Maybe he can help me figure out how to weed the voices out of my mind. Xan walks closer, a frown on their face, their eyes not giving away what they're thinking. They don't say anything, just watch me closely for a couple of seconds.

"Promise me, Xan," I say, and even I'm aware of the sharp edge to my tone. They scowl.

"Promise?"

"You can't tell the Order about this. Not until I figure out what this even is? Please?" I rarely ask for things, and I use please even less. I'm fighting against blacking out from the sheer exhaustion.

"I promise I won't tell anyone at Nightshade," Xan finally says, a shadow crossing over their eyes as they answer. There's something Xan isn't telling me, but I'm so depleted, I don't have the energy to ask. I'll try to remember to ask them later. Vertigo assails me, and the whole world spins. Darkness pushes at the edge of my vision. I don't even have the energy to claw it back.

I'm not sure how long I black out for. The light falling through the trees is almost gone when I open my eyes again. I feel groggy and attempt to push myself up. Each breath takes actual effort. At least the whispering isn't as loud anymore. Maybe I've just grown used to it.

"Stop trying to move. I'm not done yet." Xan sounds impatient with me, but there is underlying concern behind those words. I'm too spent to retort, anyway. Xan kneels down. None of their sharp wit, none of their annoying banter. Nothing but seriousness in their gaze, only visible because they're holding a stick wrapped in our luminescence-soaked cloth.

"Stay here. I'll go fetch the horses and pack what's left of our bedrolls." They reach out and test my forehead, probably for a temperature before withdrawing it hurriedly.

"You're burning up. We need to get you home." I hear the words, but at the same time, they flow over me like it's in another lifetime. My long hair has mostly escaped the two braids I keep it in. My body feels like it's encased in soil. I don't even care. I managed to save both Xan and myself. Isn't that what matters? Then what they're saying registers and I try to call out. All that comes out of my mouth are garbled words spoken through a raw throat. It's enough that Xan pauses and backtracks.

"What?" They crouch down, their gaze much gentler than I'm used to seeing from them. Maybe it's just the haze of noise inside my head or the now stiff limbs still sticking out of their tomb.

"We can't go home yet." We need to be on the road, to get the sample back to the Enclave, but my limbs won't work. I can't help feel that I am infinitely not okay right now.

"You do look like death," Xan says, crossing their arms somehow balancing in their crouch to look at me eye to eye. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. It hurts to breathe. To move. To think.

"Good to know I look how I feel." The words are more of a gasp than I intended. Showing weakness is always bad. Xan frowns, and now I realize the sun has completely set.

"One day, then. We can delay for one day. You need to sleep. I'll organize food, and set up a camp away from…" They glance around, and it hits me then that the partial limbs and body pieces sticking out of the earthen coffin I created span farther than I realized. Only a few are directly visible, but the damage is more widespread. It should instill a sense of fear into me, but I feel nothing. I'm so drained.

"If you can, nap here. Since I don't relish another ambush, or standing watch next to a half-buried pile of corpses, I'll be back when I'm done to move you. I wish I had a mirror to show you just how depleted you look." There are overtones of concern in their voice, and something else I'm too exhausted to identify. I blink, but even that movement feels heavy. It's odd, because I've never noticed breathing before this. I've never once thought about how the lungs work, until now.

I'm not even certain when it is that I fall asleep. Sleep is fitful and elusive. My body aches in ways I didn't know were possible. Since my bedroll was demolished by the ambush attack, all I have is what I'm wearing. My leather jacket and pants barely provide separation from the cool earth beneath me. Through my dearth of dreams, I can hear the ground humming again, like it's eager to see me, to welcome me. Maybe it got lonely for so many years without anyone to bond with? Or perhaps I am dreaming.

My fingers seek out the cool dirt, and I dig them into it. The memory of the soil and plants I've cared for over the years floods me. A sense of rejuvenation flows through my fingertips and into my body, replenishing, healing, soothing out the sore spots slowly and gently. It's like letting the shower ease away the aches and scrapes caused while training. Like a small sigh of relief washing over me. There's a part of me that's scared, that wants to stop. Maybe this will only drain me further.

But there's a warmth to this that the coffin didn't cause. So it's easy to give in. Finally, I let myself relax as the whisper of power flows through me, lulling me to a sleep within the nap I'm already having. Such strange dreams. The ground whispers to my fingertips like it wants me to dig in and revel, like it is coaxing me, like it wants to devour me. That last bit, that pulls me back from allowing myself to succumb.

Even though I can see the potential of healing myself, of commanding the earth and the air and everything I want… At the cost of the magic consuming me completely. What does it want from me? Why was it so intense? The chance at sleep has passed. I sit up and a groan escapes my lips. I blink the crust of sleep out of my eyes. Still painful, still hard, yet better than before I went to sleep. Even if only slightly. I've never before in my life felt skeletal and fragile like I do at this moment.

I need to get home, back to my alchemy lab, so I can figure out what this is and how I did what I did. Most of all, I have to heal; I have to regain the mass I've lost. The only way to know how to do that safely is to understand what using this magic needs. Sure, I can channel power, magic, whatever people want to call it. But why didn't it kill me, too? How did I manage to tap into in the first place? Even though I have my suspicions about the latter question, I need hard evidence.

More importantly, why did it let me use that power when I didn't even know I was doing so? Assumptions cost lives. I can't afford conjecture. Dawning light whispers through the tree canopy, making me aware that I'm in a bedroll, and no longer in the graveyard I created.

"I moved you." Xan leans down to check my temperature again, and frowns.

"Not as bad as before you slept."

"You moved me, and I didn't wake up." That's what I try to say, but it's mostly hoarse whispers. I take the waterskin Xan offers me without hesitation, still staring at me with an odd intensity in their eyes. I'm not sure I like it, and I'm definitely not equipped to deal with it without accidentally killing myself right now.

"For a little while, I thought you were dead, too." There's a lingering sadness to their words, like Xan actually cares. While I've always known that they do…it's comforting to know they have my back. It's worrying to know that using this power blacks me out to such an extent I can be carried to an entirely different campsite and not wake up.

"Thanks," I say, meaning it. I'm glad to hear my voice sounds like one and not some guttural excuse for a vocal box.

"You look like hell. Though somewhat better than before you slept for twelve hours." Xan grins at me.

"I'll go get you some food. We need to rebuild your strength before we leave, or you won't make it."

"You should go—" I begin to say, but Xan cuts me off.

"Without you?" They shake their head.

"Not likely. Aarron would kill me. Slowly. Probably hand me over to Sevrin. Nope. I'm going to go get you some food. Stay. Don't be a hero. You're an assassin. Act like one." What an odd thing to say. I could probably have come up with a comeback, but I'm too tired to bother right now. Instead, I lie back down, surprised at how much just sitting took out of me. Closing my eyes, there's a feeling of peace all around me. The whispers are more like a hum again. Maybe that's where they came from.

That general sensation I always get from the plants around me, from nature itself. So powerful. Wicked in its very own way.

"Don't fall asleep before you eat," Xan chides me, plopping down next to me and handing me jerky, some dried fruit, and something that smells amazingly like roasted rabbit. I raise an eyebrow, which takes a ridiculous amount of effort.

"This doesn't seem very 'let's remain hidden' to me." But I bite into it, letting the delicious juices and chargrilled pieces remind me just how hungry I am. It's not just hunger; I am famished. Not even in my worst times as a teen did I get this hungry. Xan sits there, nibbling on a leg, watching me with fiery curiosity.

"How did you do that?" they finally ask, their tone soft as if not sure they should. Not to mention they totally avoid my quip about remaining hidden. Rude. Then I hesitate, because that's just the thing: there was no method I used. So that's how I answer. Considering I've just asked Xan to keep this secret, being honest is least I can do.

"I'm not sure how I did what I did. I was desperate. There's so much I still have to do, have to accomplish. Dying here is not in the plan. The nature all around me was so loud and crowding inside my head, more so than when I work in the lab. I reached and pulled." I focus on the taste of the meat in my mouth, of the way the chargrill crunches between my teeth because that tugging, that coaxing of me…it's still everywhere. Like it wants to rip through me if I'll just let it.

"You pulled?" Xan frowns.

"I don't understand."

"Just like I do when I make tinctures, and potions, when I lure the best out of the plants I use to make them. That's how I get such high levels of potency." The idea hits me as I'm speaking, and I fall silent, though completely aware Xan is still watching me.

"I think that might be how I kept you alive. Maybe." But that's just it, there's a certainty in me now that I can't deny, that I know with complete and utter confidence.

"When I pulled on the potions, when I willed them to help me heal you, I didn't just ask the potion but the life around us, the nature. I didn't just make the potion stronger; I channeled, well…our surroundings."

"You used magic to save me from the Chimera attack." It's not a question, but a statement full of conviction. Xan smiles, but there's a tinge of sadness in it.

"It made you so tired. I'm sorry." I shake my head, a little sorry the rabbit is finished, and I have to move onto the jerky.

"Worth it. Especially now, you know." Xan chuckles, biting into their own jerky.

"Don't worry. It's our little secret for now. You realize you can't use it until you like…muscle up or something? It saps all your strength."

"I did notice that." I look at my hand holding onto the jerky, able to feel the weakness myself. The bones in my fingers seem twice as prominent as they were yesterday morning. I nod.

"I've got to figure this out."

"I'm glad you see that." Xan stands up in one fluid movement.

"Because if you accidentally pull any power, or whatever it is you do, right now, it'll kill you."

"I'm aware."

"Really? You can't see yourself. Right now, you look like skin draped over a skeleton. There's nothing to you.

'Gaunt' has meat compared to you."

"Gee. Thanks." But I know they're right.

"Seriously. You promise me this time." The gleam in Xan's eye tells me they're not kidding.

"Don't use this magic, or whatever this is, until we know it's not going to eat you alive." A shiver runs down my spine as I pop the last of my food into my mouth and I nod solemnly. Suddenly spent again.

"I promise."

"Good. Now get back to sleep. You need energy." They're not wrong. Frequently, it seems. I watch them walk away, noting the tension along their shoulders, the way they're holding themselves. It appears Xan is more worried than I thought they'd be. But something about it all makes me wonder if it's really just about me, or the magic. Or something else entirely. My head weighs as much as quarried stone. It's only when I lie back down that I realize I'm using Xan's bedroll. How are they going to sleep?

Yet I don't have the energy to get up and protest. Maybe it's okay to be just a little selfish right now. Laying my head down, I realize it's still there, that softly thrumming earth around me, underneath me, whispering to me. Come to us. Join us. Let us help you. But it's sinuous. Deliberate. Dangerous. I need more strength. I need more power. So the next time I have to use this it won't almost kill me.